Email Marketing is one of those topics that I know this community loves so much. And the reason why you love it whenever I have a copywriter or an email expert, or somebody that's helping you get a handle on this is probably because, one, you have no idea how it works. And you feel kind of dumb and you're like, ah, can you please just explain it to me like, I'm five, right? Have you seen that episode of the office? Because this is how I felt for a long time. Like
somebody comes in? They're talking about on this specific episode of The Office. They're talking about the oh my gosh, and I'm totally blanking. What is it called? The surplus. That's what it was. I'll second budget. I'm like, I'm not talking about the budget. They're talking about surplus. And Oscar. He's the accountant. He comes in, he talks about the surplus and everything. And Michael Scott, who is Steve girls character is like, Can you explain this to me? Like I'm, you
know, 10, or whatever. And he's like, Can you explain it to me, like, I'm five after Oscar gives him the explanation. And I feel like that's how I was for ever with email marketing. I just was like, I could I could not wrap my head around, like just the idea of email marketing, like, What am I supposed to talk about on a regular basis? And how does this all actually work? When do I have time I had so many questions about email
marketing, right? So that's like, one camp of people that I know the audiences because like I said, that's where I was for a very, very long time. And then the second group of people are people that are getting into email marketing, they get it, they understand it, they're trying to get better at it. But they're always looking for how do I make this easier? Because email marketing is one of those things like it took me a while like
is that it took me a while to figure it out. And then once even once I figured it out, I still had so many questions. So that is why I'm so excited to be talking about it again today with a very special guest. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how to start launch and market their podcast. I'm your host, Krystal Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging
out with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of podcasting, think of this show as the time saving shortcut you've been looking for. So let's get right to it, shall we?
So I'm just gonna jump into the interview with today's guest, because it was so so oh my gosh, like so good. It was I was about to say really bad word. And I'm like, No, don't say it. It was so good. And that is Kate Doster. So Kate Doster is the host of the inbox besties podcast. Please go listen to her show after this
because it's it's so good. She's also the creator of love your list 2.0 email marketing mega course and is dangerously obsessed with helping ethical entrepreneurs carve out there slice of the interwebs I love that she says this. She says she helps her students woo open the hearts and wallets of their small but mighty audiences. Thanks to fun
email marketing and easy Yes, mini offers. She believes you don't need to bleed the alphabet, or be a dirty rotten spam face to write emails that jolt subscribers into taking action gobbling up your paid offers like candy or kale. If that's your thing? Yeah, that's just a little taste of Kate's personality. And I cannot wait for you to listen to this interview. So here's my chat with Kate Doster.
All right, Proffitt Podcast listeners. I'm so excited to. I'm just I feel it. We've never met before. But I'm already like, we're gonna be besties I love the name of your podcast. I love everything that you're doing in the online space. So uh, welcome to the show, Kate.
Well, I am so excited to be here. And I think this dude, because obviously I was listening to your podcast. I'm like, yep, we're gonna be friends. Just know. I have a reference now. Yeah, it's like,
Oh my gosh, we're just gonna have so much fun today. And I normally would start with you know, Hey, tell us about who you are and what you do. But I actually want to start it like I asked you before we started recording and I was like, you're dealing with an issue with your podcast like today in real time even though you will have resolved it and everything will work out beautifully rainbows and butterflies by the time this airs, but you're having an issue with your
podcast today. So can you tell us a little bit about that because my listeners love behind the scenes so they can learn and hopefully You know, just see what happens behind the scenes for other podcasters. So can you share a little bit about that?
Sure, I have no problem. I'm an open book. And I think that everyone should be more transparent about what goes on in their business. So at the start of the month, well, a little bit like saying, April, when we're recording this, we actually started with a coaching program called run like clockwork. And so we run like clockwork, they sort of have you go through everything that you do in a day, you know, things you can outsource, they also have you have your teammates
do it as well. So any, like contractors that you have all this sort of stuff, and they're really, really big on, you can teach any skill, but there are certain personality traits that you just cannot fix in people. And so they would much rather say teach somebody how to play with audacity, rather than just like, you know, somebody who like flakes off on deadline. So we had a team member that I had known for a while because it was a family member was overpaid. And
their quality of work was poor. They were missing deadlines, they had just shown no improvement. And the one thing that we could normally count on them with all the other things that they just didn't do, which was half of their job. That was podcast editing, like they always made sure that our episode was out on Wednesday, it was fine. And so the episode was already done and edited. Or so I thought, and we let the contractor know what yes was family that we weren't going to be renewing
them. So I listened to the podcast episode. And they added and turned the outro. And the added the ads, they didn't actually edit it, if that makes sense. Like they just went timeline. So it was an income report. And I swore like twice, and I don't want to have like the excellent of rating on ours. Like I literally pause. I said his name and I'm
like edit this out. And so this happened twice because you know, you get a lively when you're talking about your personal stuff and things that are going on, and you're excited, and they just didn't. And so even though they were on our team with other capacities were to being like, Oh, you know, they do hit this deadline, but just absolutely not like, their attention to detail was just awful. Hitting deadlines was just awful. It's
just not traits that our business could carry. So I'm good to be back to editing my podcast for a little while until we get a different podcast editor. So it was one of those things like Yeah, sure. We flat side. Like I said, I literally we swore so we have to expletive it. But like I literally said like, hey, the person's name at this outlet start again. And this happened two separate times in the recording. Oh, no. So it proves to me like Well, it wasn't the end of the
world. It was the end of like, it was the best decision ever. And as much as I love this person as a human, and I think that they're amazing. And I'm sure family stuffs gonna be awkward for a very long time. It was just like, no, like Kay doster as a company needed to make that cut. Yeah,
oh my gosh, well, I love the behind the scenes of, you know, there's what you just said about the personality traits. It's like, you know, like, once you find someone that you can work really well with, and then you could teach him like, Hey, you know, if I figured this stuff out, I know that I can teach it to someone else, like having that drive. But I'm curious, was the process the same? of? Do you go back and listen to all of your episodes, even when someone else was
editing them? like is that just something that you do on a regular basis with your show?
