This transcript has been machine generated and has not been fully edited for errors.

Brittany Herzberg: Welcome back to the Simple and Smart SEO Show. We are hyped up over here because we've been chit chatting before we started recording.

We've got Allea Grummert here with Crystal and I to talk all things email and SEO, and it's gonna be, I can tell, it's gonna be, like, a really fun conversation. Hi ladies. Hello. Hello. I love this. 

We have not talked about email. Like of all the things we were just saying before we jumped on, like we have not talked about email, which is funny, but it also makes sense because we're so focused on here's how you get traffic to your website.

And then it's Oh yeah. What do you do once you get them there? So Allea, do you want to tell us a little bit about who you are, how you help people in the world and why we're here 

Allea Grummert: today? Yeah. So like you guys said, I'm Allea Grummert. I own a company called Duet, and I'm an email marketing strategist and conversion copywriter.

So my goal and my emphasis over the last four plus years of my business has been building out welcome and nurture sequences for bloggers and content creators. as a way to be able to introduce them to your wonderful content, how it helps them, and ultimately driving traffic back to your website, and engaging readers and keeping them to, engaged in your community for the long haul.

I 

Brittany Herzberg: love it. So before we dump in, really jump in, to all of what we're going to be talking about, I am not great with the words today, so I think I'm going to let Crystal do the talking. But one thing that I'd like to ask our guests is. How do you describe SEO? Or, when you're talking about it with clients, if that ever happens, what do you say?

how do you share it in a very simple way? 

Allea Grummert: Yeah, so it's interesting because a lot of my clients are career bloggers, so SEO is, their other language. And if anything, that's where they're spending a lot of their time. but SEO is how you attract the people who are looking for the content you already have so that they can find your content.

and then our goal is to say, okay, now that they're on your site, how do we keep them coming back to your site as an individual, not just this person that they found on Google? I really 

Brittany Herzberg: like that you have that emphasis on bringing people back to your website because I think just you saying that I'm like, Oh, yeah, of course we want them to come back to it.

And I don't know why I keep having that like thought play in my head, but I don't think a whole lot of people really talk about it in that way of we want them coming back. We want them revisiting. We want them interacting with you. And one thing I had Crystal do before we started recording was go to Allea's website.

So if you're driving, don't do this, but please go back at a later time to Allea's website. She's got some fun, hidden Easter eggs, and it's just a really cool interactive site. I don't know if you want to point out something specific that people can do. 

Allea Grummert: Yeah, that was, the thing with SEO is that you can show up on like higher pages and I want people to like land on my site and be like, Oh. This person behind this content, is somebody that I want to learn from, in my case, because I teach about email marketing, and I do email marketing all the time.

So I want them to feel comfortable. And that I'm helpful and generous and that they know how to connect and stay connected with me, whether it's like a free event or hiring me for services. but yeah, like with my food blogging clients, if you imagine like how many recipes are there on lasagna and you work so hard to get on that first page of Google, what does it actually look like for you to, yeah, differentiate yourself in the eyes of the reader beyond just giving them a recipe and having them leave your site?

Yeah, and just 

Brittany Herzberg: to tie this into I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but I was first introduced to Allea. I think there's a friend of a friend. I'm honestly not sure what I do remember and I will make sure we link to this episode where I was talking about rewriting my site earlier this year. I remember Allea's site was one of the sites That I had pulled up.

There were like 10 sites I had in this one bar, largely for inspiration because I liked your site. It was so interactive, everything you just said, like it was warm. It was welcoming. It was inviting. It was like playful and fun and all the things that I want to be. And so I'm, I had all these sites open and I was like channeling.

I was like, all right, how can I. bring this in and have my site represent me in such an awesome way. copywriters, we totally do this. We go to each other for sources of inspiration. And, I remember reaching out to Allea and I was like, please don't hate me. Please don't hate me. But I looked at your site and I was using it for inspiration and I really loved it.

Allea Grummert: Oh, but that's like such a, that was such an honor for me too. Cause my site is new. I just released it like six or so months ago. And so I was like, yes, I'm glad that it has this kind of impact where people are like, Noticing it, but yeah. My old site, I had the same website though for four and a half years.

And yeah, from the get go, I built it myself in Squarespace slowly over time and just had this realization a year ago that was like, I think I mentioned bloggers twice, like on the whole website. I don't think this is doing anything like even if people land here and they are bloggers, they won't know that my content is for them. So that's where I was like, okay, something needs to change. And I hired a wonderful website designer. And then her sister actually helped me organize all the copy. I am a copywriter, but somebody else is actually the expert on like how to lay out a website. So it actually makes the most sense and it's compelling.

And so we were able to really collaborate on that. Yeah, I can nerd out on that B for sure, because I had a bunch of research. Like I knew what my clients come asking me for. I know what their big questions are. I know what their big results are. And so then it was a matter of tying that all in and using their language and stuff.

