Candice (00:00.27)

How do you get started with email marketing and is it even worth it? I think email marketing is one of the smartest and easiest ways to grow your wedding business, but most wedding pros don't know how or where to get started with email marketing. That's why over the next eight weeks, I'm teaching you how email marketing works here on the Power and Purpose podcast and the best ways for wedding pros to use email marketing in their business. I'm even gonna help you grow your email list.

using the same strategies that I used to grow mine to over 13 ,000 subscribers. Welcome to our Wedding Pro email marketing series. You're here to grow a business, but not just any kind of business. You want to grow a profitable business with purpose, a business where you wake up every single day driven to serve your customers and make a difference in your own life. I'm Candace Coppola, published author, business coach,

and your guide to building a profitable business with purpose. Join me here every single week as we explore how to build and grow your business with purpose. Get ready to dig in and have meaningful conversations about the strategies and techniques that will help you build your dream business. This is the power in purpose.

Candice (01:27.502)

Hey there, friend. It's me, your host, Candice, business coach for Wedding Pros, podcaster and your guide over the next eight weeks in growing an email list and starting email marketing in your business. Welcome back and welcome to our very first and new podcast series all about email marketing. I'm so excited to spend the next eight weeks focused on one specific topic.

and that topic being helping you understand how email marketing works and teaching you all the tools and all the tricks of the trade so that you can grow your email list into a goldmine. Into a goldmine of qualified leads and customers that are eager and excited and chomping at the bit to buy from you. Now the idea to do this email marketing series,

came to me during a recent wedding industry summit that I was invited to speak on. I gave a presentation at the summit on Gen Z, but I volunteered an hour of my time along with other speakers to host a live call and help wedding pros walk through email marketing and set up an email marketing funnel. And it was during that call that I realized...

how little most wedding industry businesses know about email marketing, and also how stuck wedding industry businesses are when it comes to using email marketing and how to use it effectively for their business. That's when the idea hit me that I know quite a bit about email marketing and that maybe, just maybe, I should teach you how to use email marketing in your wedding industry business in a way that is super strategic.

that is very wedding industry focused and that helps you diversify your marketing efforts and also save you time with marketing and mix up your marketing a bit if you've been feeling over Instagram or over social media or you've been just feeling burnt out with your marketing. Email marketing is gonna be a fun way for you to diversify.

Candice (03:41.486)

Now for the wedding industry, there's a way to do email marketing and there's a way not to do email marketing. So over the next eight weeks, you're definitely gonna wanna tune in each week to our podcast episodes where I teach you the way email marketing works best for wedding pros. And because this is such a big topic and because there's so much to learn, I felt like eight weeks doing eight episodes on this.

was going to be the best way to help you grow and take action and actually reap all the benefits that email marketing has to offer. So I want you to think of this almost like an audio course where each week I'm releasing new episodes that will help you in a course like format. So here are my goals for you over the next eight weeks. I want you to walk away from this experience fully understanding how email marketing works. I want you to have confidence that you can handle the techie side.

of email marketing. I want you to create an email marketing opt -in that attracts new leads to your list. I want you to build an email marketing funnel with a quiz. We'll talk about that over the next several episodes. Yay. Very exciting. You're going to make your own quiz that people are going to take and those people are going to hire you after they take it with a nurture sequence.

And I want you to start attracting new leads to your email list so that you can increase your sales. This is literally a crash course on email marketing. And the best part is it's for free. And since this is such a big undertaking for the podcast, I have enlisted some help from email marketing friends and experts to come and join me on the show. I want to make sure that we are covering all sides of email marketing.

And I want to make sure that you're hearing from people who are experts in the field, not just me who uses email marketing really effectively, but also people who can speak to the tech side and the strategy side around email marketing and also quiz building. So I've invited my friends from Flowdesk and Interact to join me over these next eight weeks.

Candice (05:56.814)

to teach you everything we collectively know about how to start and grow your email list. Now, Flodesk is an email marketing software. Naturally, it makes so much sense to have them on the podcast to talk about this topic. And Interact is a quiz building software that helps to attract leads to your list. I love Interact. I have been a user for as long as I've had my quiz, which has been several years now. And...

Having a quiz is a game changer in your business, but we're gonna talk about all of that. And to really make this a party, several of these episodes are actually gonna be co -hosted by my email marketing friends and experts. So it's not just gonna be me, it's going to be co -hosted by some of my friends. We're gonna have a great conversation, you're gonna learn so much and you're gonna walk away being able to say, I know exactly how email marketing works and I,

actually do it. Now, our podcast episodes on email marketing are just the start. I also want you to mark your calendars because not only are we delivering to you over the next eight weeks, basically an email marketing course, but we're going to have something special happening beginning August 12th. It's a free challenge that I am hosting all about email marketing, and it's where you are going to take everything you've learned.

over these last eight weeks and you're going to implement all of it. And by the end of the challenge, which will be a five day challenge or a week challenge, you will have a quiz built, you will have your email marketing ready, you will have a nurture sequence created, and you will be attracting leads to your list and email marketing will be selling them your products and services. Okay? So you're gonna take everything you've learned in these email marketing.

episodes, you're going to set up your funnel, you're going to get it running, and you're going to start making money on your efforts. Now, this challenge is going to have daily tasks. It's going to have live teaching for me, Q &A sessions, and even some get it done coaching sessions, co -working sessions, which I'm going to be at and I'm going to lead along with incredible prizes, some fun celebratory challenge -esque things. It's going to be a lot of fun. And the best news is it's 100 % free.