Sometimes I do to be honest with you, and I hadn't quite lately. And for some reason, just this morning, I'm just like, oh, like I'm gonna listen to it was the first time that we ever did like an income report. And you know, you always try to get better. And I was just like, so now I'm like, there was probably at least, I want to say five months worth of episodes like I might
have listened to like here and there. And I'm like, do we need to go back and re listen to all of these to make sure But usually, our listeners, I'm sure the same way with yours, too. They're really, really great. I like pointing out like mistakes or something was wrong, because this isn't the first mistake that has happened. But it
was 100%. The last the oh my gosh, like, if you are the visionary for your business, and you're the CEO, then you don't necessarily have to be detail oriented, because the contractors you hire out are supposed to be and it was just, it was a bad fit. Oh my gosh, I really really wanted it to work.
But I'm so glad that you shared it because like I said, I think that before we started recording, I was like everybody's always wants to share the sunshine and rainbows isn't it always want to share like when something goes wrong. And this happens, like there's been so many times where I'm like, in the middle of like uploading and then all of a sudden I'm like, Oh, I did that because I take it from a raw file and then I export it and I'm like, Oh, I uploaded it
to my site. Uh, no, you didn't know he didn't like that. That's part of your process. Yes, like, and having done it. I know you have so many podcast episodes at this point. So it's only Most like that muscle memory where you're like, Oh, yeah, I did that, because you've done it so many times. So
documented. So we were in Trello, where we're currently testing up clickup. I know, I know, I would much rather be, you're gonna notice, like all my click of a setup just like Trello, though. But like, so we have like, really minute like checkpoints like upload audio name file, do this tag. It's every little thing because I personally love it. Even having ADHD, I love the dopamine hit of hitting off a checkmark. So it's taking language, right, anyone without and the
deadline. So just, it didn't work. I think that that's really, really, it's really, really hard for me being an enneagram to if you guys hang out with that crowd at all. And that's more of a people pleaser. So a two three, which is really odd for entrepreneurs, because usually there's like, threes and beyond. And it was just like, yeah, it was it was last year. Oh my gosh, oh, my
god, you're right. So when we are filling that position, we are going to take the adage of hiring very slow and releasing contracts very, very fast if necessary. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, that's great. I'm, I'm so happy that you can share about your experience. Because like I said, there's people that are listening, they're like, okay, so I need to make sure that if that's something I'm worried about, then maybe I need to re listen to it or do this, but also know there's going to be things that happen and up. And so Kate and I were just listen to us, please learn from us. That is why we are here today. But we are actually here today to
talk about email marketing. This is like the thing that everybody I'm sure people listening right now are sweating. As soon as I said, email marketing, because they're like, I don't email I list, I don't do it. I say I'm going to every single week, then it doesn't happen. And I keep pushing it down. And it's the last thing on my to do list. So before we get there, I actually want to know, how did you get into email marketing, and this is the
focus of your business. Sure. So I started off online, like a lot of people as a blogger, and then from hanging on entrepreneurial groups when it was like super cool, like, you know, 2016 I found out that there's this thing called copywriting with a W. So that's where you got paid to write words to make people to take action. And most people find it really hard to believe but like I have dyslexia like I was not strong in English, but I get people like my degrees are in
communication and psychology. And I just thought this was like fascinating. And especially with a really effective copywriting you have to write like, you talk and I'm like, that is my wheelhouse. So it started like, very organically, like people would post pages like landing pages and things like that. And they were like, oh, what do you guys think? And so I would always leave like these detailed things. But why stuff was
awful. Because it was and then somebody after that was like, Oh, well, like, you know, can you fix it. And so it was that. And then I had found a another copywriter was a junior copywriter. So I get that confidence muscle. And when you are a copywriter, and you work primarily with online business owners, you can write everything from home pages about pages, long form sales pages, landing pages for like opt ins and freebies, you can write launch sequences, and I loved landing
pages and launch sequences. So that you know eventually came like an all around cause writer to like, this is what I did. And then I decided like 2018 I don't want to write for people anymore. I'm tired of having other boss. Push it to digital products and courses. Very cool. Very cool. So do you still mostly focus on the same like launching and doing things like that? Or is it all any kind
of email marketing? Like Tell me more about like, what is the most fun because this is this is what's funny because I think emails are fun and like most people listening are like, You're insane. What are you talking like this It stresses them out. So what do you find fun about creating emails and email marketing in general.
I love it because it's probably true. I think it's actually a lot faster, especially like as podcasters it's a lot faster than ever writing a blog post. But really like if you think about it, you when you're inviting somebody into your email list, one of my biggest things that I make all my students saying all the listeners say is that being on your email list is a privilege.
The reason why your people are scared is because every Billy bro email lady boss out there is telling them like grow your list, grow your list, grow your list, they send an email they see unsubscribes and they freak out and oh god only my business. There is no money in your list size. The money is in the relationship with your subscribers and if you actually set it out by attracting the best listeners, the ones that are action takers, the one that want to know more about that thing
that just lights you up. Of course you're going to want to talk to them. We talked about a really does it start with having a freebie The answer is uh yeah, but we call it the cervix lat principle. So just like you know, some likes big butts, so does your email list. So does your subscribers because if people are thinking like, surely be more productive, but then that's like, that's it,
there's no problem. But if they're like, ah, I really wish I was more productive, but like, I've tried doing this before, and it never works, or but I have ADHD or button two weeks doesn't work. So if you have a freebie, that's literally like, the tagline is like how to stay productive, even if you got ADHD, then all of a sudden, these people are gonna flock to your list. And they're
like, Oh, this was like the best thing ever. And now you get to talk about like, productivity with the people that you like, you're just like, Oh, this is the best. And so it really does start with that energetic component of only letting the people that you're most excited about to serve, realizing that the energy, the enthusiasm, like they're lucky that they get to be in your space. And then all of a sudden, the pressures gone.
