How to run a healthy newsletter without overwhelm with Andrea Pearson

Have you ever felt like you should be sending a newsletter... but every time you sit down to write one, you overthink it? 

Maybe you're wondering: 

• How often should I email?  
• What should I even talk about?  
• Am I emailing too much?  
• Am I not emailing enough?  
• And am I accidentally breaking some newsletter law I don't know about?  

A lot of business owners make newsletters far more complicated than they need to be. I do as well! 

We have a special guest in todays episode, Andrea Pearson. 

In this conversation, we're talking about what it actually means to have a healthy newsletter, how often you should be emailing, what to send when you feel like you have nothing to say, and why consistency matters a whole lot more than perfection. 

If newsletters have been sitting on your "I know I should do this" list or you want to improve yours, this episode is for you. 

Connect with Andrea Pearson

Andrea Pearson is a USA Today bestselling author, marketing educator, and podcast host who has published more than 85 books and helped thousands of creators and business owners build trust and sustainable income through newsletters. Andrea is known for cutting through the noise with practical, action-oriented strategies that help people move from insight to execution without overwhelm. 

Facebook | Website 

Grab her free Killer Subject Lines: How to Grab Subscribers guide!

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Transcript

Why Newsletters Feel So Hard

Carrie Saunders 0:00

Have you ever felt like you should be sending a newsletter or you need to improve yours? But every time you sit down to write, you overthink it. Maybe you're wondering, how often should I email? What should I even talk about? Am I emailing too much? Am I not emailing enough? Am I accidentally breaking some newsletter law that I don't know about? A lot of business owners make newsletters far more complicated than they need to be. I know I have been there before, and we have a special guest today in our episode, Andrew Pearson. In this conversation, we're talking about what it actually means to have a healthy newsletter, how often you should be emailing, what to send when you feel like you have nothing to say, and why consistency matters a whole lot more than perfection. If newsletters have been sitting on your I know I should do this list, or you want to improve yours like I do, this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Show Welcome And What To Expect

Carrie Saunders 0:53

Welcome to the e commerce made easy podcast. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders. When we started this business, all I had was a couch, a laptop, and a nine-month-old. My main goal? To help others. Now, with over 20 years in the e-commerce building industry and even more than that in web development, I have seen a lot. I love breaking down the hard tech into easily understandable bits to help others be successful in their online business. Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce veteran or just starting out, you've come to the right place. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together.

Meet Andrea Pearson And Her Work

Carrie Saunders 1:25

Welcome back to the show. Today's guest is Andrea Pearson. She is a USA Today's best-selling author, marketing educator, and podcast host who's published more than 85 books and helped thousands of creators and business owners build trust and sustainable income through newsletters. And I love that Andrea is known for cutting through the noise with practical action-oriented strategies. So I can't wait to dig into that today to help people move from insight to education without overwhelm. And she's going to talk to us today about email and email newsletters and how we can make that fun and better for our business. So welcome to our show today, Andrea. Thank you. It's good to be here. So I'm so excited about this topic because I just know a lot of our people who listen need to be sure they're regularly emailing and need to be sure that they are being visible in their business. But before we get into that, can you tell us a little bit more about you? Anything that I didn't touch on that you'd love to mention?

From Publishing Contracts To Self Publishing

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Oh boy. Um, let's see. So yeah, I'm an author, like you mentioned. Uh, I started writing while I was in college. I was not one of those. I'm gonna be a writer when I grow older type people. I didn't didn't even occur to me until I was in college. And um I was offered a contract with the uh with the publishers of a very popular book called Twilight, in case you've ever heard of it. And um, I was a paralegal at the time. And when I read the contract, I was like, this is immoral. They want to own my characters forever? No. And, you know, they don't pay very much. And it was just just general publishing. And I wasn't familiar with how general publishing worked, and I was like, this, I don't love this. So I ultimately ended up um self-publishing. And um, in between all of that, I signed with a local small press publisher. And as I watched them market, I was like, okay, I don't think they really know how to market books. Like this, this, what they're doing does not make sense. And so I um when I self-published, I, you know, I ended up within six months making more money in six months than their authors made in one, or I made more in one month than their authors made in six months to a year. And uh a lot of their authors ended up following me, and their main acquisitions editor also followed me, and she is still my editor today, and it's been since 2010. And uh, she's absolutely awesome. Um, but I've discovered through all of this that writing, I love writing. I'm passionate about writing, but I'm equally passionate about marketing. And marketing is something that I've discovered. I thought it was just authors. I thought just authors were nervous about marketing. But as I've branched into other fields like coaching and stuff like that, I'm finding a lot of business owners are intimidated by marketing. And it's one of my favorite topics. I absolutely love marketing. And so I just I love helping people make things more manageable, more bite-sized, and recognize that if you don't market, your business most likely will struggle. Word of mouth is very hard to get come by. And uh, especially in today's day, you know, we need we need to understand paid marketing, we need to understand free marketing and all of these different things that are within our control as business owners. And and the more we understand, the easier it becomes. And so my goal is to help business owners understand uh how to market.

