Web Design Business with Josh Hall
The Web Design Business Podcast with host Josh Hall is here to help you build a web design business that allows you to have freedom and a lifestyle you love. As a web designer and web agency owner of over a decade, Josh knows the challenges, struggles and often painful lessons of building a web design business without any guidance, proven strategies or a mentor to help you along the way, which is why this show exists. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of coaching, mentorship and guidance to help you build your dream web design business. All while having a good time doing it. Through interviews with seasoned web design business professionals and online entrepreneurs, solo coaching episodes with Josh and even case studies with his students, you’ll learn practical tips and strategies for web business building along with real-world advice and trends that are happening right now in the wild and wonderful world of web design. Subscribe if you’re ready to start or level up your web design business and for all show notes, links, full transcriptions for each episode, head to https://joshhall.co/podcast
Web Design Business with Josh Hall
361 - Email and Content Marketing for Web Designers in 2025 with Michelle Martello
No better way to kick off the year than to plan some new marketing strategies to get more leads and convert more clients, right?
I honestly believe email marketing – along with some focused forms of content marketing – will be a HUGE differentiator for web designers who choose to go this route. Which is why I’m a big proponent and supporter of it.
After all…as Abe Lincoln once wisely said “He who sendeth the email gets thine customer.”
Now, you know I’m not going to just tell you to go “do something” without giving you a roadmap and some solid tips to help implement so, I’m thrilled to have copywriter, digital strategist and award-winning designer Michelle Martello on the podcast to share about all of that and more.
Things we cover include:
- How to create your “content goldmine” for social, blog, newsletter and podcast content
- The power of having a newsletter in 2025
- How often to send emails and/or post on social media
- When content should be brief vs long form
- How – coincidently or not – those who send more emails make more money
And a whole lot more!
Michelle’s resume includes working with MTV, the National Park Service, Marie Forleo and more so she is truly an industry expert with years of experience backing her.
Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/361
Big thanks to the sponsors for our upcoming Web Designer Pro CON 2025 event! We couldn't make such a top-notch event for my community without their support 🙏
17hats (for proposals, invoicing, contracts and automation)
SiteGround (for website hosting)
Termageddon (for auto-updating privacy po
One thing I always recommend people do is break out a couple of hours and I'm old school, I love a Google spreadsheet. I would create your content goldmine so I would go back through if you've done audits or client calls. I love to get those transcripts and I'll take those and convert those into something else. Maybe it's a new lead magnet, maybe it's a new blog post, maybe it's a new training that I do, maybe free or paid right. So going through that content goldmine of things that you've already created that you could link to or you could pull from in a new way, it could inform what you're creating next. I think having that repository that you can go to, that's a great thing. Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast, with your host, josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love.
Josh Hall:Hello friend, welcome into the first interview episode of the Web Design Business Podcast for 2025. I am absolutely pumped for some of the upcoming chats that are going to be released here on the show and some of the guests we have lined up for Q1. So I hope you're pumped as well. We're going to kick off this year with email and content marketing specifically for web designers in 2025, one of the best ways to get leads and to get clients, and I'm really excited to share my chat here with an industry expert in all things design, digital strategy and copywriting. This is Michelle Martello, who has worked with the likes of MTV, the National Park Service, marie Forleo and a ton of others, so she truly has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to how to market online and how to create words that help you get clients. So, all that to say, I would hang on every word she says in this interview and implement as much as you can, because we're going to get into how to create a content goldmine that you can pick from ongoing for social media, for your blog, for your newsletter, et cetera. We're going to really dive into the power of having a newsletter in 2025, especially for those of you who have been thinking about it but haven't started one. How often to send emails and when is too much or when is too little. What content should be brief versus long form? And then, as the old Abe Lincoln quote goes, he who sendeth the email geteth thy customer much more. And all of that is covered in this episode. Again, michelle was an absolute blast to talk to a wealth of knowledge on this stuff. I could have chatted with her for like eight hours.
Josh Hall:If you want to connect with Michelle after this, michelle, after this, you can go to minima designscom. Of course, that will be linked in the show notes at this episode. In fact, we have a lot of links that we covered in this chat and thankfully, michelle actually followed through and sent me every link she mentioned in this chat. That can be found at joshhallco slash 361. We do cover a lot, so I would recommend heading over there after this one. And, of course, all of her links to her social media and her website will be over there at joshhallco slash 361. Here is Michelle. Let's dive into our first interview of the year to talk content and email marketing for web designers. Well, it's great to have you, michelle. I just mentioned email marketing is something that web designers, I found, tend to kind of like fall into, because they start getting clients, we start building a business, and then we're like shoot, maybe I should actually email my clients more often. So you are a very welcomed specialist on this topic, so thanks for joining.
Michelle Martello:Oh, I'm so excited. You know I always tell folks I'm I'm going to be at year 19 in my business, which is insane to me, and I tell people the biggest regret I have is that I didn't start my email list sooner. You know I was doing it for clients. I was, I was, I saw the power of it, but I was like I get referrals, I don't need to worry about it. And I will tell you when I started writing my email list and being consistent with it. I think that's important too. When I started getting really consistent with it, it opened up so many more opportunities. I cannot tell you how many folks were like I've been on your email list for two years, waiting to work with you, waiting for an opportunity, and it just. It helps you stay booked and busy and opens up so many other avenues of opportunity for you to make money, land clients and build relationships.
Josh Hall:Why is that, do you think? Is it because you're just top of mind? Is it more intimate because it's not on social media? All of the above, why do you think? Email, just simply, you know. Email led to all those opportunities.
Michelle Martello:All of the above. You know I think, uh, as designers we can often get caught up in like I know I definitely did with social media like, oh, it's got to look a certain way, I have to have an aesthetic, and like, and you know I like to change my mind every five minutes about what I'm going to design, right, so it was always hard for me to be very proactive, if you will, on social media. But when I could be consistent with my newsletter and I always um in, like like Laura Belgray, who's one of my clients, talking shrimpcom she has a phrase EFAB email from a bestie. So you're writing like you talk. You know I came from the world of, I have a history degree and when I started writing I would write footnotes. You know I thought it had to be academic and had to be so. You know crisp and you know all these things.
Michelle Martello:And when I started writing with the notion of like I'm kind of a fun person but I'm kind of an introvert Most a lot of us pixel pushers are. You know, we're just behind the computer, we're not out speaking, not doing all these things when I started writing and sharing my experiences and, frankly, sharing what I was doing for other people. Folks that were on my email list were like, oh, can you do that for me? And they would write me and I would just have an invitation if they wanted to book a website audit or if they wanted to just write me with their experiences. It started creating this two-way communication and people feel like they know me and now if I go to a conference or I speak somewhere, my husband laughs so hard because he's like they'll come up and they'll be like oh, I read your email, I love your emails. Yours are the only emails that I read and it really fosters and nurtures this relationship and it's been unbelievable for me, like the results that I've gotten out of creating these newsletters every week.
Josh Hall:So that's what I was wondering is what? When people say, build an email list, an email, I think the big question that most everybody probably rightfully has is what type of emails are we talking? I'm very excited about the resurgence of good old fashioned like newsletters. Even that term was once dated. Now it's cool again For the top, the sake of being top of mind, sake of being personal. I do love that. Did it start like that for you, or did you just email a little more frequently? Or when did the cadence and the frequency and the intentionality of like a newsletter? Yeah, yeah, you know.
Michelle Martello:I'm fortunate that I get to work with some clients that are pretty well known in the online business space and you know I was not consistent. I was maybe doing when I had something to sell or when I had a space, or, you know, I would maybe do every four weeks or five weeks and then I told myself a few years back I'm like, all right, if you're going to get consistent with this, be consistent with it. Whether it's every two weeks or every week, come up with a cadence. And I call my newsletter the nugget, because I always I hate wasting people's time. Like I hate being on a webinar and it's a sales pitch the whole time and I'm not actually learning anything of value. Like as web designers, we're just inundated with information that we have to learn. It's like, well, this week I'm learning about accessibility in newsletters and next week I'm learning about, like you know, what's the future of WordPress. You know it's like where are we going with all of these things and it's hard to stay on top of stuff. So my thinking is, if I can write something of value every week or every other week where it helps even one person, you know I have a nugget. That's like a little story.
Michelle Martello:I'm very much a proponent of storytelling and that comes from, again, both Laura Belgray and another one of my clients, anne Handley, who has an amazing newsletter.
Michelle Martello:She writes about writing mainly for the B2B audience and you know learning from these folks of well, you can have, you know, fun with your newsletter. You can be informative, you can give people, you know, something to nibble on, but then they're going to want to hire you to help implement for them, and so I think that's kind of the thinking is you do want to write with an end goal in mind. You're not just writing for the sake of writing, like we want to reverse engineer. You know, if you are trying to build your pipeline, say for the next year, maybe you want to build up your wait list. When I was really doing a lot more web design, I would try to keep a three to six month waitlist, and so this was a great way to kind of say, hey, I've got some space opening, say second quarter. You know, if you want to get on, I can put that as like an end note in my newsletter and it's a great way to just always make sure you're booked and busy.
