During our conversation, Sharla will focus on sharing her email marketing experience by discussing key metrics that indicate success in email campaigns. She will delve into the various performance indicators and data points that marketers use to evaluate the effectiveness of their campaigns and guide their strategic decisions.
The Rum Runner cocktail is rumored to have originated at the Holiday Isle Tiki Bar (now Tiki Bar at Postcard Inn) in the early 1970s, where bar manager John Elber, clearing out old liquor bottles, improvised the drink with rum, banana liqueur, blackberry liqueur, grenadine, and tropical fruit juices. Named in homage to Florida Keys' smuggling or “rum running” history during Prohibition, its creation story, while debated, adds to its mystique.
There is a 1937 cocktail book called Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em by Stanley Arthur with it’s own rum runner recipe. The recipe from that time period is different from the modern version, the old recipe is similar to a Daiquiri drink with pineapple juice and Peychaud’s Bitters.
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Rich: Hey, Caitlin. We are back again.
Catelin: We're back again. I keep saying like a bad dream, but
Rich: no, it's like a fever dream. I don't know. It's not a bad dream. Isn't that a Taylor Swift song? Something about a nightmare dress like a day nightmare dress like
Catelin: a daydream. Yes.
Rich: Yeah. I'm paying attention. It's
Catelin: uh. blank space.
Catelin: I think, darling, I'm a nightmare Dress like a daydream, a dress like a daydream. Mm-Hmm. . And for Halloween that year she was a Pega corn. And the caption on her Instagram post was, darling, I'm a nightmare. Dress like a Pega corn. Okay. There was a
Rich: little a Pega corn. So Pega for a few, the unicorn hybrid, like the Mm-Hmm.
Rich: Mm-Hmm. , the mashup, uh, child of two mythical horsey beings.
Catelin: Yeah, definitely. Oh, it feels like it's been forever. We've been watching a lot of Hercules at my house. So, uh, we've gotten to know Pegasus well.
Rich: And I assume the, uh, I think
Catelin: we watched it, yeah.
Rich: The Disney cartoon. It's not
Catelin: me. Yeah, yes. Like the 1997,
Rich: Danny DeVito, can you
Catelin: believe that?
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: Oh, wow. The 80s TV show, like live action. I'm pretty sure that was one.
Catelin: Oh gosh, no. Kevin Sorbo?
Rich: Let's not get into Kevin Sorbo today. Let's not do that. We'll just let him do his thing somewhere outside of our realm. Um, so interesting, I think, um, she'll need to be a little bit older, but, uh, there are also Pegasi in Percy Jackson.
Rich: Oh, yeah. Which were mediocre, um, but also in, uh, the new TV show, which is actually really, really good.
Catelin: Okay. Okay. And the
Rich: kid who played, um, Oh, I was just going to share a movie fact, but the kid who played Ryan, the young Ryan Reynolds in that, oh gosh, what was the movie called now? I can't remember. Yeah, but the one where he goes back in time and there's this little kid who is like, could probably pay, play a junior Deadpool, like dead ringer for Ryan Reynolds attitude and personality.
Rich: He's Percy Jackson in the series.
Catelin: Oh, okay. Okay.
Rich: And less snacky and less sweaty.
Catelin: Um, I will have a hard time, like, I want to, we want to be the, I want to be the house where, like, everybody gathers, right? Where all of her little friends come and they feel safe and, you know, I have all the treats and just, like, help yourself, whatever.
Catelin: But I also am concerned because I think I'm going to struggle with, like, age appropriate content. Like, the other day, she told me, um, we don't say shit at daycare. Or she said, she said shit. And I was like, why are you saying that? And she goes, well, that daddy's truck is broken. We say shit when daddy's truck is broken.
Catelin: And just like enunciated every single syllable. And I was like, This is so funny. It was so funny. But then I was also like, this is not, this is not good parenting. But then I was also like, I don't know how to tell, like, it's not a bad, I don't know, I say shit. I can't very well tell you not to say it. I don't know.
Catelin: There's so many ways to screw up your kids, is the point that I'm trying to make. Oh yeah. And so I just said, we don't say that at daycare. We don't say shit at daycare. That, we can say that at our house. And so then, I'm looking forward to the day where she tells a stranger, We don't say shit at daycare.
Catelin: We only say shit at my house.
Rich: Oh, goodness.
Catelin: Mother of the year here.
Rich: I'm looking forward to the day when she's in, uh, school. And you get the call from the principal's office that your daughter is swearing like a sailor in class, appropriately, and so she gets points for it, however. Oh yeah, that's
Catelin: the thing.