Why Marketing Skills Matter For Business

Carrie Saunders 4:30

That's that's a really cool story, and I love how you're marrying the two together because I think that's so important, the writing and the marketing together. Because some people are good writers but not good marketers, and some people are good marketers, but they're not, you know, the writing behind it isn't necessarily good, so they need to get like a copywriter to help them out. So I love how you have that combination there to help people. And I know that, you know, I'm I figure your answer is gonna be yes to this, but I love your fuller explanation as to, you know, do business owners actually need a newsletter? Because I know some of them really shy away from doing that regular piece of content in, you know, to their audience. So what would you like to say to do business owners need to have a newsletter?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Um, I will answer yes and then give a caveat to what you said earlier about writing and business and marketing. Um, writers don't do good at writing copy for their ads. And um, so I'm terrible at writing copy. I'm very bad at it. I'm good at marketing and terrible at copywriting, and I'm I'm a good author. And so I want your listeners to recognize that it's okay if they're bad at writing copy and they're really good at writing. Those are two separate skills. I don't want to give anybody any complexes where they're like, wait a second, why can't I get this? Because I've got over, like you said, over 85 books published and I still suck at writing copy. It is not a skill of mine. And so I'm I've worked on it. Anyway, so so yeah, um, newsletters.

Who Actually Needs A Newsletter

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Newsletters are really, really huge. Um, so it when I meet an uh like a business owner for the first time, I I'm usually trying to gauge their ability to market. So some business owners, they I I would say all business owners can benefit from a newsletter, but some business owners will never be able to manage a newsletter well enough to make it worth their time. Because a newsletter requires a certain amount of time each month. And um, if you can't do that time, then having a newsletter can be um more money than you would like to spend, perhaps. And also it's it's not worth the investment. So for example, uh you get a business owner who uh does not build their newsletter list, they're paying every single month to have a newsletter list, and they don't email except maybe once a year or whenever they think about it, their emails most likely won't arrive and their list won't be big enough for it to even matter. And so a lot of I'm I want to free business owners who know themselves well enough to know that they are not gonna maintain it and to recognize that if they do have one and they only email here and there, it's better to just not email at all. And so if you know that you're never going to be good at running a newsletter, you know you're not gonna hire somebody to help with it, then uh just free yourself from the guilt about not for not having one, because if you if that's not something you can manage, then it can actually just add to your stress and add to your expenses and it's not gonna add to your benefits. And so, but if you are, if you are willing to take it on and you're willing to hire somebody to help if you can't take it on, uh, then it is ma it's a huge, huge difference because like if you're marketing on social media, if you have a Facebook page, uh Facebook controls who sees your stuff. If you're marketing on Instagram or on Twitter, or if you're commenting on those things, those platforms they control who sees your stuff. But if you have a newsletter list and you're emailing at least once a month, then you control who sees your stuff because the more you email and the more the the um center reputation rules that you follow, the better your newsletter will do. And you own those emails. Like you are the one who you can control who sees your things and you can control better if if they hear about your promotions and things like that. And so, yes, every bet every business owner can benefit from a newsletter. No, not every single one of them should have one if they can't manage it on their own. Um, if you have the finances to hire somebody and you don't have the time to do it yourself, I would recommend doing it. If you have a little bit of time and the finances to own it, because it's about $20 a month, depending on what your newsletter size is, 15 to 20, then I would say do it. And it doesn't need to be super overwhelming. It can be super, it can be really simple. We can get into what makes a newsletter simple and what makes a healthy newsletter if if you want to. I think those are some of the questions that we have coming up anyway.

How Often To Email Without Annoying

Carrie Saunders 8:43

Yeah, and before we go into that, because I do think that's a really good area to go to, it kind of seemed like you implied once a month was maybe the minimum. Would that be true? Or or do you have a minimum you would recommend? And then maybe a maximum too. So I'd love to talk on both sides because some people are worried about emailing too little or too less.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Um, so maximum, no more than 10 times a day. Just kidding. Okay, minimum at least once a month. Oops, I just banged my desk. Uh, at least once a month, and there's reasons behind that. It's it all involves like uh behind the scenes newsletter providers and email providers. So like Gmail, Yahoo, all of those companies pay attention to companies that have newsletters. And if you're emailing less than once in a month, they put you more into the spam category or the do not read do not send category, do not, you know, so that they're the people who use their services, like the Gmail users, they're more less likely to get your emails if you're emailing less than once a month because your reputation is low. So once a month is the minimum I recommend. Um and uh the maximum, it depends on what kind of business you're you run. Uh, most people do not want to hear from business owners what every day. They don't want to hear from them three times a week. Uh and the maximum I usually recommend is about once a week. And that's about where I recommend people sit. Like if once a month is not doing well enough for your business, once a week will probably perform better. Personally, for my own businesses, once a week is where I find the most benefit. And um if I'm running a promotion and like I'll let my subscribers know ahead of time, hey, I've got a promotion coming up, you're gonna be hearing from me more often. And so during that, during a promotional phase, or if I'm launching a new product or a new book or something, um I will email every single day and sometimes twice a day. So at the start, like I'll usually have it go across a week. At the start, I'll email twice, you know, two times that first day, you know, in the morning and then again in the evening. Um, and sometimes I'll just email once a day, but on the last day, I almost always email twice, once in the morning and once in the evening. Again, depending on where my subscribers are located. Most everybody's going to be located in the States if you if your business is located in the States. And so twice a day on that last day, it's not a big deal. Most subscribers are willing to overlook that. Now, if you're running a promotion every single month, that's going to be a problem. I would say once a quarter or less often than that, um, unless you are publishing or launching a new product every single month. But even in then, I still wouldn't email every single day for that launch period. I would email probably twice that week. And so it depends on how often you're emailing, how often you're releasing, how often you're doing promotions, how often you're um, when I say emailing, I'm like if you're emailing once a month, then every single day is gonna be way too much for your subscribers. If you're emailing weekly, then every single day is not gonna be too much. But if you're emailing once a month and you have a promotion coming up, you're gonna only be able to get a buy with maybe two emails that week. And so how often you're emailing, how often you're running promotions, how often you're launching new products, um, all of that is gonna factor into how frequently you should email. And um, multiple times a day, don't do that. Multiple times a week, don't do that unless it's a specific set period of time. And then it's gonna be once a month or once a week, I would recommend. And some people can get by with once every other week, but I found a lot of business owners can't maintain that kind of a schedule. It's too difficult for them to um to maintain. And so once a month, and then you always know that first week of that month or the second week or whatever, that's when you email, or once a week you always email on Wednesday, or you always email on Thursday or something like that.

