If you found your way to this episode from my newsletter, thanks for taking part in one of the areas I lack most in: emailing my list.
If you’re like me, stuck in a proverbial hamster wheel of self-doubt & content creation, today’s episode is for you. In fact, if it weren’t for today’s guests, I would have never got back into pressing send in MailerLite. (A recent switch from MailChimp, because I have a bad feeling about the Inuit acquisition.)
If you need a boost of confidence or a programmatic way to warm up your newsletter engines again, Kim Doyal and Jason Resnick are here to help — with a twist.
The duo joins me today to talk about their new co-venture, Deliverit. (use the full link so they know I sent ya, it’s not an affiliate! https://getdeliverit.com/mattreport/)
This will be a meta approach to building a newsletter list in public. They will share what works and what doesn’t, when it comes to growing your email list. Learn straight from the email horses mouth — it’s going to be exciting.
Thanks to Malcare & Blogvault for supporting the show.
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Matt: The two of you are cooking up something called, get deliver it.com. Get delivered it.com. You can find a special link. Get delivered.com/matt report. That’ll be in the show notes, really interested to learn more about email marketing.
[00:00:14] The two of you. Quite literally in stereo, in my ears over the last few years, telling me about email and I’m just sitting there quietly, collecting a list, doing absolutely nothing with it, including for this show. So I’m really excited to talk about that today. Let’s talk about this, this partnership that the two of you have formed.
[00:00:35] I think partnerships are awesome. I think people should partner up more instead of trying to coddle their little ideas together in the closet by themselves. Who wants to take it first? Who came up with this idea? And why did you, why did you partner together?
[00:00:49] Jason: Kim.
[00:00:49] Kim: going to jump in Jason. See, I told you I’m new to this whole, like two people trying to answer a question. You notice how I rephrase that fellows anyway. So, what’s funny is it was about almost a year ago and I have known Jason A. Long time too. And he was totally into email marketing.
[00:01:07] And I’ve said this so many times. It is the only regret I have in my business that I did not put more time and attention into this. And so I reached out to Jason, I’m like, Hey, You want to collaborate on an email marketing summit was the original idea. And when I say this was a year ago, I was in Boise, Idaho.
[00:01:26] We started doing at the time, it was like bi-monthly calls because it was really about, how do we make this different and how can we get this to stand out? Because COVID era so many summits and. Trusted. We just kept working on it, working on it, and then I left Boise and wins California and then moved to Costa Rica.
[00:01:43] And we were originally going to do it this fall and this last fall, excuse me. And we pivoted, and I can, I can let Jason pick up with the direction we’re going now with it, but yeah, it’s been a, it’s been a fun journey.
[00:01:56] Jason: Yeah. And I think we pivoted in a good way because. Yeah. We each had our own audiences and our own following in a certain kind of way. And yes, we could have had just a summit. Right. And, but then as we started to unpack a little bit of what the summit was supposed to be like, what the actual attendee would have gotten out of it, we realized that what a lot of people suffer from is.
[00:02:23] The one it’s a mindset thing is that push, push, send button that you have to push on an email that a lot of people just like they can’t do. But then at the same time, on the other side of things, they’re like, I don’t have a list or I have 17 people on the list or. I feel like this is too small.
[00:02:44] Why am I going to send an email? And so we both have both. I, I, to say that the only regret I have in my business is not doing email marketing sooner. And as having put a major focus [00:03:00] in on it over the past, I would say. 15 months or so I’ve seen the huge impact and I don’t have a large list at all. So, we just said, Hey, why don’t we instead of the summit, maybe that’s further down the road.
[00:03:14] Why don’t we try to build a list from scratch with various different experiments and strategies all the way from beginner to advanced and. With all sorts of creators. If you’re a musician, a podcast, or if you’re a developer or a designer, marketer, writer, whatever it is, staying in your lane, do what you do.
[00:03:34] But we can also help you build your email and email list and your email marketing in a smart way.
[00:03:41] Matt: I want to unpack each of yours. Superpowers and I’ll give you sort of my take on it first. You can agree or disagree. This is where I wish I had like game show buzzers that we could kind of press here. But you know, Kim and cause I can see, you having known both of you forever and kind of just like seeing this come together, I can see how.
[00:04:00] Both of your powers come together to make something great, but I want to illustrate this to the audience. So they know that the both of, what the heck you’re talking about when it comes to email growing a list and turning that into a business, Kim over the years, I I’ve seen you sort of evolve into much more well, you were hyper-focused in the WordPress space for a while and you were kind of just you know what, I’m sick, sick and tired of talking about.
[00:04:22] Let me zoom out and make this much more branding. And I think that’s where, where maybe you’re at with F the hustle and sort of this approach to the broader gains of, of email and marketing and messaging and branding and Jason, same thing with you. You started off in where it’s so funny, how both of you have started off in WordPress and now you’re like, screw WordPress I’m off.
