BizMagic Podcast

Direct-to-Inbox is the New Direct-to-Consumer in 2025 with Blaire Brown

• Patti Meyer • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Let’s be real—I used to ignore my email list like it was an old Tamagotchi I forgot to feed. But once I realized how much actual power it has to reach people directly (no algorithm middleman)? Total game-changer.

In this episode, I sat down with the brilliant and badass Blaire Brown of Visionary Advantages to talk all things email marketing—specifically why “Direct to Inbox” is where it’s at in 2025. 

We get into:

  • Why relying solely on social media is basically gambling with your visibility
  • How email marketing cuts through the noise and builds real relationships
  • What a welcome/nurture sequence actually is—and why you need one like... yesterday
  • The magic of conversational, authentic email content (a.k.a. not sounding like a marketing robot)
  • Tips to revive your stale email list without sending a “Hey stranger…” (cringe)
  • How unsubscribes are not a personal attack—they’re actually good for business
  • Blaire’s fave email platform (spoiler: FloDesk lovers, unite!)

Plus, we nerd out a little on strategy, share our email list screw-ups (because who hasn’t ghosted their list once or twice?), and wrap up with Blaire’s current tech stack.

Links & Resources:

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Learn more about BizMagic or the BizMagic Podcast.

Patti: Welcome back to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast, your place for all things tech in your online business with solid. So General Biz Chat two. My name is Patty Meyer and I am the CEO and founder of Biz Magic, where my team and I support entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed by the backend tech of their business.

Patti: We create, implement, and teach the tweaks that help our clients make a bigger impact with less stress. Today we are gonna talk a little bit about something that most of us tend to either love or not so much love in business, and that is marketing specifically email marketing. By now, it's pretty standard that businesses duke it out on social media.

Patti: They fight the algorithms, they're chasing engagement. They're praying that their posts don't get buried in the abyss of all the other business social posts and reels and stories and all of that good stuff. But if you don't yet know, there's a better way to get people's attentions a way to reach your audience directly without a middleman, without worrying about algorithms.

Patti: It is just you directly to your people, right in their inbox. So that's why in this episode we're gonna talk about why Direct to Inbox is the new direct to consumer in 2025, and I've got the perfect person to talk all about it. Blair Brown of Visionary Advantages is here to share why email marketing is the best strategy for cutting through all of the noise that you experience when you're on social media.

Patti: If you've been relying too much on social media to grow your business, or if your email list is kind of hanging out, collecting dust, this is the right episode for you, more than just a premium boutique marketing agency. Visionary Advantages specializes in transforming good ideas into jaw dropping head turning.

Patti: Brands that demand attention, they combine innovative strategy with. Premium designed to craft cohesive brand identities that don't just look pretty. They work hard for your business, whether they're creating standout logos, scroll stopping social media content or sleek modern websites. Their mission is to turn your vision into an unforgettable reality.

Patti: Their roots in the fashion industry mean they've got an eye for high end design and the expertise to bring your brand to life with polish and sophistication. But don't let that fool you. They keep things fun, approachable, and tailored to your needs every step of the way. They're not just marketers, they're collaborators, storytellers, and problem solvers who believe every brand has a unique story to tell.

Patti: Whether you're launching, rebranding, or leveling up, visionary advantages is your partner. In building a bold, beautiful, and memorable brand. With that, let's dive in. All right. Hi Blair. Thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to chat today. Yeah, yeah, me too. So I wanna, since I already kind of read your bio and everything, I would love to just sort of start with you sort of introducing yourself, a little bit about yourself and your agency, just in your own words.

Blaire: Sure. Absolutely. So I am an entrepreneur through and through. This is my third business. Um, I think once you get started as a business owner, you can't really stop, even if you have little. Twist and turns along the way. But, um, I own visionary advantages and what we do is because I'm obsessed with entrepreneurship, we are obsessed with entrepreneurs and helping their businesses thrive.

Blaire: So we operate as a one-stop shop marketing and branding agency. So if you don't have an in-house marketing team, we can swoop in with our superhero capes and save the day with wherever you need your help the most. Whether that's logo, design, full website. Ongoing social media and of course email marketing.

Blaire: So that's us in a nutshell.

Patti: Yeah, I love that. Um, and tell me a little bit about how, uh, you got started doing this. How did, how did your business come about and how did you get into marketing? I.