Carrie Saunders 12:08

That makes total sense. And um, I'm just just thinking while you're talking, especially the multiple times a day thing, you know, where where you recommend not doing that for most people unless they're in a promotion period and they're already doing weekly. Um, because I just ordered new bathing suits from a new company I'd never, you know, ordered from before. And I'm getting like two, three, four emails a day. And it's just like about to drive me absolutely insane. I love the bathing suits I got, but I just I'm about to filter all their emails into the trash folder. That way, if I do want a promotion, I can just go look in my trash and find it, um, you know, and not worry about seeing their emails. Otherwise, it's about to drive me absolutely batty.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Right, right. You should email them back and be like, yo. So marketing experts say right, no doubt.

Healthy Newsletter Rules And CAN SPAM

Carrie Saunders 12:55

And then I think that transitions now nicely into the health healthiness of a newsletter. So how do we do that?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Okay, so a healthy newsletter. Um, okay, emailing multiple times is gonna be unhealthy. Emailing infrequently also you want to be emailing at least, like I was saying, at least once a month. Um and um, okay, so healthiness of a newsletter. Like your subject line makes a difference if your subject line is unclear or if it's clickbaity or if it's um informational. So, like um uh let's see, uh Andrea Pearson's newsletter number 325. You know, stuff like that does not work, and that's gonna most likely end you in land you in spam. Um, and then the way you handle your actual newsletter itself. Um, so you have to allow, like in in Utah, there's something called the CAN Spam Act. And I'm not sure if you've heard of that before, but it does not, it's like a can spam. It sounds like you can spam people, but no, it's no, that's not. It's uh uh I can't remember what it exactly stands for. Um it's in the back of my brain. I'd probably pull it up later, but that's unimportant. The whole purpose of it is it sets out guidelines for how to operate a newsletter in the United States. It is, first off, this is the biggest misconception most people have. It is not illegal to add anybody you want to your newsletter list. There is no law in the states about adding anyone, any email, anywhere to your list, as long as they're located in the United States. If they're located outside the United States, you are governed by the laws in those countries because they're that subscriber is located in their country. So, for example, Europe has very strict laws. If you have a buyer in Europe, you cannot add them to your newsletter list unless you follow European laws because they will fine you. Now, in the States, um, you can add anybody. I don't recommend doing that. Okay. Like, like that is gonna land you in spam folders. So it might not be against the law, but people will still report you as spam. So don't add anybody to your newsletter list because it can damage the health of your newsletter. Um, other laws say, like, if you have like a subject line that's clickbait-y, you cannot mislead people. And sometimes I do recommend people using clickbait headlines because you know, subject lines they do get you open, but you have to have it fully addressed in the email. It cannot be misleading in the slightest. Um, and so the email needs to pertain to the subject line. That's actually the law. Um, you have to have an easy way for people to unsubscribe. You cannot try to hide an unsubscribe link. I actually recommend putting the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email above all of your footer material. Like you want it to be really easy to find so that people know they can leave as soon as they want to. If if it's in that little hidden unsubscribe link down at the bottom, which is where all newsletter providers put it, people sometimes will mark you as spam on their way out because it's hard for them to find that link. And so I usually recommend people putting an unsubscribe link very, very close to the top of the email, not in the body of the email, but directly below it, above any footer material material you might put in there. Okay, so it's uh illegal to hide your unsubscribe link. It's illegal to not allow people to unsubscribe. You also have to unsubscribe them within 10 days after they request. And now all newsletter, almost all newsletter providers will act will actually do that automatically for you. Um also, you have to have a physical legal address in your email. And it needs to be one that is associated with you or your business. It can't just be some random address that you put in somewhere. If you try to delete the physical address that's in the bottom of your email, your newsletter provider will put it back in and it'll probably be your home address if that's where your business is located. And so if you don't want people having your home address, I recommend getting a P.O. box. Um there's also companies that have warehouses that have little tiny, and I'm showing with my hands for those who are listening, little, little tiny boxes, and they will they will rent that box to you for like three to ten dollars a month. And it's super cheap and it's legal because it's a physical address in a physical location. Um and so help up your newsletter, don't over-email, don't under email. Make sure your emails are on topic. Make sure you don't send people to the wrong place. Like if you give them a link and it says that it's for a specific thing, it needs to go to that specific thing or at least forward to that specific thing. So you can use like bit.ly links, but it needs to actually take them to where it you say you're taking them. Um let's see what else. That's I mean, that's enough. I think that's enough, right?