Because like, wait, like, I just get to talk to my other friends who are just as nerdy about morning routines as I am. Because like you all know, in real life, like half your friends don't care about these things. But now you've got all of these friends that care. And you can share with them like this tip that you have, or this process that you took a one on one client through or something that you guys said on your podcast, or even fails that you've had, like, maybe you're really big on
Sunday routines, and you skipped it this week. And so you're just relating to your email list of like, you know what, I didn't do it this Sunday. And that's okay. And like admitting that mistake, and then asking them like, has there ever been something where you fallen off the horse? And he got back on? Replying, let me know. And now it's like, she's a person too. Or here's a person to do.
This is so good. Because I feel like, you have to tell me if anybody's told you this before. But I feel like what you're doing is you're bringing the humanity into email marketing, that's really what it feels like. Because like you just said, I this is this podcast is so much centered around, I share my mistakes, I share my failures. And I do all of these things. Because I want you all to know y'all I have not perfect, I am so far from perfect. And I think that you do
have a better connection. And I was trying to remember it. You had a mic drop moment just a second ago. And it was it does not matter the size of your email list. It's how engaged they are with you, right? Is that what you said, like, I was like, I need to write this down. Like
there's no money in the list. They owe the money in the relationship with your list. And the only way that you can mess that up is by not talking to them. Yeah, that's it. You can't like oh, what if I send the wrong email message or not? not sending it is the wrong one.
The so good, so good. And I know that people listening right now are like, Yeah, but Kate. So there's all these questions. So I'm our I didn't know them so well. So you're welcome listeners, I'm going to go ahead and ask the questions that you're thinking right now. Because if someone is dragging their feet, they're like,
I, I've been meaning to do this. It's been on my list, but I keep knocking it down to the bottom, every single time I see it, like another quarter of the year will come around, and I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna do my email list. But then a launch comes up. And it's more important. And then this comes up. And it's more important, and it's just
it keeps getting buried down to the bottom. So is there something psychologically or mentally mindset going on with people that do you think it really just comes down to they're scared that they're going to get a bunch of unsubscribes?
Usually, or they lead a whole bunch of randos on their list, like I said, so our biggest thing is we treat people like people and being on your list is a privilege. So if you you know, have a productivity planner, but you also have like meal planning chips, and this is what we're lifestyle bloggers tend to have this and you
also have like fashion finds. Or even sometimes if you're in like the online business business space, like you're talking about podcasting, but you also talk about outsourcing, which I'll talk about this. Sometimes when you have too many topics and too many verticals. That's when people like, well, I just don't know what to send my list, because
your list is a mixed bag. So you want to make sure that if you do want to talk about other things, because you can you don't have to be one trick pony, then you want to make sure in the welcome series, or if you're going to do a funnel towards a paid product that you have a little bridge series, it's like hey, so I know that we have talked a lot about email marketing. But the truth is, that's just one facet of being able to build a
business that you're proud of. And since it's my goal, to put money in the hands of good people, I'm also going to help you if you know you hate organization and your socks never match, I'm going to tell you about some productivity tips that I use with Trello and this and that, so people know what to expect so that it sort of alleviates that. And you had said about a launch. It's like there's no better time than to continue to email your list
before the launch and after lunch. Oh, like we know what, what emails Do I need to send and people psych themselves out because they want to be too strategic? I love that will Pharaoh from Saturday library talks about strategically when he does not even strategically y'all like showing up Is it so that way, all of a sudden, if you're asking him for 997 $47 it's just not coming out of
nowhere. So something is better than nothing. Make sure that the emails that you're sending up to it if you're that far and advanced Or at least about the topic of your product like that. That's all we're asking for. And then afterwards, it's like, if you know that you tend to crash after a launch, then you need to make sure in your pre launch that you've gotten even like, two emails, so that way, they'll at least hear from you twice a month after and then you can come back after,
Oh, this is so good. And I love the theory of you know, something is better than nothing. Because I think that people just get so caught up in the strategic rate. I love that. I'm gonna say that from now on, because it's strategic, and then they send, yeah, they're just like, Okay, I need to do this. And it's got to be, it has this many words, and has to have this GIF just in this right spot. And it's got to have
pictures. And it's got to do all these things. But it like they stressed me out when they tell me about their strategy. Because, you know, and I've kind of talked a little bit about my own strategy. And I'm going to ask you questions about yours with your email list. But one of the things that I do, and people have talked about this, and they look at me, like I'm insane, but I don't care. It's what I do. I write I handwrite, my emails and a journal, because I'm a journaler. This is
something that just comes natural to me. So I will handwrite my emails every Friday morning before I write them out. And most of the time, it's not just about podcasting, it's about dealing with a problem with one of my kids, or the fact that my cat is driving me insane. And we're threatening to take him back to the farm because it's just I don't know if it's working out. So we'll I'll talk
about all these things. And then at the very bottom, I'll mention what's going on, you know, some content that I published, but it's not always about the thing that is driving the needle in my business. First and foremost, it's about that humanity and the connection of, Hey, I'm just a mom, a business owner. And I'm here to be in your inbox every Friday. So I want to hear about your strategy. How often do you email your list? What
are some of the things that you talk about? Tell us tell us all the things?