Brittany Herzberg: Beautifully done. 

Crystal Waddell: Thank you. So I've been searching for something that my friend Andrew said, and because he's like a big SEO and PR guy, but he said that SEO should aim to be found through search once and be searched for twice. And so just to go back to that thing that you were saying, Brittany, about like people coming back and Allea, how you're talking about bringing people back.

And I just thought that was so interesting because it's like, yeah, you want them like to find you and then remember you and then continue to search for you. 

Allea Grummert: Totally. 

Crystal Waddell: You work with bloggers and I work with e commerce sellers and B works with service providers. but SEO and blogging and bringing people to their website as bloggers is a little bit different than e commerce.

Discussing SEO for Different Businesses

Crystal Waddell: And I was wondering. Okay. Thank you. I know that's not what you do, but I was wondering if you could share a little insight about that just because you've worked with these people for so long. 

Allea Grummert: With bloggers, they are career content creators. that's what they're doing. an e commerce site is creating products and getting that in front of people. Or SaaS is providing some sort of, digital service. and service providers like me, I do have a blog, but, my blog is not the foundation of the revenue of my business.

with bloggers, they make money from largely digital advertising. And they have to hit a certain minimum, of page views every month in order to qualify for one of the ad networks. So if you've ever heard of Mediavine or Adthrive, which is now called Raptive, those are the big ad networks. But you have to be hitting like 50, 000 page views a month organically or, however you get there, but most of that would be organic search traffic or Pinterest or who knows how you're getting them to your site, but that's how you even qualify.

A lot of bloggers up until that point are actually making no money. So that's like the, that's the threshold of if you can get to this point, then you can be making money through display ads. And while that's a really core fundamental part of blogging as a career, it's not the only way to make money either.

So I've got clients who have a membership or they have a course or they have a product. But in the work that I do with them, primarily, it's building that brand loyalty and site traffic, so that when they do want to launch something, the people on their list actually know who they are. 

Brittany Herzberg: Something else too is affiliate marketing.

I'm sure you've got people that do that. 

Allea Grummert: Yep. So a lot of affiliate marketing is largely done through the blog itself. So you, Amazon, you can't actually link to an affiliate link from email. That's part of their terms and conditions. So it is, it's still like sending people back to those blog posts that have the links that will link them to Amazon.

You can link to your storefront. You just can't link to specific items. But that's not the only affiliate program too. So if you have sponsored content, you could include, sending out emails as part of the sponsored content package. 

So in addition to writing a blog post using, this special oat flour or flavoring, or storage containers, whatever that the brand is paying for, you can also send out an email promotion.

Same with an affiliate partnership. If you're like, I really want to hype up this particular product a few times to my list. You're not getting paid directly from the company as an advertiser, but you are making revenue then as an affiliate by promoting it in the people on your list, buying through the affiliate partner.

Crystal Waddell: Thank you so much for sharing that because I feel like SEO has different roles that it plays for different types of businesses. And I think it's really important to understand that because then it's easier to understand why some changes or updates, Google updates and that type of thing affect certain businesses or bloggers or whatever more than others.

Allea Grummert: Oh yeah. I would say my clients have come to me saying I've lost half my traffic because Google made an update. And so like their entire. not entire, but a large part of the revenue source, which is that, the display ads that they only get paid for if people look at them, has dipped significantly, or they've lost half their page views.

So that can be really scary. yeah, so I'm just trying to, ride that wave with them, but that's also where I'm hoping email can come in and be a safe harbor as well, in addition to seasons like that. 

Crystal Waddell: So I'm really excited to hear about that. I wanted to just make one comment about the Amazon affiliate program because, I took a course about blogging for revenue, and, approaching that because I thought, you know what, I want to marry those two things.

I want to marry my e commerce store and I want to marry blogging for profit. So I was like, okay, I can do this. And so with the tools that I had, surfer SEO, I always talk about it. That was a big part of it. But the other part of it was I was trying to position myself as an Amazon affiliate. For popular products, it just was like a natural thing until I got kicked out of the Amazon affiliates program.

Allea Grummert: What? 

Crystal Waddell: With no explanation. But they won't talk to you. They won't say this is why you got kicked out. It's just you violated it. yeah. Terms of service or whatever.

So I just want to give that warning to people. 

Unless you really understand the rules, don't necessarily build your business on affiliate hopes, because then you're going to have to go back and undo all of the linking that you did before. So that was just like my, sad Amaz on affiliate story.

Brittany Herzberg: That is sad. I started, I, it's funny because I started the Amazon affiliate thing and Daniel has like another, link like under mine because we share our Amazon account and I started out by being the one bringing in a lot of money from the Amazon affiliates. I because a lot of it was my massage clients.

