Episode #82: The Soulful, Simple & Effective Way to Do Email Marketing [Updated]

Ruth Poundwhite 0:06
You’re listening to creatively human with honest conversations about what matters to us and how it really feels to build an online business, put our work out into the world, make an impact in our own unique way, and importantly, to get well paid for it. I’m your host, Ruth Poundwhite, business mentor to quietly ambitious humans. Hi, and welcome back to the creatively human podcast. Today’s episode is a bit of a special one. And actually, there’s going to be another special one in a few days a bonus episode. Basically, I have just opened the doors to my email marketing course cultivate, and I wanted to share my email marketing philosophy with you. And it’s really timely for me actually, at the moment relaunching this programme, I first launched it, when was it now 2019. I’ve been using email marketing in my business since 2008. So for a very long time. And for most of that time, it was the main the main way I made money in my business, I built a six figure business almost entirely on email marketing. And since I started this new business, I’ve been loving, like social media, averaging the podcasting over doing all these things. But there’s nothing to me, that compares with email marketing. I, I know that we all have a love hate relationship with social media, and especially lately, I know it’s not just me. I know not everyone is experiencing this. But I also know it’s not just me, the flippin Instagram algorithm is just so frustrating. And also, you know, I’ve been toying with the knot tying, you know, like questioning my social media usage for so long. I keep saying I’m going to do an episode about this, I will, uh, well, because it’s such an important thing to talk about. But basically, I go through phases where I am addicted to social media, and it is not good for my mental well being. And I just keep circling back to email marketing, like email marketing is the hub of my business. Sorry, by the way, if you can hear my son in the background, he’s shouting, but I only have like five minutes to record this. So it is what it is. But yeah, email marketing is the hub, the heart, I should really call it of my business, because the kind of phrase email marketing doesn’t sound nice. It sounds a bit, you know, marketing. But it’s just a way of connecting with your people. That is all it is. And why I love it is the fact that a it’s something under your control. It’s not like Instagram that could be taken away from you or an algorithm shift could hit your reach. Be it’s something that people actively opt into. And that is quite magic. By the way, the fact that people give you their name and email and ask you, they give you their permission, their consent to send you to send him sorry, your content. That is amazing. See, the thing I love most about email is it’s easy. And I know that that might not resonate with some of you listening to that, but to me, it is easy. It makes my life and business easier. It is good for my mental health. It is so good. For my work life balance, like so, so good. For my work life balance. I love nothing more than scheduling a bunch of emails and closing my computer and forgetting about that thing that I’m launching versus showing up on social media, checking how many likes I’ve got questioning how many likes I’ve got compared to other people seeing what other people are doing, going down a rabbit hole of comparison itis and feeling crap about myself. There is something magical about emails once you get in your own unique rhythm and and honestly there is no one way to do email just like there is no one way to do anything in your business. Once you get into your own unique rhythm, it is so so good for your business. So good for your work life balance, so good for your mental health. It really is magic. And I know that some of some of you listening might have a fear that of it being icky. Or, you know, too salesy, but honestly I know that you’re you’re a sensitive human if you’re listening to this podcast, so you’re probably are anyway, you’re never going to be okay, you’re never going to be too salesy. Just trust me when I say it makes it easier to sell. If you worry about selling too much email makes it easier to sell. Anyway.