Josh Hall:So that's the big thing I think with the idea of emailing is formatting and what these would look like. There's obviously so many different versions. We've all seen the emails that are really graphic heavy and some that are a little bit corporate and a little stale. Mine I started mine actually just a year ago. I started mine and mine's pretty casual and simple in the way of it's mostly text with some graphics, but it's interesting for web designers because this is very timely too. We just recently did a challenge in my community, web Designer Pro, and it was a newsletter challenge and we're two months out from it and it's converted very well already for a lot.
Josh Hall:I just did a check-in with all my members and so many have said my newsletter has already brought in quite a few clients, or my first client came from a newsletter because it's kept them top of mind and I feel like the cool thing about newsletters is that it's not email. For me personally, I used to view email as sales and that was it. It was like if I email somebody, I'm selling something. With a newsletter, like you said, it could be very story, it could be very educational. You don't need to sell anything if you don't want to. But this question of formatting is what?
Josh Hall:I'm really curious for you. So let's just get into. You have worked with some of the top minds in the business Marie Forleo, quite a few others. What is working with the formatting? Is plain text with a link. Is it graphics? Is it? Are the? Are the gifts? I know like a lot like, uh, amy Porterfield, I've had her on, like I'm on her email list. It's always a lot of gifts. There's always, like, you know something like that. What does it all work? Is there something better?
Michelle Martello:Uh, yeah, honestly, it depends on your audience. Like, I can't give a blanket statement because everyone's going to have a different experience. Now, in my opinion, honestly, what's going to be easiest for you to produce is what's most important, and I think again, as web designers maybe sometimes we're creating these for, by the way, this is a great side business If you're looking to add on to your web design business. I do still do a couple of newsletters for my clients. It's a great recurring stream, recurring revenue stream, if you want to kind of and actually, uh, setting up people's newsletters and doing all the forms and stuff. It's a great additional way to bring in some income. So I just want to put a pin in that.
Michelle Martello:But what I would say with the formatting is, I think often we make things too overwrought and we do have to concern ourselves with. You know, we can't really do video in newsletters, we can't really do a lot of images because you may get blocked, like if you don't have your email newsletter not to get too technical but if you don't have your backend set up perfectly with your DKIM, your SPF settings, your DNS settings are correct with regards to your validated your domain and all these things. If you don't have that stuff set up, you're not going to make it into the inbox. So the design and content is a moot point if you can't even get into the inbox, so that's the first thing you got to deal with. And then, if you're like, well, I want to be consistent with it. If you are making some super high-end design thing that's hard for you to do and hard for you to commit to with all your other work, it's probably not going to happen. So again, you're not going to be creating consistently.
Michelle Martello:Now I am a big fan of creating kind of your own template. I use Kit, formerly ConvertKit. I'm a big, big fan of Kit because I find it's one of the easier systems to use. They have some great templates. You can also customize your own. If you know Liquid the language, you can do even more customization. They've got some great free starter ones, a couple ones you can start with. Don't make it hard. I love a template. I think web designers should avail themselves more of templates to make their lives easier.
Michelle Martello:Um, and then I personally have my own little formula. Again, I call mine the nugget, because I always have a little story. People love the stories. Um, a little story, you can be as personal or not as personal as you want. If you don't want to write about your kids, if you don't want to write about your kids, if you don't want to write about your relationships and things. I tend to write a little bit more about my personal life, what I'm into. Again, a lot of my folks have traveled with me on my journey from solo web designer to being more in the online marketing space, and so I have my little story. I usually have.
Michelle Martello:I'm teaching, doing some sort of teachable moment. Maybe it's a video, maybe it's I'm sharing what I've done for a client as an example. Maybe it is a resource I've created. I try to have a mixture of things. Sometimes it can be a short one, sometimes it can be a long one.
Michelle Martello:You know one of the best performing emails this is not mine, this is someone else created. This is a nine word email. You know, say you've got folks on your list who expressed interest in working with you, maybe three months ago, six months ago. One of the best things you can do is maybe you have a segment or a tagged part of your audience on your list and you can just write those people hey, are you still interested in a new website. Literally, that's all you have to write. You will be shocked how many people write back to you Again, because it's not as a huge old sales pitch.
Michelle Martello:It's not like one of those you know Sephora emails. It's got all the pretty graphics on it. Like when you register those all those graphics, you kind of see it innately as a sales email, so you might be more likely to disregard it. So that's again why I like to kind of write text based primarily. I will throw an image or two because I think when you only have one image they're more likely to click on it. Make sure, by the way, if you have an image in your email, that it is clickable. A lot of people miss that step. They just have an image. I can't tell you how many times someone's got that big old branded logo which I'm not a huge fan of, by the way. Someone's got that big old branded logo which I'm not a huge fan of, by the way big old branded logo that forces people to scroll and then it's not even clickable to their site.
Josh Hall:What about an image? Because you just called me out there, because I do have some images in mind, especially like in the bottom. So mine's formatted similar to where I have the email, that's just text based primarily, and then at the end I'll have, like a community member, win, or maybe I did a video and I'll have a link and they have their images. Sometimes they're linked but sometimes they're not. So is that? Do you know? If it's in that scenario, is that okay for an image not to be linked, or do you feel like all images should be linked? You know?
Michelle Martello:I personally feel if you've got an image, it should go somewhere, at the very least go to your website. Because, again, if you've got a community win, well, I'm interested in that community. Let me go check it out. So maybe it's going to a landing page, that that's learning more about the community. So I always love to have a call to action. You know, we always think about with websites, one page, what's the goal of the page? Like, what are we trying to get someone to do the next step? Same thing with your newsletter whether it's that prompting them to reply back to you. Maybe you're saying, hey, if you want to learn more about the community, click here, give them a direction. So it's. It's very, very obvious. You'll be shocked how many folks actually do click on things, Even the I always like to do, um, uh, we call them Easter eggs, right, I always like to put at the bottom of my, my emails.
Michelle Martello:I put like a little note like hey, I'm so glad you made it this far down. Here's a little, you know, fun link of the week or something. I love to reward people and do a little bit of surprise and delight. Have fun with it, Play with it, Test things out. You know there are no absolutes. I think that's a mistake to think like all images, no images, like try things out. You don't know how your audience is going to respond, especially if it's a warm audience. Sometimes changing things up, being a bit of a disruption from your normal maybe newsletter style, that might bring more awareness to what you're talking about.
Josh Hall:I'll share a little thing that I learned with my newsletter over the past year. I cause I really enjoy seeing the the the click maps.
Michelle Martello:Yeah and yeah you're right.
Josh Hall:I'm shocked about how many folks are clicking like below the very bottom of the details.
Josh Hall:I recently put the overview of my story with links to certain podcast episodes and stuff and almost every link gets at least one or two or three clicks at the very very bottom. But one thing I've noticed is that if I have a link that's on its own line with a finger pointing to it that's like click here to check out Web Designer Pro, my community that will not get near as many links as one that's just in a paragraph. It's like in my community, web Designer Pro. We did this this week and I think it's because it is a little more casual and it's a little and this may be totally dependent on the size of an email. If it is just one link that people have to click, then obviously that's the way to go. But from what I've learned with multiple links in paragraphs and in a longer form newsletter, I have noticed interestingly more recently that, yeah, people are not clicking like the click here to check it out. They're clicking the casual one that's just mentioned offhand.
Josh Hall:And maybe it just feels less, not salesy, but it just feels more welcoming. Just to be like what is this? I'm gonna click this instead of being like contextual too.
Michelle Martello:right, because you're like oh, here we had the win in this, and it's just like, well, I want to know about the win, I want to know like what someone. So, if you're right, it feels a little less salesy, a little bit more of like hey, here's what we did in here. And it's like, and it's not even like, click here to do this thing now. It's not even like click here to do this thing now. It's you know, people are smart, they're going to click the link. They're like well, I want to figure this out.
Michelle Martello:So I love adding the context around it. I mean, I think, when we think about I subscribe to a ton of newsletters. So one of the ones that I read there's a couple I read daily One is Morning Brew, right, so Morning Brew is great because it gives you an overview of kind of what's going on in the world, the markets. But then on Sundays they do kind of a best of wrap up. And then this week they had a gift guide and I loved that. It was super scannable.