They would get massage cups or whatever else that I had recommended for there at home care. Daniel has put affiliate links in his blogs and now he's the one that's like bringing in all of the money. So it's funny because I'm like, Oh, that's really interesting. And now I'm, getting more on the blogging game and being really intentional about Okay, where do I want to direct this traffic?

Where can I insert affiliate links? Things like that. But, okay. So we bring in traffic. 

How to Get People on Your Email List

Brittany Herzberg: through our blogs. Let's just stay with that, And then how are you, what are you seeing with your clients with how they're getting people on their email list? Do you have any tips there or any insights from what they've done?

Yeah. 

Allea Grummert: So there's a variety of things. I actually have a whole blog post on this as far as like where you can share your freebies. but yeah, part of it is having something I don't know if you've heard this, but people aren't just going to be like, yeah, I can't wait to give you my email, please email me more, it's like, how do I, how do we give them something in return, give them something valuable in return for their email address?

so that could look like a freebie. Like I have a handful of freebies on my website, like I've got a video tutorial and I've got like a few PDFs. And so for my clients, I do have a couple. they've just had really good success with saying just join my newsletter for recipes hitting your inbox every week or whatever.

but in a lot of cases, that's not really sufficient. And so having something like a checklist or, some sort of Yeah, tutorial guide. Like I have a client who does like a knife tutorial, because she's a cooking blog. Yeah, it would be cooking, not baking. Baking blogs might be more like a checklist or something like that for a pantry checklist.

I'm trying to think of what else, like even, six ways you can monetize your site if you have another type of business. and having people opt in for that. Another could be like an email course, like a five day drip. Dripped out course that teaches or just shares links to content that you already have But it gets people really familiar with your content early on and then you can yeah, then that's one way they can join your list I 

Brittany Herzberg: really like that.

The Power of Naming Your Newsletter

Brittany Herzberg: You mentioned you have people who don't always have the most success with just, hey, get on my newsletter and they join. There was a summit that I recently went through as like a, an attendee, I guess it was by Sophia Parra and it was all about these different ways to like market right to. Content marketing, that kind of thing.

Social media marketing, even. And one person was talking about actually naming your newsletter. and, okay, so I'll share the idea that I had for mine. It was like, oh wait, what was it? No, I lost it. Anyway, the point was, if you name it, I'm really on the ball today. If you name it, it's like getting people to join a group.

And so that is exciting because what we have found, and what this person was saying we have found, is that someone will want the freebie. Get the freebie, get on your list, leave, right? Because we haven't really, I'm going to say this phrase, but I don't just, there's a grain of salt here. We haven't really sold them on the idea of sticking around for the emails.

But if you're like, hey, come in this like really super cool club that we've got going on where you're going to learn about da, then it's like almost more intriguing for them to stick around for those emails, for the information and to really engage with you. 

Crystal Waddell: That reminds me of Susan react because she has the email, newsletter called the UX factor, which is pretty cool.

 It's also like that kind of on LinkedIn, how LinkedIn has those newsletters. 

The Power of Repurposing Content

Crystal Waddell: And so to me, it seems like they took that idea, that concept and, giving people a platform.

To use it, so I'm just wondering, what do you think about that? Like sending, can you send the same newsletter, same email out to your list that you would post on like a newsletter on LinkedIn? 

Allea Grummert: Oh, absolutely. You might as well because you have two different audiences there. yeah.

Repurpose the heck out of everything, please. 

The Journey of Content Creation

Allea Grummert: As like when I started, I was sending out emails. Once a week. And then after about six months, I decided to open up the blog portion of my itty bitty little Squarespace website that I made myself and just started repurposing all of the older content that like, I look back on it and this is weak.

This is weak. They're not good blog posts, but I have to remember like they helped people, in 2019 they will help people know I can always go back and update them. but yeah, repurposing the content, even to your blog, like I'm a service provider. 

Creating this content and that's the kind of path I go where like usually bloggers will create the blog content. 

Then send it out in an email or send out portions of it in the email and drive traffic back to that post.

Crystal Waddell: I love that.

Setting Goals for Your Emails

Crystal Waddell: So how do you set goals for your emails? Like when you send an email, like what are your expectations of that email? 

Allea Grummert: That's a great question So it depends on kind of the sequence of where you're at in business. 

The Importance of Consistency in Email Marketing

Allea Grummert: So when you're first getting started, it's like consistency. I think even when you're beyond getting started, it's I'm sending an email.

I'm communicating what value I have with the world. I often, my soapbox is it's not fair to you to go create all this wonderful content and then have no eyeballs on it. 

And it's not fair to your subscribers who've said, I want to see the content and you're not sending it out. So at the very least, Be sharing the content you're creating.

The Art of Ignoring Unsubscribes

Allea Grummert: and then from there, I would even say don't look at your unsubscribes. Don't worry about your open and click through rate for a while. If you're just getting started or even if you're like shifting your strategy, just just do it. 