I’ve had so many conversations with clients and people in my audience lately who are just fed up with social media with the constant either addiction comparison cycle burnout, wanting to hide away cycle With the algorithms and not having that control over it, so this is why I keep circling back to email marketing, and behind the scenes. So since recording this original episode behind the scenes, I’ve put in loads of systems in place to be growing my email list on autopilot. When I first recorded this episode, because it is a rebroadcast of a, an old episode from a couple years ago, when I first recorded it, I had a handful of subscribers on this list for this coaching business. I had my old business, that’s why I had my main subscribers, but for this business, I had a handful. Now, I’m over 1000 subscribers, and I grow my email list every single day. It grows every single day without fail now, and that’s because of systems I’ve put in place. But most of all, it’s because I set the intention, that email marketing was the heart of this business. And it really, really is. Now my list now isn’t big, isn’t huge by any means. But I’ve grown that in a short space of time. And I know from my previous business, I built that six figure business with not many more subscribers than I have now in this business. So the way I do my marketing and the way it’s based on cultivating relationships, it’s really not about the numbers. It’s about, although Yes, your numbers will grow. But it’s about the quality of those relationships. So yeah, I’ve been on a real journey with it, I keep coming back to it. And I know, I massively believe in it, I wholeheartedly believe in it. And I don’t like the fact that some of these systems that make our business easier, are put out there and pushed and marketed in a way that doesn’t resonate with us. So we avoid them. Because when we avoid them when we think they’re not for us, we’re making our lives harder. And it’s not your fault, because there are like scammy marketing people who don’t do email nicely. But I just want to say give yourself permission to use tools like this to make your life easier. Anyway, I’ve been rambling for long enough now. Do go check out my course cultivate it is available now. It’s only available for a really short time it’s closing, I should have checked this before I start recording. I always do this. It’s closing on the 24th I think the 24th of February. So do sign up now. It’s going to be a live round, you’re going to get direct access to me including one to one via the messaging app. voxer. And, yeah, you can find that at Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash cultivate. And honestly, it’s it’s got everything you need. It talks about the foundations, it was about growing your list. And most importantly, it talks about nurturing relationships and selling to your list. It’s really all about building an engaged and they weren’t engaged, it’s very important that it’s quality over quantity, building an engaged email list and selling more of what you do. Like a human who cares about people and wants to get well paid. So yeah, I understand why email can feel difficult sometimes for sensitive humans, but I’ve got you covered. So yeah, go check that out Ruth poundwhite.com, forward slash cultivate. Now what you’re about to listen to is my email marketing philosophy. And like I said, I recorded it a couple of years ago. But it’s still massively relevant. In fact, I believe in it now more than ever, with all that stuff. I was just saying about social. So

Unknown Speaker 8:18
yeah, enjoy.

Ruth Poundwhite 8:20
Today, I wanted to give you a kind of broad introduction to my philosophy of email marketing, because I absolutely love email marketing. But I know that it’s something that a lot of people are put off from doing, because maybe it seems too complicated. Or it might seem a bit pushy. People don’t know what to send, or they worry that they’ll annoy people.

So yeah, I just wanted to go over the way I see it, because I see it as actually something amazing. Not only because it helps me to sell what I do and an easier way, and I don’t feel like it’s icky at all, but also because I genuinely enjoy it. Like I love writing emails, and I love connecting with people that way. And as an introvert, it’s also just such a good way to make use of my energy when I’m feeling on. And to be able to step away when I’m not feeling like showing up but still be able to show up thanks to the fact that you can automate emails and send them out on a regular schedule. So yeah, this episode is just going to be an introduction to all things email marketing, and the specific way I like doing it, which is basically in a really hot lead creative feelgood way. So just before we dive in, I wanted to share how I have built my business with email marketing. I have been doing email marketing, probably for about 10 years. I’m not entirely sure. I’ve been running my business since 2008. But I know that I didn’t build an email list at first because I was actually worried about the cost of it which is really funny thing. After that, because basically, my email list now is my biggest driver of sales, and it more than pays for itself. So yeah, I’ve been doing email marketing for a while. And because I never really you, I didn’t really use social media that much. I got a lot of clients through forums and groups and referrals and build up a mailing list and then use that to like, keep up the momentum with my business. So that is why email marketing is my absolute favourite, because I’ve literally been doing it for 10 years. So the other thing I wanted to say before we dive in is kind of a definition of email marketing, because I guess the basic definition is that it’s using emails in order to promote your products and services to sell your products and services. And I can see why that definition is kind of sounding a bit negative to a lot of