Success Secrets Exposed - Retaining and Attracting Customers

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Welcome to Success Secrets Exposed with Sally A. Curtis, where we share stories of challenge, success, and inspiration along with practical tips and And now here's your host, Sally A. Curtis.

Good evening, good morning, and good day to you all, and welcome to our monthly episode of Marketing Magic with Celeste and myself. And today we're going to be talking about retaining and attracting clients. So a very relevant topic for all of us building our business, businesses at the moment. So for those that are new to the show, I'm a marketing strategist specializing in speakers, coaches, and consultants. And my area of genius is content repurposing. And Celeste is also a marketing strategist.

Yes. Hello everyone. Good morning. Good night. Good afternoon, wherever you are in the world. Excellent to be with you today to talk a little bit about how to leverage on the, you know, your businesses and the marketing things that you can use. I'm also a marketing strategist, but I specialize in B2B business, so businesses who are service providers and mostly doing business with other businesses.

Beautiful. So for those again new to the show, with what we do is we tend to tag team each other as far as our areas of inner genius and giving you tips as it relates to speakers, coaches, and consultants, and tips as it then relates to the service-based businesses and the marry across that occurs there as well. So today we wanted to kick off the show with a favorite movie from way back when, and some of us may be showing our ages a little bit by remembering this so fondly. But there was a movie called You've Got Mail, and it was an American romantic comedy with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. And back in the day, that was when emails were a novelty and we used to get really, really excited. And then we do actually have an image which Roxy may put up on the screen for you shortly. And we, as you know, back in the day, the little button would go ding and we'd get an email and we'd be getting really, really excited. But now fast-track a little bit more than 20-odd years, and now what are we doing? We're complaining about our inboxes and the fact that there's unresponsive messages, et cetera. But business owners, what we want to share with you today is that the fact that email marketing still remains the best form and most effective method of attracting and retaining customers with a potential return on investment of up to 400— 4,400%. So we're going to go through and actually unpack some of those elements with you today. Celeste, would you like to add to that at all?

Absolutely. And I think we all got caught up into the, you know, our mailboxes are too packed with stuff and people start receiving a lot of spams, which puts them off with the email stuff. So I think for businesses, and I think we'll dig deeper into that in the show today, it's about keeping it interesting and relevant to people. Mm-hmm. who are receiving the email. Because reality is we can talk as much as we like about busy mailboxes and spamming and stuff, but people still reading hundreds and hundreds of emails at any given day. So we still read them, we still want to receive them. Emails still rank at top of preference in terms of how I like to receive my communication from any business. So we can't, as a business, as business owners, be put off by the fact that all my clients complain that they're getting spams and they don't want to read my emails. They want to read emails that are interesting and relevant to them. And that's what I think we'll be discussing here today, is that keeping that top of mind when it comes to a business. Yes. You don't want to spam your clients, but is that the only alternative that you have? Is every email a spam? If that would be the case, why are we still reading hundreds of emails at any given week? So I think that that's that mindset to really, you know, keep

digging into. Yeah, so let's, let's sort of start at the top and sort of say why email marketing is still important in 2021. Firstly, as Celeste has said, email— everyone still uses email. In fact, HubSpot says that 91% of consumers use emails. That was 91%. Keeping in mind, most people roll over when they're still in bed in the morning and pick up their phone and check their emails before they even get out of bed. So that's something that's really, really relevant. And as you can just see up there, that's an image that we've found that just sort of talks about, you know, 15 years ago we used to get excited by letters and then we got even more excited by the dinging of the emails. Now it's absolutely the reverse, um, in some instances, but we do want to share with you how the hows and whys you can still use email marketing effectively. So the first one, as I said, is everyone still uses email in some way, shape, or form. It's a highly effective marketing tool when it's done correctly and when it's done right. So we'll give you some of those tips today. Um, and it's incredibly affordable, um, because it's easy to access, it's easy to do some of our strategies that we'll share with you today. So it's— everyone uses it, it's highly effective when done correctly, and of course it's incredibly affordable when you compare it to other forms of media marketing or media spend.