Candice (08:21.038)

It costs you nothing but your time and there's no sales pitch to it either. I'm not selling you an email marketing course at the end of this. There's no sales pitch. This is purely to help you diversify your marketing. It's all about helping you get fully up and running with email marketing so that you can diversify your marketing channels. Now, if you want to sign up for the challenge, which of course you do, go and commit.

to making the next eight weeks all about email marketing in your business, I want you to go to CandaceCoppola .com slash challenge to sign up for free. And when you do, I'll send you an email with the date so you can mark your calendar. And I'll be in touch as we get closer to August 12th with all the amazing details, but just put it in your calendar right now. August 12th, I have a week long challenge with Candace. I'm getting, my business coach is gonna coach me through all of this. And by the end of it, I am gonna have diversified my marketing.

and set up a marketing channel that is practically on autopilot, bringing fresh leads to me that I am selling to without doing really much. That's the beauty of email marketing. Now today, I'm going to be talking to you about some of the basics of email marketing as I make the case for why you should be using email marketing in your business. And today I am joined by my first co -host and very special guest,

Dawn Richardson from Tech Savvy Creative and Flowdesk. Dawn has been on the podcast before. She was on my hundredth episode of the show, very milestone episode. Dawn and I became fast friends over a year ago at a conference and I love Dawn. We have worked together. We have worked on our businesses together and I'm so excited for her to join me and join us today to be my co -host on the topic of email marketing and getting you started with email.

marketing. So on today's episode, Don and I are going to walk you through some of the basics with email marketing and set a good foundation for the work we're going to do together over the next eight weeks. Today's episode is brought to you by our partner, Flowdesk. As you get started in your email marketing journey, Flowdesk is here to help. Flowdesk is an email marketing software used by thousands of creative entrepreneurs like you.

Candice (10:42.318)

to grow their business and their brand. What I love most about Flodesk is how easy and simple it is to create stunning and effective email campaigns in just a few clicks. It's perfect for the wedding industry and for anyone looking to grow their business with email marketing. Go to CandaceCopla .com slash Flodesk to sign up for your free trial where you can start designing beautiful email campaigns while I teach you everything you need to know.

about email marketing here in our email marketing series. That's CandaceCopla .com slash flowdesk to start your free trial. Check it out and see what's possible. And thanks to flowdesk for sponsoring this episode of the Power and Purpose podcast. So without further ado, I wanna bring on my co -host Dawn. Hey, I'm so excited to be here Candace and this time with coffee and not other drinks.

That's me who had no idea what I'm talking about. Check out episode 100 of Candace's podcast. Yes, you'll hear Don and I celebrating the 100th episode of the podcast in true Candace and Don form. Don, it's so good to have you. Coffee and all. It is a bit early for Tequila. It's 10 a So it's slightly early. I'm glad you're sipping on some coffee. And I have to say, I am so excited to have a co -host today. and -

I am excited that you asked me. Thank you so much for having me. And especially on this topic, it is such an important topic. And especially as things in the social media world are shifting, email marketing is more important than ever. So your timing is just impeccable. Good job, my girl. I feel like it is. Well, I feel like I have good timing for this series for sure. But I have to tell you, the week that TikTok got banned in the United States legislatively,

was the week my TikTok episode went live where I'm like, you should be on TikTok and here's all the reasons why. Of course it is. Of course, of course. Some days I have really good timing and some days I don't, but this week I feel like I have good timing because you're right, things are changing so much with social media and you can feel the shifts and changes happening in the wedding industry specifically. I feel like people are getting tired, they're getting burnt out, their content's not getting seen. Yes.

Candice (13:01.326)

and that things are changing. The algorithm is changing. How AI is using our posts and who they're showing them to. It's evolving. It's adapting. And it's just becoming more and more prominent that email marketing is so important. And there's so many misconceptions out there about email marketing. And I think we're going to tackle those today, right? I think we are. Yeah, I think we're going to definitely tackle some common objections that...

You and I both hear from our clients and our peers because Dawn, as you all know, because you guys know Dawn, she was a wedding photographer for many years, still a photographer, always a photographer, but was in the wedding industry for many years. And so you have this understanding of our unique industry better than I think a lot of email marketing experts and tech experts. Yes. And the wedding industry is so unique, especially because we have like a short lifespan with our clients.

but it doesn't end after their wedding. Our relationships extend beyond that. And that's where things like email marketing come in handy is because you can use it to really take that relationship from a handshake on social media to a really in -depth relationship that you will have for many years with email marketing. So it's so true. And that is actually one of the objections I hear often is like, well, the lifespan of the wedding industry is a big one. And honestly, I feel as though...

It is valid. The wedding industry lifespan is typically a year. Somebody gets engaged, they plan, they get married, they're gone. But are they truly gone or are we just missing an opportunity to keep that connection and conversation alive, whether we work with them again or we get referrals from them because they have friends who are getting married or want parties or want photography or X, Y, and Z?

So that is an objection I hear often is the lifespan is short, but is it really short and are we missing an opportunity to stay connected outside of social media via email marketing? Absolutely. My mentality around that is like there's always somebody getting married and we always know somebody, right? So nurturing those relationships and like you said, that word of mouth, that's so important. It's so important. And if you can provide that amazing experience for your clients now, they're going to talk about you for years and years to come.