Michelle Martello:I could tell at a glance like the first two blocks are not for me. But then the third block, I'm like, oh, and it was super short and actionable and I appreciate that. So you know, I think you have to strike a balance between like a ton of content, between like a ton of content giving some context and you know I really am a big believer in clarity over cleverness. Like don't try to use bigfalutin words and don't try to be too super fancy. Like be as clear as possible, cause you also don't know how many of your folks cause I'm assuming we're mainly speaking to a U S audience how many of your folks are an English first reader. They could be translating in their head from different languages. So, again, trying to be as clear as possible with the language, as to what it is and how it can help them, will make a bigger impact.
Josh Hall:It's funny because, yeah, with my audience it's mostly it's it's over 50 or 60% us from what I see in the demographics. But I do serve web designers all over the world and a lot of folks who don't speak English. First, they're often mentioning because I'll use like hot dog or something. Just the way I talk in real life is the way I talk in my email and for better or for worse, I've really stuck to that and I often get, like you mentioned, a hot dog in the business. I was like, oh sorry, it was like slang, so that is kind of I don't know. It hasn't been a problem, but it has been an interesting thing when it comes to slang and different terminology.
Michelle Martello:You know what, though? Food I wrote this week? I did. I did mine early. You normally I send on Fridays, but it's American holiday week this week when we're recording, and I wrote about how it's Thanksgiving week and I'm actually making a lasagna. I've had 10 people write me about my lasagna recipe and I'm like and again, this is where you may think you need to write about super technical stuff this, I think this is a core thing that I want to mention. You're not writing for your peers. Now, you might be, because you're writing to a web design audience. I do have some web designers as well in my audience, but you know, if you're writing for your clients, you're not writing about like JavaScript queries, and you're not writing about you know this WordPress upgrade and you know all of these particular things. You're actually writing for the benefit of your clients, so how can you connect with them? How can you make it understandable and accessible for them?
Josh Hall:Side note, I think newsletters regardless of if you're a web designer or service provider or like an online entrepreneur it is the time to have like some just personal, fun stuff in the mix. Uh, I just recently caught up with, uh, my my SEO guru, who's also a Michelle. Uh, you would love her. You guys are two peas in the pod. But she has a newsletter and her most popular recent newsletter was about she called it shower thoughts and she found these shower sticky notes that are waterproof that you could have in your shower. So when, inevitably, you get a great business idea, you could just jot it down. And she said the amount of responses that she got on that one and she just had no, like she didn't think anyone would think anything of it, but it just goes to show you that is one cool avenue about having a newsletter or email marketing that's more personal is you could do something like that. That also is fun and cool for everybody too.
Josh Hall:Oh, yeah it shows more than what's going on behind the persona of a web designer oh for sure, and you know we love recommendations.
Michelle Martello:You know, um I I do a lot of like zoom calls and zoom trainings and um I'm on on one team where we've got about a team of five that are behind the scenes, and I love our pre zoom meeting when we're just on sharing like you know what we're using and like you know makeup tips and you know software products, and that's the most fun because we want to know what other people are using, cause we want real. And, by the way, it's another thing you can share in your newsletter or affiliate links. Right, people want to know what you're using and it doesn't just have to be tech stuff. That's the wild thing. The shower notes thing. I want to know what those shower notes are. So it's like I want to know what other people are using for productivity, for for life benefit, for their health and wellness. Like, don't feel like you have to restrain yourself to only talking about tech.
Josh Hall:I needed to hear that because, as you mentioned, we're Thanksgiving week recording this, but, um, I'm for for Christmas week. I was going to just send out a newsletter with my top favorite Christmas movies, completely non-web design, just to, yeah, just to spice it up. So I was going to see how that goes. So I needed to hear that. I need to be reminded that not all my stuff and I think this is common, because I feel like we think sometimes, when somebody signs up for an email, that we need to be showing up for them they were thoughtful enough to let me email them. I should be giving them constant value nonstop. But to your point, so far, it's a great reminder that some people are taking in so much information that, short to the point, less. Sometimes it doesn't need to be a big value thing, it could just be kind of fun. That tends to break through the noise. I feel like it's when it's fun, when it's unique, when it's personal. So, yeah, great reminder.
Michelle Martello:Yeah, yeah, I think you know, the more you write to, the more you kind of find your own rhythm. You know, I'm I tend to be just I always, I always struggle with like I want to give so much and so I have to restrain myself sometimes because it can overwhelm people. You have to remember we're pretty techie, you know, but if we're trying to explain a concept or trying to explain something, that's maybe just a little bit in the future. You know when, when chat GPT first came out, all of us were so geeked and a friend of mine actually launched a product that was just how she used chat GPT and I was like this is brilliant, it was just a Google doc with all the different ways she was using it.
Michelle Martello:Now this is literally the week that it launched, because all of us were like what is going on, right? So we just we want to maybe think about how can we simplify things so it's not overwhelming. So we're not. We don't need to show them all the guts in the kitchen. They want to kind of see the end product and maybe how to get there. Like what are the? What are the ingredients, what's the end product? Show me the cookbook with the picture.
Josh Hall:Frequency, cadence. So in the newsletter challenge we did for my community, my recommendation for web designers is monthly. I just think it's a great way to like put a tip out there or an educational thought, and then most of our members have backed it up with like a recent project, like a tool they recommend maybe a testimonial or a case study. So it's a pretty meaty monthly newsletter but at the same time it's not something that's, you know, ridiculously huge or anything For most service providers. Is that your recommendation?
Michelle Martello:I'm a big fan of more email, more money.
Josh Hall:Okay, more emails, more money, yeah, help, yeah For those who are like I, can barely keep up with one a month. What, yeah? Simplify, okay yeah.
Michelle Martello:Like I would actually take that email and break it out. If once a week is a lot and I know that can feel like a lot a lot of my clients I have a few clients that do a regular newsletter I think that every two week cadence can be really great. The problem with once a month is that we're training inboxes, we're training people, right, we want them to be familiar with us. In fact, because I send my emails on Fridays at a particular time, if I don't send one out that week and sometimes I don't send to my whole audience I may send a segment. I will hear from people like are you okay? Like, because there's an expectation. Now I don't want to set up unrealistic expectations, right, if it's. If you're a service provider, you know you're, you know your head's down, you're doing the work.
Michelle Martello:I like the idea of at least in every two weeks, because every month that's like it's easier for people to just like I can't remember who this person is, I'm going to unsubscribe. We find that the more you write, the more that people expect it, the more that they're actually going to stay on the list and take action. If it's just really random and in spurts it's, it feels a little inconsistent and people are like I can't remember why I'm on this list. I don't know what I need it for. So those are the things that I think about.
Michelle Martello:I would rather see you break up that lengthy one into maybe a two-parter and maybe one's like the portfolio project of like hey, if you want me to do this for you, maybe if you specialize in an industry, you want to share best practices or what's working for clients. I mean, that's what people want to see. Like, I want to know that if I get a website from you, it's going to bring me clients, traffic, subscribers, whatever they're looking for. It's a very different marketplace than 15, 20 years ago when literally you could just throw up a website and get clients. You really have to have some thought and intention and strategy behind stuff to make things work these days, and so I think the more that you can kind of hone in on the results that your client got versus just like Ooh, this pretty thing that I created, you're going to have a much better uptick in clients and you're going to build this loyal filing of like Ooh, I can't wait to be able to work with that person.
Josh Hall:Sold.
Michelle Martello:All right, there we go friends, it's every other week.
Josh Hall:Well, the reality is too, like you mentioned. With a big, meaty monthly newsletter, it can absolutely be broken out into two or three emails at least, probably, and if two, even two a month sounds like a lot for web designers. I would just recommend thinking about that idea of yeah, just taking, instead of that case study being or that portfolio piece being on the bottom of one, make that the one and just share a bullet list of what you did and that's it. Oh gosh, I so need to be reminded of just keep it simple, keep it short. I'm notorious for just going like way too. I mean, I write like a chapter of a book sometimes for my newsletters. I'm like, every once in a while, that can, that can be worthwhile. But I'm reminding myself like, go simple.
Josh Hall:And I'm actually I might give myself a bit of a test because I've personally, I'm okay Selfishly, I want to use some, some of our time as coaching because, I'm kind of at a place where I'm like I love my newsletter but I think I'm my own worst enemy with it because I'd make it too meaty and um, what's happened more recently is I'm like scrambling to get to them and I have so much content.
Josh Hall:I've been doing this brand for seven years so I I have oodles of content I can repurpose, but I just sometimes I feel weird about going into a course lesson and taking a piece cause it's I don't know. Part of me is kind of fine with that sometimes, but um, yeah, I'm almost in like a I need to make it easier and more efficient. I feel like I've got myself cause I'm also doing weekly podcast and I've got courses to revamp. I've running a community. I've got YouTube videos, like it's almost and that's another kind of aspect of this is like, if it's a part of other content, what would your, what would your advice be to me? Who's feeling like sometimes the newsletter is the piece that overwhelms me sometimes.