Yeah, and I think— can I just add to that? I think what Sally just said last is really important. No marketing strategy should be just focusing on email. Or on social media. So email marketing is very powerful, but it needs to be part of a bigger strategy. It needs to be part of, you know, you also have a website, you also have social media channels, wherever that looks like, whether if your place is on LinkedIn or TikTok, but you need social media presence. You still need, uh, to have that good customer relationship and good customer service. So It's not that email marketing is just gonna come and save the day and you're like, I sent an email, where are my sales? So it has to be aligned with other channels. Um, and one of the, the things that email marketing does as well, just like social media, is to allow you to communicate with hundreds and thousands of people at once. So that same messaging before Uh, with limitations of Outlook and, you know, sometimes your, your private, uh, email provider, you have a limit to like, oh, you can only send to 50 recipients at once or something like that. And you have lots of free platforms today like Mailchimp, GetResponse. There's a number of them. Uh, if you Google email marketing platforms, you'll get a list and amazing ones. free to use that you can have up to 2,000 contacts on a free account. So I think that saving time in terms of, you know, be able to reach thousands of people at once as well, it's quite valuable. And it also adds to that return of investment effect of email marketing.

Yeah, very much so. And I think just coming back to the strategy and the setup, yes, it does take a little bit of time to set it up when you found the right platform for you after doing some relevant research. But that little bit of time that you invest in setting it up correctly and aligning it with your overarching strategy does set you up for continued success to your ability to continue to communicate in very, very relevant ways. And one of the ways of keeping it relevant is keeping it very targeted and personalized. So targeted And personalized to me is talking about some of those, those shared experiences, some of those more personal experience, but also making it targeted. So you're making it relevant for the audience. And sometimes that can be referred to as segmentation as well. So there's a number of things that can play out in your email marketing. It's, you know, what's your overall strategy for what you're selling? What is, is what you're selling relevant to the entire list or just a segment of your list? And how do you personalize it for those? different segments or different lists within your overarching list? And then how do you bring the personality and the human connection into that email marketing as well? So you're building relationships. Celeste, can you elaborate on that further with what it means for your clients?

Absolutely. And I think there has been a lot of confusion in terms of personalization of email marketing. So most platforms, and if you're familiar with email marketing, you use one of those platforms, you'll realize that you can add people's names as a first name tag, and lots of businesses have mistakenly just like, oh, it's personalized, it's got a hi Celeste in the beginning of the email, tick that box, and that's not what personalization is. Personalization is when your content, when your messaging, is what I need, is right for me. Yes, it's a great touch to put people's names there. There is data and research that acknowledges that people do feel good when they have the— instead of the hi there, they have the hi Celeste, hi Sally. But that's not where the homework ends, and I think that's really important. So then there's personalization, which is is this content relevant to me? Yes, put my name there, that's a big tick. But then there's the segmentation, which is to make sure your mailing list, your contacts, are separated into groups. So, uh, and these groups will vary from business to business. So you might group it by country, you might group it by industry, you might group it by customers, non-customers, prospects, leads. You might even, you know, group them into if people downloaded certain material for you. One other great way to segment, so there's personalization and segmentation, one great way to segment is ask people what they want to receive. So I'm sending emails about marketing, so when you go to my mailing list, that's overall communication about marketing, communications and sales. You can put there, do you, what do you wish to receive? Oh, I just want to know about social media, I just want to have a monthly newsletter, I want to know about events, I want to know. So allow people to make their own decisions, they are the best, best ones to tell you what they need and want. So when you say, and goes back to what Sally said, take that time to set up your account properly, And when you have the signup forms made, give people those choices. So what kind of value you can add through your email marketing? Is it whether it's geographically, whether it's by industry, whether it's by demographic of female, male, teenagers, adults, whatever that looks like for your business, let people already tick the boxes that they see an alignment with, and then the email marketing platform pretty much does the work for you because you select the groups you're sending it to, and then you are aligning personalization with segmentation.