Candice (15:16.622)

Candice was the best vendor that I had. Dawn's photos are things that I cherish for the rest of my life. Those type of relationships are so important and you can really cultivate those in unique ways. I very much agree.

When I talk about email marketing to my students, they're always curious about it, but then they always have reasons why they're never getting their email list together. We discussed the first one, but another one I hear often, and you tell me if you hear this too, is like, I have a newsletter. I have something on my website, like sign up for my newsletter and nobody ever signs up. So it's like, I don't know what to do. It doesn't seem like it works. So my response to that would be,

what are you offering? What is it in that newsletter that they need to have? Are you saying, send it up for my newsletter and then never sending that newsletter? Or are you telling them great stories about your weekend? Are you offering them incentives? Are you offering them education? What are you doing? I worked with a client earlier last week who is releasing a newsletter called Friday Feels and it's just...

little anecdotes and stories of her experience in the wedding industry and just little stories here and there. And she is blowing up because people want to hear those stories. People want to dive in and learn more about you. And I think that's a misconception that we all have is like, I'm a business. It is what it is. But people actually really want to get to know you. People often hire your business because of you. So having that

personal touch is really important. Now, if you just say, sign up for my newsletter on your website, you got to tell them what you're talking about. You got to tell them why they need to sign up. What's this newsletter? Yeah. What is this newsletter? And also something really interesting. So, Flodusk has a marketing trend report where we evaluated 6 .8 billion emails and got some data from those emails. And we're talking about

Candice (17:23.31)

having a form on your website to sign up for your newsletter. But there's data out there that says certain types of forms perform better. So if you just have, let's call it an inline form where it's like built into your website, the average conversion rate for an inline form is only 0 .75%. Wow. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So small. So small.

But these full page forms, like if you go straight to a page where it's nothing but like, hey, join my newsletter and this is why, we're seeing a 35 % conversion rate in those. Wow. That's a huge jump. So the difference there from 35 % to 0 .75, maybe it's not that people don't want to sign up for your newsletter. Maybe they don't see it there. Maybe they're not recognizing it. Could you have a different type of form? Could you have multiple ways for them to sign up for your newsletter?

So that is my encouragement for you is it's not you, it's not because you're boring. It could be where your form is on your website, it could be how often you're putting that in front of them, and it could be what are you planning on telling them? Give them a reason to want to opt in, and that is so important. Well, we're going to talk about all of this. And so if you're thinking opt -in form, what is Dawn and Candice talking about, don't worry, because later on in this episode,

Dawn and I are going to break down some of the common terms you hear in email marketing, give you an education on what all of this means. But you're right. And what I'm really picking up from what you're saying is just because it's not working for you right now, just because you have something up on your website and nobody's opting in right now, doesn't mean it doesn't work. It might mean that you just need to learn a better strategy for email marketing to make it work for you. Right? And that's what we're going to aim to do here over these next eight weeks.

and teach you some better strategies instead of just throwing a form up and hoping and praying that people opt in and then what are they opting in for? We don't know, because you're not sending them emails anyway. But we're not going to call you out just yet. Another one I hear a lot too is it's complicated or too techy. And so I hear this, and I can understand this, right? Because most of us, when we started a business, never imagined that we would be doing all this stuff that we do. And...

Candice (19:32.654)

tech can really get in the way of people making progress on their marketing and doing stuff like this. Just for a little context, at TechSavvy Creative, I often help creative entrepreneurs and wedding professionals find the right tool for their business. So I evaluate a lot of tools when I do. There are some tools out there that are really complicated and it might feel really techie because they offer these huge opportunities for...

business owners that might have really large funnels or it might have really complicated systems. However, there are tools out there like Flodesk that are very beautiful and easy to use and they're built for those who don't feel that they are quote unquote techie. I think that's a misconception for everybody. I actually think everybody that believes that they're not tech savvy is actually way more tech savvy than they think they are. But there is a really strong...

need to find the tool that works best for you. And when you do find that tool, things start to get simple. You start to understand it. And that overwhelm of feeling like things are too techie really simmers down and you become really empowered and you're able to use that tool. So I would encourage you to explore the tools out there and don't give up. Take some time, evaluate the tools. And if you ever need help, reach out to

people who specialize in tools to help you point in the right direction. Yeah, it's such a great point is it can feel really complicated and very techie to start your email list, but it does boil down to finding the right tool for where you're at and for what you need to because there's lots of email marketing tools available, but they're not going to be necessarily the right fit for a small business in the wedding industry that is using email marketing in the ways that we're going to teach you over the next eight weeks.

And what I love about Flodesk is you can use it for simple email marketing funnels. And you can also use it if you want to get more complicated, but it never feels difficult or complicated to use. And, and hallelujah, because I feel like most things feel difficult and complicated to use. Another thing I hear from wedding pros is I don't have time to be emailing my list.

Candice (21:52.046)

every week. I don't have time to work out. I don't have time to watch television. How am I going to sit down and write some newsletter every single week to my five people on my email list? Why would I want to do that? Right? My question is, is do you want to earn money? Good question. I could argue that, am I going to earn money by sitting on the Peloton? Probably not. So I would find ways to not do that.

email marketing, you're leaving money on the table if you're not using it. It's estimated that you get $42 back for every dollar spent when it comes to email marketing. And that's so that's money left on the table. Do you have time? I mean, I'll make time if it's going to bring me more sales, it's going to bring me better relationships in my business. And I'm going to prioritize that differently if I know that information. Yeah, it's so true. Also, you don't have to email your

list every week. You don't have to have a newsletter. That's just one idea of email marketing. There are a lot of different ways that you can use email marketing in your wedding industry business where you can really set it and kind of forget it for a while and allow it to do the work for you without you having to show up every week and come up with a style report or some profound newsletter that you send to your list. So, you know.