Michelle Martello:It's you know we're on this content, hamster wheel, right Realistically, and it's. It's like, especially if you're also working I don't know if you're still working with clients so if you've, got that's.
Josh Hall:That's kind of made me feel like why can't I do a weekly newsletter? I'm not doing service work now. This is the only thing I do. I should be able to do a weekly.
Michelle Martello:Oh no you're actually working more now. That's the that's, that's the myth of content creator world. The content creator economy is that, like I'll be working less. No, because you know what You're always thinking about content, right? So right.
Michelle Martello:You know a few things that I do and I'm not a huge like five-year planner kind of person. I'm not one of those who's got I've got my entire years of social media planned out. I am not that person. I also think it's a mistake with the world and the state that it's been in I don't know the last four to five years. I think it's a mistake to pre-schedule everything because you actually want to stay nimble and flexible when inevitably there's something that's happening this week.
Josh Hall:You know, I'll be honest, there are some weeks I don't send a newsletter because I'm like you know what, there's a collective, you know what going on. I'm not adding to any more noise. Oh, interesting.
Michelle Martello:So it's not religiously every week. No, I mean, I try to stay consistent. I think there's been three weeks this year, um, I also had some medical stuff, so, um, I, I, I did take, I let my folks know, but, like, there's been a couple of times when I'm just like you know what, not adding to the noise. This week I even had something written and I'm like it doesn't feel authentic to me and that's not a word I love to use. But you know, I know there's some people who will plow on no matter what is happening in the world. I don't operate that way and so, because again, I'm, I'm, it's just me, I'm a personal brand, I don't have this huge organization behind me. It might be different if I was like Coca-Cola and I'm sending, or Sephora and I'm sending my newsletters. It's not, I'm a personal brand and so for me, sometimes I choose not to engage and that's okay. I want to give people permission. If the world has ended like, if you've got a family member sick, you're just dealing with life, the newsletter doesn't go out, the world is not going to end Right, and I think we have to give ourselves some grace and permission with that. I know. That said, knowing how much you're drawing from. How can you keep it actually exciting for you? Because if you're not excited to write it, if you're like, oh, I got to write this thing, it's going to come through when you're writing. So a few things that I do to help myself is that I keep a nugget pile. So I'm old school, I use Evernote for all my note taking and when I'm just in daily life I hear these stories or I see these stories or I have these like teachable moments and I'm like, ooh, that'd be. And my husband laughs at me because he's like that'd be good for the newsletter, because we now have like a thing of like, yep, that would be great for the newsletter. And so I'm always storing these these little things, of these little, and it could just be a little life lesson. It could be something that I have a lot of friends who run their own businesses and so I'm always capturing ideas about customer service and support and what's working and what's not working. And you know how are people like going off the rails this these days of of just like, how do you manage? You know I rate customers, how do you manage your own? You know temperament when dealing with this stuff, a lot of the stuff that's psychological, not just the technical right. So this is a lot of stuff we don't talk about.
Michelle Martello:In web design, a world of like, sometimes we're managing clients that are just crazy pants, you know, and how do we do that without losing our own you know what, and so I'm always learning from these lessons, and so I keep a whole pile, and sometimes they're just an idea, sometimes they're paragraphs, and so, knowing I always have this repository, which I call this your content goldmine. So for you, what I would suggest one thing I always recommend people do is break out a couple of hours and I'm old school, I love a Google spreadsheet. I would create your content goldmine so I would go back through. If you've done audits or client calls, I love to get those transcripts and I'll take those and convert those into something else. Maybe it's a new lead magnet, maybe it's a new blog post, maybe it's a new, you know, training that I do, maybe free or paid right. So, going through that content goldmine of things that you've already created that you could link to or you could pull from in a new way, it could inform what you're creating next. I think having that repository that you can go to. That's, that's a great thing. And then the next thing I do and it's not anything crazy special, but knowing when I have particular launches, so I do both launches for myself, my client and then my clients, and then affiliate launches for things that I'm promoting.
Michelle Martello:I know roughly, you know, in the year okay, january I'm going to be doing this, february I'm going to be doing this. You know, I'm going to pencil in kind of tentative titles or tentative ideas for just each week. No more structure than that, honestly. And so that way I've got an understanding of like okay, I've maybe got the next six to eight kind of mapped out in my head. So that way it just makes my life easier because I do write them weekly in kind of in the moment I try to write them a few days before my Friday deadline. So I'm not scrambling, not going to lie. Sometimes they happen on Thursdays, um, but having that has made my life so much easier.
Michelle Martello:Rather than Thursday I'm twiddling my thumbs, like, what am I going to write about today? I have that kind of go-to resource library or the content nugget area that I'm like, oh, this is a good lesson. And then sometimes things literally happen that day that I want to write about, you know, things that somebody had asked me. I'm a coach in a forum and somebody was like how does your lighting look so good? I'm like, oh, I could do a whole black Friday thing on like my favorite tech tools. I wrote it literally in like 30 minutes and you know, that's going to generate revenue for me and I wasn't even planning on doing it, but I was like everything's on sale, half off this week. Why wouldn't I share this with folks so that they can benefit from it?
Josh Hall:I love the term content gold mine. Yeah, I don't have like an official place for that. I have separate spreadsheet of ideas for the newsletter and for podcasts and YouTube, but it's a good reminder to have a better system for that. I think that is the issue. It's funny, though. I had the newsletter kind of planned out for like three months and then once I got to those topics, I was like I don't really want to talk about that. This week.
Josh Hall:One of my members had a great win. I'm going to repurpose this. So, similarly, I've kind of gone a little bit more week to week in the way of what I really am interested in, what I'm keen on, but I do have essentially, a goldmine. I definitely never run out of ideas. The problem is overwhelm almost. There's like what should be a newsletter, what should be a blog, what should be a podcast, what should be a YouTube video? That's kind of the issue. I think a lot of content creators and even web designers probably get to that place too. I don't know if you have any tips on that of different categories or buckets of content.
Michelle Martello:Well, you know, what I would say is you know you're probably already doing this, but you know, if you've written a blog post, well, that blog post is a newsletter, that is a YouTube video, that that one thing should be broken out into multiple things, right? And so, like I have this one blog post, very proud of it, I ranked number one on Google for it. It's like four or five years old at this point and I just keep adding to it. You know, it's, it's this thing that I can continually reference and it's, for example, here's it's all about how to create, record and sell your guided audio meditation. It was a question that I kept getting from my audience, right? So this is, if you're thinking about content as a web designer or as a content creator, someone who's listening to this you know what are the questions you continually hear from your audience. This, to me, is part of your content goldmine, because this is, frankly, in some ways, user-generated content. They keep asking you these questions. Why not build your own repository to answer those questions? You're doing that through your podcast and your youtube videos. Guess what? You know what you could do as a maybe a quarterly thing. I this.
Michelle Martello:I love when people actually curate their own work for me. So, uh, um, creator science, jay Klaus, does this very well, so he's got his own resources page where everything's kind of in are you learning to do X, are you learning to do Y, and it's all your best articles and videos and things. Guess what that repository link is? A newsletter of just like. Here's my. You want to, you want to get inside my brain. Here you go, right.
Michelle Martello:So if we think about how can we again best serve our audience and not overwhelm ourselves sometimes it's just curating our own stuff because we forget how much we have produced, and so I would even say for you, quarterly, a newsletter that's just like a reminder of your best stuff. And do not worry about repeating yourself. I actually will go back and I, something I've been doing actually is, uh, I have a list of. I've probably written maybe 500 emails at this point. I have a whole spreadsheet and, um, I've been slowly taking the best ones that are timeless and making them into blog posts and you forget how much you write, and by just doing that, I'm getting inspiration and taking some of these and rewriting them slightly to be new newsletters. It's not cheating, you're leveraging, you're learning from the past. Like everything you've done in the past is informing the next thing you're creating.
Michelle Martello:So to me, this is a great way of just saying oh, you know, I've revisited this idea. Here's how I feel about it, for, you know, this next year going forward, here's how we felt about it four years ago. The landscape has changed. Here's what I'm recommending now. You know, people love pros and cons. People love um, people love opinions Like I've got, we've all got opinions about, like what themes to use, what software to use, like what not to use. Do people want to read Spicy Josh?
Josh Hall:Because I can start Spicy. Josh can start coming up, I know.
Michelle Martello:I do. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm an affiliate for many things and I will be dead honest about do not use it for X, y, z, Like trust me on this. Just trust me because you know, I know their email deliverability is not great, or whatever you know. Use it just for this. I don't believe in all in one tools, because they rarely do everything great. You know people love opinions because you're building this trusted relationship and I used to call myself, as a web designer, a visual therapist. I can't tell you how many folks would end up crying with me because they are putting themselves out visually in a medium in a way that they'd never done before. You know we're really helping these folks.