Blaire: Sure. So, like I said, I've, I've always really been an, uh, an entrepreneur. I started my first business a hundred years ago, whenever I was 16.

Blaire: Um, went to my parents and I was like, Hey, well first I started making handbags for myself. 'cause everybody at school was carrying Louis Vuitton, Julian and Burke you at the time. All these brands that I was like, um, I can't afford that. I'm 16. Right? Um, so I wanted to make my own, made them. People really started complimenting them strangers.

Blaire: At Starbucks? 'cause where else do you go at that age? Um, teachers, friends and I, I went to my parents. I said, you know, I think this could be a thing. Can I borrow 300 bucks? Go to Joanne's fabric store and start a purse business? And they're like, yeah. So I did that and it really took off and I ended up running that company for eight years.

Blaire: And so what? Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you. It was, I loved it and I thought, you know what? For the rest of my life I'm going to be having a brick and mortar handbag shop, and that's gonna be it. So, you know. That did not happen. How? Uh, I, after the eight year mark, I was like, well, I really didn't know how to scale it at that time with manufacturing, and I'm not like a multimillionaire over here.

Blaire: So I pivoted. I, I went into the corporate world because that's what they tell you you should wanna do. Um, I worked in marketing, branding, pr, and fashion journalism for a bunch of big fashion brands in New York City, and I loved it, but something was off. Mm-hmm. The whole time I was like, why is this?

Blaire: Picture, perfect job on paper, not doing it for me, and I didn't know what it was. I loved the fashion industry and I loved the work I was doing, but something was just off. Yeah. And so I started another company whenever I was there, so I was juggling corporate with IT and Amazon Business, and I sold unicorn party supplies.

Blaire: And after two years I realized, you know what? If I have this much joy selling unicorn party supplies, I'm not weirdly into unicorns. It's just having my own business. Yeah. And so really that's when I dove full on into marketing, and that's because I had the skillset marketing my first business. I had to market the second one, and I have my corporate background in it, and I just really love the creativity it brings to the table.

Blaire: Being able to have that eye to, even though now I don't only exclusively work with fashion brands, um, but I had the eye for editing, for marketing and branding that you need to have for this industry. Yeah. Um, so after meeting several different founders and business leaders that were crushing it and what they're doing.

Blaire: But they're missing the mark in marketing, branding. They just don't have that support. And then they'd get really stressed 'cause they're like, well I know I need to do all this marketing. I need to rebrand. I've DIYed it up to this point. And we all have to do that. Yeah. Um. But now I look at what my website represents of me or my logo or whatever.

Blaire: They've DIYed and they go and it's embarrassing. That's not what we're doing.

Patti: Yeah, totally. Yeah. So they're

Blaire: losing trust with clients and then they, where the overwhelm comes is they don't have the in-house team. And then they say, but I'm told I need a web agency. I need an SEO agency. I need a social media agency.

Blaire: How can I possibly afford all those different agencies? If we're just trying to get like one of these things done at the time, like we need all the things.

Patti: Right, right. Yeah. So

Blaire: I realized that like when I was in this transitional period and I was like, you know, why, why isn't there a place that they can go to and they can get these custom solutions really like where they can get a full rebrand, they can get a website and they can get the SEO incorporated in it.

Blaire: Mm-hmm. And we compare things strategically, uh, so that way they're getting more bang for their buck as far as like. SEO and social media, why don't we combine the two? So that's really what I had. The light bulb moment, um, was just, okay, they really don't have this resource. How can we help? And so I have a team of specialists that can help them in each area.

Blaire: And it's not like one person who has to be a specialist in area and each area, because that would be. You know, prodigy, that's not realistic, right? It's not like, you know, so I have the experts in each area. So in a, in a nutshell, we basically, um, able to solve that problem and be there to champion and cheer on all the entrepreneurs that are in that position.

Blaire: Yeah.

Patti: Yeah. And so today what we're really focusing on within that is looking at. Um, for marketing specifically focusing on direct to inbox marketing, which is email marketing. So, um, it's not a phrase that a lot of people have heard direct to inbox that's not, you know, or, well, everybody's different right?

Patti: Or where they're at. So I would love for you to kind of break down what that actually means and. Why you are championing, championing for that method of marketing as sort of the go-to over social media and other forms?