people, you know, it’s all focused on marketing, selling stuff, I can see why that doesn’t sit right with the kind of people who like doing business in a really hot lead way. But I actually think that, I guess my definition of email marketing is that it’s a way to nurture and develop relationships with potential customers, and not even just customers, also just with people who will love what you do and share it with other people. So yes, selling is a part of that. But it’s more than that. It’s a nice, deeper way to connect with people. And I suppose the kind of people that I’m speaking to in this podcast episode, obviously, we’ve all seen, you know, massive shops, online shops, sending loads of emails out about all their sales and all their discounts and all their products or even those emails when you like go to put something in your car on an online store, but then you don’t buy it. And you get an email straightaway saying Did you miss something? Obviously, I’m not talking about that kind of thing. What I’m talking about is, I suppose more for people who run their businesses, individuals, for small business owners, for bloggers, for coaches, even podcasters. Yeah, people with really small independent businesses, who perhaps are the only one really working on this stuff, or have a really small team. That’s the kind of people I’m talking about. And obviously, it’s kind of people who really care about their customers and care about the way that they market their business. And it’s probably also for people who find it difficult to sell their stuff. And I count myself in that category as well. It’s just that I’ve kind of been doing it for so long that I’ve overcome my sort of own difficulties not completely, it’s still something I’m working on, I probably always will be. But yeah, so this is who I’m talking to. And that’s what I mean by email marketing, a kind of way to develop and nurture really important and fulfilling relationships in your business that hopefully, well, almost certainly will lead to making it easier to sell what you do as well, and nine in Aqa. So I guess the first thing that I always start off with, is to say that it is possible to do email marketing, it’s possible to do any kind of marketing in your own way. Doing it your way and being yourself is key, actually, to this kind of philosophy of email marketing. Because if you don’t do it your way, if you’re forcing yourself to, you know, follow a sort of formula, or blueprint or pushy sales sequence that someone has told you always works, if you’re forcing yourself and it doesn’t feel right, then it’s going to kind of work against that way of building a connection with your subscribers. Because being yourself and doing things in alignment with your values is key to nurturing a really true connection with your people. So I have a blog post about the golden rule and how I apply this to my business. So basically, the golden rule is that philosophical concept or sort of like ethical principle of doing as you would be done by do as you would be done by which basically means stop for a minute and think, would I like anyone doing this to me? And if not, don’t do it to anyone else. And this applies to anything in business, but also to email marketing. So for example, maybe you don’t mind when people send you emails about new products all the time. And maybe you do and neither of those options is right or wrong. But I just think using that golden rule is a way to figure out what’s right or wrong for you. And if you’ve been in the kind of online business online marketing world for a while, you will hear all sorts of noise out there about you got to do this, otherwise, you’re leaving money on the table or you got to do this otherwise your business won’t work. Yes, there are more like pushy and direct tactics that work to bring in more income sometimes. But to be honest, it’s really, really dependent on what kind of business you’re in what kind of customers you’re serving what you’re like, it’s really not anything that you can guarantee with any kind of formula. So don’t think that you need to do things like x, y, z. marketers out there you do things your way. And ultimately that will work for you. And I just want to add a caveat to that and say doing things your way doesn’t mean, I’m saying you should just hide away and not bother with email marketing. What I mean is, I’m hoping that after listening to this episode, you might be a bit more convinced that it’s worth trying. But when you do try it, you can sort of take or leave certain things that I say, based on how you feel, I hope that makes sense. Like, I want to encourage you to try new things and push yourself out of your comfort zone in terms of marketing and selling what you do, but not to the extent that it doesn’t feel in alignment with your values. So yeah, there are loads of statistics out there about the power of email marketing, basically, it is the best way to put your stuff in front of people, it’s the most direct way to sell to people. If you’re selling on social media, you’re part of a gigantic newsfeed with hundreds 1000s of other posts, and you have a split second, to get someone to notice. And the thing is with social media websites is they’re all designed to keep people within the app like you know, on Instagram, for example, you can’t even put a link in a grid post. And that’s because the designers of the app don’t want you to click a link and leave the app. Obviously, there are exceptions to this and certain features on Instagram that do make it a bit easier to sell. But generally, people using the social media apps are more likely to stay within the app. Whereas when you receive an email directly to your inbox, firstly, there’s probably way fewer emails in the inbox compared to posts that people are following on a social media newsfeed. So it’s more likely that someone will notice it. Secondly, when they do, it’s easier for