Josh Hall:It's so true, you know you've been there, right it's just like we just had this conversation recently, one of my members, angela she actually works with wellness brands and yoga instructors and therapists and stuff and she told me on a coaching call she was like I kind of feel like a web design therapist and I was like that's your new that is literally your new title. I was like I want you to put that in your email signature. And she has. She's like. She's like she's kind of like the web therapist now for her clients and it's gone over really well, it's so true. And, as you were talking about that, well, gosh a lot of thoughts. I love the idea of moving from creation to curation. Yeah, I think that is key, especially for folks like myself and even web designers who have been doing a lot of content over the span of months or years. It's amazing how much yeah, you and I have to remind myself, not everyone has seen my video from five years ago.
Michelle Martello:Oh, 100%. And even if they have, they may have forgotten.
Josh Hall:Reminders yes, gosh, this is so needed.
Michelle Martello:I would go back and look at your most. You know, anne Hanley has a great metric and I can't remember the exact phrase, but it's a metric you can't really measure. It's not like open rate or click through rate. It is how many people reply back, and so I would look at the ones that you remember as, like, what did I get the most responses to? They're probably more personal. They're probably where you're sharing, like where you struggled and maybe how you overcame it. I would go back and look at those and revisit those.
Michelle Martello:I think it's a good time especially this time of year is a great time for reflection. You're visioning what you want for the next year. Not everything has to be a super technical. Here's how you do X, y, z.
Michelle Martello:A lot of times, I will tell you so many people just want to be heard and seen and if you can provide a space for that.
Michelle Martello:Again, I'm not saying we're qualified therapists, right, but I just want to make sure you know we all keep our own boundaries, which is can be tough too, um, but a lot of times people just want to be recognized. I can't tell you how many folks I worked with who don't have supportive spouses or partners. They're starting these businesses and no one believes them. And, um, a good friend of mine just opened her third studio space and this is someone who literally came from nothing and I'm so proud of her and she wrote me the most beautiful card and she's just like you and your husband allowed me to dream and no one has allowed me to do that before. And I'm like you can pay me all the money in the world, but you can't be that. I mean, come on, it's just like having that kind of impact on people and you may not think that happens as a web designer, but it totally does, because you're allowing them to see their dream come through.
Josh Hall:And something I want to circle back around to that you talked about a little bit ago. I want to make sure didn't glance over this, and that is when somebody gets into the trap of like, well, what am I going to write about? I got to come up with like a 12 month content plan. First of all, the goldmine, the content goldmine, the thoughts that should take care of it. There. My recommendation is FAQs.
Josh Hall:Like you talked about, one of the common questions that clients are asking you. The other little goldmine, I feel like, is an email, when, when clients are asking questions and you're just casually saying, like well, I'd recommend this. Or even during a proposal, if you're like these are the common call to actions that we see work. Yeah, don't overlook that Like, uh, I I was reminded of this just recently because I pulled my community and DM to everybody and asked about how their year has gone and, as I was kind of coaching and responding back to people, I'm like gosh, these little nuggets of of things that I'm kicking back are like a year's worth of newsletters, just just that. So I need to go back through and come up with everything on your own.
Michelle Martello:I mean, that's the thing. Like I'm a very independent person. I never, um, I've worked on teams. I never wanted to grow a big agency. I lived that life for a few years and I just didn't want to do that for myself.
Michelle Martello:But don't feel like you have to do it alone. I think what you said is so smart. It's just like recognize what people are saying, right, um, some of the best intel I can get is not from just like. You know how do you rate this program one to 10? That's not going to tell you anything. But actually get on a phone call. I know we don't love to do this, but get on a phone call with someone for like 10 or 15 minutes. Survey your audience. Actually do customer research. You're going to learn so much.
Michelle Martello:I still do a lot of like one on one training with folks. I still do a lot of like one-on-one training with folks. I help one of my yoga philosophy teacher. I've been helping him and his partner is kind of starting to handle all the email marketing, and so I'm like let's just get into kit. And you ask me questions like what do you want to do? Because I can make assumptions on what they want to do, but if they tell me, like, what they're trying to do, I can help guide them with like oh, I know exactly. Let's do it together so you can learn and be empowered to do it yourself.
Michelle Martello:I love that because I'm learning how someone else is using a tool, because I'm sure you've heard this so many stories of people have been burned by web designers and they don't know how to edit their update their website. I'm like that, to me, is a travesty when people cannot manage their own website. Trust me, as web designers, you're going to have plenty of work. Don't lock it down for people. Let them do stuff. Teach them how. You're going to have more work and, frankly, you don't want to be doing text updates anyway. It's the whole reason I learned WordPress in like 2008, because I was tired of manually updating websites.
Josh Hall:Well, and I think one of the big aspects to that too, when it comes to either an audit or polling your audience, that provides not only content and newsletter creation but actual website copy. I did a big audit for my community over the summer and one hidden benefit of that audit was it became my new sales page, which is at WebDesignerProcom. It became my new sales page, which is at webdesignersprocom. I did not anticipate that audit being all of the content gold I needed for the sales page, because everyone was super clear about challenges and wins and what was working really well in pro and what they needed some more help with or what they felt was lacking, and all those commonalities and similarities were super glaring Like, ah duh, why didn't I think of that? Because I didn't need this. Go to a coffee shop and sit and, hmm, yeah, what are my members biggest challenges? When I just ask them and then they write it out.
Josh Hall:Yeah, a great um a great prompt for web designers to just talk to your clients.
Michelle Martello:Pull them ask them one-on-one in a group. Yeah, testimonials I wanted to share. I do have two resources for your folks and I'll share the links with you so we can put them in the show notes, but one I do have a blog post on your content goldmine, so I'll share that with you about all the different places to look and how to create your own content goldmine. And then the the other thing is getting great testimonials. So I actually have a whole process where I ask seven questions and again, this is something else I would have done much, much earlier in my web design career. I formulated this process where, as soon as I was done working with someone and whether that was a website audit, whether it was a web design or whatever project we'd done together, when they were at their happiest, by the way, like right, when you launch and they're super happy and they paid you that last check that's when you send them this form, and so it used to be my testimonials of like ah, michelle was so great to work with. Well, that doesn't tell anybody anything. Now we're addressing all sorts of things because it's seven questions and I just sent them to a form. You could use something like testimonialto. There's a whole bunch of like platforms that you can use to collect and gather testimonials, but I just use a simple Wufoo form and it's seven questions and I give them space to give me feedback.
Michelle Martello:Like you know, what were your hesitations? And usually it's cost I mean, it's almost always cost, right? What were your hesitations? You know? Have you benefited? I've got a whole blog post with these questions. Feel free to it radically changed the type of testimonials I was getting. They're so long. I think I always hear this when I'm doing audits for folks. They're like oh, I didn't you know. I'm like why are testimonials like one sentence long? They're like well, I didn't want to put too much on there. I'm like people read all of it. When I first with a business coach, this was many, many years ago and he had a testimonial page that if you printed it out, it was 60 pages and he told me I was like this is, this is insane, right? He's like I have clients who have read every single one and I know because they reference them.
Michelle Martello:So don't be afraid of having a long testimonial. I know I read those long ones on Amazon. Right, you're reading the five star, the one star. You're like I want to know what's up with this. Or the Airbnb reviews. People read reviews, so get those testimonials and don't hesitate to put the ones like oh you know, I was kind of worried about the cost, but she blew me out of the water and here's the result that I got. That's what people want to see.
Josh Hall:And you can always. What I've learned to do is just to clip out or, like, highlight something that was catchy, exactly.
Michelle Martello:Like.
Josh Hall:Maggie, one of my members, one of the best testimonials ever. She sent me like this three paragraph testimonial but in there it was like at the very end she was like only join pro if you're ready to move up to the next tax bracket.
Michelle Martello:And I was like, oh, that's it, it's on my page.
Josh Hall:If you want to check it out, go to webdesignprocom. That's so good it's under the pricey it's under the join table. Because she said that and I was like, oh, that is great, so I moved that up and then kind, of you know spliced everything around that.
Michelle Martello:Oh yeah, struggle sometimes with sales pages and creating our offers and all the rest of it. Let let the people do the work for you, like they're going to talk about the experience and they're going to have that. You're going to have that on your sales page or on your offer page or your pricing page or whatever, and that's what's going to sell people.
Josh Hall:Speaking of selling people, we've talked mostly as far as email marketing, about newsletters, which I figured we would. But what about sequences? Because this is where I mean this could be a whole different conversation, but sequences, I know, are so powerful, especially if you get somebody into a lead generator and you want to guide them through to an ending point. This also kind of, I feel, maybe not conflicts, maybe that's not the right word, but it also could get jumbled in with a newsletter, if you're sending a sequence in with a newsletter. I've worried about this with some of my sequences because getting one joining pro and being on the newsletter and if they had signed up for a free guide, it may be like it's a lot, yeah, yeah.