Blaire: Sure. That's a great question. So I think oftentimes when I. Business owners are looking at their marketing strategy as a whole.

Blaire: They immediately just think, okay, social media, um, because it's flashy, it sounds sexy. Right? It's in front of everybody. Yeah. And it is important. I am not knocking at all. Social media is something that we offer too, and I find it very important, but I think what's overlooked is the direct to inbox kind of positioning is.

Blaire: You know, you have this email list of your current list of clients or people that are interested in what you're doing. Mm-hmm. Or maybe you don't have an email list. Get one, please. It's one takeaway immediately, please just get started. Like even if it's five people on that list, getting started is gonna pay off a lot in the long run.

Blaire: Yeah. So the reason why is it's so important is because. It's your direct path to being in front of your client's eyes. With social media, you're gonna be dealing with algorithms every single day, right. We can't, we can't predict what Instagram is gonna put in front of your, your followers. Right? Right. It might put your post in front of them that day that you posted.

Blaire: It could be. Two weeks. Mm-hmm. You don't know how often they're scrolling through their feed. Um, and again, you're just really at the, the mercy of the algorithm

Patti: and, and it changes all the time. The algorithm changes all the time. Yeah.

Blaire: I mean, if you follow people that only talk about social media strategies, it's like, I mean, which one do you follow?

Blaire: Because Right. I don't know what Mark Zuckerberg's planning on tomorrow. Like, I didn't have lunch with him today. Like, I dunno. So

Patti: even if you did, it would probably be different tomorrow anyway.

Blaire: Right? Right. So there's always something, there's a lot of tinkering. And so I feel like, you know, if you are planning your social media strategy, um, at least focus on being authentic to you and your brand at that, whatever you're posting.

Blaire: And don't be stressing about the algorithm because frankly you can't predict it, so, right. Yeah. With the email list, you can predict that it's going to end up in their inbox because you have their email address. They opted in to be on your list. 'cause they had to click subscribe and submit their information at some point, even if it was to get a coupon code or something, right, they still have to fill something out.

Blaire: So that direct access is really critical and it's like almost a cheat code. Right. For getting in front of people.

Patti: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's a warmer audience because they've actively made a choice. It's, it's easier to just click follow, you know, you click something while you, your video shows up in your feed and you click, oh, that's interesting, and I'll follow them.

Patti: And then you kind of forget about them, right? Yeah. And then if they show up again, they show up again. But when we're talking about email. You know that they've had to take several steps to actually say, I am interested in this person or this content, or I want this thing from them and I'm opting into this, and they may opt out, which is another important thing of being okay with losing people because they're not your people.

Patti: But yeah, when, when you're sending an email. It gets to them, it's a guarantee. They may not open it, which is a different part of the game, right? Yeah. But they at least see your name and that makes a difference as well. And so that really, really helps.

Blaire: That's a really good point. Like the brand awareness, even if they mm-hmm.

Blaire: Don't click it open or they have, do it with one eye open whenever they wake up in the morning, you know, it's still in their brain and they might even save it for later. Mm-hmm. And you do have to be mentally prepared for them to opt out and just know, you know, hey, they opted out. That's fine. Yeah. That means your email list is stronger because it's people who do wanna hear from you.

Blaire: Mm-hmm. So really there's no harm in that.

Patti: I agree. I agree. And it improves your numbers, then it costs you less money Exactly. When people leave that aren't ever gonna buy from you. I mean, that's the reality is I had a coach once, um, when I would be really uncomfortable with selling to my email list. I'm like, I did all the things I was supposed to do and I had an email list, but I'd like, oh, but I'm just conversational and I don't wanna sell.

Patti: And she's like, literally on your list. Because you're gonna sell to them. Like that's what they're there for. And if they're not there, then go be friends with them somewhere else. But like this is, it's okay for your list to be focused on selling because that is literally what it's there for. So you don't want people on it who aren't going to ever buy from you.

Patti: You know, you can still be authentic without that happening.

Blaire: Yeah, and you can be conversational about selling something. Yeah. I mean, you know, to your point, they wanna hear from you and hear what's new. So if you have an exciting new service that you're wanna share with them, like let 'em know. They'll be like, oh, I didn't know that you offered this too.