Sure. So we of course, we've got some welcome series, and we have some funnels, so the difference between the two because unreal is sometimes used interchangeably. A welcome series is a little bit more casual, where it's like you might be learning to know about like some smaller priced offers that you had, you might be pointing them towards a really juicy podcast episode that you have, you might want to another email, get them to follow you on Instagram, it's a bit more
like casual, sort of a sell. Whereas a funnel, it's like, you know, a webinar, or it's a freebie that's directly related to usually a bigger offer, where instead of semi just knowing and liking you, which is always a plus, in a funnel, you need to think of all of the Yeah, buts especially like the psychological ones, because people always forget those that would prevent them from one thing success with your topic in general, there might be like, podcasting is stupid. So you need to like do
a little bit of convincing, right? If you've had that, yeah, but freebie, chances are, you're not gonna have to do that much. But they're like, but it's too hard to break into. But I can't get guests, but it's too technical. But what if I say I'm too much? What if my friends and family find it, and they don't support me? And when you start looking at like those, and then it's like, oh, and look, we've got this membership society, and it's gonna do this, and it's gonna help you and that
doesn't go well. And we're gonna that's like, oh, my goodness, like, how does she know? Because she knows you. So we have those are welcome series, do you actually connect to our funnels as well, though, you can just get right to the funnels, especially for auto webinars, we've got those up. But we email once a week, always we usually do for right as we have been starting to test out doing
Tuesdays and Fridays, because why not. And that's how I always tell my students, I am one that I like to write RS in real time, because that's just the way that my brain works. I have some students that I say mo marketing is you just need to know yourself. And they're like, I know I'll never do it. So they will have like the world's longest
welcomes. That way they if you know they're welcome series is like 10 or 15 emails, they know that if they spend a week just banging those all out, and then spaced them out, then they've got that leeway. So but I really like to stay like up to date and in real time. And I do the same thing that you do. I was just sort of asked myself, like, what's on my heart? And what goal and what action do I want people to take? And most
importantly, how do I want them to feel? So like we literally just launched a YouTube channel and strategically was on my brain because I was talking about how I was literally psyching myself up for this YouTube channel, because oh, it's kind of like this. And it's kind of like parallel with
these launches. And like, you know, what, if people like, you know, judge the quality of my videos, and like, I'm not like the skinniest lady on Earth, so it's like, oh, my goodness, like what I feel like call it like my chubby face or my lack of makeup, but you know what I mean? Like all of those things. And so like I was talking about that, and I asked him same question like, what are you over strategic sizing, like sometimes you just need to do it. And so you can really sort of get
people behind it. So did I mention the YouTube video? Yeah. Did we get a lot of views? Yeah. Did we get a lot of comments? Yeah. So you can do a lot of bit of both. So I always try to think either what's going on in my life, sometimes I'll go look at something called Like holiday insights
to see what weird holiday it is. And then my favorite line numbers, which got me thinking about are like your cat, right, you want to send it back to the farm, you're trying it, you're nurturing, you're doing everything, which guy you're thinking about how the podcast, you've been trying everything to grow it, you were keywording it you're going on other people's shows, you know, it's a great content, you're an Instagram was just
not working out. And then like, you've got a podcast episode that can help with this, or you have a product that's going to help with that. So that's the way that we handle it.
Well, you're so good on your feet look at you just wrote an email for me, thank you very much. That's gonna be what I'm gonna write about this week. It's so good.
One of the emails, we have a product called the email marketing fairy. And it's a whole bunch of templates that welcome series from an email them and forever funnels, all that finance. And so it was a couple years ago, and I had locked my keys in my car, it was in the trunk, and I turned locking my keys in the car, the trunk into like, $10,000 with the sales of this little
products. Oh my god, it was just like talking about how, you know, I locked my keys in the trunk because I didn't want my iced coffee to fall over. But like I forgot, the most important thing is to turn the engine and it's like kind of like how people get so excited about like an Instagram rails wasn't saying at the time, but now they get so excited about like social media and all these other stuffs and then they forget the real key that turns their engine, their relationship with
their email subscribers. It's like and if you're struggling with what to actually tell your people, here are these templates that's gonna do this, this and this Soria now go out and email your list like that was literally the call to action was for them just email their list. It wasn't even necessarily to buy the products. But oh my gosh, it's like, wait a turn embarrassing moments.
I love it. No, I do the same thing. And it's so funny, you'll have to tell me I feel like I feel like you have a Google doc or a Trello board somewhere that has really interesting ideas of like, all this happened, I got to turn this into an email, do you find yourself doing that?
I tell my students to do that. Because like I can always find something to talk about. But that's just my nature. I tell them to keep like a one sentence like journal, especially if they can't. So it's just like one a day just like something that happened. And what I really encourage the students do of our course, love your list, like our signature one, I'll have them do an exercise where I make them look at their desk. And they have to pick any object on the desk and make
it really fast where they talk about. I love this so much, it's going to build your creativity muscle, especially if you consider yourself a little bit more quiet or not as boisterous. You would never talk about liking big butts and your stuff you don't have. Because there are plenty of people in the world that do not like the way that I teach, they do not like the way that I talk. They don't like my fun demure attitude, which is fine, because I don't care because my mission is
to put money in the hands of good people. So like I can tell you like three other people who talk about email marketing, who are very cut dry, boring, they're knowledgeable, but like, if that's your style, then go to them. I don't care get out. Like because I need people, regardless if it's from me or not to go out there and make money. So good.