Catelin: She grammatically can process. She told me the other day, she used the word well correctly, where she was like, oh, this is going well. And I was like, oh my god, you're a little genius. Instead of good, yeah. Which is Yeah, it was perfect. So, um, she will absolutely be using the correct tenses of swears. Maybe not at a time when other children should be hearing them.
Rich: I mean, content wise though, it's not like you're pulling out like nine and a half weeks or an Officer and a Gentleman or anything for the kids.
Catelin: No.
Rich: No.
Catelin: I don't think, I think an Officer and a Gentleman is pretty tame now. Probably now.
Rich: By like 2024
Catelin: standards.
Rich: Yeah. Cause isn't it just like one flash of Richard
Catelin: Gere's butt and then that's it?
Catelin: I think
Rich: so. We started watching Fallout, which is phenomenal, whether you played the game or not. But I was chatting with a friend, and I was like, oh, you didn't tell me there was man ass at 19 minutes in. So yeah, we get a lot more of that, especially with the streamers, right? Because it's now or later.
Rich: Because, yeah, the
Catelin: FTC guidelines don't apply,
Rich: yeah. And that's why you should do, uh, CTV, which we talked about a couple episodes ago, I think.
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: But that's not today's topic. Today, we're here to talk about email marketing. We're talking about rum. So, We are talking about rum also, but yes, we'll get to your cocktail in a moment.
Rich: Uh, I know you, uh, Actually, gin is your jam, but rum, your husband cannot pass up a rum drink, as he so eloquently said at our post holiday party. Uh, at, is it La Colona? Is that right? I always wonder about
Catelin: it.
Rich: Yeah. Um, so yeah, so we're going to talk about email marketing performance and it's interesting because this is not something that's necessarily my forte, so I'll probably shut up for most of the episode.
Rich: Uh, maybe not. We'll
Catelin: see.
Rich: Um, I mean, I understand marketing email and I understand metrics, um, but like if you give me those and you're like, I have like three tricks to like get better open rates or get better click through rates. And all of them are like, rewrite your subject line, which is legit. Like that's a legit thing.
Rich: Um, change up your content. If no one's clicking, change your call to action. But there's like so much more than that. Um, and so we've got Charlotte here who, um, has, Worked in this space and has helped people, uh, with this and it's here to help our clients, of course, but also anybody listening. Um, so that'll be exciting for me.
Rich: We'll have all of those things to talk about. So if you do a marketing emails. Uh, definitely this is one you don't want to miss. Um, if you don't, it's still going to be interesting, so please don't, like, tune out. We don't want Zach to be sad if our metrics drop off.
Catelin: Sharla taught me some stuff, yeah, on a call last week with a client where they were asking me questions about email, and I was like, you know what?
Catelin: I don't know. And it was the first time that she had shadowed like one of my actual onboarding, as opposed to like just a kickoff. And she's like, may I? And I'm like, please, for the love, teach me.
Rich: And I think I remember, I don't know if it was this client, but I know that there have been times when somebody's like, we just switched email systems and sent out 100, 000 emails right out of the gate.
Rich: And it's like, Oh, no, you shouldn't do that. Like, you should send them in smaller batches. Like, you don't have to send them in like 10 at a time, but like even a It's going to go terribly for you, and it's going to set up all kinds of red flags with Google and everybody if you're relaying through another system.
Rich: Suddenly you've got to kind of ease into that.
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: Also make sure all your stuff is set up. Speaking of easing
Catelin: in, we should ease into that cocktail recipe. Ease into the rum runner.
Rich: I like to dive right into a rum runner. So, uh, what's going on with this cocktail?
Catelin: I think this is like most tiki lore, it's like, it's very kitschy, and like 50s, 60s, 70s, but this one was invented in the early 1970s where a bar manager was just like cleaning the bar. stuff out, which I can appreciate. I love a declutter. Uh, so he improvised this and ended up, uh, with a recipe that is actually now an ounce of light rum, an ounce of Navy strength rum, which would be like your overproof rum.
Catelin: Um, OFT is really good. Like an overproof or like a black strap. Yeah.
Rich: Yeah. And a lot of times they'll do that as a floater, right. To give you a little bit of like,
Catelin: Wow. Yeah, sometimes there's one, um, let me finish this and then I can go on several rum tangents. But, uh, one ounce of light rum, one ounce of overproof rum, one ounce of banana liqueur, half ounce of blackberry liqueur, um, that's like crème de mure.
Catelin: Uh, Jessica and I just had cocktails with crème de mure in them last week. So good. Uh, two ounces of pineapple juice, which is Dorothy's, uh, cocktail of choice. When we go to our local establishment, one ounce of lime juice, freshly squeezed as always a half ounce of grenadine. And then you gran garnish, garnish with a brandy cherry and a pineapple wedge.