Blaire: Like I was looking into it with this other person the other day. Then you happen to send an email and it's like, you know, the table's turned a little bit, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a good opportunity.

Patti: Yeah. So let's talk about, uh, email marketing strategy a little bit. What do you find tends to be a strong email strategy for, um, business owners?

Patti: I know that they, they differ. Based on the business and their goals and, and how they're showing up and what they're offering. But I would love to hear any advice that you have for people on having a strong email marketing strategy.

Blaire: Yeah, so I think honestly, if you were thinking about email strategies, which, uh, you should, if you're listening today, um, I would just start from the basics.

Blaire: Like, don't overwhelm yourself, but if you get started with just one really nice. Email funnel, you're gonna be really inspired to kind of build on it. You know, I think a welcome sequence is really a great starting point because if you don't know what a welcome sequence is, is it's essentially somebody subscribes to your, like on your website, email form, or whatever way that you were able to get them in, they subscribed.

Blaire: Boom. We wanna have a, Hey, we're so happy that you're on our list. Maybe not. Stay on our list. Word It better. We're off the cuff here, but like, Hey, welcome. Like, welcome to the Visionary Advantages Party. Yeah. Uh, we're super excited to have you here. And then what I would do is map out this is what to expect from our emails and it doesn't have to be long at all.

Blaire: Mm-hmm. Don't overthink it. I tend to do that sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, just get to the point like, Hey, we're gonna be talking about this, really can't wait to share more with you, um, soon. You know, and you can even say like, I'm, I send out emails once a month or every Tuesday. Like, you can be very transparent about that and that's not gonna hurt anybody.

Blaire: Yeah. So then you have just. A second email as a follow up, um, just kind of re diving in a little bit more. Maybe you tell them about your brand. Maybe you have like a freebie that you're giving them, um, some sort of lead magnet that maybe that's how you got their email to begin. Um, but just something, you know, casual, again, laying the foundation of what you're about as a brand, and that kind of gives them more of that awareness and understanding of who you are.

Blaire: And also it just, you know, connects them with what you are trying to do. Yeah. Um, but you can make it as comfortable as you want. Like you said, some people get scared of being salesy. Don't be salesy then. Yeah. Like, be yourself or what your brand voice is, and then just deliver that message. I would say a strong welcome series is about five emails.

Blaire: Yeah. Um, over time, you're not gonna do it five days in a row. Mm-hmm. Space it out, call it a day. And then the beauty of that. Write it so that it's evergreen, meaning it doesn't have like a seasonal or a year on it. Right. And then it can just run, be automated and it can run on its own. And it does the job.

Blaire: Yeah. Because if you get this set up, people know what to expect, and then later you can start doing other email funnels and campaigns that are like. That'll just save you time. Like you wanna get testimonials from clients who love you, create a testimonial campaign that just has. Follow up emails to see if they would mind writing a couple lines about how awesome you are, you know?

Patti: Yeah, absolutely.

Blaire: All these things will save you time and it'll make your business stronger.

Patti: Yeah, yeah. Having the opt-in welcome sequences are really, really great because it allows you to nurture, which is another name that's called right to Nurture sequence. It allows you to really support and nurture somebody new to your audience, um, by having.

Patti: Created something that welcomes them, walks 'em through what it's like to work with you and be a part of your world, and that sort of thing in a funnel for anybody who's listening that's not familiar with that is, um, essentially taking somebody in from a lead and kind of making them into, well, funneling them into where it makes sense for them to be within your world and offering them something eventually, if that makes sense.

Patti: And I agree with you. Sometimes you can, with an opt-in sequence, end up taking somebody. Um, to a point where you're offering them some sort of one-on-one work or a program or something. And sometimes it's literally just saying, Hey, I'm happy you're here, and then you're sharing a little bit more about you.

Patti: And then you're saying, you know, um, I love, I love, uh, getting feedback from people. So I love in those sorts of sequences to say, Hey, hit reply and let me know. Um, you know about this particular thing in your business or what you're struggling with or what your favorite thing is about, or whatever, just to invite that conversation so that.

Patti: As that nurturing is happening, you're opening the door for them to have a conversation with you as well. So it can become personalized within that, even though it's automated, which I think is a really good thing.

Blaire: Yeah. And one thing you just brought up about like, you know, maybe you ha offer like a, a one-on-one call or something, um, that reminded me, you could even do something as simple as like, hey, like.