Michelle Martello:Oh, it's a great question. Yeah, yeah.
Josh Hall:I guess there's no more question other than just like what are your thoughts about sequences and how to use those?
Michelle Martello:Yeah Well, I think your first question was great about like oh, I don't want to inundate people and I totally, totally get that. So I mitigate that a couple of ways. Again, I use kit, which I find is very, very easy to use. Um, because I send my newsletters on Fridays, I actually just choose not to send any sequences on Fridays, that's a simple way. I also tag folks when they first joined my list as a new subscriber. So new subscribers don't get my regular broadcast.
Michelle Martello:So that way if I do send an on the off chance, I send one on a different day, like this week I sent on a different day because it's a holiday. That way I'm not inundating folks because I will have people. I have multiple lead magnets on my website and I will have people download like five different lead magnets and so I want to make sure I'm not sending things a bunch of times. I also make sure my welcome sequence. They only go through it one time, so no matter when, that's when they're most excited to work with us. And if you're not going to email them for, say, a month from now, what you can do in the meantime let's just say you're on that monthly cadence. What you can do in the meantime is maybe have a three to five, you know, email welcome sequence and there's a lot of, you know, industry variation about what this looks like. I personally don't like to email more than one a day when I'm doing a welcome sequence. I know some people that will do two or three a day and they make buckets of money. Again, it's not just something that it doesn't really sit right with me, so I don't do it that way. Now I like to have a series that that first one probably introduces who you are, your expertise, how you can help people, and I always like to give again a little nugget, so maybe it's a freebie download. For example, I have for web designers. I have a great thing about how to get and retain premium clients, which I'll share with you as well, right? So if they're there that I also have a website checklist, like a simple checklist to test on your website, the 10 minute checklist to make sure your site's ready for clients, leads and sales. Those are my two like really good opt-ins that I have and I want to make sure maybe they opted into something else, but I want them to see that. So that's maybe on my welcome newsletter. Then the next day I'm going to send them maybe a little bit more about myself. Again, I'm going to share some resources, probably day three, four.
Michelle Martello:I have some on-demand products. I'm selling them into that. If they've already purchased the on-demand product in my welcome sequence, I have it so that if they own it again using kit, you can do this. It can tell if someone's tagged a certain way. You can hide and show things. My techie web designer friends will love its conditional responses, right? So if it's this. Don't send them that Right. So we can. We can really customize things. You don't have to go this nerdy, but I love that I have that capability.
Josh Hall:And I think that's key for this situation, because my question would be like yeah, if someone signs up for your main newsletter and they get a free lead generator two days later and they signed up for something, well, there's three different sequences there. It's like you're getting destroyed.
Michelle Martello:And I would say too do you even need three separate sequences? So a lot of times we overcomplicate things. I personally, at this point, only have one welcome sequence, and so I funnel everything into that. I've made it so that it's applicable to the majority of my audience. Now, because you have this membership, you may want to go a different route, it just depends. Uh, I think a lot of times we can overcomplicate things and it feels, oh God, this is overwhelming, because then you have to make sure all three sequences are up to date.
Michelle Martello:So I always I'm always future-proofing stuff, cause you know, as a web designer and who runs, like, okay, if I buy this plugin now and it's made by one dude, is it going to be supported in two years? It's still going to be around, like, I'm always thinking about this kind of stuff because, again, I've been doing this 19, 20, some years, and so you're thinking about like, okay, what am I doing now? Am I going to have to edit in the future? So I will say the last email in my sequence Um, and I think you had Michelle Warner on your on your podcast as well, right, she's got a whole welcome sequence. That's really, really smart. Um, follow her too, if you just I love. By the way, I have a fake email address that I sign up for everybody's welcome sequences on, so it stays out of my main inbox but I'm always doing research and learning behind the scenes.
Michelle Martello:That's like my big trick. I have a completely separate Gmail account that I open up in a different browser, so it's not even part of my main workflow, so it doesn't distract me. But my last email in that sequence I have, here's how you can work with me now. So let's say you're a web designer and you've got a waitlist or maybe you have an opening right now. You know, maybe you're like, hey, one spot open for next month, click here to get on the waitlist.
Michelle Martello:People are going to self-select what they're interested in. So I promote a few programs, I have some strategy calls, I do audits. So I have ways that they can work with me now and in the future and they'll let you know just with a simple click. Because when you click on something you can set a link trigger in kit and you can do this in other software tools as well. But now I'm automatically building wait lists for things, and so what I'm going to do is I'm tagging and segmenting my list. So now in the future, maybe I've got an opening. Let's just say I do take on a new high-end client next year. If I've got space, I'm going to first hit up that segment of my list, who said they were interested because they're already warm for it.
Josh Hall:Yeah, interested because they're already warm for it. Yeah well, it's a great um, it's a great tip to with the sequences, to not worry about sequences on, like every little thing, I think that's the trap I ran into is, uh, thinking about, yeah, doing a sequence for this one and for this one. At one point I had one for like joining the podcast versus the newsletter, and then it was like, ah, and then for new customers, and then all of sudden. I've got like eight sequences to keep up with.
Josh Hall:Oh, yeah, and as you mentioned, it's easy to set up, not easy to sustain.
Michelle Martello:To maintain yeah, and I have a client who has essentially three separate businesses and for her we have her main welcome sequence. We actually address each one of the businesses on a day, and so that's how we manage it. And then we do a probably every six months to year. We go in and just make sure everything's updated. So for you, I can see your podcast being one day of the welcome sequence and you're you. I would highlight the top three like don't overwhelm people. I know you've got like dozens and you know of great things.
Michelle Martello:Again, we're curating, not creating more. So we want to curate what is? What is the one thing I want people to remember about me? What is a? You know, I used to be a really big Yogi and I still go to a lot of workshops. If I go to a 90 minute workshop, if I remember one key thing, I am super happy, because if you inundate me with a bunch of information, I'm probably not going to remember it tomorrow or the next week. So but if you talk to me about one thing and you keep talking about that one thing, I'm going to be like oh yeah, he's the web design business podcast. Guy. Right, what do you want to be known for, put that into their heads Right, and so that way again, you're curating the information so that they know exactly what you can help them with.
Josh Hall:That's my word for 2025 for sure is to go from creation to curation. There you go. Absolutely Great time, great time. This has been like half coaching call for me too. Yeah, you mentioned Michelle Werner, so she's actually just a couple episodes prior to you. Actually, the last three guests have been all Michelle's. Hey, you know what? Michelle Werner, my SEO prior to you.
Michelle Martello:Actually, the last three guests have been all Michelle's, so Michelle.
Josh Hall:Warner, my, my SEO consultant, Michelle Bourbonier, and then and then you, so it's just been a month of awesome.
Michelle Martello:Michelle's oh good, good to be part of it, yeah.
Josh Hall:So I'm kind of curious. So what are there, I wonder, are there any other gaps in email marketing that you would like to address, other than we've talked a lot about newsletters, we've talked about sequences. I mean I wonder, if you have all those, is there still a need for email promotions per se, unless there is a sale or an offer that expires? What other types of email should or should not be included?
Michelle Martello:Oh yeah, I mean um, I've got uh, I've got a guide that I'll share um in the show notes as well about like literally dozens of different ways that you can leverage your email list for money, power and prestige, right. So all the different things you can do. I've helped friends get jobs through my newsletter. I've made networking connections for folks Um, I've crowdsourced funding for you know, disasters, you know, or when, when friends need help, you know, when you've started to create and cultivate this community. It's so powerful what you can do with it. You know you can, of course, sell products, promote for other people. You know if you've got openings. You know if I've done retreats I've done. You know speaking engagements, I've done events and I've filled them all through folks on my list, and so it really is just such an amazing tool.
Michelle Martello:Beyond social media, I mean, listen, I go down some Instagram rabbit holes for sure I am not one of those like, want to be, you know, dancing on. You know I love to dance, but I don't want to be dancing on Instagram. You know what I mean. And so for me, this is a way that I can be consistent, engage with my audience and be effective. Like I'm able to help so many people Like it's crazy, yeah, I might share a recipe, I might. I might ask for support.
Michelle Martello:In fact, one of the things that I've done don't be afraid to ask. This is, you know, when Michelle Warner probably talked about making an ask of folks. You can ask people for help or ideas. People love to share their opinion, right? So sometimes I'll be like, well, what do you use for X? And people will write me back. You know, I I did once, um, you know, last year. I was like you know what? I want to start speaking more and just like I'll speak anywhere, right? And so I had I reached out to my newsletter and I said, hey, if you've got a platform, I don't care if it's as long as it's virtual, pretty much, if you've got a platform, invite me to speak. And so I've spoken in classrooms, I've done like three different universities, I've I've done podcasts, and so don't be afraid to make an ask. It doesn't have to be a one-way situation, it really is a two-way communication tool if you let it be.