It's yeah, it's not necessary. The other thing I hear and I hear this maybe maybe most often from people is I don't want to bother people. And for some reason we have some of us feel like every time we send an email out in an email marketing way, we're bothering people by sharing information or jumping into their inbox or selling our services and our.

our desire to not bother people to people please to not want to jump in someone's inbox or upset some imaginary person stops us from marketing our business. And I think that's so upsetting because there's so many opportunities that we just don't take advantage of because we don't want to bother someone. Who says anybody's bothered by you first of all? Right. Right? I think of it this way. Like, do you think anthropology is worried about bothering you?

Candice (24:13.39)

No. No. Or are you willing to get those three emails a day from them that are just beautiful? And you look at them, even though you might not be purchasing right now, but you love them. Or the Starbucks emails. I love the Starbucks emails. They're always really beautiful. They're really clever. Am I bothered by them? No. And I open them every time. So I want to encourage you, think like these big companies. They're big companies and they are sending out those emails multiple times a day in some situations.

And you know what, people want to hear from you. If they subscribe to your list, they want to hear from you. And if they don't want to hear from you, then they can simply unsubscribe. And that's the beauty of email marketing is you have that ability to unsubscribe. So you can refine your list by doing that. If somebody doesn't want that, then they can opt out and then you move on. And that's the beauty of it. Yeah. And I agree. There are so many emails that come into my inbox from so many different brands, both small and big. You know, I'm

I never miss a J .Crew email, let me tell you. When J .Crew is like, hey, that pant you were looking at, it's here. We have it in this color, but there's only a few left. And I'm like, my God, I got to get it. That's email marketing. I probably wouldn't have purchased it had they not told me that there's only three left in my size out of all the J .Crews in the world. And I must purchase this right now. Must. Must, I must. Just take my money. Just take my money.

I do think that the desire not to bother people with email marketing is something that you combat throughout your lifespan as a business owner. And it runs deeper than just like not wanting to email to bother people. I think sometimes we just feel self -conscious about what we're offering and we don't want to seem salesy. We don't want to feel like we're pressuring people to buy. And the truth is, is you're probably really never doing that. So anything you do do would never be a reflection of that.

100%. I agree 100%. And you just, again, remember that they opted into being there. They want to hear from you. They love your brand. They love your business. They love you. Like talk to them. They're listening. And that's so powerful. And it can create revenue for you too, which is, I mean, that's why we're in business, right? Hello. And that's why you need to start growing an email list. You need to start your email list and you need to start growing an email list.

Candice (26:34.894)

Which brings me into part of our conversation that I would love to have about the reasons why someone listening should spend the next eight weeks learning about this. Join us for our challenge starting August 12th. You can go to CandaceCoppola .com slash challenge to join us 100 % free. There's no sales pitch involved. We're just literally helping you set up your email list and get your funnel going. Why somebody should invest this time and it is an investment because tools aren't necessarily free.

And so there is an expense with subscriptions, which thankfully are not very expensive, but there is that expense. I would love to talk about the reasons why you and I think we need to start growing an email list. And we started off our conversation with, I think, one of the biggest, which is social media. And social media shouldn't be your only marketing channel. And you are so in tune with tech and social media, you're seeing the changes and you're seeing the conversations happening.

around what's going on with social media and especially Instagram and of course TikTok, but Instagram, the head of Instagram is catching so much heat over on threads about the changing dynamic on that platform. So Dawn, what are some of your thoughts about where social media is headed and how an email marketing, like how a list can, an email list can help balance that? Let me preface this by saying that I think there's still a place for social media. It just shouldn't be our only place.

And I feel like as wedding professionals, we put so much emphasis on the Instagram feed, on our reels. Who are we reaching out to on Instagram? And maybe your platform is TikTok. So maybe you're kind of going through this change of, okay, if TikTok goes away, what happens to my business? Now, I think it's an important time to remind everybody that when we have these social media platforms, we never owned them. We don't own our followers. We don't own the content. If...

That platform goes away, it's gone. And that's the difference between social media and email marketing. Email marketing is gonna be that closer relationship. There's not algorithms that you're fighting against to see who actually sees that post. We of course have spam filters and things, but there's tricks to make sure that you're not ending up in spam, things like that, and actually getting into their inbox. But that email list, that list of subscribers is yours.

Candice (28:56.59)

And you can take it from platform to platform to platform. So even if you decide that a certain email marketing tool is not the right one for you, those email subscribers can get transferred to the next one. You own that list and that's where the power is. And I think we're gonna see big changes. So like, let's say you are somebody who's not on TikTok, okay? This still impacts you because all of those amazing creators that are on TikTok are gonna be flooding into Instagram. And the dynamic is gonna change.

the people are gonna change, how the algorithm works is gonna change. Your content might not be as visible and now you're fighting against even more people on the platform. You need a way to be able to talk one -on -one with your followers, your subscribers. And that's where that email list comes in. And that is so powerful. And again, I made the, like the antidote earlier of like, social media is the handshake where email marketing is the deep relationship, right?

You can high five, handshake with people on Instagram, but you're not really cultivating that relationship there. You're cultivating that relationship in the inbox. Yeah. Well, it brings up the point that email marketing gives you that direct connection to your potential clients that social media just doesn't do.