Yeah, perfect. Brilliantly said. And for those that are in the speaking, um, speaking, coaching, and consulting arena, with the speaking as one of the elements as to what the way in which you generate leads, what we find in our industry is the segmentation or the list, the separate lists that we build. And then we have tags to further segment it is we usually have a list of fellow speakers. We usually have a list of conference organizers. We usually have a list of our corporate clients and we have a list of our public clients. So the public clients and the individuals have different information shared with them that the corporate clients do. The conference organizers don't need to know about that stuff. They need to know about something more significant, like they want to see your latest speaker reel or your speaker one-pager. And then of course you've got your speaker buddies that you collaborate with. Well, they just need to know what you're, what's going on with opportunities. So if you start with a really good breakdown of your list as to how that needs to look for you, for me, it's done like that. For Celeste's clients, it's based on industry or clients and all those sorts of things. Then you're really, really setting yourself up for success, which then enables you to take advantage of the, the next element that email marketing enables you to do, and that's to build your credibility and establish authority. Now, how you build your credibility and establish authority, if you're speaking to a corporate client versus a public client or a speaker— sorry, a conference organizer— that is all slightly different. So that's why the added benefit of taking that time to work it out so you can have a really personalized, very relevant conversation with the people that you've actually got the list split up into.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think once you allow people to make that decision for themselves and saying, I— the, the topics that interest me are X, Y, and Z, the chances of them unsubscribing are a lot less because they are receiving what they asked for. What makes people unsubscribe is that I read something about, you know, that's relevant to my industry. So I have some clients who are real estate agents, for example, and they might sign up to my newsletter because they saw a market research that I've released. But I also have clients who are in the aged care sector and who are looking for, you know, clients who are over 60, 70. So there's no alignment between the two contents. So the minute I start sending my real estate clients information about, you know, aged care homes challenges or whatever, they'll be like, no, you don't get me. Yeah. And I think one thing that is really important in marketing every single channel and every single activity you do is that the she gets me attitude. Yeah. If that person on the other end of the communication with you says she does not get me, they are not likely to become a customer because they don't think you can really fulfill their needs. So I think that's, that's a really important thing as well.

Yeah, very much so. So what, what in your arena is a really great, great way that your clients can within their email marketing build or establish the authority as the expert in that arena? If that's— if, although, do your clients really look to that expert thing? Are they tending to sell, looking to sell more products or gain clients in that scenario?

So once again, it depends. So I specialize in service providers and service providers usually need to build authority and their email marketing is not really focusing on that. They're focusing on building trust.

Trust.

And showing themselves as an expert. So the email follows the same rule as social media with the 80/20. So it's 80% only value. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm just giving you free information, showing you a little bit of what I've got, and allowing you to understand my brand a bit better. If you're retail, then email marketing becomes an excellent tool for campaigns, for a specific, you know, Mother's Day campaign. So it's a different— once again, it's a different strategy. So if you have a retail shop or a restaurant, or you sell, um, you know, clothing or things like that, email marketing is that perfect, uh, platform to sell inventory that you need to get out of the door. Yeah. So end of season sales, promo codes, because what the email marketing allows you to do as well is the promo codes. So sign up to my newsletter, you receive a promo code, get 20% discount on your checkout on my website. You're going at 360 there. So you're bringing people to the mailing list, you're giving them something, to motivate them to go to the website for the purchase. So, you know, and then once they, they buy, you might create another coupon. So it's all about, for retail, it's about using that platform for sale. So if you are my preferred t-shirt shop, I'm not really visiting you to see you as an expert. I want to see if your t-shirts got quality, yes, but I'm there to buy a product. So I think it's also different horses for different courses there, whether you're a service provider or a product seller.

Terrific. And I think that analogy of that 80% value and 20% sales or some form of offer is a really great strategy or, you know, something really to have as top of mind as to when you're creating your content, as it and your marketing plans and your campaigns around those sorts of things to really establish that authority and get that really, that high level of brand recognition that's always demonstrating the value that enables you to always be recognized. And they sort of start to get excited about your emails coming just like them in the movie where there was that excitement around that. And one of the greatest things you can hear is from your community I haven't got your email yet because you're a day behind or something. It's usually in my inbox by 11 on Thursdays, if that's how structured you are. But to be able to have that, you know, that conversation with your community that they know when you haven't got your email out at your normal time, whatever that may look like, that means they're excited about receiving it. And that comes through building your authority and providing them with that, with that value, like Celeste was saying.

And can I just then hop on into consistency?

Yes.

Because this is the other really important thing in email marketing done right, is consistency. So sending me an email today asking me, nagging me to sign up to, to your mailing list, uh, so all I hear is crickets, it's detrimental to your brand. It means you're not coming up with your part of the deal. So you asked me for an action, sign up to my newsletter, join my mailing list, whatever that looks like, and I never hear from you. I never got anything. That does not send a good message about your brand. So do not promote a sign-up form or a mailing list. And I've, I've seen it before. I've done a lot of research on websites with a sign up for our mailing list, join our mailing list, which I deliberately joined. Mm-hmm. And never hear anything. For me, that just doesn't, doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth in terms of what is it like doing business with you.

Hmm.