them to click through and go on the website. It’s like much more natural sort of action for someone to take from an email. And thirdly, I also think that just sending emails gets people to like see your name, it’s it’s more obvious in a way than social media posts, which just come and go, I suppose that ties into the first point I made. But yeah, if you’re emailing people, even if they don’t open up your emails, because I mean, if you think about your own habits, and how many emails you read, and things like that, I know that I don’t open all the email newsletters I’m subscribed to. But I still see those people’s names over and over again, like every week or every month, or however often they send their newsletters. So I do think it really helps to like, get your name into someone’s head. And I suppose with these examples of the benefits for your marketing, I have been focusing on selling. But that doesn’t mean that every email you send is going to be a sales email, you’re not constantly blasting out emails, we’re not like those marketing companies I mentioned earlier, who are sending you messages all the time, like every day about new products or products that you haven’t checked out of the cart, where the whatever, I’m talking more about communicating, I’m talking about making what you have to offer a part of the wider conversation. And the wider conversation of your business includes basically everything you do. So it includes your social media posts, includes your blog posts, podcasts, it includes your email newsletter, which will often have content that’s not selling at all, like, for example, my email newsletter is really, it’s kind of like a sort of blog post. Although I do have a different vibe when I’m writing it than I do. If I’m writing a straight out blog post. Yeah, it’s kind of like unique content just for my email subscribers. But within that, I also have links to what I’m doing. And I personally do include links to my staff in every single email I do I know that some people won’t want to link out in every email, but I do and I don’t think it has a negative impact on my relationships with people, I have a really good open rate for my emails. And people say they like my letters. So I don’t feel guilty at all about like writing a unique letter as part of the email and then including some links to my stuff as well. And to be honest, some of the stuff I linked to things like podcast episodes, and people want to know about that. That’s another thing to remember, like people literally want to know, when you have a podcast, we may think it’s obvious, we may think that everyone knows that we have a podcast from all the posts we do on social media and stuff. But people miss this stuff, people don’t see every single post you ever put out there. If you only mention it once in a blue moon, then people the chances of everyone seeing that, that one time that you mentioned it kind of slim. So that’s something to bear in mind as well. Like it’s actually useful to your subscribers to know what you’re doing. I also wanted to touch a bit on the kind of the difficulty I suppose in writing to people when you only have a really small email list because obviously everyone has to start at zero. And if you haven’t built up a email list yet or you haven’t really got the momentum that you want to have with it, then it can feel like quite difficult to put that effort in but When I first started my email list, I was making money from it when I had under 100 subscribers definitely. And the more it grew, the more money I made, and it paid for itself really, really quickly. And I never had a huge email list. So I’m talking about, you know, making a very healthy income in my business from a list of a few 1000 people. So that’s the power of this kind of hot lead way of doing email marketing, you don’t need to have a huge list. Because the idea is that the people that are on your list are the ones that you’re really, really connected to. And I also try really hard not to care about numbers at all, when it comes to email marketing. Numbers are tricky, aren’t they, in all areas of business, you know, like following numbers on social media and things like that. But we’re all only human basically. And it’s hard not to care about them, even though we know we shouldn’t. But I think with email marketing, it’s easier not to care about them. First, it’s easier because nobody else sees those numbers apart from you, you do not have to tell anyone how many people are on your email list. And I love that. And the other thing is, like I said, when people unsubscribe from your list, it could mean that they’re not your right people, which is good, because you want to have already engaged email list. And you don’t want to be paying for people who don’t want to see what you have to say. But to be honest, it doesn’t even mean that because I know for a fact that i unsubscribe and re subscribe to people all the time. Because sometimes I just want to have a clear out sometimes I want to quiet and things down in my inbox. Often I’ll unsubscribe from people’s emails, but are still following them on social media, for example, or I might be in someone’s Facebook group, but not on their email list. So I don’t think we should read into unsubscribes that much, we shouldn’t take them personally. And we shouldn’t even necessarily assume that people have unsubscribed because they don’t like what we do. People are busy, and they have every right to unsubscribe and quieten things down whenever they feel like so having the right people subscribed and writing the right kind of content that fosters that kind of deep connection means that you do not have to have a big email list at all for it to be really impactful, impactful in terms of connecting with your people, but also in terms of just making your whole business life easier, just making it more sustainable, because it’s really hard if you’re selling on social