The Role of Data in Email Marketing

Allea Grummert: Just do the work for a few months, three months, six months, whatever, and then go back and look at the data and look at the engagement and see how it differed.

But if you like zoom in on each of those stats with every email, you're going to drive yourself batty. And then you're going to want to like pivot and shift and everything and it's what if you just did something consistently for a while and then see how it performs? 

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I've been having this conversation a lot with my boyfriend, Daniel, because he's got an email list.

He's got his own business. I've got my email list, my business. 

The Impact of Unsubscribes on Business

Brittany Herzberg: And just yesterday, a couple days ago, he sent out an email and he's I got seven unsubscribes. and it was like an email where I was selling things. And I was like, okay, let's look at this. How frequently are you emailing them? What are you talking about?

Do we even think that the right people are on your email list? 

Strategies for Growing Your Email List

Brittany Herzberg: So I am curious because, Dan has one strategy to grow his email list. I've got different strategies to grow my email list.

Do you think that what are your thoughts with strategies with growing your email list with, for example, being on Pinterest or doing email list swaps or being part of bundles or summits? what are some of your like hot takes on that? 

The Importance of Consistent Content

Allea Grummert: I would say like my biggest hot take, especially when it comes to like you sending out emails is making sure that you are sending out consistent content, like the topics themselves are consistent.

So if Daniel is sending out content and selling something that's aligned with why people join the list. There is nothing to be ashamed of and so like people might unsubscribe because they're just tired of getting some emails. They're cleaning out their inbox. Maybe they don't need that product.

Maybe they're beyond the scope of the kind of Content that you're teaching on or sharing about. but if people are unsubscribing because your content is all over the place, like that's something you can fix. So if you have offered to people like this is what you're going to get on my email list and these are types of topics, stay in that zone, stay in that lane.

The Power of Repetition in Email Marketing

Allea Grummert: It can feel like you are a broken record. Guys, I've been writing about email marketing welcome sequences. Since 2019, and so it can feel like a broken record. However, the more niche you are, the more like in depth you can get and you can still have a lot of fun with it. but I think that in our world of this isn't working.

So I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna try this. It's okay, but what have you promised to your list? 

The Art of Pivoting in Email Marketing

Allea Grummert: And if you are gonna make a pivot, like I'm going from email copywriting to now being an SEO strategist. Tell them and give them the opportunity to unsubscribe. And then stay consistent with talking about your new market and the new kind of content you want to share about.

So that's one way, but you mentioned strategies. So lots of different, yeah. however you bring people in, just making sure it's really consistent with what you plan to send them. 

The Importance of Consistency in Lead Magnets

Allea Grummert: you don't want like a cheat sheet on keto. But then what you've shifted to is like all baked goods or something, like shifted, get rid of those freebies.

Make sure everybody knows what you're talking about now. you don't have to create a freebie for every different type of whim that you come across. if you can create, this is why they call it a lead magnet. The idea used to be that you just have one key lead magnet. So like no matter how people come in from your website, like they will benefit from this one resource.

and then we have a variety of different opt ins, so you might get a little bit more specific with different types of recipes or different, parts of email marketing. 

The Role of Segmentation in Email Marketing

Allea Grummert: So like I have an entire resource just on segmentation. So that's not beneficial to everyone because it's a little bit more advanced to segment your list and how to do that.

But I have, the freebie, your first welcome sequence that in most cases is a little bit more broad and can help most people and that's the one I'm most likely going to share in like a pop up or a YouTube video or a podcast episode. but yeah, like as far as like how you get people on your list, there are tons of different strategies.

I would just see what actually, And I think that's what works and generates the most, but as far as making sure that you're getting the right people, making sure those freebies are on point and aligned with your overall vision for content and how you want to serve your community. 

Brittany Herzberg: I like that point because I've gotten to the point where I feel a little bit repetitive talking about like the SEO basics checklist, but people love it.

So it's my job. And I think my next step, just. Taking this opportunity to think through what can I do to make it even better is to update the welcome sequence. It's been really strong for two years, but my offers have shifted a little bit. 

The Power of Personalization in Email Marketing

Brittany Herzberg: What I want to talk about with email has shifted a little bit.

Places I can direct them have shifted too. So I like being able to ideate while you're talking. 

Allea Grummert: Yeah. 

The Importance of Updating Your Welcome Sequence

Allea Grummert: like with updating your welcome sequence too, I went back and just looked at mine, especially when I started using the convert kit creator network. I was like, Oh, I'm going to have a bunch of people joining my list who don't know me from a podcast, who don't know me from a summit.

So how do I, I wanted to go in and look at my welcome sequence through that lens and be like, this is still makes sense, my building too much, am I pretending there's too much familiarity too soon because. a lot of the people who are joining my list, I knew where they came from.