Subject Lines And The Branding Trap

Carrie Saunders 17:17

Yeah, I think so. Well, and as you're talking, um, you know, we used to be back in the day, you know, used to having um, and and for those of you watching on YouTube, you may see one of our boy, our boycott here in a minute. He's getting on my desk right now. I love it. Which is why we're which is why we're giggling it, you know, even though I fed him a snack. Um so one thing that we were used to doing, because back in the day, this was kind of the normal thing to do, was putting like a prefix in front of your subject to help identify who you are, like or what to what it is. So, like we were used to putting like our initials B C S E insights in front of our newsletters, and that's not really recommended anymore. Is that correct? Because you kind of hinted to that already. But then how do you balance them knowing that, oh, this is an you know, an email newsletter from this business? I mean, obviously the from it will have your have your you know name and stuff, but I feel like I'm not sure how to quite balance like the old school way of doing it versus like, you know, we don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yeah, the old school way is a bad way to do it now. Um, yeah, that it it is actually it if it's not interesting. I mean, look at all the different things that catch people's attention today. So they're like gaming, there's social media, there's email, there's there's um all sorts of things online that that draw people's attention away from your newsletter. And so anything that is boring or factual will actually be it will not encourage people to open. And and that subject line is very precious real estate. On mobile phones, only up to like 25 characters to maybe 30 characters are visible. And so if you put anything in there that is informational, that is not, and when I say informational, I mean like like a a template that would be applied across the board. Anything in there that it that is not going to take advantage of that, those 25 characters, then it's basically a waste of space. Um and it's reducing the chance that people will open your emails. And so um, and so yeah, I don't recommend you do that. Um, you want your subject lines to be as you know much like what's the word? Power to the punch. I don't know. Like it needs to be as as strong as possible. And yes, the from is where you're gonna be all doing all of the branding. And if you're not emailing frequently enough, then the from is not gonna carry enough power. It needs to you need to be emailing frequently enough where people recognize who the from is. So they know the name of the company or they know the name of the individual. And so there's never any question about where that's coming from. And most people are savvy enough now to um to recognize like if you're emailing frequently, they're gonna know who it is if you're, you know, you use the same from all the time. I don't recommend jumping back and forth. And I usually recommend, depending on the structure of the company, if it's a sole per a sole person, you know, sole proprietor company, whatever, I usually say use your from name, like has it have it be your actual name. Um, if you're branding yourself, like a lot of coaches need to use their actual name, a lot of um, a lot of authors, a lot of um like shops, you know, it depends on if you're branding yourself or as a personality or if you're branding your company. So if it's a company where you're selling things, or if you have employees, and uh in that case, then I would say have the from be the business name, but not all the time should it be a business name. And so like um it just depends on how you're trying to structure yourself again. If you want people to remember you, like if you're a salon owner, you're not gonna put your salon name probably inside of the inside of the from thing. You can have it be part of it, but I rec if you're branding yourself, then it needs to be your own name.