Blaire: Did you know that I have a podcast? Mm-hmm. You know, and you can invite them to, I bet that you'd really like this episode. We talked about email marketing, you know, or whatever. And then we can link it and it's a free resource that's helpful for your audience. Maybe they signed up for something around the topic of emails, um, or, you know, ins, maybe you have a big presence on Instagram.

Blaire: Little invitations to places that also provide value and it's something they're interested in, can also be like a nice way to soften the intro introduction and make it feel more comfortable.

Patti: Yeah. Yeah. And I love something before, um, we hit record that we talked about briefly, or that you said was sort of making the point that, you know, when it comes to your email list, you own your email list, but when it comes to social media.

Patti: You don't own your followers. And so you sort of referenced what happened recently with TikTok where all of a sudden they were gonna disappear and they did for like five hours or whatever, and it ended up being, and then they came back so dramatic in that moment. Any, if that was the only place where you had built your sales funnels and your followings and your engagement, it was gone.

Patti: Yeah. And so that's a big difference when you're looking at social media, especially with it becoming. So bizarre and it changes so much and all these things. And Instagram just changed there, which I'm outraged about, but they just changed, um, on the grid, the size of the images. So if you've made a grid for, oh yeah, it's destroyed, it's like they changed the shape of the, it's no longer squares and like, so there's all these unpredictable things that happen within that.

Patti: You do have a sense of control and ownership over that email list and over the way that you're having a conversation with people the way that you are, um, bringing them into your world.

Blaire: Yeah, 100%. And think about, I mean, back to TikTok or, it's so scary to think like if you put all of your eggs in that TikTok basket Yeah.

Blaire: And it wipes out and that was your soul. Income. Like that's scary. I mean, yeah. Instagram, you know, to your point of them changing the shapes too, they have blackouts sometimes. Mm-hmm. And then it's just like, you know, a social media and business owner chaos. Mm-hmm. But your email is still there. Yeah. It's over there, you know, hanging out, sipping on a cocktail and it's like, you can still send stuff here, but people forget because it's, you know, not as in your face.

Blaire: Um, social media is to the public versus email can be tailored and be more personalized. Yeah.

Patti: So when you're looking at emailing your list, what should you be thinking about and looking at when it comes to, um, getting people to open their emails and or engage with them? Do you have any advice on writing?

Patti: Really solid subject lines. 'cause that's really challenging for a lot of people and knowing exactly what kind of content they're putting in there.

Blaire: Yeah, that is a challenge. I mean, it, it all depends. I mean, I work with all kinds of brands, so we really focus first and foremost on their goals. Like, what are they trying to get from this email?

Blaire: What are they selling or sharing? Um, what are we trying to do here? Um, so I would play around with different, like a couple different subject lines. If you're doing like a. I'm trying to think like a broadcast campaign where it's something that's not exactly evergreen, but let's say you're just gonna blast an update to your list that's mm-hmm.

Blaire: Current. Yeah. So capture their attention. I, what we'd like to do is we do sets of three and we'll test them out. So what we'll do is the first one will blast out. We'll see how it does, and then we have, um, tech behind that's connected. To see if somebody clicked on it or not. If they do. Cool. We note that they, they clicked, they took action.

Blaire: We kind of followed the stats, and then are immediately shut off from the rest of the campaign. So they're not gonna get emails two or three. So then if we go into the sec, they don't click on the first email. They click on the second one, we shut it off. They don't get the third and so on. Or maybe it goes all the way to the third one.

Blaire: They finally click on it or they don't. Right. We look at the data at that point, and then we kind of see, okay. What is this audience really clicking on? What are they interested in? What are they not? Yeah, and you're gonna be able, it's, you know, the first month you're not gonna hit a well. They might hit a home run, but at least it's the start of learning, and then you can start strengthening your list as far as you know.

Blaire: Okay. You might get some unsubscribes. Brace yourself, right? Right. You're gonna see emails bounced. Cool. Lean up, tighten it up. And then last, let's look at this data. Let's see what people are. If it's more conversational subject lines with the preview text, right? Um, if it is more like we're selling business cards like.