Oh my gosh, this is the message that everybody needs to hear today. Because I know that everything that you said relates to podcasting and having an online business and trying to talk to everybody so many of my listeners are starved for, well, I'm creating this podcast, I'm creating this business to serve everyone in the world. And I'm like, Oh, dear, sweet baby Jesus as just probably not gonna work
that way. So I love that you're breaking it down to who are you serving and just focus on them, your people will get it your people will understand the obscure stories that you tell about whatever it is, okay, I have to, I have one that's really top of mine. And I had to tell my husband about this. And I have not written this email. As of us recording this. I haven't written this email yet. But it's happening. I saw someone driving a
Rolls Royce. We live in Houston, Texas, and we don't live in like a super affluent neighborhood or anything. I'm like, who didn't even know that that Rolls Royce had an SUV, and I've never even seen anything in person. And she's eating, she's shoving her face with McDonald's french fries while she's driving down the road. She's trying to merge, get on the highway and she's driving a Rolls Royce. And I was like, I've always heard of these cars. So I had to look it up. I was like,
how much do these cars cost? These cars cost more than my house. And here she is. She's like shoving her face with McDonald's french fries. And then I thought, Oh, the parallels of loving luxury but also having those guilty pleasures. So yeah, I think after this, I'm gonna have to go write it but I find obscure things like that all the time. And I have to capture them and write them down. So all that to be said, I know that Trello is a tool that you like and you mentioned, you're thinking
about switching to click up. So
My OBM wants us to switch to click up I do not I'm going cooking and screaming. Yeah. I still use it for some of my own stuff to be on. honest with you. I like I'm never gonna break up with Trello. No, I think it is perfect, especially for solo entrepreneurs. Or maybe if you have one team for dealing with a lot of contractors right now. And so it was a little bit hard for like all the contractors to like get stuff and things of that nature, though, I think that some really
great things are coming to Trello. But I was like, Alright, but then everything that's like me involved is all set up in boards, and what you were talking about with the podcast, but Oh, like, I'm going to help everybody. One of the exercises that I was tell the students of love your list to
do we call the Muses exercises. And it's like, okay, even like, as simple as you are starting an office on Main Street, and say that you want to help people with fitness you've got and I was posing them, like you got a 55 year old, overweight man that just had a heart attack, and he needs to get in shape. You have a mom that just
had a baby. And each of those postpartum, you have a 35 year old that wants to train for a marathon, or you have an overweight teenager that's getting picked on in school, which one of these lightens your fire because all of them want help with fitness? Maybe all of them want a new running, maybe all the relevant down to keto, like what one of those lights your fire, and you're gonna find that when you just have that person in mind. Yeah, those other people might like sink in. But it's
always like, Oh, I'm talking to this person. Yeah.
And it's like, what makes them different. Same thing with, you know, in our personal space, like, there's a big difference between what I would consider a podcaster, a blogger, not just like writing wise, and like a course creator, or like someone that would consider themselves an online entrepreneur, an online entrepreneur is usually looking at ads, conversion rates, like they're really looking at that, whereas a blogger is looking towards, like, traffic, and adds, and then
this other stuff is supplementary. So while they might seem like they're the same, they're different, or like, I never get all the time, like, I want to help female business owners. There's a big difference between somebody growing an MLM somebody running a drop shipping site, somebody who's selling courses, somebody who wants to monetize their food blog with ads, like a little bit. Oh, my guys...
Just keep going down. Oh, my gosh, yeah, I couldn't agree more, because I still get this all the time. Or people say, I want to reach female entrepreneurs. And you're like, Okay, let's shrink it down. They're like, okay, female entrepreneurs that want to do this. And it's still something super obscure that I'm just like, oh, you're missing? Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah. And they
can do this. And they and I'm like, it's still not like, like you said earlier, you mentioned your enneagram to like, Are you trying to reach more people that are just like you and can understand the mindset of, what did you say? It's the it's the people pleaser? Yeah. So it's like, understand, like that component of like, what that feels like, and, you know, working through relationships, professional and personal, like all those things. People are say, Yeah, but it's too
narrow. That's too niche. I can't do this. And I'm like, No, that is how you really connect with your people. And how this is, this is really fun. I'm glad this is a perfect segue, because I want to know, what does it feel like when someone responds to your emails, you write something you're so proud of it? What feeling do you get when you see that you get a response, like a hit someone hit reply to one of your emails?
I still think it's super fun. So I have been banned from my inbox as part of clock working, but I do still go and actually have like a special tab that I'm allowed to look at. That's it. I've put blinders on. And I just, I love interacting with my people. And I just think that it's so fun, it can be like, you're gonna find this guy's you might spend like, say, like, an
hour. And I know, that seems like astronomically, maybe like an hour slaving over this email and your response, but then you throw one together in 15 minutes, but it was just so relatable that like people are applying back and go figure when you
ask them to reply back that they will. And so it's so nice, and I think that it can show you, you know, not only what your audience is struggling with and sometimes the words that they use, but it can also let you know a little bit about like, Oh, I'm so glad that I found you or like how did I not know this existed before? Because then that lights a fire? Like I need to go find more. Yeah, what have I been doing? And that was one of the biggest thing with our business is beautiful. Just found
you. And, you know, I always pride myself on we had a relatively small community. And our conversion rates were just astronomical. I'm like, and I was like, oh, like I want to be able to prove to people like you don't need this giant list to be able to make it work. But I'm like, in doing that, it's like how many more people are we not helping? Because I just want to be prideful. Again, it all comes down to feelings nobody else Believe me like it always comes down to feelings.
Oh my gosh. Well, I love that you share you know so much about how you are so engaged with your list like so connected with them, but Do you remember the first time you sent an email? And you got a response, though, because I know that this is something that is like a legitimate thing that people are like, I'm going
to send stuff and I'm going to hear crickets. So instead of talking about that, because that has happened to me, millions of times at this point, what do you remember what it was like when you did first get that email response to something you sent out?
I can't, because it's been forever. But I can tell you that it was most likely at the time because of the human nature. If they were applying back, it's like, oh, my goodness, is this like somebody being mean? Oh, yeah. As opposed to? Are they saying something nice. And so that was that because I'm like, I'm thinking back to like, 2017 2018 when I started doing it, and like, my mindset was just in like, such a rough spot back then, where it's like, that would have been my
default. But then when you go ahead, and like you actually get the nerve to open it up, and like, oh, my goodness, like, thank you, like, this was so useful. You're like, like, I am so excited for all of the results. And just again, even if it's someone that was just like, you know, had somebody reply back yesterday, actually, they had, I'd sent that email about like a YouTube video on this GTG.