Rich: So, quick clarification. Lime juice, fresh squeezed. Pineapple juice, completely okay to use canned, right?
Catelin: Yes, yeah. We actually keep, we stock canned pineapple juice. Um, I think because It's hard to squeeze a
Rich: pineapple
Catelin: Juicing a pineapple would be quite cumbersome. Yes. Uh, however, we do have a corer that takes out the core, but then also, it's like, you know, when you get the can of pineapple, that's just like the, and it's like the middle is missing and it's in a circle in a can.
Rich: The rings, pineapple rings. Yes, thank you. Those are called.
Catelin: That's, that's what I said, right? Uh, but there is a little, there's a tool. That will let you like take out all of that. And then you're left with the shell of the pineapple. You freeze them and turn them into glasses. So like cups, not glasses, like,
Rich: yeah, cups.
Rich: Okay.
Catelin: Um,
Rich: there's also one that will slice the pineapple spirally as you go down. Like that's what this one does. So it like spiralizes
Catelin: the actual fruit takes out the core and then leaves you with just the shell, like the outside of the pineapple anyway. So, um, I suppose though,
Rich: when you're doing that, if you did it in a large bowl, all that juice would be captured at some point and you can even squeeze some like out of that core or whatever.
Rich: So maybe.
Catelin: The core is really, is really, um, tough. They're like, they're very, like, uh, fibrous. That's the word I'm looking for. Alright people,
Rich: find a nice, fresh pineapple juice in a can or a jar. That's gonna be the way to go. Alright, so what do I do with all this? Dole will do you
Catelin: just fine. Uh, you fill a cocktail shaker two thirds full with ice.
Catelin: Add the gin, lime juice, and simple syrup. To There's no simple syrup in this recipe. Oh,
Rich: the grenadine maybe?
Catelin: Uh, gin, lime juice, yes, that makes sense. Uh, grenadine. Shake, uh, thoroughly. And then, um, there you go. Okay,
Rich: and this one can go in a coupe glass, which is great. So I could double this and put it in our new oversized coupe glasses.
Rich: Um, I, see, that's the
Catelin: thing, I would, I don't know if I'd put this in a coupe glass. I would honestly put this in a hurricane glass because you want to fill, Oh, yeah. Um, you want to fill your, fill your, Glass with pebble ice if you want to get really schmancy part of part of like tiki cocktails, especially as they need the dilution from the ice and the shaking and so They're meant to be sipped and diluted a little bit.
Catelin: That's that's why a lot of times they use that overproof
Rich: Alright, well we'll make sure Zach notifies the folks at Liquor. com where this particular recipe came from that they need to change that. It
Catelin: shouldn't go in a coop glass. Ugh, can you imagine? I mean I love a coop glass, but I
Rich: think you're right. I actually got in trouble for making margaritas and not using the nugget ice that we had, because apparently we bought nugget ice at some point last weekend and it was in the freezer, and I was using the cocktail balls.
Rich: And I was told like, why are you not just using the nugget ice? And I was like, Oh, we have nugget ice. Okay, well I'll go get that. So I had the cocktail ball and I made one with nugget ice for, which was fantastic.
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: All right. Uh, I feel like we could
Catelin: dedicate an entire intro to just. The times that I have been on, um, tiki, tiki, like, voyages.
Catelin: Tyrell just came back from a tiki bar in Vegas and brought a cute little, cute little mug back.
Rich: Maybe Tyrell should be a guest and we can talk about, like, his favorite U. S. tiki bars. I don't know how much time do we
Catelin: have.
Rich: I think we could use a whole episode. We'll just make that one cocktails. We
Catelin: could do, like, business operations.
Catelin: That's his specialty. Customer satisfaction.
Rich: Honestly, like, customer delight is a good one. You'll need to float that by him. Maybe give him a couple rum runners before you ask. And we should be good. Alright,
Catelin: let's get into some email metrics. Between daycare swears and rum tangents, this has gone on long enough.
Catelin: Okay,
Rich: we're back. No more pineapple tangents. Well,
Catelin: that's a, that's also a story for a different day.
Rich: Okay, we'll talk pineapples and tiki bars later. But right now, Sharla is with us, uh, who we have been at a tiki bar with. That's correct. Yeah, it was our post, post holiday. That was a fun night. It was. I am glad we checked out when we did, because it seemed to get a little weirder after that.
Rich: But.
Sharla: Yeah, I didn't stay for all the weirdness. We called it kind of an early night as well.
Rich: Yeah, I just, it's weird. I hit a point where I just didn't want to drink anymore and was like, well, I should just go home then. I know, that's not how summer rich performed last year, but that is how winter or spring rich was.
