Listen Now:
When you plan a list build – there’s more than just the list build event itself to consider. There’s everything AFTER the fact – because frankly, that’s where the money is.
In this episode, we’re going to talk about what you can do to make sure you maximize your list build LONG after it’s over… including something you probably won’t want to do when it comes to maintaining your email list…
Episode 2 – How to Make More Sales From Your Existing Email List With Segmentation
Episode 36 – How To Engage Your Audience For Maximum Results During Your List Build
Episode 126 – How to Write Nurture Emails That Convert to Sales
Alyson Lex 0:03
If I could tell you the number of clients that I've had that want to launch something that want to do something that want to have a big thing, but haven't thought through the entire process, if I could tell you that I would, but I can't because it's just not quantifiable. Right. And in all my time working with Jennie, I've really discovered that there are three parts to elicit build. And I've, because I'm a copywriter, I've named them, we've got the runway, that's the lead up, how you're gearing up for it. Then you have the launch the list build event itself, your Summit, your challenge, or webinar or whatever. But then you also have your landing. And this is all the after stuff. And sometimes, Jenny has to Jenny's better at this because she's more secure in herself when it comes to this, but being really firm and loving, but having to be that bad guy. And say, if you don't do this, you're not going to be successful. And so that's actually what we're talking about today is the lending portion of your list build. What happens after? And how do you use that to maximize your results? Because the harsh truth is Jenny, back me up on this. The majority of the money you make doesn't come from the list build itself.
Jennie Wright 1:35
Yeah, I need that meme up or tattooed somewhere is so ridiculous. And yes, I get to be the bad guy. I don't know why I roll. I roll right into that role sometimes. But expectations are a really big deal when it comes to list building. So if you're going to talk about beyond the list build, then you also need to figure out the other parts, and we're going to cover the runway in the launch. In other episodes. Today, we're just talking about the landing. And the majority of your money is made in the landing. So if you've spent money on a copywriter money on building a funnel money on ads, if you have to, or graphics or whatnot, for the list build, and you spend, let's just say let's put a figure out there that you spent like 10 grand, and the list bill doesn't make you 10 grand? That doesn't mean the list build was not successful. That doesn't mean that it wasn't I know. And this, huh? It kills me. Yes, it has to do with the fact that the list build itself, the whole point is to build the list. So if you build the list, depending on how many people you build some lists build great, awesome, the majority of the money comes later. So let's you know, let's dive in and talk about these different things.
Alyson Lex 2:50
Well, and I want to just point out really quickly, you know, let's say you're doing a summit, and you're using the the VIP monetization that I know we've talked about. Right? So for my Summit, my VIP is $47. If I spent $10,000 to produce a summit, which I don't, but if I did, of course, the fact that I write my own copy helps. But if I was to spend that much money on ads, and all of the other ancillary stuff, selling a $47 product, it's going to take me a long time to make that money back.
Jennie Wright 3:25
Right? Yes, but that's not the point,
Alyson Lex 3:29
right? It's not the point. It's about what else I can do with that list over the long term. But another thing that you've taught is that list building doesn't end after the list build ends, because it's something that you have to keep doing.
Jennie Wright 3:46
Yes. And the amount of people who try and go on vacation after their big list build, or the amount of people who decide to take time off, or the amount of people who neglect their list, or the amount of people who don't do this follow up that we're going to talk about in this whole, this whole episode is really high up there. So if everybody can do this, they would. And where the opportunity is that people not everybody's doing this. So if you really want to blow your list built out of the park, total success and be able to have those numbers that other people are talking about, where they say I made $40,000 or $196,000, whatever that number is that makes you go crazy crazy. Then you need to follow these steps. Right? So list building never ends the list built ever, ever, ever, ever. Get that like impregnated into your mind. The first thing by the way, and you're always going to hear me say this and I can't help it because I'm pragmatic, is you keep building the list. So if you've done a list, build my friends, keep planning like plan the next licks list, build, don't do one and expect that that's going to set you up for life. So in the back of your mind, put it on the page. You know, Allison and I have this whole conversation by the way, where we talk about where things are in our businesses as As it relates to a kitchen
Alyson Lex 5:04
Can I can I dive into my metaphor, I love this metaphor, I've used that metaphor in therapy. And she leans into it. And we work on stuff using this. So it's not just the kitchen, but let's talk about a big dinner and I use Thanksgiving dinner because I'm American. And we celebrate that here, Jenny gets it because they have one in Canada, but sorry, England, it's okay, so you're making a big dinner, and you have your main thing, and you have all your sides and your dessert and everything you want to be done at the same time. But in order to do that, you can't just put everything in at the same time, because it's not all going to cook at the same rate at the same temperature, whatever. So you leave the cranberry sauce, because if you're like me, you buy jelly in a can. So it has the ridges that you can cut on. Jenny's cringing, but that stays in the cabinet, because that is like three minutes before the meal. Right, the turkey goes in first that's in this that's in the oven. Like as soon as you wake up Turkey goes in, Turkey goes in unless you have a really good roasting pan. And then you can have a cup of coffee first, but then your potatoes, they sit on the counter because they need to be peeled next. They don't need to be peeled right when the turkey goes in, but they're on the counter.