[00:04:44] And I’m the only guy in the room. I just realized that I’m the one in the room who was making the wrong decision. Jason, you started off in WordPress and, and, but you, you have sort of hits yourself to a tool. You can correct me if I’m wrong, hit yourself to a tool, maybe convert kit, and really focusing on those customers in that crowd and built a bit.
[00:05:04] Around that, but let me kick it to Kim first. Your superpower. Am I close, accurate inaccurate?
[00:05:13] Kim: Yeah, I wasn’t sure what the superpower was specifically.
[00:05:16] Matt: The, the sort of the branding zooming out and being like the brand creator, the, the messaging F the hustle like that, kind of tell it. how it is in your face. Branding.
[00:05:30] Kim: Yeah. It’s so funny too. Yeah, for sure. And I think for me, it’s been about helping people to kind of find their voice, which is, you go further back. That’s what my podcast did for me. It’s that’s when my business started to take off is when I just started showing up and genuinely being myself and communicating and it’s funny.
[00:05:46] Like I always joke. I’m like, can I look back? Did I even pay attention in English? Because I swear I was a horrible writer. You start using Grammarly. Jesus. So, but over the years, and that was like 2013. I started [00:06:00] podcasting, but I, because of the way I talk, I knew I needed to write my show notes out first.
[00:06:04] And so it’s helped me evolve and I sort of fell in love with the writing process and be able to get clearer. And, it’s interesting. I just had a coaching call with a client earlier and this idea of creating content and writing for search versus. Writing for people. And, there’s, there’s such a balance with both work.
[00:06:24] But where my stuff has taken off is genuinely being myself, talking about the struggles, the challenges that, and then F the hustle, because I’m just tired, I was about to swear, but do not tell me I have to get up at 4:00 AM and accomplish 80 things by six to I’m living a pretty good life.
[00:06:39] I’m not complaining. So it’s just finding that balance. There is no one set way to do that. So, yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. I would say that is my superpower.
[00:06:48] Jason: I think, I think for myself, you’re spot on like I’ve I, WordPress was a general tool for me and then I, I hyper-specific. Well commerce and then even the subscriptions plugin. And I saw how that could being so specific with those kinds of customers could elevate me like as a big fish in a very, very small puddle.
[00:07:11] Right. And so, so for me, I always always attracted as a developer towards e-commerce and that was more for me being able to see the impact that I have on a business. Do you optimize checkout processes or re you know, and all of that kind of stuff. And then actually see what that resulted in at the end of the month.
[00:07:36] So when email marketing and the website started talking together a lot better about seven ish, years ago, eight years ago. That’s where I went because one of the superpowers that I have. I didn’t realize it until maybe about five, six years ago was that I had a director of it 15 plus years ago.
[00:08:00] Tell me you’re a strange breed because you can, you can talk the King’s English and you could talk geeks. And you can have everybody in the room and you can almost translate for one another and make things happen. And so that’s kind of how I look at it from where I am today is I do a lot of email marketing.
[00:08:23] I’ll do a lot of email automation, tying systems together and all of those kinds of nuts and bolts kind of stuff, and making the magic happen. But. Where I feel that that D what that does is actually takes the communication aspect, the English, and then figuring out how to marry the humans to the computers in a way that makes sense to the humans.
[00:08:47] Right? So putting the right offers in front of people, putting, figuring out who they are and what makes them tick and what are their desires. And then. Figuring out what sequences on the other end that we can actually push out an email to. So, [00:09:00] that for me is I, I get up all day and every day I work on that stuff all day long.
[00:09:05] Matt: And I think the other thing that you both bring to the table, which cannot be overlooked is the fact that neither of you have given up since I’ve known you. Right. Which is like a huge thing that a lot of people, they just experiment, they try and they give it a year maybe. And I was like, okay, that didn’t work out.
[00:09:23] I was fine if you want to just sort of expire that, that time. But I know the two of you, you certainly. You have evolved, maybe even rebranded to a degree, but you haven’t given up right. Promoting and creating content and, following a north star and letting everybody know about it. so that’s an, can be sometimes underappreciated, like that ten-year overnight success thing that, that we hear, how do they do that?
[00:09:45] It, I don’t know. It just took 10 years to do it. That’s, that’s all, I’m not saying it’s taking you guys 10 years, but you know,
[00:09:50] Jason: 13,
[00:09:51] Matt: Yeah.
[00:09:52] Kim: Yep. Mark marches 14 years for me.
[00:09:54] Matt: I’m 10 years. So this is all complete. So let’s just talk about email marketing in 2022. I’m the person that you illustrated. Jason, like I have an email list it’s on that report and I send exactly zero emails. zero. And it just, it continues to build and, and I have those same fears of, I haven’t done. Why would I start now? Because I’m like quite literally afraid to see like the MailChimp report that I sent the email in 70% of the, the lists were unsubscribed Because they’re like, who the hell are you?
[00:10:29] I haven’t heard from you in three years. I’m
[00:10:32] Kim: it makes sense to pay for them and not talk to them any.