media, for example, to keep showing up all the time. And for your sales to like dry up when you’re not there. It’s really tiring, especially as an introvert or, or especially for anyone who has like mental health issues or physical health issues or whatever. Email Marketing is something that you have a bit more control of. It means that you can schedule things in advance, you can schedule like regular newsletter, or a monthly update of your products so that people are always seeing what you do. But you don’t have to be constantly on social media. And the other thing is that social media, and people always say this, and it really is true social media could change at any time. We’ve seen it happen in the past, with sites like MySpace, things change, and they can change quite suddenly. And you can spend a lot of time building up this, you know, 1000s and 1000s of followers on Instagram, and one day something could happen, Instagram could take issue with your account, Instagram could go belly up, whatever. If you have that email list, then you have something that’s more in your control. And that’s not to say that social media isn’t worth it. But the email list is a way to take those people from social media like to invite them to take sort of the next deeper step with you and to have a sort of, it’s sort of like a backup plan for your business, like not putting all your eggs in one basket. I think that’s really important when you run an online business. So yeah, I’ve talked a bit about why email marketing is so important, how it can make a really important connection and make things easier to sell. I suppose I wanted to touch on a bit about how I know that it’s a lot of pressure for people to come up with content to write to their email list. And I guess I have a few things to say about that. So firstly, I would just suggest writing less frequently, if that makes things easier for you. So I write my newsletter weekly. And I like keeping in touch with people weekly. But there’s plenty of people who send newsletters monthly. And I know that monthly is still enough for me to remember who they are. And if that feels good to you, then I think that that’s a really good way to make sure that you’re doing it but without putting the pressure on yourself because it’s better to do it in frequently than not do it at all. That’s kind of my philosophy of it. I also think that maybe if you send out less frequent emails, give yourself permission to sort of experiment and find your voice, find your flow, find your rhythm with it, then eventually you might actually find it a lot easier. That’s certainly been the case with me. So although I’ve had an email list for a long time, my current newsletter, Ruth poundwhite.com is fairly new and I would say it took me a good few months. To find a rhythm that I was comfortable with with it. And now that I have that rhythm, it’s so much easier to write those emails. So yeah, it takes a while. And that’s fine. The other thing I wanted to say that helps with that kind of overwhelm at creating content is that it’s really okay to repurpose your content. It really is, we are not like a huge firms with a massive marketing budget and loads of staff, there is only so much that we have the energy and the time to do so it’s fine to reuse content in different places. And the fact is that most people who follow us are not going to see absolutely everything we ever post or send us an email. So there’s reason enough to repurpose that just to make sure that more people see it. And those that do see it, I don’t think they’re going to care. I really don’t like I know if it came from a good place. If the content was good. If the person was sincere, I really would not mind if they wrote something in an email that they’d also written in a blog post. I’m not saying that everything you do should be you know, repurpose like that. But I think it’s okay to do that sometimes. Or to do it in a in a sort of half repurposed, half fresh kind of way. So for example, this is what I do with my email list, I will often write a newsletter, and take a little bit of it and post it on Instagram. And sometimes I’ll invite people to sign up to my newsletter, if they wanted to get the full thing. Occasionally, I will take an email newsletter I’ve written and publish it as his as a blog post and invite people through the blog post to sign up to my email newsletter. A lot of the time, I’ll write an email newsletter, and I won’t post it on Instagram. I won’t post it as a blog post, but I do save it. Because I have no qualms about like, in the future, taking that content and repurposing IT. And especially if you’re doing it with like a gap in between, I don’t think anyone’s gonna know. And if they do know, I, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong if they did find out anyway. So yeah, there’s ways to make it easier in terms of repurposing it as well. And that also ties back in to kind of making your email list a part of the wider conversation of your whole business, part of the ecosystem of all the content that you’re putting out. So I mentioned that I might take a snippet and put it in an Instagram post. That’s a really nice way, not only of sharing some valuable content with your Instagram followers, of saving yourself some time, but it’s also a really nice way of just giving a nod back to your email newsletter and like saying, Yeah, I have a newsletter, it exists. If you like this, sign up to it. And I don’t know about you. But if I see anyone promoting their stuff in that way, I have zero problems with it. There is nothing icky or pushy about inviting people back to your newsletter in that way. And I also often mention on stories like, Oh, I’m writing my newsletter today, oh, if you want to get it on Monday, then sign up now. Or, you know, sometimes I’ll be more direct than just like, sometimes I’ll give a tease. And maybe that feels more icky to you again, just