What To Write When You Feel Stuck

Carrie Saunders 20:54

That makes sense. And then for I know some people might be thinking, well, what do I send in it? You know, there's a mix of advice I'll see out there where you kind of want to do maybe a little personal update and then some businessy stuff, or maybe sometimes you don't want to do that. Um, you know, how would you have any recommendations on what generally should people be emailing about and and how do we make this easy for them? Because I know some of us, especially those listening, you know, we're all overthinkers many times and are in our in different ways. So how do we how do we make that easy so that you know we're not frozen at a blank screen?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Okay, so this is one of my favorite topics because content is such a big deal and people way overthink it. Hello, kitty. Now we have a cattail. The cattail, that was awesome. Um yeah, people tend to overthink content. They they they do a lot, even in promotions. Like they're like, oh gosh, I've got to have the perfect words. I've got to have and yes, there's ways to strengthen, and I do recommend educating yourself, but if like if you're going to be um freaking out over the content it so much where it freezes you or where it makes you Do bad content because you're so stressed about it, then I'm gonna like simplify. Um, and so when people like okay, my general rule is it needs to relate back to the business. You don't want to send something that's random, like a personal update that has nothing to do with a business. It needs to always relate back. And your listeners are business owners, aren't they? Yeah, yes. Okay, just like wait a second. Yeah, it needs to update to you, it needs to be about your business. And so, but a lot of things will actually affect your business. So my son broke his leg four weeks ago. And I mean, that affects my business. Like, I'm not able to write books as well when I'm up all night with a kid who's seven and who's in so much pain he can't sleep, you know, and he needs mommy, and I'm holding his hand all night long. And if I let go, he cries, you know? And so thank goodness we're past that part. But um, like sleep is precious. Anyway, things like that I tell my readers about, my subscribers, because it affects my business. And so um, what I usually say is like, okay, what are you doing right now? What's on your brain right now? What is something that you've been thinking about? What is something that you're learning right now? How does and how do all of those things affect your business? Your emails can be as little as one or two sentences long and as long as three, four, five, six paragraphs. And so, and I always recommend that people vary things because if you always do the same format every single time, people they they come to think, oh, it's just the same thing. And so I'm like, have it be one or two sentences long, you know? Like, hey, I've got a promotion going on. Here's the link to it, and that's it. Or, hey, um, you know, this week's been pretty crappy. How's your week been? And that's it. You know, that's one or two sentences long. Um, or I've had a really great week. I'd love to tell you more. How's your week been going? And then if I mean, that's not a good idea. Don't, don't, don't tell people you're gonna be telling them more in an individual email. That adds to your stress significantly, unless you just copy and paste. But even then, I would not recommend it. Um, but basically, it can be about anything as long as it relates to the business. It can be on any topic. Um, one one thing, again, going back to the health of the newsletter. If you're emailing once a month, you're not gonna be asking your subscribers to purchase every single month. It needs to be of every four to five emails, is when you're gonna be asking people to buy. And so you're gonna time your promotions accordingly, and that's gonna affect your content. So you're gonna need something in those four to five emails in between sales emails that is not asking them to buy something. Because if you're always asking them to buy, then you look a lot more like Target, a nameless entity, a faceless entity that people don't care about and they don't open the emails from. And so if your emails are a little bit more personal, you don't want them to be too personal, but a little bit more personal, just draw back the current a little bit, make them know that it's coming from a real person, unless you're a business, but even so, you want it to feel like it's coming from a real person. Um, every four to five emails, you can ask them to buy. If you're emailing weekly, that means you can ask them almost every single month to buy something. If you're emailing only monthly, then you're gonna only be able to ask them to buy quarterly and sometimes even less than that. Um, and so content um, short and simple is fine. Um, have it match your personality. You don't want to be wordy if you're not a wordy person in general. Um, you don't want it to be um super abrupt if you're not an abrupt person in general. You want it to match who you are. So don't try to do AI. I mean, AI is fine for a lot of things, but um, a lot of emails sound the same because AI has that same AI-esque voice. And so if your emails start, and I've noticed this with people I subscribe to that when they started using AI to write their emails, it lost their personality. And the reason I love reading those emails because it no longer sounds like them. It's very crisp and professional and sometimes beautiful writing, but it no longer sounds like that person. And so I you can use AI to help, but I it needs to still sound like you. And it's hard for people who are not writers naturally to know what their voice is. And so um, using something to help you write it is fine as long as you go back and you put yourself into it and you make it sound like you're not just every single other person out there who's using AI. Um, okay, I think that's pretty good, right? That's enough, right? I don't know why like I I I overshare generally, and then I'm like, wait, did I just overwhelm everybody listening? Or was that not enough?

Soft Sells PS Lines And Smart Footers

Carrie Saunders 26:19

No, I think I think that was just right, and I think it makes a lot of sense. Um, one thing that did come to my mind, one question as you were talking, is is the I love the rule of selling every four to five emails because I hadn't really heard of that before, but I really like I like how that feels as a recipient of email of newsletters, right? But then I feel like one question I have in my head is well, what about the PS? Can you do soft sales in that and the in-between emails?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Um, I okay, so the PS is generally the most read part of an email after the opening. And I don't, I would not recommend because that's gonna be the part they'll notice more than the main part of the email. And so if you're doing a soft sale every PS, they're gonna stop reading the PS, which is actually really bad because you want them to be reading that PS. And so I almost never put a PS in my email unless I'm in a promotion, because then I know they will catch the PS more than they will the main of it, the main part of the email. Um, and sometimes I'll use a PS just to be just to regurgitate what's in the email. So for example, um, one of my favorite things to do is to pull my subscribers. And I love and people love talking about themselves, and I love getting that information because the better I know my subscribers, the more I know how to tailor the content of my email to, both the selling email and the non-selling email. And so like I'll put a poll in there leading to like a Google form, and then I'll remind them in the PS, you know, I'll give them my updates, I'll tell them what's going on, and then I'm like, hey, go fill out this this poll. I'd love to know what's going on in your life. Um, and then in the PS, I'll like don't forget to, you know, um to go ahead and do this, uh, to do the poll or whatever. But like um soft sells are still selling and in the PS, like that's gonna feel like people are getting stabbed with a pencil if it's constantly happening. So I I don't recommend that generally.