[00:10:34] Matt: Right,
[00:10:38] Kim: unsubscribe, but you’re never going to hear from me because I liked that number.
[00:10:42] Matt: And that’s, and that’s literally what it is. It’s Ooh, I got a list. I don’t want that list to move. I just want to stay right there. So let’s talk about that in 2022, the obvious is yes, we should be doing it when somebody comes to you and I’ll, I’ll kick the answer to Jason first when somebody comes to you and they say, I think the list is too small, or I don’t think anyone’s going to tune in or open up.
[00:11:03] Piece of advice to that type of person.
[00:11:05] Jason: Tiny is it just another four-letter word? Right. And for me, I have two lists. One list is. around 2000 and I have another list that’s just around 200. Both of those lists make six figures on their own. So there’s no such thing as a tiny list, as long as you communicate and engage with them and what they want from you.
[00:11:28] Right. And so I always say Our job as a marketer is really just to figure out and communicate a solution to somebody who comes to us. And so that’s what email does ask a lot of questions, find out what they’re looking for and then toss them and offer whether it’s yours or somebody else’s. You can do affiliate marketing and or your own services and products and things of that nature.
[00:11:50] But For me, it doesn’t matter because like I’ve seen lists that have had hundreds of thousands of people on it and [00:12:00] make five figures. Then I’ve seen six figure lists that have a hundred people on it. So. It really depends on really getting over that mindset. Like you said I think I did even say that a couple of months ago was like, do you send emails?
[00:12:15] Is it just going into my spam or in your like, no, I don’t send it. I’m like, oh, okay, well good. But I
[00:12:26] Matt: spent,
[00:12:27] Kim: Totally getting roasted.
[00:12:28] Matt: I’m an old social media curmudgeon. I only spend my time in podcasts, YouTube and Twitter. And I know no one does that anymore. That’s the only place that I spend my time. Cause it’s all.
[00:12:38] Jason: So I’m in Twitter and email. Like I, I went down the YouTube rabbit hole and I do see that, but for me, it’s just like people can I find that I get replies on my emails? Can I share this on social? I say, all right, sure. And then they’re like, oh, it’s not on your website. I’m like ma too lazy to put it on the website.
[00:12:56] I’ll just write the email and. Just, it works. It works. I switched to daily emails about 15 months ago from weekly. That was the only other time that I had that scared moment. And I thought it would just tank the list, but engagement went through the roof. So.
[00:13:12] Matt: And now I want to take that same point. Bring it to Kim. Now I see the stuff that you and Jason put out with your, with your email newsletters. So.
[00:13:22] One, I have that fear of just got this, list. I don’t do anything with it. And then the other fear is, okay, I’m ready to do something with it.
[00:13:29] And then I look at what you do, Kim I’m like this, I can’t, I can’t even keep up. It’s you’re, you’re, running a marathon and I’m just like tying my shoes and I don’t even know where to begin. I start thinking of automation. I start thinking of, okay, like Jason, he’s got to do it daily. Email me, God, I, how do I even approach this stuff?
[00:13:45] Any advice to somebody like me, who’s just I don’t even know where to get started. Where do I begin if I want to restart my email list?
[00:13:54] Kim: Yeah, well, first of all, to Jason’s point too, it’s a, it’s a mindset completely. A hundred percent. I did. I called them my almost daily emails because I didn’t always email on the weekend. I don’t, I’m not doing it right now, but probably four years ago. And I had watched what Ben settled in for a year before I even became a customer.
[00:14:09] And I was. Okay. And it’s kind of a atomic habit of who you want to become. So I just simply made a commitment to myself that I was going to show up and write the email. And it’s a story-based email with one call to action. I’m like, this is not crazy formatting. And as much as I like some formatting, it’s text-based emails do better, but it was, that was it.
[00:14:28] I’m like, I’m going to share stories and I’m going to put one call to action. And it was simply an exercise. Yeah. Practice to myself to commit to that. And so I think when people get in the way, because you hear some, I’m not a writer, I don’t know what to write about. Talk to me. Talk to people. Like I jokingly tell people I could’ve convinced anyone to go see Avengers end game.
[00:14:47] I thought three times in the theater, it was a brilliant movie. And I’m like, tell that story get excited about something and talk like you’re talking to people. Some things will work, some things won’t. But the thing is, the piece with email that I think is [00:15:00] magical is that you start focusing a little bit more on the mastery and you’ve got this whole tech side, but it’s like when you start understanding that you can change a sentence and a headline or.
[00:15:10] And double your sales. Like you lose those inhibitions really fast. I jokingly say I’m like, this shit works. It just works. And so you’re going to be uncomfortable. That’s it? I don’t, there is this element of when you’re starting something new, I don’t know why we think we’re supposed to be good at it, or there’s going to be a discomfort.