Josh Hall:Let's hit on quality over quantity as far as list size, because, as you very well know, web designers are probably not going to have a huge list. It's going to be clients, it's going to be partners, it's going to be maybe some people sign up for a lead generator, local networking events and business cards and stuff like that. This was a big kind of pain point when we did the challenge in pro recently is a lot of web designers were like well, my list is only like 17 people, or 40 people. My rebuttal to that, though, was yeah, but these are 17 people, who are many. Most of them are probably paying you, so a list of like 30 people for a web designer, in my mind, is actually way more valuable than a list of 3000 people with you know the dancing person on TikTok who is an influencer but doesn't actually have any like good quality leads per se as far as paying them. So can you speak to that with like small to mighty?
Michelle Martello:I mean, my favorite metric is like if you had 40 people in your office right now, would you not feel overwhelmed? Like you know? Think about it. How many clients do you need in the year? 10, 5, 20? Like, how many clients do you need?
Michelle Martello:I am so honored that most of my clients are on my email list. You know they read my emails and in fact, a lot of times they'll respond. I'll be like, hey, can we do that for me? Cause I'll be writing about what I'm doing for other clients and I may honestly, I may have forgotten to tell them about it and be like, oh yeah, we can totally do that for you. So look at it as an additional communication tool that is supportive and nurturing of the folks that you have and the potential folks in the future. Again, I also love it as a networking tool of sharing other people. Like I've got my SEO friends, I've got Michelle. Like Michelle and I actually just did a joint venture a couple of months ago, so I'm able to share her work with my audience. She's able to share me with her audience, so it can be again such a collaborative tool.
Michelle Martello:You know, sometimes we get very obsessed with the numbers and the metrics and it's hard, especially if you're comparing to, like, say, an online business guru. Right, frankly, a lot of their leads are trash. You know they're probably spending a ton of money on ads? Probably not a lot of their folks are vetted. Spending a ton of money on ads? Probably not. A lot of their folks are vetted.
Michelle Martello:You know, if you're cultivating smartly, uh, folks who are interested in what you have to say. They want to hear from you, they respect what you have to say. Um, I will say one tool that has been fantastic is kit has something called the creator network, so it's free. So, uh, you do have to be on the creator plan. However, this is a tool. Have to be on the creator plan. However, this is a tool that when someone signs up for someone else's list, they can recommend your list, and I can't tell you how many hundreds of people I've added to my list from this one free tool. It's amazing, and these are folks who are interested in what I have to say.
Josh Hall:Does that work for categorically too. Sorry for um like. As for web designers, is there like a web designer category?
Michelle Martello:There's a bunch on there. In fact, if you know, rafal Tamal, some other folks on there that I highly respect are over on Kit. In fact, some of them make newsletter templates which could be also of interest to folks Getting you know. If you're looking to expand your product line, like you can do websites, you could do a newsletter template for kit. That would be a really smart thing to do, potentially for your client, potentially to sell on an ongoing basis. Um, but yeah, they um.
Michelle Martello:Basically, you want to set up your creator profile in there. You're going to have your kind of description who you are, what you do, um, and then you know what you write about, and so maybe your specialty is you build websites for the restaurant industry. Or, in my case, I got known as a yoga studio website designer, so I was primarily writing for that community. I stumbled into it and it made me quite successful because people would then share me and what's really interesting is some of my very first clients from 2006 are still on my newsletter list. They've purchased additional products. They've actually come to events with me. People will go on the journey with you. It's so fascinating to see, like, the progression of where we are in our lives almost 20 years later.
Josh Hall:This may be a great closing point too, is that idea of somebody being on a list for years, because what I found with my newsletter and I've heard this said over and over by folks who have had newsletters for years is that one of the benefits is staying top of mind, whether it's weekly or biweekly or monthly, and then when somebody is staying connected with you, when they're ready, they haven't forgot about you. They know where to go, especially for businesses who maybe don't need a website right now but maybe next year they are ready. And if you've been top of mind, boom, you are top of mind as the web designer to move forward with.
Michelle Martello:Oh, yeah, yeah. And you know, also don't discount getting featured in other people's newsletters. So I think this is, you know, one tactic that I learned many years ago. Again, I was in the yoga studio business. I knew the guys who created a widget for MindBody Online. Mindbody Online is the default software that almost every single yoga studio uses and I got to know the guys who made a widget that, like was built on to MindBody Online. I got noted as a featured vendor, a featured website creator, and I can't tell you how much attention that got me because I was featured in their content, their materials and newsletters.
Michelle Martello:Getting featured in someone else's thing, that's reaching your target audience. Borrowing audience, again another thing Michelle Warner loves to talk about. Borrowing audience is one of the smartest things you can do. So you know, again, someone may not be ready for you right now. I mean, I've for sure had folks say I've been on your newsletter two years and I was waiting for you to have an offer just for me. And when I launched my smart mail course last year all about how to use email marketing they were like this was the one for me. I needed this particular offer, and so they're cued into you. They love what you have to say, they trust you and sometimes people just have to be be ready for it.
Michelle Martello:It's like that other thing I mentioned earlier about doing that nine word email. So many times people will reach out and they say, oh, I want a website and I always recommend. A friend told me this many years ago 50% of sales happens in the follow-up Following up with people and you can do it using your newsletter, right? Remember I talked about having a tag or segment of maybe interested clients, previous clients like reach out to those folks first. You can also manually write them. You don't have to do it through a newsletter, but having that kind of list of folks in the wings is such a smart way to just stay booked and busy.
Josh Hall:And that's the benefit of having a small list is it can be very personal. It's almost like a direct sales line, without being salesy, is having 40 people who you do, encourage them to respond back and then reply back and get those conversations going that inevitably lead to opportunities in sales. I mean, it sounds like I would imagine that's exactly how you built your list and built your network is just using the email as the glue to like have all these conversations but yet you're able to stay top of mind, able to share wins you know, refer others and build your, your persona like that Exactly. Yeah, real quick sponsorships. Yes, is yours sponsored or?
Michelle Martello:is yours Not, yet it's something I've thought about. A couple of my clients do do it. I like to retain control over what I put in my newsletter, so I haven't. I've been a little reluctant. Now, that said, I do have one client. He's brilliant. He's actually sold his business again, but he built up a newsletter and its primary revenue stream was sponsorships.
Josh Hall:Yeah, Cool, yeah, I was wondering how you felt about that, just because I wondered if that. I don't think that nowadays it would detract or deter anybody from reading, especially if it's in a thoughtful like you could still do your thing. And then, by the way, this is sponsored by blank Uh yeah, I think Justin Welsh does a great.
Michelle Martello:I mean he he kills it, um, I mean he's got a list of like 200,000, but um, and I want to say at this point, I think he's charging three grand a pop for sponsorship. I mean that's a huge revenue stream for him, right? So I think if it makes sense and it's in line with your ethics, you know, I think it's fine. I'm a big person when it comes to ethics and marketing. I think you have to have complete transparency. If you've got affiliate links, you have to tell people. It's also the law, right. So, I think, being mindful about it, a lot of this stuff and, frankly, you know a lot of folks who are writing newsletters, you know, and they're there. That's their main contribution. If they're not maybe service providers, they're more in this content space. That's how they generate revenue. I have absolutely no problem with it, as long as it's transparent.
Josh Hall:Yeah Well said. Yeah Well said. Yeah, cool, cool. I'm kind of crossing that I've done some sponsorships but I haven't done it weekly, just because I find it overwhelming trying to manage everything, although I actually talked to Justin. So you mentioned Jay Klaus earlier. He's a buddy of mine. Actually, he's local to be here in Columbus. We've been together for a while and I joined his community this year, largely to learn about some of these other areas as a creator that I think it's so smart yeah.
Michelle Martello:I'm a big believer in multiple revenue streams, for sure.
Josh Hall:Yeah, yeah, I've definitely been like you know, I did talk with Justin about that because I told him I was like dude, I have literally companies emailing me and I'm just turning them down. Well, right now I'm just collecting a list. I was like I just don't have the bandwidth to like create a new sponsorship package and manage it right now, but it's on the Q1 or Q2 of next year.
Michelle Martello:I love that, you know, not that I want to go coaching.
Michelle Martello:but like I love that for you of like you know, if you're like, take a day, like I think one of the things we don't do is I didn't do this for years as a web designer is just take time to really kind of do a little bit of dreaming for ourselves. We're so much in the doing of like, okay, I need to do, do, do, do. Take a day or a couple of days or a week just to dream. Let yourself like what do I really want to create? You don't have to do it all. My husband and I will do this sometimes where we'll just sit on the porch and be like okay, let's think of all the people we know and make a list of like well, what are they doing now? Can we check in with people? When you have these repositories, again, it's like a person goldmine. We've got a content goldmine, an idea goldmine. Like allow yourself to have the space to kind of dream things without immediately redacting them, because that's a lot of times we're like Ooh, it's too much work, I'm not going to do it. Like we, we.