And now I'm like, Oh, I have no idea who you are or how you found me. And so how do I like tweak that? So my encouragement to you is that you don't have to like just scratch it. Entirely, just go back and look at it with a new lens. It might mean adding in an email or replacing a paragraph or changing the call to action, but you don't have to scrap the whole thing.

Thank you. Can I say one more thing too about when people are joining your list? This is an often overlooked Part of the process. So you mentioned like even just like naming your newsletter and joining a community and like building that rapport? 

I think you could even do that sooner Like I don't have a name for my newsletter Which is surprising because I like alliteration you'd think i'd have something by now, but I didn't want to force it. So it's just like this is You get emails from me, period.

I don't even call it a newsletter. you get emails, I educate, I encourage, like, all those things, but I don't have a name for it. But there's this in between part from when people join your email list, they've put in their email. 

The Power of Welcome Pages in Email Marketing

Allea Grummert: What happens when they click? subscribe. Do they get that little, note that's thanks for subscribing, check your inbox?

Probably. but I recommend actually redirecting it to a welcome page. And that welcome page is an, is like basically your whole brand being explained and 30 seconds to a minute. So like I have a video on my welcome page. If you opt in, it's like happy smiley Allea. And then this is me in my dining room slash office.

And I'm just saying, I'm so glad you're here. This is what you can expect. so I am hitting them even before they go get their freebie. Like they have seen my face, they've heard my voice and they know what they're going to get out of being on my email list. And then in the email where you're giving away the freebie, Restate that.

this is the part where, okay, who am I in this person's life and why do they need to know? I can be resourceful? That they should open my emails? So you could call it your unique selling proposition if you will. I went to school for advertising. That's what we called it because we big nerds usp but it's like it's your differentiating factor And how you're going to solve the problem for them.

So it's I, yeah, so like with, when email feels super overwhelming, I hope that you find comfort here in a way to learn more about using email to get your message out. Like whatever that is, I can say that and then they can click to subscribe knowing this is the community that they're joining.

So I feel like there's just a lot of opportunity there that's like often just like boilerplate, thanks for subscribing, click here to confirm. It's what can we actually do to reinforce our brand? 

Brittany Herzberg: I 

The Role of Branding in Email Marketing

Brittany Herzberg: like the idea of having that page though, because that simplifies it. I always, people think I'm smart with tech, and I'm like, just efficient enough with it.

I'm actually quite dangerous with it, so don't trust me with it, but having that one page to redirect them to, because I know where that link goes in the back end of Squarespace, and I can picture it right now, and I'm like, oh, duh, so thank you. 

Crystal Waddell: Yeah, that's a great idea. Now, the website or the email service provider that I use is Klaviyo and so you talked a little bit about segments and I'm like, I love Klaviyo sent you through the segment training like immediately, create these segments, and so I love that because there's so many automations that are running on my behalf.

So I feel like, Oh, I've accomplished something, because segments and automations or whatever. 

The Impact of Unsubscribes on E-commerce

Crystal Waddell: but one of the clients that I worked with recently, we were talking about a welcome series for her because I was setting up her Klaviyo and she was like, I don't like welcome series.

and I was like, yeah, hot take, but I don't either, I don't either. But from a e commerce perspective, it's a lot of times because our lead magnet, if you will, is usually like a coupon or something. You know what I mean? And who was I talking to recently? or no, we were talking to Rachel, she was on the podcast recently, Rachel Spiewak.

And she was like, people want what they want. And then they leave, Like they want what they're looking for. And then as soon as they get it, then they're, going to get the thing and they're moving on or whatever. That's how it is in e commerce, So it's like, how do you build the relationship past the, just the transaction? Because I think that's the biggest challenge in e commerce is.

where's my coupon? Did they send me a coupon? You know what I mean? How am I going to save money? Like, how can you provide value to your e commerce customers that's not just, hey, here's a percentage off. Do you have any ideas? 

Allea Grummert: I want to take it back to you. Have you found, what have you seen as good examples that, you feel like align with that?

I've got a couple. I've got, Native, for instance, is one that we could talk about, but I'm curious what comes to mind for you. 

Have you ever felt connected to a brand in a way that wasn't just coupons and just wasn't? 

Crystal Waddell: I can give you an example of what I've done for my own e commerce business.

part of it was, connected to blogging, and the fact that I am owning senior night as a keyword on Google. And so it's okay, what around senior night do people? and so when I create my content calendar, I always do it annually. 

The Art of Building Relationships Post-Purchase

Crystal Waddell: People are like, Oh my gosh, what? But yes, I do it annually because I'm an e commerce seller.