go back to that golden rule. Some people might not like that, that’s fine. But yeah, usually it’s just part of the wider conversation. And I always get signups when I mentioned it, and I mentioned it in a totally normal way. It’s kind of like if you imagined being a dinner guest with someone, not just like banging on about something, because that would have make you a really, really annoying dinner guest but just like mentioning it, here and there, mentioning a few things, but also being, you know, a good conversationalist and having other interests to talk about as well. That’s kind of how I say it. And ultimately, the way you do your email list is going to come down to how you feel about it, how much time you’ve got, I really encourage you to try and drown out the noise and to allow yourself to figure things out as you go. Like I’ve said, You’ve probably heard a lot of stuff about landing pages, a lot of stuff about having to have a freebie to entice people to sign up to your list. You’ve probably heard that you need like 1000s and 1000s of people to have a successful business, but you don’t. I’m proof of that. And my business was very successful. Honestly, doing anything is better than nothing. And on that note, I’m going to talk about actually getting started because I know that that is another thing that can put people off, you know, having the time and the mental energy to literally figure out the tech and how to get going. I am doing a free email challenge, which will kind of go into this include a few checklists and stuff and that’s at Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash email challenge. But the gist of getting started in the easiest way possible is literally to sign up with an email marketing provider. I recommend you do not waste time like comparing all different providers because there are loads so just go with one that your friend recommends. I mean, I use ConvertKit but if you want something free, then you can use MailChimp. Sign up to that. Create a landing page and then you You can direct people to that landing page to sign up to your newsletter. Don’t call it a newsletter, though, don’t just say sign up to my newsletter, think of a reason for people to subscribe. Now, the reason could be a free thing if you had time to create it. But if you don’t have time to create a free thing, just literally think of something that people will get out of your newsletter. So for example, it could be behind the scenes of whatever you’re working on. It could be first access to sales, if you sell products, it could be you know, your personal thoughts that you don’t share outside of your newsletter, anything, just something a bit more than just sign up to my newsletter, because you know, there’s so many newsletters to sign up to out there on the internet. So you just need to give people a little reason that makes them want to sign up. And yet, have that landing page, get the link for the landing page, and put it in your social media links, so that you can talk about it on social media and direct people to those links, put it on your website, you don’t even need to use code. If code freaks you out, you can literally get the URL of the landing page and link to that. Obviously, I would recommend that you do the code and add the form directly to your website if you can. But honestly, remember that something is better than nothing. So if you don’t know how to do it, then you can figure out later you can tweak everything later. Everything you do now can be tweaked later. The key thing is that you take that step, sign up and find a way for people to subscribe to your newsletter, you can worry about all the other stuff later. And I really, really encourage you to do it because it does make your business life so much easier. It really,

I love it. I love it so much. I love the act of it. I love writing my newsletters, and I love the kind of results that they give me. So I really hope that this episode might encourage you to get going. And there’s a lot more for me to talk about when it comes to email marketing. But I don’t want to make things overwhelming in this episode. So I will talk about it more in future. So for now, go to my website, Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash email challenge, which is all one word, and you can get my free four day challenge to help you build that momentum in a way that feels really good for you. And I’ve also had people submitting their email marketing questions to me on Instagram. But I’m aware that this episode is already looking fairly long like I like to keep my solo episodes quite short. So I think I’m going to cover those questions in a separate episode. And don’t forget to go check out my email marketing course cultivate which is open now until the 24th of fifth. It’s all about building an engaged and quality email list and selling more of what you do. Like a human who cares about people. We’re going to cover building your list, growing your list, nurturing relationships with your list, and really importantly, making selling easier through email marketing, so you can find that Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash cultivate. If you have any questions about it, please do email me Hi at Ruth poundwhite.com. And yeah, I can’t wait to support you in building this asset for your business. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of creatively human. If you have a moment I’d be so grateful if you could rate and review the podcast it really does make a difference. And if you’d like to carry on the conversation or ask a question for a future q&a episode, there are three ways to connect with me on the Facebook group on Instagram at Ruth Poundwhite all my personal favourite my behind the scenes newsletter. Just go to Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash newsletter to subscribe and keep doing what you’re doing because your work really does matter.