Sharla: You better start training so you can get in summer shape. It's coming up.
Rich: Yeah. I'm good with wine. I can drink almost as much wine as I want to, but when you start throwing in like, and I think with tiki bars, it's different, right? So like, it'll be a rum drink, but you might get a tequila drink. You might get a gin drink.
Rich: Like that's where I start to go south. That overproof
Catelin: rum will get ya.
Rich: It will, but we're not here to talk rum. We're here to talk email marketing. So um, Charlotte, I think first of all, like how did you like get started doing email marketing? Like how was that a thing that you know?
Sharla: That's a really, um, not very interesting story.
Sharla: Actually. Um, I was working at Enterprise Rent A Car as an assistant branch manager, um, for like two and a half years after I moved to Omaha and, um, finally felt like I was ready to stop washing cars in high heels and, um, running. I'm
Rich: sorry. Wait, you wash cars in high heels? Like I get that car wash, like a college car wash thing, but,
Sharla: Yes, I was in Suits and High Heels.
Sharla: Was this a stringent dress code? Yes. Yes, you had to be in business professional dress. Um, but you often had to wash cars yourself because you would be low staffed or the rest of your staff would be out, um, picking up customers and dropping off cars and doing all the other things that go along with car rental business.
Sharla: And so you, you did what you had to do to make your business work. Um, so yeah, I got all that
Rich: excitement for the world of email.
Sharla: Yeah, you know, it was, um. It was a lot of long hours and very little reward. So, it was time. Um, but then, you know, just trying to find, I have a degree in marketing from Kansas State, so I was, uh, you know, just looking into any shape and form of marketing positions that were available in the area.
Sharla: And, um, I found one with a company called Walter Carl. And I applied and interviewed and that's the beginning of my foray into email marketing. I've been doing that for, I don't know, about 15 years off and on here, so. Hmm.
Rich: Well, cool. Um, so what, what do you think is the most important for people? Like if they could only take one thing away, what do they need to know about email marketing?
Rich: Like, what's kind of the golden rule? Is there a golden rule, I guess? Maybe that's the question.
Sharla: Um, yeah, I mean, I could think of probably 20 golden rules, but, um, I think It's always being relevant to what your audience wants. You know, making sure that your subject line is relevant and eye catching. Making sure that your content is relevant and eye catching.
Sharla: That it's information that they want to digest and it's not just, uh, random filler that you put in to fill up your newsletter every week.
Catelin: Email for the sake of email is my least favorite.
Sharla: Yes.
Rich: Yeah, so if you have nothing to say, don't say it. Be relevant.
Catelin: That's
Rich: So I guess just talk to us about some of the metrics.
Rich: We're here to talk about email marketing performance, right? So obviously being relevant is gonna help you get those opens and ideally get a click through like I'm going to click through on something I want more often than something I don't. I'm actually wishing that Amazon would send me an email about a backpack I looked at like six months ago after seeing a TV ad, believe it or not, like complete, like down the marketing rabbit hole, TV ad on streaming, Really liked it, looked it up on their website, price was a little ridiculous.
Rich: Went to Amazon, exact same bag, not even a knockoff from the company, price was a little bit better. But I didn't buy it, I didn't pull the trigger, and now I'm like, Can I search Amazon for like, bags I've looked at? Which you probably can, but anyway. If they sent me that email, I would buy it today.
Sharla: Yep, I always put those in my cart, and then when I decide I'm not buying them, I put them in my Save for Later, so they're always sending me emails about anything that's in my Save for Later.
Rich: Yeah, and I didn't do that. My Save for Later is just jammed full of things from like three years ago that I'm still thinking, I should buy that. But I haven't. Um, so. That's how I
Catelin: know I'm ready to let something go is when I close the tab.
Rich: I deleted a couple of them out of there the other day. I was like, I'm never going to buy these.
Rich: And one of them was like, this item is no longer available, sorry.
Catelin: You waited too long. We won't be emailing you about
Rich: this. Exactly. Walk us through kind of the most important metrics. Like those ones that everybody knows. Like, um, you know, open and click through and blah, blah, blah.
Sharla: Yeah, um, so like open rate, click through rate, um, conversion rates, unsubscribe rates, bounce rates are kind of the, the bread and butter of email marketing.
Sharla: Um, there's a few others.
Rich: Those are the ones that were most familiar, like, as we were looking at the prep sheet. Um, so any of those you want to dive into and like share a little bit more on problems with it, things like that.
Sharla: Yeah, I think probably like first and foremost, uh, you know, kind of your first line is your open rate.