[00:15:28] But if you flip it, it’s kind of the James Clair with atomic habits, right. You’re not somebody who’s trying to quit smoking. You’re someone who doesn’t know. So you get to choose and you get to reframe. I’m not somebody who’s going to try to email I’m somebody who sends an email. It may suck. It may be brilliant, but it’s just start by talking to people.
[00:15:46] One of the emails that I got amazing responses on it’s hysterical was my headline was I literally fell down. And I did because I was going to walk the dogs and God forbid, I wait until I get to the bottom of the stairs to pick a podcast to listen to. And it just, the whole thing happened in slow motion.
[00:16:02] I was like, I could feel my foot Mrs. Step, but I’m in my head. I’m like, this is not going to end. Well, I didn’t hurt anything. I broke my sunglasses. That was my subject line. And so I told this story and I just pivoted it to how many times do we do that in our business? We’re not looking at what’s right in front of us.
[00:16:18] I don’t even remember what the call to action was. It was the exercise of sending an email. I got tons of responses. Are you okay? People who know me are like, I can totally hear you. That was hysterical. So, but the point is it was engagement and I’m creating that relationship piece. So people are overthinking email from.
[00:16:33] You’re talking to people. You can have fun. You can come from the heart. Some of my more personal stuff that has nothing to do with my business is what is blown up and driven traffic to my site that brings people into your world and connect. So you have to get over yourself. You’re going to be uncomfortable and you do it anyway.
[00:16:48] Like it’s, it’s just adulting. Entrepreneurial adulting is what I call it now.
[00:16:53] Matt: Yeah.
[00:16:53] for years. And this is something that, that you both might hear quite often, I’m curious to get your opinion on it. For years, I use the crutch of starting an email list as a call to action for. People building businesses, new businesses, right? So I mentor at a local accelerator, there’s small sort of mom and pop businesses.
[00:17:14] Sometimes there’s like a tech business in there, but generally it might be somebody starting a bakery trying to sell something at a local farmer’s market, but there’s a dozen or so of these local entrepreneurs that come through this cohort twice a year. And I say, if anything they don’t even have websites yet.
[00:17:28] So it’s get a website, get a domain up. And the first thing you do. Is put your email sign up and just get people on a list so that you have something well, what do you do when somebody doesn’t have a call to action? But they’re building an email list. Do they, what comes first chicken or the egg, a call to action.
[00:17:47] Does that have to come first? Does the thing that somebody buys or signs up for? Do they have to figure that out first before building an email list? So that there is a CTA that they can introduce through their storytelling.
[00:17:59] Kim: Are you [00:18:00] asking CTI? Are you referring to a lead magnet having,
[00:18:02] Matt: Well, if I have a list and I’ve been gathering a list for a few months, people have been signing up. But I’m just blogging and sort of general audience building, but I don’t have a product yet. Should I be figuring out like what that product or service is before I start email marketing?
[00:18:18] Jason: Nope.
[00:18:19] Kim: yeah. Go ahead, Jason.
[00:18:20] Jason: I would use the email list, figure out what you’re going to. Right. And so in the case of online businesses specific specifically, cause you mentioned local businesses, they have something to sell. They’re doing that. They have a widget or something. So that’s different, right? There’s, there’s some connection that they can make to a sale.
[00:18:39] However, if you’re online and this is like specifically like creators that I run into a lot is that they don’t know what. Or they feel like they have to have something to sell. Like you said before, they actually start emailing people. And I say, well, if you have a social media following an audience could be 1,000 people.
[00:18:58] It doesn’t matter. Start collecting those email addresses, but then start asking questions. Like, why did you sign up today to list? What cha what challenge do you have today that you want to get over? Right. And then it doesn’t have to be the immediate questions, but these are some of the questions that I ask over time.
[00:19:14] When I started daily, I was just like, Just wanted to get that practice of daily. I didn’t really have too much of a call to action to things. And even though that had, did have products and services to pass too, I just wanted have that practice and engage people. And people came, they’re like, Hey, I’ve been on your list for years.
[00:19:33] And I had no idea who these people are and I have a small list. Right. And so. When you start asking questions, the cream rises to the top and then you’re like, okay, well, a lot of people are starting to ask about proposals. If you’re in a freelancer space. Right. So, huh, that’s interesting. Maybe I could sell them, templatize my proposal and sell it for 50 bucks or whatever.
[00:19:54] Right. And so you start to start to see what kind of rises from rises to the top, just based on those replies.
[00:20:03] Kim: Well, and the other piece of that totally agreed. That is one of the. It’s more pressure off if you don’t, if you’re not trying to get them to buy something from you right away, it is that practice. It’s a practice of getting, sending quality content that will improve over time, but also getting people to click the email.
[00:20:18] But what I would suggest is there’s another way. Well, in terms of what to include is the link is. Share other people’s stuff. You become such a trusted expert in your space. When, and there were times where I was like, I don’t even know where to send today. And I was like, I remember finding an article about the creator of Calvin and homes and his journey as a creator.