Social media, we speak to the masses, even when we try in our marketing strategy to speak to the one customer. We've all heard that marketing strategy of like, think of your one customer and write to that person and talk to that person. But it never quite lands that way on social media. We're talking to a wider audience of people, lurkers, people we're trying to attract to follow us, people we're trying to attract to network with us or to refer to us. But in email marketing, when somebody opts in to hear from you,

through a funnel that you set up that's very targeted to where they might be in their wedding planning journey, where they might be in their sort of a period in their life, where they might be located in the worlds, like where they're geographically located or where they're planning their wedding. It changes that connection that you have with them and you're able to talk to them directly via email. Your inbox is...

Candice (31:11.246)

personal space. We don't just invite anybody into our inbox. And email marketing gives you that direct connection to your customer, speaking to them directly in their inbox, and they've opted in to hear from you. They're like, I want this thing, and I want to hear from you about your business, the services you offer. And so it creates a much more powerful, more intimate connection with your leads. Yeah, it's amazing.

No, I mean, email marketing really is that girl. And as you said, Dawn, it's not to replace social media because social media has a space in marketing and it's never gonna go away unless they take it away from us. But we can't necessarily rely on that solely or largely to be our marketing. We have to diversify our marketing channels. And I think business owners that are open to experimenting with marketing and to diversifying and understand.

that their sales funnel, their lead general funnel, it needs to appeal to people in multiple different ways, at different points and in different channels. Those people increase their traffic, they increase the amount of leads they receive, and they just also increase their odds to hit their sales goals, to be profitable, to land the types of clients they wanna land.

So good business owners are always looking for ways to thoughtfully and strategically diversify their marketing channels. Absolutely. And we're also seeing there, so there's like this quote unquote fear around what is going to happen to my business if social media goes away. But you're seeing in some of these skilled entrepreneurs that have taken the time to build their email list, they're not in a state of fear because they know.

that because they have diversified their marketing channels, that even if one of my channels goes away, my business doesn't go away. And that's a really, really powerful place to be in. Yeah. I've seen a lot of wedding pros over the years panic when they've relied too heavily on one referral source and that referral source ends.

Candice (33:16.046)

And you tend to see this when, let's say, you get dropped from a preferred vendor list, and then suddenly now all those leads are gone and they've gone to someone else, or the venue's closed, or the vendor list, now you have to pay to play. And then suddenly all the leads that you received, you no longer receive, and you're scrambling to try to figure out how to get people in the door. What you do is you're trying to figure out how to get people in the door.

What you don't want to do is wait for something like that to happen to push you to diversify your marketing. You should always be looking to diversify how you fill up your sales well with more sales and more people. And what I love about email marketing is it's an easy way to do that. It's also an automated way to do that. And much of email marketing that I think people underestimate is that it's automated.

So it's always working in the background for you. If you set up a funnel in the way that I'm gonna teach you over the next week, at next eight weeks with help from my friends like Dawn, if you set it up the way I teach you, then it's gonna work for you without you having to do much else in the background. Whereas like social media and even relationship building, it requires you to show up. Social media requiring you to show up pretty consistently and frequently in order to be seen and for the algorithm to serve people to you. Where email marketing,

You can set up an opt -in, set up a nurture sequence, which will define all of this for you in a second. And then traffic will just come to you. People will opt in and they will receive the information. And these emails are automated. They get sent to them. And before you know it, people are booking consults. They're booking calls with you. They might even be purchasing products and services that you have available for purchase on your website. It is so powerful. And I think you'll be so surprised that once you set this up, how easily it works behind the scenes.

I recently checked my analytics and I do not have a massive email list. I feel pretty proud of it. I have about 3 ,000 subscribers. But when I was digging through my analytics, it says, you've sent 46 ,000 emails. And I'm like, say what? Like, but...

Candice (35:18.062)

It's I'm not actually sending those individual emails one at a time, right? It's all of the automations that are running in the background. It's the when people opt in or when they purchase my course, it's what they get next. It's the nurture sequence. It's the welcome sequence. It's the let me tell you about my day emails. Those add up and it's a really powerful way to reach that audience and to create that connection. Yeah, it is.

Honestly, I think the underdog of marketing for most wedding pros, and it's an area where if you spend just a little bit of time putting it together and setting it up correctly, it can pay off for you in the years to come. I mean, years to come. There are email marketing funnels that I've set up for my business that I haven't touched in years that continue to bring me really great people who have the power to serve and who purchase from me consistently.

And that's so gratifying. It's also gratifying to know that 46 ,000 emails got sent out of a few hours or a few weeks of work and writing those things and putting those things together, you've been able to make those touch points and connections, which quite frankly, you're not making on social media. You're just, you're not making the same level of connection. Admit it, you love taking quizzes, whether it's a quiz that reveals which Bravo Liberty you are or what your favorite pizza,

says about your personality, quizzes are so much fun to take. But have you ever thought about creating your own quiz and using it as a lead magnet to grow your business and your email list? One that shows off your personality, a quiz that creates a connection with your potential clients and helps them buy the right products and services from you. Quizzes are such a fun way to generate leads for your wedding business and to grow your email list. In fact,

They're the number one lead magnet that you can create. I use Interact to create and deliver my quiz, your brand strategy cocktail, for success. And with Interact, you could create a quiz in just a few minutes. Interact's new AI tool will help you create a fun on -brand quiz with just a few clicks, which means your new quiz, it can be launched today. To learn more about Interact and to make a