Sharla: Um, it's pretty crucial metric, um, in email marketing. Um, obviously if your content into your subject line are not relevant to your audience, they're not going to open it. Um, so a higher open rate typically indicates that your audience finds your emails engaging and relevant. Um, And on the other side of that, if your open rate is low, it probably suggests that your subject lines are not compelling enough, or they are misleading, um, or they're just very blah and boring.
Sharla: Um, and maybe they're just getting buried in your inbox. Maybe they're being sent at the wrong time so that it's not at the top of your inbox when you're looking at, you're checking your emails and, um, Um, you know, they get buried. And by the time you've got 5, 10 emails in, you're kind of over reading all the subject lines and deciding what you want to look at.
Sharla: And so you just kind of mass delete everything.
Rich: Yep. Yeah. Cause that's stuff that's like, Oh, it's been in there for 30 days. I don't need it anymore. Just delete. I mean, I get,
Sharla: I'm a chronic subscriber though. And I subscribe to so many different things. Um, And so yeah, I can check my email every day and have 150 emails so The ones that are at the top, um, they you know, they get my attention and the ones that are further down It's when i'm like, okay.
Sharla: I don't have time to be reading through all of this and just Click and delete all of them
Rich: Yeah, i'll sort mine by brand sometimes like if I know i'm like waiting like oh, hey, we need more blinds I'm gonna go look at like has easy blinds emailed me recently with the 20 off discount Um, but when I do that, if I don't see what I want, I just highlight all of them from them and delete them all because there's nothing in there that I wanted.
Rich: Um, so what's an easy, what makes a good subject line? Like how does the subject line make people open? What do I need to do if I'm like writing a subject line?
Sharla: Um, well it needs, like I said before, it needs to be relevant. Um, anything that's eye catching or attention catching, um, you know, it Uh, you know, not necessarily using all caps, but you need to, your subject line should be kind of, maybe, um, not necessarily, I mean, depending on your industry and what your, your content is.
Sharla: I mean, witty, eye catching, funny, anything that will, Catch their attention and, and maybe intrigue them enough to open the email to find out what's inside. Um,
Rich: should I use emoji? Yeah.
Sharla: Um, yeah, emojis are getting a lot better. It used to be when, uh, we started using emojis and subject lines, they wouldn't necessarily render on all platforms.
Sharla: So it just come across as like question marks or little squares. Um, so you're kind of like, I don't know what that means. Yeah. But
Rich: now like most people open on the phone right and if any phone can handle emojis on the email Yeah, I look a little different Android and iPhone are not the same
Sharla: This is true.
Sharla: I do still see some of those weird characters in my subject lines in my inbox
Rich: I
Sharla: think it's just, you have to make sure that you're choosing ones that are, um, fairly mainstream and that, you know, are going to be used across, yep, all, all platforms.
Rich: So not the, um, every time Apple updates their software, they throw in new emoji that may not be elsewhere.
Rich: Like, don't use those. Use the things that have been around. Like the laughing while crying emoji is safe. Everybody's got that. Yes.
Sharla: A hundred
Catelin: percent.
Sharla: Almost. Yeah.
Catelin: I get a lot of sirens. Uh huh. Or like the red, like, fireworky ones where I'm like, ah, this is not an emergency. I understand that things are 50 percent off, but this is not an emergency.
Catelin: Or
Sharla: like the party ones. Like the little megaphone with the confetti. Mm hmm.
Rich: So, be original with your emoji too. Yeah, I was like, do you want tangent? Well, I feel like the siren is the new, like, you used to be able to put a red exclamation point on work emails if they were urgent. And then everybody started putting them on every work email.
Rich: And then, I think it's just gone away. I don't even know as though you can do that anymore. Like, I feel like that's where the red siren came in.
Catelin: Marking things as high importance.
Sharla: Yep. I've seen some, two more recently that'll use like bold fonts and it used to be able, you wouldn't be able to change the font in your subject line.
Sharla: Um, and I like bold fonts or italics or, you know, something to set it apart.
Rich: I like to write all my subject lines in Russian characters, but I spell English words with Russian characters. I feel that works well. I
Catelin: prefer hieroglyphics. I
Sharla: feel like that's a code. I mean, you can only send that to people that know.
Sharla: What that means.
Rich: So I feel, Caitlin, like, um, emoji are hieroglyphics and we've just come back. Probably.
Catelin: Yep. Yeah. Everything old is new again.
Rich: That would be a good challenge. Somebody has to write an entire story using only emoji and see if somebody else could read it. And like they're the, they discovered it, you know, a hundred years or a thousand years in the future.
Sharla: You should give that task to your students. Yes, I feel like the children can do that.
Catelin: I also, the thing that I would be nervous about though is the context, because like some emojis mean things that you don't think they mean.
Sharla: Yes, and I think the kids have different meanings for some of them than we do.