And she's like, I just want to turn off my back and let you know, that I've been putting off forever to propose to somebody about game development contract. And she's like, I just heard back and we didn't get it. But she's like, I am so proud of myself. And that's the biggest thing that I want my people to feel is proud of themselves. So I'm like, Oh, I'm so proud of you. I'm so excited. I'm just so tickled pink, like, I love the stuff that my people do. They're just the coolest.
The call I got is well, thank you so much for sharing, honestly, about you're just like a scared little hesitant. Like, say something mean is somebody I know. For me, whenever I first started, I had a lot of issues with being very clear on my message, I definitely wasn't serving podcasters I think I started at the end of 2017 really starting to ramp up my email list efforts. And I just remember thinking, Okay, I'm gonna send this, no one's gonna care. No one's
gonna respond. And I did I got the best thing was, you know, cuz I would have I still have friends from high school that are on my email list. And I'm like, What are you doing like you, you're a hygienist and like, you have no, no desire to ever create a podcast, but she just like, she'll be like, Oh, my gosh, I remember this story. So I love that I have friends and family on my email list. Shout out, y'all are amazing and supportive. But I remember the first time someone, I had no
idea who they were. And they responded back to me and said, Thank you. This was helpful. It was so validating. And I think that's what a lot of brand new baby entrepreneurs. And that's what a lot of our audiences are looking for that validation. Yes. Oh, I love this conversation. So much.
It's just so true. And I think that we all need that dopamine hit. So I'm really cool. Like, you know, I should just do it for the love of the work like no, it's nice to know that people found it useful. And, you know, when you're hitting your email, and you're hitting send, whether you're sharing your personal story, or a quick tip, because we can get into how emails need to be entertaining in a second. Like, when they reply back, it's just like, they took two seconds to be like, yeah, like
Yes, well, okay, I want you to get into emails being entertaining. But first I just thought of, we haven't talked about what tool Do you use for your email service provider? Is there a favorite one that you love?
Sure. So I use Active Campaign and I tell about 98% of people do not use it because it is very on user friendly. And honestly, up until last year, and I think was like December they didn't even have landing pages. So I ended up with Active Campaign because this was before ConvertKit
was the thing. So that's why I didn't get ConvertKit and then I had gotten a plugin for my course the membership site which I no longer use that like it was either Infusionsoft which was super expensive ontraport which was super expensive at the time or Active Campaign and like Active Campaign so cheap, so like, he just stayed
over there. And again, one of the reasons why we're clock working our business is so we can go there but nine times out of 10 I tell people if they want to make money especially with like digital products and being a personal brand just go with ConvertKit I know that sometimes the you know the $30 a month or a little bit more can seem like a lot to swallow but it's so much more user friendly. Their landing pages are really nice.
They're often forms are gorgeous. Everything from Active Campaign Hey DS so if we had to get lead pages so then it's like when you add up like those expenses, it's like wait a minute, like it was
cheaper to go over there. So for most people, it's that another one that I really really want to love and I think that maybe potentially down the road it could be is something like flow desk, because they do have really pretty emails, I was worried about their deliverability but my issue was, especially at the time that I was looking around with them. It you could not add things like timers to say, if you were running a flash sale, you can't add the code in there because they didn't
want you messing with a template. And I don't know about you, but like time zones is the big issue for us. Yeah. Like, that's why I have timers like, yes, it creates some urgency. Yes, gives people deadlines, but honestly, it's so that no one's like, okay, she said, 9pm Eastern Standard Time. I'm in Australia time. So technically, it's like, 12pm my time and like, a timer went 00. So you could do that. And it had a harder time tagging
buyers. And again, my people are digital course graders, product developers, so they need to have that capability. So I feel like they're working on it with Zapier because at one point, you couldn't tag buyers, but I'm like, just go with CCO with ConvertKit It was built for this sort of a thing. Just go in it.
Yeah. And I've been with ConvertKit Well, before they had the free one that was like, I think it's 1000 or something for the free version now.
1000. But you can't set up autoresponder so allow you on the free plan, Because I said so I tell my students, they'll allow you to do like the delivery of your freebie like that first one. But then after that on the free plan, they won't let you use Okay, like welcome series or any of that.
Oh my gosh, yeah, cuz I was like, I had 14 days to try them out. I mean, don't get me wrong, they hooked me in, but I'm like, Where was this free version? Yep, sicko. Come on, guys. But it's awesome. Yeah, I love ConvertKit.
And you get I'm pretty sure and the free version you, you still get customer support. And so that was one of the biggest reasons why I told everybody don't go with MailChimp, it wasn't because I'm like, oh, MailChimp is the worst. They did have an issue like double subscribers and different lists and all that. But I'm like, you get no customer support. And when you're on a free plan, you're usually brand new, you use an auto
attack, and you got a lot of questions. So I always push everybody towards mailer light, because even on their free plan, you'll get customer service. But then some people are so new mailer light wouldn't approve them to send cars, they want to make sure even though they have a free plan, that their sensibility score, deliverability score is still high. So it's like
one of those sort of catch 20 twos. But usually, if you've got a little something going, you can show them that you've got your podcast, you've got a couple episodes, you've got your website up and going, then usually they'll say yes, but I'm not going to dump you off with no customer support.
Yes. And I feel like convertkit's gotten even better over the last few years with their community and their demonstrations of IT support documents where even if you can't actually talk to another person immediately, like, there are tutorials or blog posts, like I they're just keep coming out with new iterations. And that's like, why I just stick with them, because they just keep making it better. Like they're trying to keep up with the times for sure.