Blaire: Kind of thing, you know? Yeah. Um, or is it planning in advance for your business strategies? If it's B2B, um, you know, just, again, just looking at that language, what are people really connecting to? And what's cool is whenever you're doing email campaigns like this is you can really, uh, you can do a horizontal marketing campaign where you connect it, not just emails, but you're also blasting, um, similar content themes around social media.

Blaire: Mm-hmm. Um, and then you can also. Grab that and then, um, create a blog post around it. So if you tie those things in it, it really becomes effective for brands. Like you're gonna find somebody somewhere and then you're gonna see, okay, what's, which ones are they find to the most?

Patti: Absolutely

Blaire: question. Yeah,

Patti: yeah, definitely, definitely.

Patti: So you're, you're saying Yeah, play with different ideas. Play with, and Yeah, exactly. I find that my audience is very conversational. Um, they tend to connect more with me because that's how I, because I am. Right. Because I mean, that's, and that's, I think the. The important part of in social media in general, marketing in general, but when you're talking to your email list is sort of going back to what we were saying is like, yes, you can sell in your emails, but you can also at the same time still be yourself and still be authentic because that is your way of selling the.

Patti: Successfully to your audience because they're going to resonate mostly with you and who you are. Mm-hmm. And so being able to show up in that way in email is really important. So creating interesting, I mean, you know, with, with subject lines, obviously, like I've always heard, you know, you wanna have something that makes people like get their attention, you know, and mm-hmm.

Patti: Um, but you want it to be relatable. You want it to be something that they want to, um. Read and dive into And that piques their interest in some

Blaire: capacity. Exactly. And you know, just ask yourself why did they sign on to begin with? What attracted them in the first place? Yeah. Just really build on that. And then, you know, marketing is a lot of experimenting.

Blaire: That's why we call ourselves a brand lab, right? Yeah. Like you're playing around with different ideas, um, you're analyzing it together. And then, but again, you bring up a good point. You wanna be authentic to who you are though with how you deliver it. People love authenticity. I mean. Keep track of, of brand words, start creating patterns like that and that will really build out your brand as a whole too, even outside of emails.

Patti: Yeah, I love that. And so when we're looking at our email marketing, how, what do you recommend people look at when they're determining success in their email? And again, a lot of it has to do with goals, but are there certain, um, metrics that you suggest people look at in order to. Um, deem whether or not something is moving in a direction that they want it to move in.

Blaire: I think like, I don't have an exact step for you, but I would say look at the, what links Are they clicking within that email? Are they clicking on I. The checkout link that you have in there. Mm-hmm. Are they clicking on your website? Are they creeping on your social media handles that you might have at the very bottom?

Blaire: Mm-hmm. Um, just take a look at that and see what they're actually interested in and that'll give you a better picture of what they want. Yeah,

Patti: absolutely. Yeah. That's great. And I think also, um, open rates are really helpful. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because it's, it's good to see what, what emails are being opened, and I tend to track everything.

Patti: So I do, once a month, I'll write down the subject lines for each of my, um, emails. I'll write down the open rates, click rates on sub rates, all of that, because that's helpful for me to get an overview. Of all of my emails and like, okay, what, what was working with people? What wasn't working? So it's sort of like you're talking about earlier, about like testing different things, but being able to look at them, right, and find some place to look at some of those metrics side by side.

Patti: Um, so essentially open rates, click rates, things like that are really helpful to kind of be tracking. And then, um, like you said, paying attention to words a little bit, it sounded like, you know, inside, um, that you're using. And whether or not people are resonating with those, is that

Blaire: mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.

Blaire: Because like, are you more of a robotic, like very corporate brand, or are you more enthusiastic and you know, building them up? Like what is it more of a friend? Kind of email. Yeah, it just depends on what your brand is. You know, everybody. Different strokes for different folks, right?

Patti: Yeah. So what about, what about, um.

Patti: Businesses that have email lists that maybe they haven't been the greatest at maintaining. Um, and so they've gone a little stale. They're a little disengaged. Do you have any, um, advice on how you go about reengaging your, um, audience when they've gone a little stale or they haven't heard from you in a while?

Blaire: Yeah. Roll up your sleeves. And get back into the game, like brace yourself for some un unsubscribes because you haven't talked to 'em in a while. Mm-hmm. So you're gonna get a lot of bounces. 'cause people just, you know, they abandon their emails, they change jobs. If it's like a btb B2B type of outreach. Um, there's always different scenarios, right?