Rich: And some mean two things, like they can mean horny, they can mean angry. I'm looking at you, red face with a tear. Is that, really? Oh yeah, that's uh, with the youth it's uh, I'm, like it's sort of a, Hot, sweating, for you, kind of a thing. It could be feisty,
Catelin: or it could be, uh
Rich: Yeah, Zach is the youngest one on the call, and he's nodding his head, so Ha So you've opened my email.
Rich: I think the next one is probably like click through rate, right? Like now I want you to click. So how do I get you to click?
Sharla: Um, yeah. Uh, so click through rate measures how many people that opened your email actually clicked on the link, so your call to action. Um, so you need to make sure that your call to action is, Um, relevant and enticing, um, something, you know, like, hey, click here to find out more information can be kind of boring, but, um, you just need to make it, you know, sound fun and exciting.
Sharla: And like that on the other side of that click is some information or a discount or a freebie that you're really, really been looking forward to.
Rich: So tell me what you want me to do and make it something that I want to do. Like, and also just like, tell me what I'm going to get when I get there. And then on the conversion side, it's probably now deliver whatever that was.
Rich: Like, don't lie to me and bait and switch.
Sharla: Yes. And the higher, higher your click through rate means that the more, uh, relevant your email content is and your click through or your call to actions are. And, you know, conversely, if you don't have a very high click through rate, obviously you need to do some rethinking about your content and, and your calls to action.
Sharla: Or even placement. I think there's
Catelin: nothing, nothing more annoying to me than clicking on something and ending up in the wrong spot. Like,
Sharla: yes. And still having to
Catelin: search. Treat us, like, yes, yeah. It's like, no, I need it to be, Force fed to me, which is probably a commentary on my attention span. But
Rich: yeah, if I click buy now, you better be taking me to the thing I just saw on your email directly
Catelin: to the listing page.
Rich: Yeah. Amazon ads are the worst. Like the Wayfair ones where you're like, Oh, that's a really cute, whatever. And you click on it and it just takes you to their homepage. It's like, I'm out, I'm done. I wanted to see that thing. And cause even if you like really wanted and try to search for it, half the time it's not even there or it's unavailable.
Rich: Annoying.
Sharla: Yes, your email design and your landing pages, they need to be very user friendly.
Rich: Keep it simple. So there's a couple in this list that were new to me. I mean, they make sense when I look at them, like, Oh yeah, but I'm like, Oh, I haven't really thought about measuring those. So the two are, and we can tackle these separately list growth rate. Um, half the time people's lists, I think shrink because their unsubscribed rate is too high, but then the email sharing and forwarding rate, which I hadn't ever thought of.
Rich: I do forward marketing emails occasionally, but let's talk list growth rate and then get into the email sharing and forwarding rate.
Sharla: Um, yeah, list growth rate is, I mean, how quickly you are growing your list, what rate, at what rate your list is growing or shrinking. Um, and if you are actively looking for new subscribers while to, you know, mitigate the of those that unsubscribe.
Sharla: Um, typically, uh, you want to Try to minimize those unsubscribes by doing all those things like we've been talking about the relevant content and subject lines and Giving them what they want, basically And if that isn't what they're looking for they're going to unsubscribe and maybe you've been emailing them too many times Mm
Catelin: hmm
Sharla: You also have to have new acquisition channels for gaining new subscribers.
Sharla: You need to have opt in methods, um, to make sure that you're, you know, properly collecting those unsubscribes and, or not those unsubscribes, I'm sorry, the new subscribers,
Catelin: um,
Sharla: to make sure that you have their permission to email them, um, so that, you know, they don't get angry and, uh, flag you as spam or report you.
Rich: I think that's a big misconception. I think everybody by now knows like don't go buy a whole huge list of email addresses and throw them in there. That's going to be a problem. But not everybody knows
Catelin: that. Do not buy an email
Rich: list. You
Catelin: think everybody knows, but not everybody knows.
Rich: There are legit ways to source lists, but it always gets dicey and your click throughs and conversions are usually terrible with those because they didn't sign up directly with you.
Rich: They signed up with a third party for generic marketing offers, blah, blah, blah. But the one that gets me though is, Just because I buy something from you. Now, if I buy something from you, you have absolutely the right to send me emails about that purchase. Like my receipt, you can send me, uh, a follow up.
Rich: You can send me a tracking number. You can ask me to review it. All of those things are transactional and related to my transaction. However, I did not automatically opt into all of your marketing just because I bought something from you. And I see a lot of people. That
Sharla: fine print that you didn't read when you made your purchase.