What can I expect? So then, are you going to, if I have a problem in a purchase, are you going to be responsive? Are you going to come up with your promises? there's a lot of trust that gets broken when you don't do that. And then create your own consistency, whether it's once a month, whether it's bimonthly, whether it's once a week. You need to understand what's going to work for your audience and deliver on that. But once you make a promise to send me an email, send me an email.

Yeah. And I think that's— I just wrote down as you were saying that with the signup forms, And I've seen that and I admit I've done it myself as well. But if you're gonna put a signup form on your website, then the next stages, if you wanna call it a campaign or the next communications or demonstrations of you need to be set up as part of that system. You don't just have a signup form and then, you know, they get something and then nothing happens. There needs to be some form of touchpoints to build and continue with that trust. Otherwise, That's where in the very, very first instance, email marketing with a signup form on your website where it leads to nothing is a poor demonstration. And as Celeste said, it's going to break that trust very, very quickly and make people wonder what the rest of your work is going to be like. So they bail very, very quickly. And so let's talk about— I know you talked about the the codes, et cetera. What are some other ways that you can help, email marketing can help to boost sales? So we've talked about it can, it helps to build your credibility and trust. It also helps you to, to reach out and add value to your audience. You can use promotion codes to get people back to your website. So that's actually probably what would be a really good point to talk on is getting, utilizing email marketing and getting traffic back to your website and what that does for that full circle side of things, because I know you do a lot of work in that arena, Celeste, if you can elaborate on that for us.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, so what we need to appreciate is that a relationship between a customer and a brand goes through a number of steps. So there's something that marketers, and Sally might expand and fill in the blanks for me on that, that's called the customer journey. So not everybody that comes across your brand is going to be ready to purchase that day, there and then, right? So what happens is that lots of times, uh, people come across your brand, whether through internet— you might have a great SEO or a Google ad— or they find you on social media. I find you, I find it quite interesting, but it's not for me today. It doesn't mean I'm not in your ideal customer avatar. I can be your ideal customer avatar, but just not be ready for purchase today.

Yes.

So whatever, whatever that looks like, it could be a service or it could be a product. Oh, I love these t-shirts. I don't really need a t-shirt, it's winter. But when it comes, when spring comes, I'll be like, those t-shirts, they look pretty great. But what you have to appreciate is that the online platform— and I'm just gonna get into that a little bit— the online platform such as internet, website, social media, it's busy.

Hmm.

I see your ad on Facebook today, but if you don't get my email and start message, uh, sending me emails, yes, tomorrow, yesterday, tomorrow I'll forget, I've forgotten about your brand because I've already been reached by 100 other new brands about all sorts of different things. So you gotta appreciate that any given customer avatar of yours, it's also a customer avatar for hundreds of other brands. So you sell, um, you know, mother's t-shirt dresses, and I love dresses and I'm really keen to that. But then someone else sells kids' school supplies and someone else sells decoration for home. I'm in everyone's target audience. When it comes to social media, they're all hitting me at any given time. We're being hit with advertising from a lot of different areas, right? Yeah. So what I tell my clients is that the email marketing allows— so imagine your social media as a big event. It's a big party.

Mm-hmm.

And your customer avatar is, you know, I'm having a drink with Sally. I had a bit of a chat to her. Sally's interesting. Then I met Paul over there. I moved and I had a chat to him. Then I sat down next to Jack and I'm having a chat to him. So by the end of that night, I would have had conversations with, well, if it's me, probably 100 people. But a normal person would have had conversations with at least 25, 25, 30 different people at any given big event. That's your social media. Your email marketing is you going to Sally and saying, Sally, here's my business card, let's go for a one-on-one coffee.

Yeah.

When Sally is receiving my email, that's the only thing in front of her. Even though she might have 100 emails in her mailbox, when you're opening an email, that has your undivided attention. That's what you're reading at that time. You're not scrolling through all your hundreds of emails like you do with social media. Social media, you're scrolling through hundreds of feeds at any given time. Email marketing, if you get it right and you make that person open it, You have their undivided attention, whether it's for 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, depends on how interesting it is.

Hmm.

And that's where your return of investment is. That's where the gold sits with email marketing and makes it extremely relevant to the customer journey. Because I received your email today, very interesting, I'm not ready to buy. But if I continue to receive it, let's say every 2 weeks with something new, something, uh, some more information to it, you keep what we call top of mind. And that's what it's really interesting with the email market is keeping top of mind for when I'm ready to purchase.