Michelle Martello:It's kind of like writing and editing at the same time. It's not the best way to just write it. Have the misspellings, like have grammatical errors. Go ahead and write it, come back later and clean it up. Same thing with design, right? If you're trying to design and code at the same time, probably not going to have the most interesting kind of result, right? So allow yourself that time to kind of just dream and play Sponsorship model. What if you could do it by Q2? That seems doable. And then you reverse, engineer it and break it down. What would that look like? You've got a list of folks. They're probably planning out three to six months in advance, anyway, if they're bigger companies, so it actually works out for everybody.
Josh Hall:Yeah, no, that's a great point, you're right on. You're right on because that's the plan. Yeah, I was planning on, I've kind of got it started, but the plan is Q1 to really map it all out and make it sustainable for me and then roll it out.
Michelle Martello:Yeah.
Josh Hall:Thank you too. I'm curious have you seen sponsorships work in any way for service providers with a smaller list, or or would you just advise, like, just do you know, make the newsletter more of a personal thing to sell you versus selling sponsors.
Michelle Martello:I do have a couple of clients that do it and it's a little. It's a little more integrated and they're more in the speaker realm as opposed to service provider realm. Um, it's an interesting idea. I've seen it probably more with folks who have um, built up an audience in terms of, you know, maybe their course creators or they've got like a bigger community. Um, they've got something kind of else behind it. I definitely see it with folks who are, you know, bigger on social media. Um, that's not to say it couldn't work for service providers and it, you know, bigger on social media, that's not to say it couldn't work for service providers and it, you know.
Michelle Martello:Sometimes we're like, what is the monetary thing right? It could be. For some people, an extra thousand bucks a month is all you know. That's real money, you know.
Michelle Martello:So it's also determination of like, oh, if I earn a thousand dollars a month, again, being ethical and transparent about it, would this make sense? Is this something that I want to integrate? It doesn't have to be like, oh, it's going to pay off the mortgage kind of money. You know what I mean. So there are things that I promote that certainly bring in a couple of grand a month. That it's a nice revenue stream. If it ends, it's not the end of the world, but it's a nice kind of like cherry on top situation Right. So it's thinking about how does it fit in with everything? Is it something in terms of timeline and management, you know? Does it fit in? Does it take a lot of, does it take a lot of my resources, or is it like a nice additional revenue stream? Does it prevent me from doing other things that I want to do? And, if not, maybe it makes sense in the overall kind of landscape of what you're doing.
Josh Hall:Yeah, that's it right there. That's, personally, is what I've thought about. It's like, okay, what am I gonna have to take away from in order to get the sponsorship stuff going? I've got other priority items to worry about first. That's on the you know, not urgent priority, but not or you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, what's the word I'm looking for? It's not urgent, but it's yeah it's.
Michelle Martello:It's there. And I will say there's one other aspect, and this doesn't come up too often, but I just it just came to me. There was, um, I can't remember what platform it was. It was some piece of software and I can't remember if it was a shopping cart or something and it came out that the guy who created it was he was going to jail for some real bad things, and a lot of folks who promoted it were like I can no longer promote this because what he was accused of was just awful. And so I think that is another consideration. You know, in this day and age we kind of have to research what we're putting our name behind.
Josh Hall:Yeah.
Michelle Martello:And so if you can't and I know it's like harping on ethics and stuff, but it is kind of one of those things If you're promoting something and you don't do your due diligence, it kind of comes back as a reflection on you. I mean, it's certainly happened to me when I've recommended people. This is why I take no money If someone, if I refer someone for web design work or graph, I take no part of, I don't take a cut or anything. I keep it really, really clean, because I've had situations where, as we all you know, there's always three sides to a story and you know someone wasn't happy with work or something happened and I feel bad because I made the connection, but it's still up to that person, to, to, to vet and make sure that it's the right fit for them.
Josh Hall:Yeah, great point. Well, this has been awesome, michelle. I have one last question for you, but before we get to that, I know you're going to send over a ton of resources. We'll include in the show notes, but where should folks go to connect with you? Do you have uh?
Michelle Martello:your newsletter. Do you have a freebie? Where would you like folks to go? Yes, I got a ton of freebies for you, which I'll make sure to send in the show notes, but minimadesignscom is my main website. I have a couple, I think, great resources. I'll share that content. Goldmine blog post. I have a couple of lead magnets that I think people really enjoy. One about working with premium clients. That's specifically more towards web designers, so it's how to attract and retain premium clients. That's specifically more towards web designers, so it's how to attract and retain premium clients. I've had one of my clients for over 12 years now and we even do revenue share, so there's some beautiful, beautiful things that can happen with a long-term relationship. And then I have a brand new one that's coming out this week, actually called Rich Inbox, and it's the unique ways that you can use your email list to generate power, money and prestige even if you've got a small or tiny list, that's awesome.
Josh Hall:We'll link both of those. I think that one is going to be the priority one for this.
Michelle Martello:Oh yeah.
Josh Hall:That'll be super, super time. We'll have all of this linked to the show notes, but I'll make sure that's like the featured link on that one, because that's what folks are looking for help with in the web design world and because this is an area that I don't really, you know, have expertise in per se. Yeah, I'll rely on you to share all the good stuff. It's kind of a little bit of what I do, but not most of it, so it's been great. My last question for you, michelle what has been your favorite newsletter that you have wrote?
Michelle Martello:Oh, wow, oh, that's a great question, is there oh?
Josh Hall:wow, um, oh, that's a great question, um, is there one that you were like? Man that was a humdinger or uh, got a? You know got a lot of good responses that you were like yeah.
Michelle Martello:You know, I think when I get personal, um, you know, you know, in the last year I've had to go through some health stuff and some family stuff, and so sometimes I'm just like here's where we're out right now and I will tell you the outpouring of support and love and just like people who are going to show up for you, it just it, it, it just humbles you of, just because sometimes, you know, we're so detached, we're behind these microphones, sitting behind these desks and we don't get to work in offices anymore and we don't get to really connect with people, often in a way where you can see the impact, and the times when I'm able to like, like, go in person and people are like yo, you know, your newsletter changed everything for me. Or I made X amount of dollars. You know, someone told me they made close to a quarter million because I gave them an idea and I was like what?
Josh Hall:was the idea.
Michelle Martello:That to me, like that's where I get so jazzed up, because when you can feel the impact of what you've written and what you've created and how you've helped someone, that's the most fulfilling thing I can do.
Josh Hall:That's cool. So the personal couple of personal ones, yeah. Yeah, awesome, all right, michelle. Well, thank you so much again, minimadesignscom, and we'll have a bunch of these links in the show notes until you make a Martello moves when you start dancing on TikTok.
Michelle Martello:There, you go, you go.
Josh Hall:There you go for now. All right, thanks for your time, michelle, it's been great.
Michelle Martello:Thanks so much, so much fun.
Josh Hall:What a banger to kick off the year here. I really hope you enjoyed that chat as much as I did having it with Michelle. Again, wealth of knowledge, a lot you can do as far as email marketing and content marketing in 2025. So I hope you can apply at least one of the tips and strategies that we covered. If it were me, I would do the content goldmine. In fact, I am going to do the content goldmine. I'm literally working. I'm I have a Google doc right now that already has like 30 plus little tips that are kind of my go-tos for for my content goldmine that I'm going to be repurposing for social media and newsletter and all my content resources. So I would encourage you to do the same. Even if you're not an influencer or content marketer, you're still creating a lot of content for your clients and by golly. What a shame to know so much and keep it in your brain when you can get it out on your content goldmine. So that's what I'd recommend, but I would love to hear from you. I know Michelle would love to hear from you as well. I would love to hear from you. I know Michelle would love to hear from you as well.
Josh Hall:Go to the show notes for this episode Josh hallco slash three six one is where all of that will be. You will get all of the links that Michelle mentioned that she did send over, and then again you can connect with her at minima designscom and, of course, that will all be linked over at the show notes. For this one Josh hallco slash three, six one over at the show notes for this one joshhallco slash 361. All right, friends, happy content marketing, happy email marketing and cheers to a start of a very successful 2025 for you. I'm pumped to be a part of your web design business and to help you do that, and if you're not yet in my web design community, web Designer Pro, I'd love to see you there. There's three tiers. Now you can get access to all the courses or the community or coaching with me directly, which gives you access to absolutely everything. On the top tier, go to webdesignerprocom to join us there and can't wait to help be a part of your business in 2025. Cheers.