Rich: True, which it does happen, but I think a lot of times now I'm seeing right below Um, the purchase in the cart, there's like a little check box. Like I love to receive offers from you and discounts. And I think even that, you've got to have that text be enticing. Like just offers and discounts. Okay. What am I signing up for?
Rich: Am I signing up for a weekly, like fire sale special? Am I signing up for new products? Uh, what's, what am I, what am I going to get? Otherwise I'm going to be like unsubscribe or worse. I'll ghost you. I just won't engage for a long time and then your email program will say you probably shouldn't email this person.
Rich: They have it.
Sharla: Yeah, uh, yeah, to maintain your list you need to be constantly, um, working on growing it, you provide incentives, make sure you're optimizing all of your communications, and retaining those subscribers that you currently have, uh, making sure that those emails are targeted, and have personalized content, and segment lists, um, if you have multiple, Uh, audiences.
Rich: So you just actually got me to one I was going to ask, but you got there first. So segmenting your list of having different lists for different types of content that you're sending out or different audiences that you're reaching out to. So I may not get all 20 emails from you this month. I might only get four because I really only want that particular thing.
Sharla: 100 percent
Rich: it reminds me of one banana Republican gap. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Sharla: Oh, no, that's 100 percent fine I was just gonna say that. Yeah, you need to cater to like to what they are looking for what they they want if you have, you know, if you're looking for
Sharla: You know, you're like you're tiki torches from Wayfair, but they're sending you
Sharla: Bedding and Type of emails Then, then you're like, nah, this isn't what I want.
Rich: Yeah, it reminds me of when clothing companies, Gap and Banana Republic were the ones that I think of the most, used to just send the same email to everybody, men's clothes, women's clothes. And I'm like, hi, I'm not buying, I mean, I might buy skirts, but I have not indicated to you that I'm going to buy a skirt.
Rich: And then even some other ones where like, I would get bra ads and I'm like, um, Gained a little weight. Not ready for thanks. Um, but then they figured out like, Oh, like if people are buying men's clothing, we should probably just send them men's clothing. And then some of them even got so sophisticated to where you can opt out of like a father's day or a mother's day promo.
Rich: If like your parent passed away or you've got bad blood or whatever, those kinds of things. So, um, I think that as they get more like that, when people give me more options, I'm more likely to sign up. Because I can opt out of certain things or I know what I'm getting is relevant.
Catelin: I think that's my biggest frustration, and we see this all the time with like, particularly on the HubSpot side, with just like mismanagement or no management of contact information.
Catelin: Like when somebody makes a purchase from you, you have Or should, in theory, have a full history of that person's relationship with your business. And optimizing on their purchase should not be rocket science. So, like, I buy similar things across brands, right? And they should all be, like, remarketing based on those things.
Catelin: And I know that. My phone knows, and my computer knows, and my location history knows, like, pulling in all of that customer data, and, and this is one thing that Tyrell and I have talked about, is that just, like, the closing of that loop is nearly impossible. He's like, I wish there was a button that I could click that says, I already bought this.
Catelin: Stop. Mm hmm. Because it's like, The, the missed connection or missed opportunity in, in optimizing on purchase or on browsing history is pretty significant. And we find that even with our like B2B or really long sales process clients too, right? Like closing the loop and getting the purchase information is tantamount to maintaining a clean,
Rich: good list.
Rich: I talked, I just talked to one the other day about when somebody converts and becomes a customer. You can set up a workflow to remove them from your prospecting lists. You can also put that in your Mm-Hmm, , you know, drip campaign. You know, if they're a, if they're marked as customer, do not send. The other thing you can do, if you hook your e-commerce to your CRM, if you're a B2C or B2B, you should be able to do dynamic content that would not show somebody products they purchased, like you should be able to pull a five product or four product grid and tell it.
Rich: populate with anything in this category randomly except if they've purchased that before. Like, I don't, I just think that if people can get more sophisticated like that, it's going to work so much better for them. Mm-Hmm. , that's what I want.
Catelin: No, I feel like that's a, I mean, to me, like you can get into the real, like nitty gritty of things, but optimizing your email marketing really just comes down to maintaining a clean database.
Catelin: And, um, everything kind of goes back to that for me is like, don't try. And do all of these fancy tricks until you've got good information to send off.
Sharla: Good, clean data. Yep. And you don't want to, you know, get rid of those, those subscribers that are no longer, you know, interacting with your, your emails.
Sharla: Exactly. They're not opening. They're not clicking. They're, you know, why send to them? It's a waste of your time and money for that as well.
Rich: Unless you want something unique and different that you think might be helpful. But you're right. Odds are like they've opted out of you without opting out. They just have, have you set on an automated delete this email when it arrives in my inbox?