Yeah.

It could take 6 months. So when it comes to, and each industry is different, there's research that outright I recommend getting a marketer to do proper research. So for example, marketing agencies like mine, the journey could take up to 6 months for a client from first getting to know me and my brand to deciding to do a contract with me. 6 months. Yeah. So those 6 months, the email marketing allows me to one, keep top of mind throughout those 6 months to show you that I understand what you need, I understand your needs as a consumer, and 3, show myself as an expert. So tick, tick, tick.

Beautiful. And I think there's a couple of things there, and I loved your explanation of— I'm gonna call the social media, I wrote it down, so the social media is the party socializing versus the email marketing, which is your coffee catch-up. So it's a little bit more intimate, a little bit more personal, and to The segue in there, and I'm going to reiterate this because this is a point that I always have a giggle about and clients always get frustrated about, is it's not about your timing. It's not about that you've got X to sell. It's only ever, ever about their timing as a consumer. And we don't know what their timing is. We've just got to be top of mind when their timing is right. And email marketing allows you to do that. And having those regular intimate coffee catch-ups via your email marketing enables you to do that as well. So brilliantly said. We got it. We got a Sally nag in there. So that's great. Thank you. Which is good. Oh, I just had something. I've just lost it. I was also going to talk to— thought it was worthwhile talking about I suppose perhaps the different ways of doing an email marketing layout. Very curious to hear what happens and what I suppose best practices you have as it relates to your industry. In the speaking industry, we tend to have your email marketing and we have the 3, I'm going to call them promotional boxes down the bottom. So if I use a a conference organizer, for example, we've sort of let them know what's happening that we're aware of in the speaking industry as far as the content. And then we might go about having a box down the bottom that says, here's my latest speaker one-pager, here's my latest video speaker reel, and here's some of my collaborative relationships or some form of other type of demonstration that you do. So you've provided them with needed resources, but you've also let them know and demonstrated some of your work as well. How do you find, um, or what are some of the elements that you can suggest or have seen work really, really well for your audience as well, Celeste?

Um, so there's a few points. One is that email marketing is not supposed to be an essay of anything, so you need to keep it short and you need to allow people, uh, so you need to allow them an option to read more. And that's when your website comes as a perfect match to your email campaigns. So give them something to say, okay, this is the summary of what I'm trying to tell you.

Mm-hmm.

If you wanna, if you have the time and you wanna dig deeper and you wanna read more, here's a link to a blog or to an area of my website where you can read. You're ticking 2 boxes for yourself because you're sharing some information, but at the same time you're allowing people, uh, to come to your website. But you're also ticking a box for the client, for the consumer, for the audience, which is, I don't have time, I don't have time for it, give me a summary, give me a 2-second what is in it for me in this topic that I should know. If I have time, I'll go check the rest. So keep it short. Images are excellent. They allow, obviously our brains read better with short text and image that tells a little bit. So make sure you make it an interesting layout, but not too busy. But at the same time, I always recommend to my clients A/B testing. So if you're not sure, if it's a new audience to you, if you don't have enough data of what your clients like, So I have clients who are CEOs and they absolutely hate the pretty pictures and videos and borders and all of that. And they receive from me, uh, through these email platforms, a simple email which is pretty much text and links. Mm-hmm. And that's what works for them. The rest distracts them and makes them think, oh, I don't have time for this. So it has to be— Sally said it, I said it a few times, Sally said it a few times— it is about the person who's receiving it. Yeah. What is it that they like? What is it that they respond better off? So images, videos— some people need a video. Record little videos and have your intro in your newsletter. A video of you saying, hi, this is the news wrap-up for the month, and allow them to get to know you a little bit better. And I think that could work really well for coaches and, and speakers to actually have, instead of having an email written, have a, an, a video email, have themselves actually talking to me via email. Hi guys, this month we've done this, this, and that. This is what you're watching for. These are the events coming up. The links are down below. You know, at the end of the day, it has to match and to align to your core business, to the industries you're servicing, and to your customers. So don't get caught up in certain formulas that, you know, you see out there, but less is more. Even though we're saying people want to read your emails, they do not have half an hour to read it. They'll probably spend anything between 4 to 10 minutes if you're very lucky on, on your email. So be mindful of that.