I know what seasons are coming up, so I can figure that out. and then, I break it down by quarters and then months. And it's okay, we're in basketball season. We're in football season or in softball season, whatever. And I line my emails, ideally they're written, do they get sent all the time?

but the plan is there, to say, Hey, if you have a softball senior night or a spring senior night coming up, here are some resources on what you might want to think about. Like I did this whole series with, a friend, Carrie Hagee, about what to wear on senior night to give mom's ideas, because my whole thing is I love moms, let's celebrate the moms, cause you're the one that did all the work, taking them to all those practices and tournaments and giving up your life for 15 years.

So that's the approach that I take with mine. it's different with everybody else and it's just I try to meet them in the season that they're at, but not all products are so emotionally based, So yeah. So back to you. say? 

Allea Grummert: Yeah. I don't know. Have you ever ordered anything from Native?

The deodorant company? 

Brittany Herzberg: I know that. I know the company, but I haven't ordered. 

Allea Grummert: Oh, it doesn't work for me for the record, the product itself, my friends were like, okay, so that might've worked during the pandemic, but you weren't around people, but you stink a little. Yeah.

I was like, cool, cool, cool.

but,

So it didn't work for me, but the product was super cool. So when you order it, and you place an order, you get an email and it's, they've just gone above and beyond like over the top, like what is one? It's just basically like cheering you on, like you are awesome. And another one, the one I've tried to think of what it is.

It's like when it's being delivered or it's. been delivered. No, it's what has been ordered. They're like, we are preparing a package with your name on it. And it's going to be delivered by the Royal, like mail service and they make you feel like a princess, or royalty. And so they definitely played up on that.

The Importance of Consistent Messaging in Email Marketing

Allea Grummert: And I'm like, Oh, that's That's a fun brand angle. I even think of SaaS companies. You're like, I've hired you to do this one thing. I don't need all your emails, but buffer always did a good job. Like one of their initial emails is just Hey, like a gif of their team waving like from a retreat or whatever.

It's just Hey, just so you know, we're here to support you. You can reply back at any time to this email. So it doesn't have to be like what I'm creating from my blogging clients is a lot more like story based and also solution based. So it's We, you come, you, a subscriber, have come looking for this.

You are, if, yeah, this is what we provide, so you are in the right place. Keep clicking. We're going to send you some of our top content soon. Or tomorrow I'm going to send over my top five, recipes on the whole blog. It's we're synthesizing hundreds of, if not thousands of blog posts to make it easy for them to enjoy.

this creator stuff and make sure that they're getting the best content. but when it comes to like e com, what does it look like just to have a couple welcome emails? To you know, just to establish the brand and to say, Hey, I'm so glad you're here. This is what we can do for you. so like you can give them their freebie or whatnot.

but something to keep in mind is like, still, what is your unique selling proposition? I don't know if you're familiar with jobs to be done. So it's like, what is the job of this e commerce site and how do we make sure that's somehow communicated in every email? So even if it is seasonal, it's like making a note of what would you say?

Do you have a job for your e com company? 

Crystal Waddell: Yes. The job is to celebrate moms. yeah. 

Allea Grummert: Yes. Oh my goodness. So if you had that tone or that message in every one of your emails, maybe it's like in the PS, Hey mom, just want to remind you, you are doing great. and just or we hope that you forward this onto a friend who's also, doing a great job.

so what does it look like to keep that alive between emails? It's not just your welcome sequence, it's part of your whole brand.

Brittany Herzberg: I like that. I also want to say that there are, I like coffee companies, in case we don't know this. And Death Wish Coffee, they have the best messaging and branding.

I really like them. Made Coffee does a really good job. But Death Wish, you get on their, text. List and somehow that's also part of the email subscription thing and they just have the most they just make me smile. Like they're so sassy. And They're so like I mean They're playing out very much on you like something punchy.

Here's some copy and messaging that's really punchy. Like you want your coffee to be really punchy. It's just so fun. Cool. So like I was trying to think of an e-commerce brand that I liked and that's definitely one where they've got their brand voice in everything that comes out 

Allea Grummert: and it just it builds that consistency in the.

the audience's mind, they know how to associate you. like, why would you buy from this e com, Crystal's e com company versus someone else's? It's oh, because she makes me feel happy. And I like her. I have a client who's an e com, company. And her welcome sequence, part of it is just Introducing herself, hey, I'm a small business owner.

this is a picture of me with my family. We started this because I wanted to be able to create more flexibility with my family. I'm so glad you're here. These are some of, the things you can expect, fast response time and quick delivery and, custom quality goods or whatever. And just, reinforce why they are even on your site.

Yeah, and who the person is behind it.

Crystal Waddell: Okay, not to toot my own horn, but toot toot, okay,? Because the SEO game is so strong over here. A lot of times the first time I'm interacting with somebody is that first sale. And so it reminds me of Bee and who was it that came on here talking about HoneyBook?