Jennie Wright 6:21
They're not in the visual reminder that they need to be done.
Alyson Lex 6:24
The visual reminder, you stage your dinner based on when things need to be addressed. And you do the same in your business. So when it's become a shorthand with Jenny and I that, hey, you know what this needs to be on the stove? Or hey, I'm just making sure
Jennie Wright 6:39
this is in your pantry. Yep. Or it's on the counter. Now.
Alyson Lex 6:43
I need to take this out of the pantry and put it on the counter. Because let's face it, there are some things that are just still at the store. Oh, hell yeah. You know what, that Turkey might still be gobbling on the farm. Like you're, it's not even anywhere nearby. And that's okay, as long as it doesn't need to be. When it comes to list building. It needs to be your KitchenAid mixer. It needs to live on the counter. Everybody that KitchenAid mixer on the counter because mine, mine has a corner.
Jennie Wright 7:16
Okay, so I'm going to I'm going to diverge a little bit off the topic here. Do you know how many years I've wanted a KitchenAid? Mixer? Do you know how many years I've had one? Zero. So yeah, I've been dying for KitchenAid mixer there. I just really, really want one. It's just sometimes I just haven't been able to do it yet. So when I get my KitchenAid mixer, I will feel like I have arrived. In my personal life anyways.
Alyson Lex 7:43
Yeah, yeah, I got mine for my wedding. almost 10 years ago, I'm there with you.
Jennie Wright 7:47
Right? Well, I that's I mean, maybe I should have no doesn't matter.
Alyson Lex 7:52
I want to talk about the way to make list building part of your routine. Okay, um, Jenny will talk about, like looking at your 12 months and dropping list builds in. And that's her expertise. And we've probably talked about that on an episode. If we haven't, we will. But I like to look at long term plays, and short term plays. Okay, so quick wins long.
Alyson Lex 8:26
So quick wins, and long term things that you focus on. Things like podcast appearances, by the way, our long term plays. There they are, the kind of thing that you do regularly, that do not have an immediate result. But they will generate long term success, Pinterest, SEO, even growing your social media following all of those are long term plays. Whereas your list builds your webinars or summits, your challenges, they are quick wins. They they give an immediate and finite result. Splitting up your list build into those two segments is going to help you make sure that you focus on it in some way, all the time. How are you consistently promoting what you do and inviting people onto your list.
Jennie Wright 9:23
I love the idea of a short term and long term play. I think we need to think of our businesses in those ways so that we're not missing those opportunities. So I really love that. I want to dive into automating your list. Because once you've built that list, then it's what are you going to do with it right? So there's a couple different things you can look at in terms of automation. We're not talking superduper high levels where you need to have somebody who is a devoted automation specialist in your business. We're talking simple automations things that are going to help create segmentation in your list so that the right person is getting the right thing, right? So it's not it's not a difficult thing. And if you want to know how to do automations, we've I think we've actually talked a little bit about it. But I'm going to recommend and Allison and I both recommend that you use an email marketing service, like Active Campaign, that's the one that we really like. Because the other ones out there are either way too much for the price we find or not enough for what you get. Right. So in terms of automation, just find that Active Campaign is the sweet spot.