[00:20:37] It was great article. So I shared the link to the article. That was it. And so when you find things that speak to you or resonate with you, or you just like what someone else is doing, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of Instagram rails. Okay. And there is a couple songs that are in the ton of reels and whatever.
[00:20:53] Is it takes, so it costs so much because it takes me effing hours. Right. I don’t know if you guys have heard that song. It’s hysterical. I’m like, I know the [00:21:00] people on my list are gonna love that. There’s another one that’s drink water and mind my business, but I’m like, I’m gonna sh they’re funny.
[00:21:06] Right? So it’s simple. Even just telling a story about just staying focused and in my space. And I have to have a clear water bottle. So I see that I’m getting my water done. Oh, by the way, this will brighten your day. And it sounds funny, but those are connection and it’s, it’s almost like a breath of fresh air in your inbox that it’s not a pitch and it’s not whatever.
[00:21:25] And so you become a trusted person in their inbox so that when you do have something. Oh, well, she’s not always selling to me. It’s a weird psychology that happens, but there’s a practice and I, and you know what, and celebrate day, if, when you get to that point, because I’m not, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that either, but when you’re getting started, just be of service.
[00:21:43] It’s, it’s so much easier you get out of your own head.
[00:21:46] Matt: Yeah.
[00:21:48] As you both were talking, I’m like thinking again, thinking of that third fear in my head of sending that email and somebody not caring and not subscribing, like we were joking about Hey, I’ve got this vanity metric. It never moves, but that’s because I never send an email. It’s the same way I feel about, with YouTube videos where man, I know.
[00:22:05] People on Twitter and colleagues of mine. They’re like, I don’t watch a video if it’s over five minutes, but nearly every video I put on YouTube is 10 minutes because that’s the, that’s the person I want to watch my YouTube video because I watch 30 minute videos like of reviews. I want every ounce of a review or a detail.
[00:22:26] And that’s why I consume a YouTube video. So you have to, I guess correct me if I’m wrong, but you have to sort of get yourself out of that mode. The people on this list want to be here. if they unsubscribe good, you’re going to lower your costs. You want the people tuning in and reading it and taking actions.
[00:22:43] It’s a fair statement, right?
[00:22:44] Jason: Yeah, absolutely. Look, look, you mentioned Ben settle, right? And he says once you unsubscribe, you’re done. Right. Like I’m not letting you back. I blacklist you out. Right.
[00:22:52] Kim: true. I’ve
[00:22:53] Jason: I know it’s not true. But, but, but that, but that’s the PR that’s the persona that he comes off with. Right. And so. One of the things I tell clients all the time is don’t chase the unsubscribes.
[00:23:05] Don’t worry about the unsubscribes. Don’t even look at open rates. That’s another kind of fuzzy metric at best, but what was the purpose of the email that you wanted? Was the thing, a question. Did you have a question at the end that you wanted to replies back to? Was it a link to a podcast or a blog post?
[00:23:21] Was it a link to a product what’s the end result of every single email that you send out? Look at that because yes, the open rates, the unsubscribe, all of those numbers are right in front of us when we log in to any, any mail platform. And that’s what we see first. But then it’s if you dive deep into the emails oh man, I got zero clicks on this email.
[00:23:43] Yeah, because you didn’t have any links in there. I hit, so you’re not going to get any clicks. Right. But how
[00:23:49] Matt: That’s probably would have been what I would’ve said. Nobody’s clicking on anything is there’s not one link in the, in the email.
[00:23:55] Kim: Outside of the unsubscribe.
[00:23:57] Matt: Right, right.
[00:23:58] Jason: And so that’s, that’s, [00:24:00] that’s the reality of the things like I, I manage client lists and they’re like, they pop in from time to time and they’re like, how, how come there was no, what happened here? Well, there was no, we asked the question. How many replies did you get in your inbox?
[00:24:11] Oh yeah, I got a lot that day. Okay. So that’s when you kind of like, stay, stay focused on what your intent is on it. Every email, whether it’s weekly, daily, whatever, but that, that gets you over that mindset of okay I I’m afraid of the unsubscribes and seeing that tank or the mindset of pressing send because you’re being of service to somebody else that’s on the other end.
[00:24:35] Right. And if that mindset is the big blocker for you I’m sorry. The New York in me is also going to say kind of get over yourself a little bit and give it a try. Right. So.
[00:24:47] Matt: Yeah.
[00:24:48] Kim: Well, and you have to remember really quick. There are billions of people on the planet, right? There are so many people. And when you were talking about, about like colleagues who don’t do that, it’s funny. That’s why I do an hour long podcast. I get bogged and I’m like, well, it’s only 10 minutes.
[00:25:02] I’m going for a walk. I want to listen to you longer. Right? So that’s why I did an hour long podcast. I like listening to longer shows. And so there are so many people that you can do business with. And so that was kind of circling back to not to plug, deliver it, but we’re going to do this from scratch.