Carrie Saunders 28:04

I I appreciate that answer because it's something I tend to do, and I feel like probably a lot of listeners tend to do that too, is you know, you may not be hard selling in the email, but maybe you might want to make sure they still realize you have an offer out there that's going on right now. So I love I love how you said that, and because it makes a lot of sense because we we we might we're gonna get numb to it then. I mean it's it's just as simple as that. And I love how you like to summarize what the action you want them to take in the PS. Because one of the things I've been working on the past, say six months, probably yes, it's about December, and this is we're recording this in June, is I've been trying to get my subscribers to reply more. And I've used um an email marketer's template that I've actually had her on our podcast too. Um, and I'm using her templates to help me have ideas on what to email. And since I've been doing that, I've been getting a lot more replies. But I feel like with the tweaks you just told me, that's gonna help me uh focus and get more replies even more because I'm not having that tendency to do a P the same PS. We tend to do the same PS. So it's just some habit we get got into. And now I know, now I know I gotta tell, you know, my assistant who helps me with my newsletters to, you know, let's let's switch this up and that this is not what we want to do anymore. Um, and I think it's a habit a lot of people can fall into because you you just might not know what to put there.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Right. And getting people to respond is hugely valuable to the health of a newsletter. A newsletter provider or an email provider, if they know that people are responding and they like Gmail has a lot of most of your email addresses are gonna be on Gmail. And if a lot of your people are responding, then Gmail is going to respect your newsletter more. Um, and then I did have a thought. So this is one of the things that I re I've done before. I do sometimes recommend this to my clients. So um, if you have templates inside of your actual newsletter provider program and you've got it set up, then you've got the body of your email, you've got an unsubscribed section, and then below that is a great spot for a soft sell. And you can have it be the same soft sell all the time, um, or you can have it rotate. And I do recommend rotating because people do start ignoring things, but then that's not gonna feel so like in your in the person's face. And if it's the same one all the time and it's something that they're gonna take advantage of, like, hey, your next order, apply this discount, you know, then they're gonna go there and they're gonna find it. Um, and then, or if it's like a rotating thing, like once a quarter you switch it up, then something like that I think would work really, really well. But also then that gives you the opportunity to have a soft sell. It's not in the body of the email, so it doesn't feel as much of a needy grab as you know, putting it in the body or in the PS would feel, but like in in it, like a template, and it's gonna be in a uh template that you use every single time. You always got the body, you've always got your unsubscribe section, you've always got these footers, and you can put as many footer footers as you want in. Um, just recognize that your returns will diminish. You know, the most the first link is the one that most people will use. The second link, it's like 50% to 25 to 50% of people will use do the second ask, um, sometimes even only 10%. And so the first ask is gonna be the most important one, and it's gonna be the one that you want people to do the most. And then after that, like you get down to like the third ask, almost nobody's gonna do that. The fourth ask, almost nobody's gonna do that. And so recognize that if you do follow like that block system I'm recommending, put your most important one towards the top of that template, and then you get diminishing returns, like I said, on the following ones.

Carrie Saunders 31:33

I really like that idea. Right now we have um, just for those listeners who aren't subscribed, no, we do have tend to have blocks on the bottom. And I love your input on this too, because for those who like regularly blog or regularly do YouTube, in my newsletter system, it my ESP, it's really easy to put a block that auto-pulls like my last one or two blog posts. Um and so now I'm kind of thinking that you know maybe that's not the best thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

No, that works. No, that works really good because no, because then read let your subscribers know what to expect. Um, and so and that, and that's not necessarily like that's an ask. You're asking them to go and finish reading on your blog post, I'm assuming.

Carrie Saunders 32:13

Does it it does it do that?

SPEAKER_00 32:15

It gives them like a teaser or polls like that.

Carrie Saunders 32:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

So no, that's good. That that can work really, really well because again, it's not intrusive and it's and it's something that they can they can predict. Um, and then um you could mix things up a little bit where you vary where it goes in there, but that that no, that that can work very well. And the same thing with like a Facebook post, you know, but I think blogs, I don't think Facebook allows you to pull and and like the way a blog would, you know, where it you can pull into your email. But yeah, no, I that that would work well, I think.

How To Restart A Cold Email List

unknown 32:46

Okay.

Carrie Saunders 32:46

All right. Okay, so for those that are listening and that let's say they're they're in that situation where they have a newsletter list, but they haven't emailed it in like maybe six months or so, and they're not really good at emailing regularly, but they want to become that person that emails at least once a month. Because like when I'm talking about blog posts on here and having long form content on our podcast, I recommend that same minimum of like once a month. So, how would you recommend somebody who wants to get kicked back up and started again in you know, sending newsletters? And there goes the cat again. He's very needy today. So if you're listening on our podcast, go over to our YouTube channel. You're gonna see Mac a lot today. Okay, back to focus in my question. So if somebody wants to get started back again, what are the best first steps? Because I I know in my mind that you know we need to warm that newsletter back up again if it's been stagnant. So, what would those best next steps be for those listening and they're like, okay, I'm going to do this, Andrew and Carrie. I'm going to make newsletters a priority. What should they do next?