Was that Dahlia? Dahlia! Yeah. So when they were talking about this, cause I'm always trying to pick up these email tips, like how can I apply it to e commerce and how can you apply it when you're, you don't have like a freebie. that's the other issue I just realized is okay, the problem isn't that they didn't want to download the freebie.

The problem is they bought a product and now I want to continue to build a relationship with them. I started using HoneyBook as an email service provider because we were talking about touch points. and so like you said, I don't have the royal mail service, but I did set up an automation where it's like, Hey, I just want to let you know, your 25 photos have landed safely with us.

And this is what you can expect. I made a video where, it's like, Hey, just in case you wonder who I am here. I am, so I did all of those things, but it's not like in a welcome sequence. It's in a post purchase. 

Allea Grummert: I think that's, it's still doing the same thing. Like you're welcome.

It's think about the new subscriber journey and there just might be different entry points. So people are coming in through a freebie. That could be more of a generic welcome versus yeah. If they purchase something, what does it look like? like with my e com clients that I've worked with, it's yay, congratulations.

Here's the thing. Or like what you just talked about as a really great welcome email. And then. we could send out if we've sent out another one that's Hey, have you, has your friend gotten their gift yet? If so, we would love to see it. Like you can share it on Instagram and let us know.

And we'll ask them as the gift giver, cause it's a gift website. It's as a gift giver, like, how are you, like, how do you feel? How does it feel to know that you're like delighting your friend? And if they've said anything great, we want to know too, but We're championing them as the person who like saw something delightful and bought it for a friend and that's why the site exists.

Brittany Herzberg: That is so cool. 

I love it. You mentioned, early on and possibly even as we have our email list not paying so much attention to like click through rates and open rates.

However, is there a good, we're like, is there anything that someone could just, what would someone want to see in order to be like, good job me and just give themselves a pat on the back. 

Allea Grummert: Yeah. Oh, great question. I think part of it is knowing the purpose of each email. Some emails don't have clicks, like you don't, like the click rate.

I have one, my very first email, my welcome sequence has an open rate of 75 percent and a click rate of zero. So like knowing in that email, I'm not asking them to click on anything. I'm just like reply back and I get plenty of replies, but there's no stats tracking that. I don't have a stat in the spreadsheet.

I ain't got time for that. I just reply back to all the emails and say thank you. And I'll sometimes redirect them to some resources. they're like, my biggest question is this and so then I reply back to the email and I'm like, here are a couple blog posts you can check out in the meantime.

So but yeah, like a good click through rate is anywhere from two to 3 percent according to MailChimp, four to 7 percent according to ConvertKit for like their average across users. Yes. 

Brittany Herzberg: and then open rate, because I do want to toot my own horn and then Kristen just got really excited.

So we have to 

Allea Grummert: the open rate. I'd say anything over 40 percent is really good. it depends too, like your welcome sequence is the first time they're opening and hearing from you. So those emails should be higher. and yeah, cause we, they're never more interested in you than when they're right on your website about to join your list.

so how do you capture that? And that's where the welcome email or the purchase followup email is really helpful. 

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I have a pretty consistent open rate of usually hovers around like 50, 51%. So I'm like, okay, we have to go to you because you're like, 

Crystal Waddell: yeah, okay. So here's my other beef with, welcome series and emails.

Okay. It's because if you ever reply to an email and you get an auto responder, I'm like, to me, that is the ultimate, gosh, what do you even call that? Faux pas or something? 

Brittany Herzberg: I just don't like it. I don't love it. 

Crystal Waddell: Yeah, I don't love it at all. Like to me, that really depersonalized email for me in general. 

Because it was just done so bad. You don't send a thoughtful email that someone would reply to and then not at least have a human reply to it, Like the auto response to, someone's thoughtful response to your thoughtful email to me is. Big no. And so I just wonder what you thought about 

Allea Grummert: that. I have clients who They're really busy and they don't want to reply back to emails. So we don't include an email for their subscribers to reply back to Because I'm like, do you want all those emails?

If you don't then we'll engage them in another way like click here to learn more about this or this and we'll send You more...

we can use as a segmentation opportunity But you can be honest. If you're like, I don't have the time to actually thoughtfully reply back to these people, then don't include a question.

I have somebody who works on my team, like here and there, doing content and SEO blog posts. And she's she wants to do a blog post about how I reply to all my emails. 

And I was like, I don't know if that's like necessary to tell people, but in her mind, she's like, Allea, do you know how rare it is that people actually reply back to emails thoughtfully?

Yeah. and it's the inside of my inbox that nobody sees, like that I am slowly building these relationships with people, and helping to shorten the learning curve. If they're like, I have this specific question. I'm like, great. I have a blog post on that. You're also going to get that blog post in my evergreen nurture sequence in about six months.