Yeah, I think too it comes down to, as you said, knowing your audience and also adapting as to what is working really, what works well for you. And something that I've seen Keith Abraham do, which is one of our Australian speakers, he used to do lots and lots and lots of keynotes for some very, very big organizations. Obviously has had to pivot his business during COVID to online versions of that, and he still continues to be incredibly successful. But he's also pivoted with his, um, his e-news because of course now he's got all the technology to be able to do videos much easier at home. And he has the most exceptional e-news that comes out every week, and it's a little video, as you said, It usually only goes for about 3, 4, maybe 8 minutes, but just above it, he'll give you the, like, 4 or 3 or 4 dot points, the summaries of, you know, in it today I'm talking about X, Y, and Z because, um, I kept getting asked this, this question and I thought it might be relevant to you to move you forward in your business. You know, really succinct, uh, really short, um, uh, with a really, um, Beautiful background with his, with his video, but he's straight to the point. Um, and it's really effective and that comes out every, every week. And that is one of the emails that I actually look for. Where's Keith's email today? Because it's, you know, it's quick, it's entertaining, it's relevant. Um, and it's really easy to consume.

Digest. Yeah.

Yeah. Really easy to consume. And I think that's what makes that particularly, uh, very special. Um, and I think the video, um, video side of things can be a really hidden gem for the people that prefer to do the speaking side of things versus the writing side of things.

And I think, you know, it's also adapting to your group. So we've spoken about segmentation, and don't be discouraged to actually have, you know, 3 different templates for different groups because that might be what works best for them. So So once again, once you get the mindset that it's not about you, it's about them, making these little modifications and, you know, have your templates ready. This template is for this audience, this template works best for this, and this audience does not want the fluff, they do not want the image, they want text and some links and they'll get on with it. So it's about them.

Absolutely. And just to reiterate, and being that, that bossy system person, and I'm not necessarily a systems guru in any way, shape, or form, although people often say, but you're so good at systems. It's like, no, it's just that I've worked out that I can— if I template stuff, as Celeste was just saying, I don't have to restart it again. I don't have to redo it from the beginning every time. I've got a template. I know the audience, and I create a template for that audience. I know this audience and that template, just as Celeste is saying. And that's a level of systemization that does make things much easier in your business by not overcomplicating it and just spending a little bit of time getting clear on the who, getting clear on the way they consume it, which is your strategy, and then working out what the content is that you're going to be popping into it and how frequently and in what form it needs to be presented. That all can be very easily systemized through the different types of platforms that are available to you.

And I— can I just add that, you know, for any business owner out there listening, don't be scared to outsource if you don't feel you have the time to put in the consistency, if you don't feel you have the skills to do writing. Writing is, is a very, you know, unique skill. Not everybody's got it. Not everybody can summarize, uh, things. If your trade is in other areas, like you have your own genius zone, which is what your customers want from you. Marketing, just like I see so many businesses, they're so comfortable outsourcing accountants. Marketing is a very specific area that's got a lot of data and research behind it, and when done right, can really give you great results for your investment. Don't be scared to outsource. You're better off outsourcing keeping it consistent, professional, with a clear message, then, you know, doing it in a way that is going to work against your brand.

Yep, very much so. Um, what are really good ways with your email marketing to continue to strengthen the relationship? We've talked about the elements of targeting personalization, making sure we've got the value there, that 80/20 rule. But what are some of the other ways that you can help to strengthen, strengthen relationships utilizing email marketing?

Ask, ask your audience what they want. Ask them what they need more of. So I'm actually just reading this book, if you don't mind. Inside Your Customer's Imagination.

No, I see.

So, um, it's about going back to them and saying, what is it that you need? What is missing? Is there anything I can help you with that, you know, you'd see value of? Those things can go through polls on social media. Polls on social media, great. Like, put it out there. What would you like to know more of? Social media, email marketing, this or that? Would you like blogs? Would you like podcasts? How do you prefer to receive the communication? Is it audio, video, or writing? What's your best way? So I think what we as business owners have done for the past 10 years, too much of, is that we send a lot of surveys, but we don't sit down and really analyze it. And not just analyze it and say, oh, people really would like more of that. Change strategy to adapt to that, to, you know, hire new people, buy new products, deliver new services based on what people tell you. And it frustrates me because people make too many assumptions of what their customers want without never having the conversation with the customer about that. Whether that conversation is going to be through a survey, through a poll on social media, Through a focus group, or simply ask your sales team to spend 1 hour each week calling customers and previous customers without trying to sell.

Asking good questions.