Sharla: Yes. Oh, well, Ian, you could do a re engagement campaign. You can send out an email saying, Hey, are you still there? Are you still listening? Kind of like, um, Netflix does like, are you still watching? Yes. Please stop asking. I have cheetos. And you can send them a list say, Hey, tell me, tell me what we're doing wrong.
Sharla: What are, what are you interested in? And please check these boxes, um, of the things that you would like to hear about more so that we can provide you with more relevant content.
Rich: Yeah. The other thing I've seen retail do is just increase the offer. Like if you're doing 10 percent off, I will ignore that every day.
Rich: You're barely paying my sales tax.
Sharla: Oh yeah. 15%. Like
Rich: maybe if I want it, if you get it, but you've really got to get north of 20 percent before I'm interested. And the further north of 20 percent you get. The more interested I get, 50 is way better than 25 if you can afford it. And if your margins can, but sometimes like they're a lost customer, right?
Rich: So to win them back, you might need to do a 50%, especially if your product mix has changed or something, just to get them to look and they may also be like, no, forget it, I don't want this, but you know, Entice, entice, entice.
Sharla: Yep, I'm a big sucker for that 70 percent in the subject line.
Rich: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. 100%.
Rich: Also, when it doesn't say up to. Cause then, you know, there's one thing at 70%, everything else is 10 percent off. And it's probably for,
Sharla: it's like a triple extra small or something that would only fit a 10 year
Rich: old. I'd also like the range. So everything is 50 to 70 percent off. So I know, okay, there's some at 70, but at least the least I'm going to get is half off.
Rich: I'm going to go look and see what they got because that sounds great to me. But that up to always just makes me like, just stop, stop it people. Stop putting one thing at a high discount and trying to make us think your whole store is on sale. It's not true. And I guess that goes to relevance, right? And not lying to people or being shady.
Sharla: Yes, 100%.
Rich: All right. Well, I think we hit most stuff. We didn't really get into forwarding, but we'll save that for another time. Or, you know, maybe Charlotte will have a blog post on how to get your emails forwarded to other people. Which is a way to grow your list. All right. Right?
Sharla: Yes.
Rich: Um, okay, Zach, she's on board for that blog post.
Rich: You heard it here.
Sharla: Haha.
Rich: Alright, so the biggest thing I think that we took away is don't be shady, uh, don't be shady, don't be shady. Um, and then I think Kaitlyn, your big one was gather the data and use the data to be relevant and send people.
Catelin: Snaps for using your data, yes. That's the email rule. We're going to ask some.
Catelin: Cool. Cool. Yes, if you're going to ask somebody for their information, the least you can do is use it.
Rich: I agree 100%. Well, thank you, Charlotte. This was, um, interesting. Like, I did learn some things that I had never thought of. Like I said, like that list growth rate, like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Your list should be growing.
Rich: And if that's a negative number, it's a problem. But I don't know very many people who put that on a dashboard. Like, and that's really critical. Yeah, 100%. I don't know
Sharla: that I've ever seen that on a dashboard. All right. But that's something that you need to know. We're going to go out into all of our client's
Rich: dashboards now.
Rich: I feel like that's a good idea. Um. Cool. Cool. Uh, so next week, uh, we're going to have, or in two weeks, I guess, uh, we are going to try, try again, uh, with the little grasshopper that could, uh, mastering consistency brand versus social media identity with Megan. I think this is like our third time we've tried to record that, but schedules just keep conflicting.
Rich: So bless Zach for continuing to put that on our calendar and trying to make it happen. Um, I'm
Catelin: excited about this one. Yeah, so that's, that's,
Rich: that's In two weeks. I am excited to talk about the grasshopper because then I can talk about the grasshopper pie What I had as a kid which was basically everything that's in the cocktail.
Rich: Don't spoil
Catelin: it. Don't spoil it
Rich: Now I want some so bad. Okay, Caitlin, take us
Catelin: home. You can find our agency at antidote underscore seven one on social. And if you have a question you'd like to send our way, you can head to ctapodcast. live to send us an email, or if you prefer a phone, you can leave us a voice message at 402 718 9971.
Catelin: And your question will almost definitely. Make it into a future episode.
Rich: Honestly, if you just give us feedback and leave anything on that line that's relevant to the podcast, we'll put it in an episode. Zach is dying to pull a podcast, like voice. Maybe
Catelin: I'll, maybe I'll call in.
Rich: You can have the opportunity
Catelin: to utilize like a voice.
Catelin: Changer. Use an accent. Give
Rich: your husband two rumrunners and then have him call in and tell us whether or not they need business tips. Two wouldn't be enough. You're right. I have, uh, been out with him. It would take, much like me, it would take a few more, but.
Catelin: That's correct.
Rich: All right. We'll see you next time.