Candice (37:37.262)

quiz in minutes using Interact AI, go to tryinteract .com slash AI. There you can get started for free. That's tryinteract .com slash AI. Thanks to Interact for sponsoring this episode of the Power and Purpose podcast. Now let's get back into the episode. All right, so I want to talk about some of the basics.

of email marketing, let's lay a foundation for the next eight weeks and talk about lingo, talk about terms that you're going to hear us say on the podcast so that you understand what the heck Dawn and I are talking about. So the first thing I wanted to do was define what email marketing really is. And I'm going to be straight up. I asked AI to write this for me so that I could deliver a very succinct

definition of email marketing. This is what AI has to say about what email marketing is, and I tend to agree with what AI has written here. So email marketing is a digital marketing strategy where businesses send emails to their customers or potential customers. It's a way to promote products or services, build relationships, keep your audience informed, and increase brand awareness. I mean, Chef's Kiss, that's so good. It's true.

It's effective. It's perfect. Effective email marketing can convert prospects into customers and turn one -time buyers into loyal raving fans. It can include newsletters, promotional campaigns, and automated sequences following user actions like signups or purchases. That's what it is. I thought that was such a great definition. I'm like, go Notion AI. Well done. It's so spot on. And...

It just really showcases the power to like converting prospects into customers, one -time buyers into loyal raving fans. Like that's the power behind email marketing. So why aren't we doing it in our business? Like that's the question of the day is why am I not doing this? And I think it's time to really shift my focus and put some effort into my email marketing because it's going to really pay out. Email marketing works. You just need to learn.

Candice (39:52.686)

how to do it the right way for the wedding industry. That's all. Let's talk about email marketing lingo because you've heard us say things like opt -ins and forms, and we've talked about automations, campaigns. There's going to be a lot of this lingo used over the next eight weeks. And so I wanted to spend some time defining it all. I'll start and then Dawn and I will just go back and forth and kind of define some of the commonly used terms in email marketing.

All right, let's start with email list. So when we say the term email list, we're literally talking about all of the people who've opted in to hear from you. These are people who have requested information using one of the forms on your website or on a landing page, and they've opted in to receive something from you. Your email list are all of these email addresses, all of these prospects, current customers.

past customers and potential customers that have opted in to hear from you. Now those people on that email list are called subscribers and those are the individuals who signed up to receive those emails and to be part of your email list. Next you're going to hear us talk about things like opt -ins. And what I think is interesting is that we use this term interchangeably with also lead magnet and freebie. So you may hear us say opt -in, lead magnet and freebie.

We pretty much, it pretty much all means the same thing in the way that we use it. But an opt -in is the action a person takes to subscribe to an email list. They're literally opting in, they're giving consent to hear from you and to receive the thing they've opted in to receive. And when they opt in, we tend to send them something in return. And this is where you'll hear us use terms like lead magnet or freebie.

A lead magnet is a free item or a service, and it's given away for the purpose of gathering that contact detail. So think of it like a magnet attracting a lead to it. Use that visualization, and that's what a lead magnet is. A freebie is the same thing. We just call it a freebie. It's the thing that you give them once they opt in to hear from you. I love a good lead magnet. I'm too. It's so good. So good.

Candice (42:10.926)

Now, in order to get that opt -in, that lead magnet, that freebie, your subscribers have to have a place where they fill out their name and their email address. So one, it adds them to your email list and they become a subscriber and then they get that opt -in in return. That form that they fill out is called a lead form. And again, this is where they give you typically their first name and their email address so they can join your list and get that opt -in or

your newsletter or whatever it is that you're offering. Next, you're going to hear us talk about nurture sequences. We're actually going to talk about nurture sequences quite a bit, and we're going to have an entire podcast episode on nurture sequences. A nurture sequence is a series of emails that's sent to a new subscriber or somebody who's opted in to a lead magnet or to receive a freebie. And what a nurture sequence tries to do is build a relationship with that

person sending some automated emails that lead hopefully towards some type of action or purchase. Yes. And those nurture sequences are typically built on something called a workflow, which is the sequence of those emails that go through from start to finish, typically in an automated way. We call those workflows. And in workflows,

And in any type of email, you may introduce automations. And when we're talking about automations for email marketing, these are tasks or triggers or events that happen typically based on an action that someone might take. So for instance, an automation may start if someone clicks a link in an email.

we may set up an automation to tag that subscriber with the tag that they clicked this specific link. And that will help with what we're going to talk about next, which is list segmentation. So list segmentation is where email marketing gets really powerful. And segmentation is the practice of dividing an email list into subgroups based off of some criteria.

Candice (44:23.566)

That way, when you're sending these emails, you can send them to targeted audiences and have better results. Think of segmenting your list in the easiest sense of customers, current customers, past customers, potential customers. You can actually tag them with tags related to those different segments, and you can choose to omit certain segments from an email you're sending out. You can choose to include certain segments.

And you can use segmentation to tell you more about a subscriber, the actions they take, what they're interested in, what maybe they're not interested in. This is where things in email marketing get really cool and really fun and really nerdy. Yes, absolutely. And there's a lot of data behind this to support this segmentation as well. For example, when you send emails to a segmented audience,

the average open rate is 48 % because those people like that is targeted. Those are the people that are expecting that email. They want that information. So they are more likely to open it. If you send just a mass email to everybody without any segments in there, the average open rate is only 14 .9%. So segmentation is powerful and we're going to spend a lot of time talking about it, I hope. Yeah. That's something that social media just cannot do because you're

basically, it's like everybody's on the street corner trying to get attention. I feel like social media is sometimes. I know. It's like, hey, look at me. It's like Times Square with all the different entertainers who are trying to get you to come and drop a dollar in their hat or something. I feel like that's what social media is. We're never going to see social media the same again.