Alyson Lex 10:28
Yes. And we will put a link up in the show notes to the Active Campaign, I think we have a link that'll give you like a two week trial or something. And I know we've done some episodes, or an episode about automation, and things like that. So we'll put those in the show notes after this. Just because we, you know, all of that. But what you really want to do is plan all this out before your big list build. Alright, if you're in the middle of preparing to run a summit, your summit starts 30 days from now, I'm going to tell you from host experience, not the kind of producer experience the journey has, but I've done this, those 30 days, you are not capable of spending the time to figure out what's going to happen. No saying you should and you should? No, please, no. That's not where you need to be right now. So my suggestion is when you decide, hey, I'm going to have a summit in June, which by the way, I'm going to have a summit in June. And this episode releases in what January of 2022, I guess what I need to be doing right now, figuring all this stuff out. thinking it through while I have the bandwidth and the mindset to do it. Not in May. If may comes around, and this isn't done, Jenny's gonna yell at me because it's not going to happen.
Jennie Wright 12:06
No, it's not. And one of the things that people tend not to do, and Alyson was talking about this earlier is the the only people tend to focus only on the launch. And they forget about the runway, and they forget about the landing. That's why we're focusing on the landing because so many people forget about it. Some people think about the runway, but they're really forgetting about that whole landing bit. And that's, that's where the money is, guys. So making it happen. Alison said, you know, plan to do this all before. Awesome, love it. Now comes the nurturing part, I'm sure that you have heard people say, nurture your list, nurture your list, provide good content, nurture your list. And you might be thinking, what does that mean? And how do I do it? We've talked about nurturing your list on several episodes, I think at this point. So head on back over to our catalogue and check those out.
Alyson Lex 13:02
Yeah, I know we have an episode on engaging your list after the launch. A really good one, we'll link to that. And then we also did an episode, just just at the end of 2021. About like creating that content that will link as well, I think that's episode number 126. But what you want to do is welcome them in. Let them know what they're going to expect. And give them a taste of what they're going to get with you. All right, we do not need to tell your whole story, because I'm going to tell you, they don't care. What they want to know is why should I continue to look for and open emails from you? What can I expect? When I do a summit? One of the things that I do in my confirmation emails is just say, hey, here's what you can expect.
Jennie Wright 14:01
And didn't we see that from we watched a webinar together from a person who was showing us how to grow microgreens remember that one? Yes. And then the automated email sequence afterwards was so stellar, even though it was for how to grow microgreens that we literally were like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, this is awesome. And it was oh, it was fantastic. Here's what you can expect. How often I had to get in touch. What am I gonna say? Yeah. And
Alyson Lex 14:27
if you email them once a week, that's fine. Just say hey, during the summit, you're going to get a whole lot of emails from me but I promise after it's over, it's going to drop down to like once a
Jennie Wright 14:37
week. You just tell them that and then give them value.
Alyson Lex 14:43
All right, you just to help help them move through their journey with you get to know you and really go listen to episode 126. That's that's the year to do item and do all that stuff because I know we went in depth On this,
Jennie Wright 15:00
you did, we did the next natural thing. Sorry, go ahead,
Alyson Lex 15:05
then it's time to sell. That's I was just gonna say. And that's what we love to I mean I love to sell. Right that's that dopamine hit me too.
Jennie Wright 15:15
But apparently I can't. I'm really great at selling online but I tried selling two glider rockers to somebody yesterday that I have that I'm trying to sell and I couldn't sell them. I felt so bad. But anyways,
Alyson Lex 15:30
that that's a rocker problem, not a Jedi problem, okay? The thing is, you're building your list to sell to them. That's okay. It's okay to sell. Don't be afraid to do that. Don't let it be the only thing you do.
Jennie Wright 15:55
When you're going to sell to your list through your, when you're gonna sell to your list, using your email marketing, something that I really think people need to think about is the timing. So as an example, if you just did a webinar, and you know that you want to sell your program, product or service, if the webinar ends at seven o'clock in the evening, and the first email they receive afterwards is, Hey, did you buy my thing yet? You know, think about the timing. So and think about it from the customer experience, make sure that you're doing it from an experience so that the people who are receiving the email, it feels natural, and it feels inviting, and it feels great. So yes, sales are the thing. And depending on what you sell, if it's a real widget, like an in person widget, an online course, or you do coaching, they all have the same pretty much call to action. Right? It's either go check out my thing, buy my thing, book, my thing, set up your call for my thing. They're all in the same realm. And we've had, I think we've had whole episodes on sales, I don't want to go too deep into like how to sell. But definitely want people to understand that, you know, thirst, there's a method there is and you know,
Alyson Lex 17:23
if you want to know more about how to sell go to system to thrive.com and check the episodes link, click the sales button because it's there. All right. Yes, you want to nurture? Yes, you want to sell. So plan your six months of sales out? What's time sensitive, what's not time sensitive? What are you going to promote each month, figure that out ahead of time, figure out where your focus lies ahead of time. And leave time for that nurture in between to give your people a break. All right, and I think it's an episode one, I really loved Episode 126, I think because I've mentioned it like 12 times. But I'm a big fan of the soft sell at the bottom of the nurture email, like hey, love this content, want to work with me. Here's how, bam, bam, bam, that's okay to, again, Long Term versus quick win. This is how you build your business, it needs to be a balance of both. If you go with just the quick win model, list, build, launch all of that, you're going to have that up and down roller coaster, you have to put those slow and steady strategies into play. As well as the big win quick wins strategies, the same is going to hold true for your sales and your selling.