[00:25:18] We both have audiences, we have friends, all of those things, we both done paid traffic at different times. So it’s there is a way to do this. And it’s funny. I actually was testing something, sinking to a Twitter opt-in for a newsletter that linked to convert kit. I sent out like four emails to my entire list.
[00:25:33] Like one afternoon, three weeks ago, I got a ton of unsubscribes, but guess what? Then my click-through rate and the opens went up. I’m like, oh, well that just cleared those people out. So that’s good. Now I need, so it’s just, it’s a game. It really is a game and you don’t have to know it all together.
[00:25:49] You don’t, you just have to get started.
[00:25:51] Matt: Oh, you’re listening to Jason Resnick and Kim Doyle. We’re about to talk about their new venture, deliver it at, get, deliver it.com/maryport head there, and a link in the show notes. But real quick, before we transitioned to this new open experiment, taking P working in public too, as a building in public to the next level, before we get there real quick Jason, I would guess your favorite tool for this stuff is. you have anything else to recommend or.
[00:26:16] Jason: Yeah. I I’ve always said look, the technology fit the business. Right. I like converse. Because it basically fits my business as well as my client’s businesses. Have you used active campaign in the past? I’ve used drip. I still do on some clients for both of those things, but if MailChimp works for you, great do it because I just want somebody to the tool.
[00:26:39] Shouldn’t be the stopping point. But yeah, if it was me, I would recommend convert kit because. It would give you the nice, robust platform that you’re actually looking for from not only email, but also automation side of things.
[00:26:53] Matt: And Kim for you.
[00:26:54] Kim: Ditto I use convert kit also. Although, we use active campaign for the planet. Because it has a deep [00:27:00] integration with WooCommerce. So I think it also, you want to look to your point, like what Jason just said, the business, but for creators, whether you’ve got a handful of products or courses that are, I think convert kit is personally the easiest active campaign with the amount of money they do.
[00:27:14] I still don’t understand why their UI looks like it’s from 1995, but that’s okay. So, I agree and honestly, the best tool is the one that.
[00:27:21] Matt: Yeah. a hundred percent. It’s like they say like photographers, say the best camera you can have is the camera that’s on you. Right? Whether it’s your phone Or any camera, cameras just as like a side note, like cameras are just the thing that people chase new cameras come out every year.
[00:27:34] People think they can take better photos because they get better cameras when really has nothing to do with the camera. That they have in their hand, it’s about composing the image, telling the story, et cetera, et cetera. Almost I came to this email stuff delivered. This is a public experiment.
[00:27:49] You both are going to be doing the proof is in the pudding thing. Right. You’re both going to build an email list. We’re all going to see it happen. We’re going to see how good you both are way better
[00:28:00] Kim: aren’t,
[00:28:00] Matt: I was
[00:28:01] Jason: I was just going to say aren’t.
[00:28:03] Kim: I’m like gonna throw a disclaimer in here somewhere, Matt.
[00:28:05] Matt: yeah. Yeah. You’re walking across a tight rope. Did you have a strap to hold yourself just in case you fall?
[00:28:10] Explain the experiment to me. What can we all expect to see as you build this delivering.
[00:28:17] Kim: Well, so what we’ve done together so we did like kind of a. Spreadsheet where we basically have listed all the stuff we’re going to try. And so then it’s Jason’s already been deploying some of, so he’s we’re just going to alternate. We’ll go, he’ll do a few, I’ll do a few and kind of bring it back together.
[00:28:32] So it’s they’re going to be where we are going to put it up on a site. So we’ll have, so you can go back and read it too, and may as well get a little search love and hopefully use a website to grow subscribers also. So, yeah, I don’t even want to jump in with some of the stuff, Jason, it’s just, we really thought let’s, we will own also that we can drive our independent audiences to this as well.
[00:28:54] So we’re not going to pretend we don’t have that. But you’re, we’re only going to promote it to our audiences. It’s not going to be the driving force on a regular basis.
[00:29:03] Jason: Yeah, I think what we want to kind of convey and help is this idea that email is very complex, very technical. It’s a mystery to some people, as far as getting to the inbox, like people worry about spam filters and all these other things, but it’s just like, all right, that stuff aside, let that stuff shake out as does.
[00:29:26] How do we grow a list? Right. And how do we then take that list and actually use it for. Whatever we want, like for business, for personal reasons, whatever you’re looking for, but there’s things that are just as easy as posting on social. That’s a tactic, let’s be intentional about doing that and sharing our newsletter through that means.
[00:29:50] And then there’s complex things like, buying ads in another newsletter, like how well does that work? Right. And so you [00:30:00] could, we’ve got this list. I think last check there was like 23 different kinds of little strategies that we’re going to do, but we’re going. We did walk you through the strategy, the hypothesis, what we think could happen would give the recipe, the step-by-step and then the results good, bad or otherwise.
[00:30:19] And so, it’s kind of like you said, a building public, and we’re gonna just kind of walk the tight rope with every experiment and yeah, I like Kim mentioned, we have audiences, she’s got a bigger Facebook. I don’t ever log on Facebook. I’m more on Twitter.