Segmentation is like when you go to in Times Square like Madame Trousseau's, like you're there for a reason. You have a specific interest or desire or purpose. Maybe that, I don't know. Maybe that, I don't know how that analogy is. That's how I see social media and email marketing though. That's the analogy I'm going to use. All right, next up is email campaigns. So when we're talking about an email campaign, what we're talking about is a coordinated set of individual emails sent out over a period of time.

Candice (46:43.406)

So for instance, you may run an email campaign if you're having a special sale or if you're having a limited time purchase option, that would be considered an email campaign. Even something like launching your new website, sending out a few emails to drive traffic would be an email campaign. The next term that is really important here is the open rate. And we've mentioned open rate a few times.

But your open rate is the percentage of email recipients who opened a single email. This is such an interesting number. And I feel like we're going to talk about open rates and some of the data and statistics with email marketing in later episodes. The next is going to be your click through rate. So we have this open rate. This is the percentage of people who've opened the email. And a click through rate or a CTR is a number of users who clicked a specific link.

or the total number of users who clicked a link to then go view a web page of yours, an ad, or whatever you were linking out to in the email. And then you have your bounce rate, which is the percentage of email addresses in your subscriber list that didn't receive your message because the email inbox bounced it back.

And a bounce rate is funny because you have soft bounces and hard bounces. Yes. A hard bounce, from my understanding, is the email address is not working. It's not working. It's either no longer in operation, they haven't paid their email bill, so it's not accepting emails. A soft email bounce is, let's say somebody has an auto responder up that says they're out of office, that can show as a soft email bounce.

Maybe their mailbox is full or something timed out. And so some email marketing platforms will try to redeliver that email a few times to see if it finally does land in their inbox. The next term is call to action or CTA. You should be familiar with this because you've been marketing your business for a while and you know calls to action are what help lead people to take action.

Candice (48:55.982)

And a CTA in an email is a prompt that tells the reader to perform a specific action. So to click this link, purchase this here, set up a call, respond to this email, all of those would be considered calls to action. And last but not least is conversion rate, which is the percentage of email recipients who clicked on a link within an email and completed the desired action. So they open the email, they clicked on it,

and then they convert it into whatever it is that you're trying to convert them to. That's your conversion rate. And all of this I've put together in a freebie for you to download so that you can understand all of these terms and lingo and make sense of it all. I imagine you might be driving or tuning in while you're on your walking pad or also working. And so you're like, what? Go ahead to CandaceCoppola .com slash lingo. That's CandaceCoppola .com slash lingo.

And you can opt in to get a freebie where I have all of these definitions ready for you. So you can follow along in this episode and future episodes and totally understand some of the techie talk around email marketing. One thing I want to add to that too is opt into this, get that amazing list of all of these terms, but also take advantage of the fact that you're seeing this in practice.

So you're seeing Candice's opt -in form, you're seeing the delivery email, you're seeing all of this information that we just talked about actually taking place. Sometimes when you take a look at it from that perspective, it starts to click a little bit better. And this is a great segue because it's gonna lead into the last half of our episode here, which is how an email marketing funnel looks and how it essentially works. So you understand the terms, you're gonna hear us use these terms from now on.

You understand what email marketing is, how it can bless your wedding industry business, some of those objections that may have limited you in your email marketing endeavors. And now Dawn and I want to walk you through what an email marketing funnel looks like from the very highest level and how we can break it down in five different stages. So from the highest level zooming out, your email marketing funnel is going to look something like this.

Candice (51:20.494)

your customer has a problem, right? The problem could be they need a wedding photographer or planning their wedding is becoming very hard or they've been searching for the perfect invitations and they haven't found what they like yet. They have this problem and they use the power of the internet to seek out a solution. And...

How do they seek out the solution down there? Googling things, they may be checking on social media, reading blog posts, going to Pinterest, watching videos. I mean, the list goes on and on. It's wherever your YouTube, I think is a very prominent place that people are looking for information. But you can take that relationship once they do find you and take it to the next level by bringing them into your email list.

customer with a problem, they're seeking out a solution, and this is where you create an opt -in and a lead magnet so that you can then deliver that solution to their inbox. So you'll create something of value that attracts them. They have this problem, they're being attracted to you because you have the solution. They give you their name, their email, and that solution then gets delivered to their inbox in the form of a PDF or in the form of

a checklist or we're going to talk about lead magnet options in the next episode, but we deliver them the solution and then we nurture them through a series of automated emails in your nurture sequence related to the problem they have. So I think one thing that is really important to remember when it comes to nurturing is be a storyteller. Take this time to tell stories.

So they have this problem, you gave them a solution, let's talk about it a little bit more. Let's talk about that time that you lost that hard drive. Let's talk about that time that this crazy thing happened at that wedding and this solution fixed that problem for you. You're just gonna build that relationship with that person in that nurture sequence. So when it is time to convert it to a sale, which is the next step.