Jennie Wright 18:58
The other thing that I'd like to add to that is when you're launching your big thing, maybe it's a coaching program, it might not be the right time for your ideal client. But it doesn't mean that they're not going to buy from you later. So the long play and I love this one else in the saying it. But one of the long plays that I love is the footer of your emails. The footer of your email is such a beautiful spot to say, you know, here's how we can work together. Don't forget to follow me here. Don't forget to do this. Have you checked out that? And it's a very unused portion or not well used portion, right. That's the long term play and even in your and I want to get outside of the quote unquote mailing list. One of the things that I want you to consider doing even is in your like regular like using your Gmail that your signature says, How can I support you? Right? So just regular emails back and forth, have that in there? Because that's great real estate to use. Just My aside, something that? Of course you do, because we worked, you know, we we share a brain on this stuff. Yes, we do. Something that people don't think about when it comes to the landing side of your violas build is the periodic cleaning of your list.
Alyson Lex 20:21
Oh man, I know what you're getting ready to say. And I know that people are gonna fight you on it tooth and nail. Mm hmm. But I'm here for it.
Jennie Wright 20:33
I'm gonna say it anyways. And this is where people this is okay, there's a whole thing. There's this whole sphere mentality about cleaning your list. And when I say cleaning your list, it's not getting in there with a little dusty mop and playing around. Cleaning your list means going in there and looking at your unsubscribes and your bounces. What are bounces bounces are when you send an email to an email, like when you send a campaign to an email on your list and bounces back. The server on the other side says, for whatever reason this didn't go through. And it can be something as simple as somebody writing G Gmail without the i.com and their email address and it doesn't go through, that's a bounce. The thing about bounces is that they can affect your ability to get your emails into inboxes, it can affect your ability to get the right email into the right inbox. And that said, you don't need to have them on your list. So clean up those bounces I actually funnily enough, I will go through them. I don't delete them right away. I go through them. If I notice that it says, you know, Jenny, blah, blah, blah, at Gmail without the ai.com. I'll go in and fix it. Because I know it's an easy fix. If it's, you know, if I can see that there's an error that's fixable, I'll fix it. And then if it still doesn't go through as a clean email, then it's still a bounce, I will remove it. But we do try and clean up the bounces. In terms of getting rid of your unsubscribes unsubscribes drive people nuts. Not everybody. Some people were like, Yeah, you know, Sia, have a nice day. Almost like a bye Felicia moment. But some people are 100% like, Oh my God, what's wrong? I sent an email and I had seven unsubscribes do they hate me? Do they love me? Like, have you had that?
Alyson Lex 22:29
Oh, all the time. I mean, people How do I reduce the unsubscribes? I know we talked about this too.
Jennie Wright 22:34
Oh, yeah. Cuz I have a little secret tactic. But yeah. Well,
Alyson Lex 22:37
and I think we definitely did an episode on that we got the unsubscribes. Yes, you want to monitor them? Because you want to know if what you're saying is or isn't landing. But don't freak out about them. Don't lose your head lovingly. Let them go and focus on the people who have chosen to stay. And then Jenny did not go as far as I thought she would.
Jennie Wright 23:05
But this list cleaning thing. Oh, I was being nice.
Alyson Lex 23:10
Because there's also another part of your list that needs to be looked at, and possibly lovingly let go. Oh, yeah, let's
Jennie Wright 23:17
talk about that one, please.
Alyson Lex 23:19
And I get to be the bad guy and tell you that if they're not opening your emails, for a consistent period of time, think 345 months. They need to go. They're taking up space, and they're costing you money. They're costing you money. They're costing you effort. They're screwing your numbers. Alright, if you've got Joe Schmo over there, and he hasn't opened one of your emails in a year and a half. His numbers are being counted against your numbers and you're making decisions based on this data.