They really are. And I feel like other ones like the MailChimp aren't and I know I love their how you can still switch between what I call like the simple like ConvertKit, where it's like just like a sequence. But then like you can also go into like the visual funnels, so then you can have those things. Again, I always sell for Active Campaign, I'm like, you need to pay for a landing page software. So you need to not be
afraid of integrations. And you need to like math, because of where it finds like if then statements. And it felt like it's all disjointed. But I'd like to sign up for a couple of them. They all have free trials, nicest customer service, easier interface for you and just go with that, because I would much rather spend $30 a month than say, pretty sure active campaigns at the same point now anyways, for their lowest plan. But it's like, I know I'm taking care of it. I know I can do it.
Yeah. Oh my gosh,
I could I could we could nerd out on all these things. Because I love talking about the funnels and the different like automations and tags and all the things but I want to go back to what you were talking about because you are saying, okay, we're gonna talk about entertaining emails in a second because I want to go back to the basics, because there's still people listening. They're like, Okay, guys, like
you're into me a little bit closer. Maybe I'll write my email this week, maybe not like they're still on this fence of like, I'm almost there. They're almost ready to do it. But share with us about entertaining emails and what you're talking about.
Okay, so I can our philosophy both of our philosophies is to treat people like people. Why do people go to their inbox because they're supposed to be doing something out. Like, in our cases, they're supposed to be writing their show notes. They're supposed to be writing a sales page. They're supposed to be pitching that big old guests that they want to land. They're supposed to be pitching other podcasts and they are
procrastinating. So when they go and they click open that tab to Gmail, they're looking for that little dopamine hit. So where a lot of content creators in particular get really hung up is they try to just info slap the heck out of their audience, and no one is going into email with that frame of mind. I would like to share the story of my cool prank ever. I was in high school and my boyfriend at the time, like his hand was out because he was eating some m&ms. And y'all see
where this going. I had a Skittle. And so I shove one of my 11 Skittles in his hand, and he wasn't paying attention, because you know, it was yellow, and he had yellow m&ms throws in his mouth, like you would have thought, like, I like murdered him, like he would like your brain to anticipate things. So if you're trying to like put like a square peg in a round hole, this isn't gonna work, because in their mind, I just need a quick escape,
right? So for like, Okay, well, like what do I send, because I don't want to be that person that's like useless or I just don't want to sell. Give them a quick tip and then say, and if you want four more steps, go ahead and listen to our
episode today. Because when someone's coming to a podcast, when they're coming to a blog post, even when they're coming to a YouTube video, they are in that learning frame of mind, they're not coming to their inbox to sit down and read an encyclopedia, or get 8 million tips about stuff, they're coming to be a little bit entertained, feel like they're understood. So you can have a fun fact, you can relate to something that happens in your day, you can say our stat about your
industry. And I think that some people like but I'm just like, so boring. It's like, did you know that like 75% of people who buy self how I'm making this up, who buys self help books are female, but yet, only 10% of them are actually written by females. And then it's like, Oh, I didn't know that the army and so now they go tell their friends. Now you go, and you talk about what you're going to talk about on your podcast. And then you can just send them on their way.
Oh, my gosh, I love the psychology that you just baked into all of that, because it's so good. And I I've never really thought about email marketing that way. But that is when I go to check my email, if that's what I'm looking for. I'm like, oh, did someone email me a great guest suggestion? Did someone you know, send me something cool. Someone, you know, send me a
question about something. And whenever I see an email that I'm excited to open, I kind of take like a mental note of why am I excited to open this? So I think that this would be a great exercise for anybody that's listening, like ask yourself, what gets you excited to open your emails? And how can you use that to kind of play into your own email writing? Oh, my gosh, this is Yeah, this is so good.
And it's just like, Oh, all right. Because there's those people and I love that suggestion of like, really studying yourself as a person because I, your subscribers are people too. Again, for most times, there are some people when they email, like, and I'm on their newsletter list, I don't even look at their subject line. Because I know who they are. They've either proven to me whether on their podcast in like, say their welcome series to those first couple of emails,
they get me again, and it can be relatable. It's usually always bite sized stuff, I'll just open it like, I don't care. And then there's other people that their subject line has to do a little bit more of the heavy lifting for them.
Yes. Oh my gosh, we didn't even get into subject lines. Kate, I'm gonna have to have you back on the podcast for us to talk about, like breaking everything down. Because we could just talk about all this forever. This is so much fun. But I want to move into another segment of the podcast where we have some rapid fire questions. So are you up for that? Sounds good? Okay, so the very first one, and we haven't even got into your podcast. So hang on, hold up Blitz
backups, like reverse. Tell us about your podcast, what is the name of it? And who is it for...
Sure. So it is Inbox Besties. And it is for, I would say smallish business owners to help them sort of carve out their section of the Internet, and have people like ridiculously excited to throw their credit cards at them. So we do talk a lot about email marketing, we talk a lot about sales, psychology, we talk a lot about copywriting. But we're also you know, that's one facet of the business but like, you know, if you're so frazzled, that like you're not getting
things done. So we're bringing in a little bit more about the mindset, we're bringing in a little bit more about like the productivity and like what it means to actually run a I call us course creators and digital product creator style of a business. So hi, love inbox nasty is it's the coolest. And we're bringing in a lot more guests to talk about areas that I'm not an expert in. So that's inbox besties. Wherever you guys are listening to this, you can search for it. You can
search my name, too. And I'll show up because I put my name in the title too.
Oh my gosh, yeah. So as soon as y'all are done, you have to wait, you have to listen to the rest of this conversation first. And then you're going to go over to inbox besties. And listen to that, because if you enjoy I just, I can't wait to go back and listen to some of your episodes because this has just been so much fun. And I love the way that your approach to everything is just so relatable. It's just it's so
much fun, so I can't wait. Okay, so now the reason why I wanted to tee that up is to really talk about you have your own podcast. So my first Rapid Fire question is, what piece of advice would you give to a brand new podcaster
I would say be a guest on other people's shows and even if you plan on doing a lot of solo episodes, have some guests on as well because that's the fastest way to get your podcast to grow.