No sale, no sale allowed. They're not allowed to try to sell a product or anything. They just need to see, What worked for them, what didn't, what was missing, what could we do better? What do you like about other brands that you wish we did for you?

Mm-hmm.

That's the only conversation. Take, take your customer for a coffee and just talk about that. They will really appreciate and start opening up. But the next step of that homework is to go back to what they said and make changes in your business to adapt to it.

Yeah, brilliant. And I think too, I'm going to just dump in another Sally nag as another, another option. And that's with your email marketing, actually look at the reports and the data so you know what people are clicking on, where they're going, how many times they look at it, because that starts to give you a little bit of an insight as to where they're most curious and what types of questions you can then ask them to get that really, really, really fine-tuned key elements out of their imagination and into some strategies and etc. for you.

And with the analytics of your email, so you'll be able to see people who are not opening your emails at all, right? So you're like, this person never opens my email, send them a personalized email. These are the ones you want to talk to. These are the ones you'll be like, like, you know, send from your personal email then and say, look, I've noticed you subscribed 3 months ago, we're sending X, Y, and Z, we've noticed you, you haven't been opening, is there something that we can provide you to add value?

Hmm.

And if that person says no, it's a great segue to clean up your database, to clean up your mailing list, because if someone is sitting there but has absolutely no in your brand, they shouldn't be there in the first place. Just to have a big number in your mailing list is absolutely as useless as having many followers who are never buying from you.

Correct.

So start that cleanup, start asking them, but send them, or even make contact, send from your personal email saying like, from my Celeste at Lostoza Marketing, instead of from Mailchimp. Say, hi Sally, I've noticed you, you know, your business, that's what is— that is really interesting. I think that there's an alignment. Are we on the same page or not? And, uh, and understand, um, sometimes you'll get ignored. Yes, you do it again, you do it with different people, and, um, you keep doing it.

Beautiful. Um, and I'm just going to add on to that too with, um, an example of that. When you look at that data and then get to start to ask those key questions. I was actually just speaking to a lady this morning out of the US that specializes in data dashboards. So I was getting a bit excited. And she was talking about how they were, they were working with a membership site. So a company that has a membership site, it's a big networking scenario. And they worked out that they were having significant drop-off with their memberships at the 6-month mark. But they also realized by looking at the data on the emails that they actually were started to go silent and not engage with the platform or the emails at about the 3-month mark. So by asking the right questions and doing a few new campaigns after they'd asked the right questions, they were able to restimulate those conversations via the email marketing and get people back onto the platform. So they've actually now got much longer lasting and much more reduced attrition rates with their membership numbers because They were actually creating more humanized touchpoints and filling a void that was missing in their client's perspective for what they were looking for.

Excellent.

There's some magic in the data as always, which we always talk about. Now we're just getting close towards the end. So Celeste, is there anything that you would like to wrap up and finish off with?

Yes. So for everyone who's interested in really taking this email marketing a bit more seriously, on my website, lustosamarketing.com. There's a free download there with an email marketing blueprint that I've prepared for our audience. You can download and really understand the data and little things to focus on when it comes to sending successful email marketing campaigns. So lustosamarketing.com, free resources.

Beautiful. And you'll be able to find that with— across our social media platforms. Forms, the links, et cetera, there as well. So that's fantastic. I would just like to close as we move into the end to everybody to sort of really, really look at the opportunities that sit right around you. There's lots of opportunities. You can tap in and listen to some great podcasts, but really it's really about talking to your audience and finding out what they're for and then adapting your strategy. And often that adaptation is only very, very slightly. So what we'll do just very, very quickly is just go to a quick video and then I'll come back and wrap the show up. Maybe not. That's all right. We will— I will wrap the show up at this point. So what we've got happening for next week, we have a lady by the name of Scarlett on, and she is going to be talking to us about wardrobe systems and how to look at the way in which we display ourselves as a brand and how to make that work for us. So that's next week's episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Again, thank you very, very much, Celeste, Celeste, uh, for joining us this month as well. I can't honestly remember what next month's topic is, but we will talk about that depending on what the community is looking for. So if you're needing help in a particular marketing area, then we would love to be able to support you and help you if you're keen to just let us know what that may be. So you can reach out to either Celeste or myself through our websites. So thank you very, very much for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you very, very soon. Thank you very much, Celeste.

Thank you.

That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining us. I trust you got some inspirational tips to move you forward. See you next Thursday at 7 PM Eastern for more Success Secrets Exposed.