But I'm just going to instead of saying that, I'm like, here's the resource. I want to answer that right away. Cause my question that I asked them is basically, what's your biggest hangup? what are you struggling with when it comes to email? And then I'm able to solve that for them.

Right away. 

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, and that's you bring up a really good point because people are constantly shocked that I do something similar And I'm pretty on it with messages. And people are constantly shocked oh my gosh Thank you for getting back to me so quickly and it may have even been like 24 to 36 hours.

I'm like, it's not that hard. To Crystal's point just to even if it's one or two lines or even just Hey, I got this.

I'm sending this to you right now. I will give you a more thoughtful response, but I see that you need this urgently. So boom, here you go. 

Crystal Waddell: And just one more thought on that, there, it can get overwhelming to try and be available all the time or whatever. like my chat bot on our e commerce store, I'm able to have a response that says, Hey, look, this is Crystal's chat bot, just so you don't have the expectation that this is me, but this is Crystal's chat bot.

Thank you so much for being here. She'll be back between 9. 00 AM and 3. 00 PM tomorrow. And so that's when you can expect an answer to your question. Please feel free to go ahead and ask any questions you might have and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. 

I just think that just little bit of explanation makes all the difference to the person on the other side. Because then they don't feel like they're getting tricked into talking to a person that's actually a machine or, they just, they understand what's going to happen next.

Allea Grummert: And did you know that when people reply back to your marketing emails, it actually helps with deliverability? So it tells the spam bots, this person's real. yeah. So that's helpful. That's not, that might have been initially why I did it. I also do it a little bit for just like audience research.

what are your biggest questions when you first come to my site? have I ever done anything to like, Organize and systemize those questions and answers? Like, no. but I just, yeah, I think I've also been doing it long enough. I just inherently know what their questions are, but I'm always big on audience research.

So you can take that as an opportunity, especially when I first started my email list. Like I needed people to reply. I needed content ideas. I needed to know that. and so like the one person, like my list was Oh my gosh, below 500 for the longest time because I wasn't building an email list. I was building an online service based business.

So my email marketing was just part of that. and now I've, now that I have a team helping me execute on client work, I can focus a little bit more on what I email my list and how I promote them. but yeah, I've always made it a point to always reply back to the people on your list. 

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I think that's huge.

This is something like, very randomly inserted, but I wanted to take the opportunity to say this because I'm always thinking, like, How does this tie into SEO, or what platform is this, and how do people use it, like SEO research? recently, like a couple months ago, I was like, email, SEO, and then I found myself going into, I use Gmail, so I found myself going into the search bar, and trying to find a person's name, or a resource.

I don't remember the exact example, but I started to realize that I did that a lot. So with you talking about, Oh yeah, you're staying top of mind. 

People know you for blank. You're constantly like crystal. You're constantly like telling mom's good job. yay, you, this is amazing. Having that, messaging really be consistent throughout those emails helps people more easily find you even within their own kind of like internal search engine.

Has anyone else ever thought about that? Cause I was like, I'm a genius. This is fantastic. 

Allea Grummert: Yeah. it's brand. It's like how you are, branding gets a bad rap, if you will. having I don't know, it's you don't have to be Nike. You can just be yourself. But having some sort of consistent messaging and just how you show up to it's not even necessarily always words.

Like people have told me that they keep my emails saved in their inbox. They're like, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna do everything you've ever told me. 

Brittany Herzberg: I do that with people. 

Yeah. 

Allea Grummert: And so I'm like that to me is a huge compliment But like when I survey my list every year some of the things I hear that are like you're really generous like you really share a lot like you make me feel like I can actually do email like those to me are some of The takeaways, if you will, that, yeah, that's part of being Allea, not just oh, I, it is like I, my brand isn't just how I help you.

It's how I'm choosing to go about helping you. So like I include gifs, like email, it can be really complex. It can make people feel stupid. And I'm here to show you like, it's approachable, your message matters. It doesn't have to be fancy. Go send the email. And if you want to, and when you get to a point where you can do something more advanced, you can, but like how to, yeah, the way that I present that content to them is this is doable.

I'm not some Oh, the old SEO bros that are like, you have to pay me every cent of my thought time thinking about your project. 

Like I'm not nickel and diming you like. Yeah, what does it look like to be a generous content giver and teacher and knowing that's part of my brand as well?

Yeah, I feel like crystal and I do that too because it's just Yeah. All right. This has been jam packed I know we have to go like live life and build businesses and help people and things where can people find you, Allea? 

Yeah, so if you go to duet.co so d u e t dot c o slash seo show you will find ways to connect with me. And free resources to dig into 

Brittany Herzberg: I love that I like that we have a little branded like uRL over there.

Allea Grummert: Yeah, you do. 

Crystal Waddell: thank you, Allea. This was awesome. 

Brittany Herzberg: Awesome. Thank you so much. 

Allea Grummert: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.