Oh, that's good. That's a really good one. Okay, the next question I have is a two part question. And it is what is the dream podcast you would love to be on? And who would be your dream podcast guest?
I really like and now I'm like, Oh, I don't want to mess it up. The name I love to get paid podcast by Claire. I think that Claire Petro on make sure I said her name right. I always find that one really interesting because at the stage of business that I'm in right now, I don't really need any more tix tips and tricks. I just want to know what's going on underneath the hood of a business like it's more of an intrigue. So I'd say the get paid podcast. And I don't think that you
really have a dream guest. I know that sounds so odd. But I just like to have interesting people that that's really interesting people that can help my audience with things that I don't normally talk about, I guess, Adrian dorsen, because she's had a run like clockwork. So we'll say Adrian.
Okay, awesome. Awesome. And the last question I have for you is, Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?
I used to, but not anymore.
Not anymore. This, I feel like the term that I have used for myself is I'm a recovering perfectionist. It's just, it's funny, because that's what I find a lot of our guests they'll say, I used to be, or I'm in the recovering stages. So you were absolutely amongst good people here, good friends. But I know that you have a template for everybody that's listening that is struggling with our email marketing journey. So can you tell us about that today?
Sure. So if you guys head on over to k.com, forward slash t, p, p, and the link in the show notes, you can get my two years worth of newsletter idea. So I break it down month by month, like in June, here's what you're going to send me one, week two, week three, we even have a little calendar in case you want to change the dates around. If it's anything that's time Pacific, like, Oh, it's National Library, you know, week this week, like, we'll let you know,
there'll be a little timestamp. And if people are like, oh, but like, it's August, by the time I'm finding this turns out, you know, January through July, come back again. So you will be absolutely fine. And it's just these really quick sentence starters. That was just like, oh, share three mistakes. Oh, it's National Teacher day, how can I relate it to this? Share your favorite book, so it just gives you those ideas? Sometimes you're gonna use that sentence starter to get people to your
podcast episode. Sometimes it's a hiatus and you just need like a quick like, Hey, what's going on with your fitness kids, whatever the main topic is that you talked about, and they'll be good to go. So it's katedoster.com/tpp, to get your hands on that. So you don't have to worry about what' on your list till 2023.
I was gonna say it's two years. It's not just like, oh, here's, here's like a month's worth. It's two years. Are you kidding me?
Like, oh, like, Here's 104 ideas, because again, treat people like people, they'll skip around, they won't know. Again, some people do. They're like, I liked the topics better in April. And it is September, like that's fine. But again, if I'm giving you like, I'm actually contracting, what you can talk about, you'll find that you'll get more creative.
Okay, so y'all have to go grab this, we're gonna have links in the show notes to where you can connect with Kate. And actually, I talked about I told you earlier, I'm like, I went down a rabbit hole of watching your reels and all the tips that you share his Instagram where you like to hang out? And if so tell everybody your handles so they can come follow you.
Sure. So I have been having a lot of fun. And that's what I've been trying to really incorporate year. 2021 is about exponential growth and fun, what feels fun, how can I have fun taking the pressure off of everything. And so Instagram rails has just been my jam. So we'll share things like things you didn't know you could do with
Trello quick tips or emails. I always love the ones that are just like about being an online entrepreneur, like the one we just put up was like, tag your friend, if your best friend you talk to everyday you've never met in real life, what we're getting at because it's a truth. I'm like, I don't have never met her in real life. Like we've never hugged. We never touched but we talk every single day. And my handle is Kate Doster. So that's where you can find us there.
Oh my gosh, Kate, this is so fun. You're gonna have to come back on the show. And we're gonna have to talk about even more like nerdy things about marketing and emails, because this is so much fun. But thank you so much for coming on the show today.
I am so excited and just just email your list guys just Just do it. Again, they're gonna be the most engaged because think about it. You might follow like 500 people on Instagram, but you are not signed up to 500 people's email list. So just give them the opportunity your subscribers to get to know you and for you to help them.
Awesome. Thank you so much, Kate.
So what did you think? Oh, I loved it. I told Kate after we were done like we hit stop. And I told her we could have kept going we could have gone forever and ever Because she was so much fun to talk to. I always love talking to someone who does something related to podcasting and what they do, right. She does email marketing, but she also has a podcast. So she's also in the trenches with podcasting. So she knows how podcasters think, but she also has a specialty of email marketing, and
she just brings so much to the table. I loved hearing her different perspectives, and I hope that you go grab her freebie, so it's going to be in the show notes. KrystalProffitt.com/Episode260. I'm going to have all the ways that you can connect with Kate go listen to her podcast inbox besties podcast. Go check it out. There's just It's so good. It's so good. I love Kate's personality. And I know that you got so much value
out of just hearing about email marketing. So tell me if you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot where you're listening, tag me tag Kate on Instagram. We would love to hear what your number one takeaway was from today's episode. But that's all I have for you today. So again, the show notes KrystalProffitt.com/episode260 for all the show notes and Kate's freebie for two years worth of newsletter ideas, please go if this is what you're
struggling with. Go grab it. You need this. I wish I would have had this whenever I first started writing my weekly emails. So I am so happy to bring to you incredible guests and I can't wait to see what everyone does with their emails like I it just gets me This is where the geeky side of me comes out because podcast marketing is just so much fun and I'm telling you everything really changed in my business once I got really intentional with my emails, so that's what I will
leave you with here today. If you are brand new around here, I would love it if you would follow the podcast wherever you are listening and as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.