[00:30:34] Kim: how much I’m in there, but.
[00:30:37] Jason: But so it’s like we can test multiple different things with the same kind of strategy and kind of see what works and what doesn’t work.
[00:30:47] And like you said, at the top was like joining, joining together in this venture kind of like helps, weigh things out and scale things out at a level of. One, I’ll tell you this. I wouldn’t do it myself. So, like it’s just for me, I think that it’s going to be helpful for anybody to kind of stumble upon this. I’d say, yeah, I’m on my podcast and I just started my podcast. How do I grow my email list? What do I want to do with that? How do I then turn that audience into a business, right? Or if you’re selling things on Etsy what does that mean? Now? It sees a closed market or Amazon’s a close market.
[00:31:25] How do I get those email subscribers? So all of these kinds of things, we’ll, we’ll try to unpack. And so.
[00:31:31] Matt: A user comes to your site. They pay to get access to this information question, mark.
[00:31:38] Jason: not
[00:31:38] Matt: Completely free. can people buy?
[00:31:43] Jason: nothing
[00:31:44] Kim: be determined.
[00:31:45] Matt: To be determined. I love
[00:31:46] Jason: So we’re
[00:31:47] Matt: you’re like me.
[00:31:49] Jason: exactly right.
[00:31:49] Kim: Oh,
[00:31:51] Jason: yeah.
[00:31:51] Kim: sorry. But, but the thing is like the original thing was a summit, right, Matt. So that was kind of the piece. So we thought, okay, well we can build our own audience to sell the summit too, because again, and we were looking at integrating even. Physical with, with digital, for a summit delivery. We’re like we have to create an experiences, has to be different.
[00:32:09] And so we thought about that at the same time, we’re going to talk about different tools and platforms and stuff. And so now we’re like, okay, now we need to do like a whole. Deliver it, email address for affiliate stuff and see that. Cause then we can share the monetization piece of this as we go, and the thing that I want people to really buy into and hopefully, us doing this, people are gonna buy into email marketing.
[00:32:31] They’re going to get this has to be done. Your email list is an asset. Yes, it’s it’s it is people in relationships first, a hundred percent. But you know, I did a newsletter. I think it was just last week. I was talking about Dan Kennedy uses the phrase income events. If you do not have a list of customers and understand the lifetime value and recurring revenue, you don’t have a business, you have income events and it just kind of slapped me in the face a little bit.
[00:32:55] Okay, well, income events should be the icing on the cake. I want, this is, this needs to be a [00:33:00] business. It really, I joke around that nothing is more, more powerful than notification of payment when you’re doing something else because you have automations running. And I saw the power of that so much with the e-commerce brand, where we had all these up sequences and set out for six, nine months down the road.
[00:33:18] We’re still getting sales from all these people, and these automations are still driving sales and we can go in and look at that. And so, if you’re outside of e-commerce, you can still do that as a creator with, with automations and, oh, I saw you about this. You can buy this, but you know, once you get better at it, but you know, your email list is an asset.
[00:33:36] It may all of a sudden you become a salable business. If you so choose. When you can say, I have a database of 10,000 customers. 52,000 subscribers. I know it was crazy numbers, but the whole thing is the better you get at this, it, you literally can send an email, make money. It just works. And I’m not, I’m not trying to gain from the relationship building piece, but we’re all in business because we have bills to pay and we love what we do hopefully.
[00:34:01] Right.
[00:34:02] Jason: I think, I think to your point though, that that’s, that relationship is why the sale happens. Right. And so, like I switched from weekly. To Daley about 15 months ago. And over that course of that year, I three X my digital products. I didn’t do anything. In fact, I basically scaled back that side of the business, but I three X the digital product and two X my affiliate income.
[00:34:26] And so it was just in creating that relationship that I had with the list and the engagement went up. On a random Wednesday, I would just throw a link. Hey, here’s this thing, I think this can help you. But I was talking about it in the email before, and it was a lesson probably of my kids doing something crazy and that I tied into the business end of things.
[00:34:49] And so you can, that relationship is why the sales happen at the end.
[00:34:54] Matt: Hmm. Have you thought about I’m sure you have, but maybe you just have to put it into practice first, but have you thought about like how long an experiment might run before you report on it? For example, Hey, you might run an experiment on here’s. How many emails signups we get with deliver it when we post to social, when we post a Twitter for a week is that a, an example of something that you might run in this program to report on?
[00:35:18] Five posts Monday through Friday of the signup link, we get 20 subscribers. That was the outcome. Here’s the call to actions we use is that the kind of reports with air quotes that you might be presenting to folks
[00:35:32] Jason: Yeah, I
[00:35:32] Kim: I think any data we can pull in, we want to pull in as much data as possible. I would think. Well, it’s sorry. It, and it’s going to depend, like some of it’s going to be more relevant than others, right? Like we’re talking about paid traffic and a newsletter. Okay. Well, I ran this once and that the email list for that newsletter was this many people.