Jennie Wright 23:55
It's not clean.
Alyson Lex 23:57
It's not clean data. Joe Schmo is not going to open one of your emails, you have been relegated to Joe Schmo email purgatory, and he is not looking at you. I am making this up. Don't give me that. Look. He is not reading your stuff. Joe Schmoe and all of his schmo friends are screwing your data. Uh huh.
Jennie Wright 24:18
Absolutely. Do you know then go ahead. No finish. I was gonna say
Alyson Lex 24:23
send them an email and say yo schmo. You're not opening my stuff. I'm okay with that. If you if you don't want to get it, I'm cool with it. If you want to still get my stuff, please let me know. I'll keep you around. But otherwise, I'm going to lovingly let you go back to schmoeville. With your smoke friends Okay, and this is not one of those fake engagement Facebook posts that people are like I'm calling on my friends list. I hate those and I actually it does clean up their friends. Because I unfriend them, it drives me crazy.
Jennie Wright 25:02
Same same, or I'm totally screw up and unless you respond, I'm gonna take you by, yeah. Okay, do you know that I even if I don't respond, I don't get unfriended, and I don't get tossed at a group. Exactly. That's
Alyson Lex 25:13
why I just do it. I'm like, You know what, they're busy, I'll just do for the, I'll just do for you. But your email subscribers are not feeling that way. Because you know why you're in their promotions tab, and they don't look at it, and they don't care. So stop thinking that they're a potential for you. And this is our truth,
Jennie Wright 25:32
it is it is our truth. And I want to bring this around to financials, okay, I want to pull it this from a if you've ever been in corporate, and you know, or you've ever, like you're a numbers person, this is going to be where the rubber hits the road kind of thing. And that is, if you have a list of 5000 people, and your open rate is 25%. Because you have 1300, people that haven't opened an email, and in a year, two years, imagine what's going to happen when you clean up that list, and those numbers start to go up, your actual open rate should probably be somewhere like 30 34%. Now, how this works financially, is that when you're allocating when you're starting to get up there, you're starting to look at your ad spend and your budgets. And you're also looking at how you can monetize this list. And if you're applying those ideas and those numbers with bad data, you're going to make bad decisions. So you're going to allocate money and funds towards list building or towards adspend. Or if you're running a podcast like we are, and you have a potential get this you have a potential person or a company that wants to advertise on your podcast and asks you, what is the list? What is your list size and your open rate? If you say, Oh, my list is 10,000. But my open rate is 11%. They're gonna go, Hmm, something's not right there. It's not going to give them the happy, warm feeling. And you may not get that promoter, you may not get that person. Clean up your list, it makes financial sense. And it makes all the other senses that Alison's gonna pull in because she got
Alyson Lex 27:22
the schmo sense. Yes, no sense. So, you know, there are a lot of other ways to ensure that the list that you have stays responsive. And a lot of that is going to start in the runway portion, which we are going to record an episode on. So make sure that you subscribe or follow this to get that when it comes out which Jenny, let's just make it our next episode that we record, just the two of us will do I know we have a guest coming up next week, but we'll just do it as the next one. So just hit the subscribe or follow button. And we'll that'll drop in when it's when it's released. In the meantime, if you are thinking about a list build, if you are already planning one, if you know that you fall down in the landing part, if you know that the after list built stuff is not your forte. Or even if you're pretty good at it and you want some help making it even better and getting even better results. We can help. Alright, this is what Jenny and I do we build businesses. I write a ton of copy. But I also work on business plans and business ideas and concepts and growth opportunities. And Jenny produces amazing list builds but she makes business plans and builds businesses and thinks of opportunities and we work together on this and we want to help you so head over to system to thrive.com you can click on the work with us tab or just go straight to system to thrive.com/thrive plan. You can go ahead and schedule a free call. No pitch, no hard pressure. Basically what we do is we talk with you about what your goals are. We tell you what we think you should do as your next step. And then we give you an opportunity to hear how we help with no expectations and No like seriously, I a lot of people say no hard sale no pressure, but we really mean it. We're like hey, is this something you want to do now? Okay, thanks. Have a great day. Let us know how it goes like we're really not pitching you. Anyway, I'm rambling Jenny's laughing at me. Head to System to THRIVE comm check out the Thrive plan. You'll also find the show notes for this This episode and all other episodes thanks so much for listening we'll get you next time