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Okay, so it depends on how old the newsletter is. Now, if it's six months to a year old, maybe even a year and a half, maybe, maybe even two years, I would recommend sending a reintroductory email where you say, Hey, it's been a while. My name is such and such. This is my business, this is what I do for my business. Um, I I haven't been using my newsletter list very often, and I apologize for that. I want to be providing value to you. And so over the next little while, I'm going to start emailing more frequently. And these are the things that I'm going to be talking about. And basically, you want to show the value you're going to be providing. Your newsletter's purpose should be to provide value in every single email, whether that's education, whether that's entertainment, whether that's um, you know, I mean, it there's a whole you go Google any type of value. What kind of value can your newsletter provide for your business? And so you're going to reintroduce yourself, you're going to apologize for not emailing more frequently, and you're going to say, I'm going to be providing value through over my in my emails, and this is what I want to be telling you about. And um, and then you want to put in some disclaimers, not like heavy disclaimers, but something like, Don't worry, I'm not going to be selling. I'm not going to be emailing every single day. This is the schedule I'm going to be following. And then commit to follow that schedule because if you do this and then you don't follow that schedule, you're going to be breaking their trust in you. And so it would be better to not email than it is to email once and promise a schedule that you're not going to keep to. And then recognize that most people are not going to be getting that email because you haven't emailed in a while. And so every single email for the next few months, depending on how frequently your schedule is going to be, I would recommend having in the footer a section where you re-you you copy and paste a shorter version of that email and just have it be part of your template where you say, hey, uh getting this email for the first time, um, sorry, I and I'm trying to, you know, just basically a summed up version of that first email inside of the footer so that for people who are just catching in, and because again, it takes time to build up that reputation, it takes time to build up that respect again. You want to be able to allow people who did not get that first email, maybe didn't get the first three or four from you, but they can still see who you are and why you're emailing again and why they should stay subscribed. Um recognize you're not gonna have a lot of results, and that's okay. Uh, it takes a little while to wake up a newsletter list again. And if it's been longer, and depending on the size of your email, you might need to re-you might your it depends on your newsletter provider too. Uh, some newsletter providers are going to request that you create a new list and send an email to the old list and invite them to resubscribe themselves. And depending on how old the list is, you're going to want to do that because having re a lot of spam, like if they mark you as spam because it's been so long that they've heard from you, or if there's a lot of people who've passed away or their email addresses are are no longer used, or um they mark you or they trash you, they delete your email as soon as it comes in, all of these things are going to damage your reputation. And you're going to want to start fresh anyway by asking them to resubscribe. Um, and so um you can email them individually away from your newsletter depending on how old that newsletter is. If you move to a new newsletter provider, do not resubscribe them automatically if it's an old list. If it's a year or older, you're gonna want to invite them to resubscribe themselves into the new newsletter program or newsletter provider. Because all newsletter providers, they pay attention to how many spam, spam um things there are. They also know when you upload a new email list or a new to them email list, they also know right away how many of those emails are bad because they've got access to those emails through their other, you know, other companies that use their provider program. And so if you're uploading a list that's a year or two, three years old to a new provider, they're gonna be like, they'll they'll flag your account immediately because they're gonna see the bad emails that are in there. So to sum up, um, if it hasn't been too long, reintroduce yourself and then set up a schedule, follow that schedule and reintroduce yourself in the footer of every single email for I would say up to eight emails, maybe even 10. And then if it's um been longer than that, you can, if you're staying with the same provider, um, you can ask them to re-uh subscribe depending on how long it's been. And or if you're starting with a new subscriber, email them off that new subscribe, sorry, starting with the new um newsletter provider, email them separate from the new newsletter provider, and invite them to resubscribe to your new list on the new newsletter provider. New, new, new. I'm using a lot of new.

Carrie Saunders 38:27

No, that makes a lot of sense. And and I feel like, you know, we want to encourage people to to do that. You know, emails and the newsletters, you know, granted your copy audit that they're gonna stick with it. Um, and I think that gives them some good action steps on how to get that kickback up again. Because, like you said, you know, you have a captive audience with newsletters. It's a really good idea for every business to do it if you can commit to doing it. And once you get, I feel like in the routine of it, it's really not too big of a deal, too, too much of a time suck, especially once you get into that habit and get into the the motions of it. And especially if you're already creating um some sort of weekly content already, whether that's a blog post, a YouTube, a podcast, or something like that, you know, you can use that as your, you know, source of what you're going to talk about in your newsletter and kind of summarize and and then link to those things. So that can make your content be a lot easier if you have that consistent piece of content to reiterate in your newsletter, because not everybody's gonna go see that naturally. But if they're on your newsletter, they're gonna get an email from you and and know about it.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Right. And a little bit of another caveat, if you are re- um if you're bringing your subs your newsletter list back to life after a break because you want to run a promotion, do not invite them to buy for at least five, six emails because they're I mean, yeah, that's taking advantage of the relationship. That's gonna seriously break trust. So you're gonna, if you want to use your newsletter list that you haven't used for a while and you want it to be because you're gonna be running a big promotion, you're gonna want to plan in advance so that you're emailing them regularly before you ask them to spend money because they're gonna be like, What the heck? Why I don't even know who this person is. I don't remember subscribing. Why are they asking me to spend money?