[00:35:52] It averages this many clicks. I got this many clicks. I got this many subscribers. So, it’s, some stuff is going to be lengthy. Other stuff will [00:36:00] be, I ran a contest for seven days. This is what happened. So, but I think as much data that we can pull in as possible.
[00:36:07] Jason: Yeah. And I think, I think from the data itself, I think we’re also going to what the benefit of reading these experiments is. We’re going to evaluate what worked within work and maybe what we change next time we run this. Right. Because without that, the actual thought process around what happened you might just run into those same problems again.
[00:36:31] I, and so like I’m running an experiment right now. That’s I basically gave it 14 days on. And it’s a specific strategy and I’m trying it out and seeing what works. And so today, this morning I went into my data to take a look at what was going on. And I was like, okay, I bet you, next time I could probably do it this way.
[00:36:49] And it would increase the conversion rate. So that’s the kind of stuff that we want to come out of these things. And people say, okay, you know what? I’m not going to do what they mistake made the mistakes on. Now I’m going to do the thing. I’m going to try. The things that they think is going to work.
[00:37:06] Matt: Kim Doyle, Jason Resnick get deliberate.com/matt report. Any final words, any other place you want folks to go to find you on the internet?
[00:37:16] Kim: We’ll link to our own stuff on this site too. And they can find us that way. So, yeah, I don’t think so. I just think. You’re not going to get comfortable emailing until you start doing it. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
[00:37:29] Matt: Just them. I’m just already thinking about it.
[00:37:32] Jason: Yeah, look, here’s the thing. Right? So for me, I was like, okay, how am I going to write daily? I don’t have time to do that. You’ve got one more boy than I do, right? So like our boys kind of straddle each other, we could feel like a basketball team. Right. But I was like, there’s no time for this.
[00:37:48] I don’t have time for this. So what I said, and we were talking about atomic habits before I said, I’m going to give myself that first cup of. When I, right. When I get that first cup of coffee there, put it down on my desk. That’s the email session when that’s done, whether the is done or not. That’s, that’s the outcome.
[00:38:07] So I started doing that now. I bought a half a cup of coffee and I get an email out it’s about 15, 20 minutes. And just that practice, just doing it. It just works.
[00:38:19] Matt: God, those aren’t all. Pre-written every time I get and I’m like, this guy has got a, an archive of how does he do it, doing it,
[00:38:27] Kim: You’d be surprised. It’s the practice of
[00:38:31] Jason: you go back like you’re, come on your podcast, what’s go back to the first map. And let’s look at today’s right? So I got to look back at that first daily email and I’m like, oh my God, what the heck was I thinking this is terrible. What? And the typos are in there.
[00:38:44] Like I had no workflow, but I started and I just pushed send, let it go. We’ll see what happens. And I told my list. That’s the other thing I think that people forget is tell your list when you’re going to send and commit, commit to it. If you can’t do daily, say I’m going to send it [00:39:00] week. And then they know when to look for.
[00:39:03] Matt: Yeah,
[00:39:04] Kim: I just want to add one more thing with this. When you were talking about the like with us collaborating and doing this and stuff. It’s so funny because I’ve seen this term come up a lot lately, lately, and it’s called permissionless marketing it’s joint ventures, right? Like we’ve got to reinvent everything and make it, I guess, less markety, but it’s people forget, like with email marketing, You can collaborate and not just on a project, but there’s no reason.
[00:39:30] I’ve promoted Jason in my emails, he’s done it. I’ve thrown a new mat. Like it’s just find people who have your audience and go be people again and start sharing value. Right? Like it’s okay. Not everything. I think when paid traffic blew up, people forgot to lean into people with like-minded audiences or complimentary audiences and just getting in front of people.
[00:39:51] Again, I think that we’re going to bring both sides to this where. I really just want people to get out of their heads and just start, you have to start, and then you can focus on mastery, and, and so I think that’s kind of where we marry this together too, but just, there are so many ways to grow an email list and I dunno, we just overthink it.
[00:40:08] And again, it’s an asset. Your email is as an asset.
[00:40:13] Matt: I promise I’ll send an email. So by the time somebody hears this episode, I’ll send an email. You’ll have it in your inbox. It will probably say
[00:40:20] Jason: This episode.
[00:40:21] Matt: Yeah about, yeah. About This episode. That’s what I’ll do. There you go. You’ll be the first episode I email email out and about. I’m not even joking. Three years.
[00:40:30] Oh boy. Get delivery.com. Get delivered.com/matt report. That’s where you can find out more information with what Kim and Jason are up to. I’m excited to follow along and learn a bunch of stuff if you want it. The Matt report, buy me a copy.com/matt reports by me. A copy.com/mat report for $79 for the year.
[00:40:48] You can join our discord server and chat about the WordPress news every week, every Wednesday. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you in the next episode.
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