Candice (53:29.166)

They are nice and they're aware of who you are. They have been nurtured. They are much warmer than they were when they came in. And then once they convert to a sale, then you stay engaged with them using email marketing where you may move them over to a longer nurture sequence where you send out information or you find other ways to stay engaged. But that is essentially how an email marketing funnel works.

and what we're gonna teach you over the next eight weeks, how to implement in your business. So to recap, your customer has a problem, they seek out a solution, they opt in for you to deliver that solution, you do, you send them something via email, and then over a series of days or weeks or months, depending on what the problem is and what you're offering, you are gonna send them emails that help nurture them to buy the solution to their problem, which is your service.

They convert into a sale and then email marketing will help you stay engaged with that customer or prospect. One thing I did want to touch on with email marketing is a very simple email marketing formula. This is something that most email marketers use. And this formula you can use in email marketing, but you can also use it throughout all of your marketing campaigns and endeavors. It's called awareness, acquisition, engagement,

conversion and retention. You've heard of this, right, Dawn? Yes. Yes. It's like the fundamentals of marketing. And it's broken down into five stages. And this really helps, I think, as we sort of end the episode on this note, this helps to kind of illuminate how email marketing works. Your first stage of your funnel is always awareness. This is the customer problem, and they're seeking out a solution.

So the first stage is to make your target audience aware of your brand or your business. And you do this through social media, through content you might create, SEO, which is the perfect way to grow your email list, and we'll talk about that. And there's lots of other ways, but the goal is to drive traffic to you, to your website, where they can learn more about what you offer.

Candice (55:43.534)

The next stage is acquisition. So once a potential customer is aware of your brand, the next step is to then capture that email address. And that's where the opt -in happens. This can be done through, like we've mentioned, a lead magnet, which is where you offer value in exchange for contact information. And we've mentioned this, but some common lead magnets are e -books, free trials, discounts, quizzes, and much more.

Next is engagement. So after that email address, it's time to engage with this person. And this is where your nurture sequence and or a welcome email series will introduce them to you, your brand, what you do, and also provide really valuable content that helps to nurture that relationship. The goal here is to keep them engaged with your brand and interested.

You move on to the fourth stage, which is what everyone's hoping for. It's conversion. Conversion sometimes happens quick. And isn't that nice when somebody opts in and they're like, tell me all the details about your amazing product. But it doesn't always happen so quickly. Sometimes conversion takes time because people may need to warm up to you that no like and trust factor we talk about in marketing. Sometimes it takes time, but the conversion stage is where you aim to turn this engaged person into a customer.

to take a subscriber into a customer. And this can be done obviously through your nurture sequence, but you also need to send targeted content and you need to have some strong calls to action and you need to literally tell them what to do, which means you need to sell. And I'm gonna get you comfortable selling in your inbox. John and I are gonna give you some tips in future episodes of how you can get more comfortable selling. But...

This is where the conversion happens. It's always important to provide value and to build trust in this stage. And then the final is retention. And so the final stage of your funnel is to retain this customer. It's where you aim to keep them engaged and encourage repeat purchases because the wedding industry is cyclical, but it doesn't mean that your relationship has to end after the wedding.

Candice (57:55.406)

There's a lot of opportunity for us to be creating legacy clients or engage past customers who recommend and refer. And so you can do this with email marketing in a variety of different ways, which we're going to talk about, but newsletters, special offers, checking in with your customers are all ways to do that. Amazing. This is so in depth and.

Such a great introduction to email marketing, Candice. I think this is so amazing that you're talking about this. Thank you. Hopefully, we haven't overwhelmed the people and that you guys are feeling like, OK, I get how email marketing works. I get that there's a formula I can follow. And I don't know about you, Dawn, but when it comes to marketing and business in general, I love a formula. Like, show me the formula and I'll just follow it. I need a recipe. Yes, 100%. And there's magic to this formula that we just talked about. At Flodesk, we call it Grow.

nurture, monetize, just to simplify it a little bit, but it's the exact same thing. We want to grow our list. You're bringing in the awareness and you're bringing them into your email list. You want to nurture them. You want to build that relationship with them. And then you can start selling and build your own revenue in your business. And that's, it's powerful. So powerful. I'm so excited. All right. So you have a few action items, a little bit of homework.

post episode before we get started with next week's episode. First things first, I want you to go to CandaceCoppola .com slash lingo and I give you a breakdown of everything we've discussed here inside this episode. So you'll have a one sheet piece of paper with all of this information. You can keep it handy on your desk and refer back to it as Dawn and I and some of my other special guests talk you through your email marketing funnel. I also want you to go to CandaceCoppola .com slash

challenge and sign up for our free email marketing challenge. It will be the week of August 12th, which is a Monday. And for five days, we're going to get together for about an hour a day and set up your entire email marketing funnel with a quiz. You do not want to miss this. So when you sign up for the challenge, I'm going to send you an email with the date so you can mark your calendar and I'll be in touch as we get closer to the date with all the details.

Candice (01:00:12.206)

And in the next episode, Dawn is joining me again. She's my cohost again. And Dawn and I are going to teach you about how you can hook your lead with a lead magnet. I'm so excited. So excited. All right. So good. So that's your homework. You've got some homework to do. I've put this all in the show notes. Dawn, thank you for joining me today as my very esteemed tech savvy cohost.

Thank you for having me. I'm always glad to be here. Dawn and I want to remind you that there's so much power in your purpose and we'll see you next time.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Power and Purpose Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and consider leaving a review. Head over to powerinpurposepodcast .com to access all of the resources and links mentioned in today's episode. That's powerinpurposepodcast .com. I'll see you next time.