Trust Building Before You Sell Again

Carrie Saunders 40:18

That's a really good point I hadn't thought of. I'm glad you you know thought to bring that up to our listeners because it's just something we can just jump the gun on sometimes and and do too quickly. And we need to become their friend in essence, right? Become familiar again before we you know try to sell because we we tend to, you know, buy from people we like, know and trust, not some stranger that's emailing us and hasn't emailed us in every year and we don't know who they are, remember where we found them.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

And um, another thing going off of asking people to buy, um people are swamped day every single day with ads and advertising, and it can take up to 20 times now for somebody to buy the after like 20 mentions, 20, 20 touches is what they usually call it in marketing. It used to be seven. That was the golden rule. Like they have to hear from you seven times. Now it's up to 20, and sometimes even more, depending on how big the thing is you're selling. So do not be discouraged if it takes a while for your newsletter to start giving you benefits and results. It can take up to 20 emails before somebody will buy from you. Um, and but you're setting the purpose of a newsletter is not like a sprint, it's a marathon. You're setting up your business for success in a year, two years from now, three years from now. So basically, how long do you want to stay in business? And your newsletter is gonna stay with you through that whole time. If your goal is to be a business only owner only for a year, your newsletter is not gonna benefit you. So if you're doing this as a way to get money quick, you know, which, you know, sometimes you can run a huge promotion and make something homemade and sell it and make a lot of money, but a newsletter is not gonna benefit you in that case. So this is a long game plan.

Carrie Saunders 41:49

I think that's a really good point. And a lot of people might not be thinking of it that way. They think, oh, I'm gonna start emailing and we'll get results right away. But it's kind of like, you know, blogging or SEO. It it takes a while for that momentum and that good snowball effect to happen, where where the little snowball gets bigger and bigger and bigger the more you do the thing and the you know, the more experience you get at it, you know, emailing and newslettering uh sounds very similar there.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, yep, pretty much.

Simplify Your Process And Batch Emails

Carrie Saunders 42:16

And then before we wrap up today and you know, offer your um free BF choice, is there any other newsletter tips you want to mention before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Um let's see. Um don't stress over it. Like there's a lot of I've given you a lot of information here. The only thing you need to worry about is emailing once a month. That's literally the only thing. You can learn subject lines as you go, you can learn content as you go. Just make sure you're not being dishonest. I mean, that's kind of a given, and email once a month. And then everything else you can figure out as you go. And if you are starting up from scratch again, don't don't psych out, you know, just email once a month and then tell them you're gonna be emailing once a month. And just uh one thing that I can, I do recommend with people who are super busy and tend to be more like me, where I binge projects and I don't want to have to think about it again for a while. Set down, sit down for like three days, two days, and schedule your emails for the whole month in one sitting and then set a reminder about a month before they're done going through and make sure, of course, that they're you know, they're evergreen, you know, they're not time sensitive. And then do it again for the next year. And then you don't need to worry about it again. You know, it's just just set it and forget it, you know.

Carrie Saunders 43:24

Yeah, I love that. And and I feel like giving them permission for that as well as permission to have fun while you're doing this. I mean, we shouldn't make this be a you know, doldrum type of task. We want this to be fun. This is our way to connect with our audience, to have a bit more of a personal relationship, even though we're sending to a group of people, you know, we can still make it very personal and just have fun with it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah, exactly.

Killer Subject Lines Freebie And Wrap

Carrie Saunders 43:49

And then and then you touched on the subject lines. And this is something I feel like a lot of people are always curious of. And it looks like you have a really nice freebie about a subject lines. Can you tell us about your killer subject lines freebie you have?

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah, it's um I mean it's basically about killer subject lines. Um it I I took um subject lines that have worked for me. I took a whole bunch of different studies that show um what kind of subject lines work, what kinds don't. And um, I've put it all inside of one book and it's called killer subject lines, basically.

Carrie Saunders 44:21

Great. We will have that linked in our show notes so that you don't have to remember the the URL here. So just make sure to go to either the description on this podcast episode or a show notes at smarteronlinebusiness.com, and you can just search for Andrea Pearson and find the show notes there if you're not listening to it right when it releases. So, Andrea, thank you so much for this conversation today. I know I'm going to walk away with this and make some changes to our newsletter, probably starting next week, because I already sent the one for today. Um, and I think they were just really great tips, and I think it's gonna give some people some nice action steps to get back on the bandwagon if they're not on it right now, or like me, where I feel like I need to tweak it and improve mine more so that people can get more enjoyment and more um value out of my newsletters.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me on. I love talking about newsletters. It's like marketing, it's all my it just makes me happy. I love it all.

Carrie Saunders 45:18

Thank you again, Andrea. Wasn't that a great conversation with Andrea? I know I enjoyed it so much and I learned so much from her. One of my biggest takeaways is that newsletters don't have to be complicated to be effective. In fact, some of the advice Andrea shared with us was to remind her that your emails can be simple. They don't have to be perfectly crafted masterpieces every week, and they don't have to be very long. And they definitely don't have to feel overwhelming. I loved her perspective on treating a newsletter as a relationship building tool, not just a sales tool. Because if every email is asking a person to buy something, eventually people stop listening and stop reading. I think that's where a lot of us get stuck. We put so much pressure on ourselves to create the perfect newsletter, and we end up not sending one at all or just really stalling and taking a lot of time to do it. So if you've been overthinking your email marketing, I hope that this episode helped you. And as always, please read and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or favorite podcast app. And we will see you next week.