Blaire: Uh, so just brace yourself mentally for that. But also think, okay, if you were a friend that hasn't reached out in a while, how would you want your friend to reach out to you? You know, it's just kinda like a, Hey, how have you been like. We've been so busy working on this, and then ex insert something exciting and kind of fun about like, what you guys, what, what are you excited about with your business, right?

Blaire: Like that's a way to, to think about like, what if you're sending out a Christmas card to people you haven't talked to in years, but you're giving them the updates, give 'em a little update. Um, I think things like that are nice and it's, you know, not directly sales worthy necessarily, but it's just like a nice shake up of.

Blaire: This is what's going on. And then I would create just a campaign around that. So not just one email. I would do a couple follow ups too. Almost like the welcome campaign. Mm-hmm. But strategically around like reintroducing what you're doing. Hey, we're doing these really cool things. Here's how you can get involved.

Blaire: You know, and again, this could be something like, we're doing really cool things on Instagram right now. You should check it out right here at, or, yeah. I interviewed this awesome person on my podcast the other day, and I thought maybe you would like it. So, and then you can link that. Um, just really breaking the ice and getting back into their world so that way they start remembering, oh yeah, she does this, this is, I've been looking to do that for my business recently.

Blaire: You know, and then they might tune in. Um, but just. It opens that door of like, they're gonna welcome your emails again. So that's what I,

Patti: yeah. And I would say also, don't be afraid to own the fact that you went MIA, you know? And like, yeah. Yeah. Like you don't have to try to dance around it and just be like, cool, I'm just gonna start sending emails.

Patti: And you're like, oops, I got busy in my world. And all these life happens. Yeah. Um, these cool things were happening. This is what's happening, but I'm back and here's what you can expect moving forward. It's like, it's okay to own that fact that we're human. And, and that depends on your business too, right?

Patti: When we look at that authenticity, but, um, yeah, that's what I've done when I've dropped them too, is I come back and I'm like, whoops. Like, remember what? I just was like, I'm gonna email you all this stuff, and then I didn't anymore life. You know? I mean, like

Blaire: nothing's more relatable than life happens, right?

Blaire: Yeah. Than being human. Yeah. So I think that helps. Totally.

Patti: Totally. All right. So because I love tech, um, I would love to hear if you have a favorite email marketing platform that you tend to, to navigate towards. Um, or yeah, if you, what, what are your fa Or you could do a couple if you have a couple. But yeah, I would love to hear what your favorite ones are.

Blaire: Yeah, honestly, uh, we love branding over here, so I really like flow desks. It gives you a lot of branding options and the aesthetic is really nice, and it doesn't matter if you're selling a physical product or service, it's just the templates are easy to use. We have workflow functions easy to segment your audience out.

Blaire: So if there's some people. That are on your media list versus your current customers, you can tailor it super easy and I, so I do like it for those reasons.

Patti: I love it.

Blaire: As soon as

Patti: you said, we love branding here. I knew you were gonna say Flo desk.

Blaire: Yeah. It's just so pretty. There's no denying it. And you know, my background's in the fashion industry.

Blaire: Mm-hmm. If you pull their website and, um, for anybody listening, it's FLO desk. Yes. That's spelled, um, if you go to their website, it's really aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. It's really beautiful. So if you wanna customize it for your brand colors and put your logo on it,

Patti: boom. Very easy. I love it. Um, this has been super fun.

Patti: Thank you so much. So

Blaire: much fun. Are you kidding? Thank you for having me.

Patti: Of course. Um, if anybody wants to work with you, learn more about you, any of that, I'll put that in the show notes. But I would love for you to go ahead and tell us, uh, how to find you.

Blaire: Awesome. Yeah. Well, of course you can email me, but it's on the topic.

Blaire: But, um, if you just go to visionary advantages.com, you'll find everything there. All my social media handles, um, email list, and then I have a lot of freebies on there too for entrepreneurs. So if you wanna go download some free, helpful resources. Check it out. Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Blaire: Thank you.

Patti: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast. Like most small businesses and podcasts, we rely heavily on word of mouth. So if you like what you heard today or in any episode, please share with your friends and colleagues. And rate, subscribe and comment on your favorite podcast platform.

Patti: Till next time, cheers to your magical biz success.