(Small Business Superstar) Using email marketing to increase sales

Your Dream Business

English - December 24, 2020 00:00 - 23 minutes - 43.9 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: How to plan your marketing campaigns for 2021

Next Episode: Creating story-telling content that attracts your perfect customer with Dallin Nead

This week’s Small Business Superstars are Laura Moore and Laura Davies, otherwise known as the two Lauras!

A little bit about the Two Lauras’ amazing business…

Laura and Laura own The Hub for Social Media Managers – providing support for freelance social media managers to grow their business through a membership and online courses.

What one marketing thing made a difference to their business? Email marketing! The Two Lauras made a commitment to email their list once a week in January 2020 and have stuck to it ever since. They send an idea, a tip or hack every Monday their list can implement into their business. Then they went a step further and started to email their list every single day (apart from weekends).What difference did it make to them and their business?

People love their emails! They have had brilliant responses and people enjoy the valuable content they offer. When they then sell in an email, their list is very open to this. Since emailing every day, they have seen less unsubscribes, consistently higher open rates and more sales!

Where you can find the Two Lauras

Website: https://thetwolauras.com/

Facebook Group: @smmhub

Transcript below

Hello, and a very warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? Oh, it's not this week's episode. I keep saying that all the time. I keep saying this week's episode.

It's the second episode of the week. It's the Thursday episode. You're probably thinking, is it a Monday again? No, we're on Thursday. It's nearly the weekend. Okay. So this week's episode, I have the very lovely Laura Moore and Laura Davis, otherwise known as the Lauras. Hello, ladies. And welcome.

Lauras: Hello

Teresa: Oh, that was very well synchronized. Thank you very much. That was excellent. And we're going to have this the whole way through. Don't ask a question. I want you both answered at the same time. So I'm really excited to have you ladies on stage because I have worked with you and your business is pretty amazing and you are pretty amazing at what you do.

And I often talk to you, I've gone on a complete side already, but I often talk to you about the fact of there's two of you. And I always wonder about the two person perspective in terms of, I feel like because there's two of you, you're so much more organized. You're so much more productive. You're more motivated their faces and not saying they agreed. But I honestly genuinely do think that's the case.

So what you guys have achieved in the short space you have is immense. So let me zip it up. And one of you, both of you, however you want to do it, tell us how you got to do the thing that you do today.

Lauras: Um, so we, um, have a business called the hub social media managers, which we set up as we were both freedoms, social media managers, and ads managers, um, and we know that there was a gap in the market. Really. We wanted somewhere where we could go to get support and, um, just for people to understand what it's like to be a freelance social media manager. So we decided to fill that gap really. So we created the hub. Which, um, we support people essentially to grow their business.

So we don't teach people how to become a social media manager, but we all support them once they all want to grow their business through our membership and through our Facebook ads courses, et cetera.

Um, yeah. So

Teresa: for me, what was interesting? Two...

This week’s Small Business Superstars are Laura Moore and Laura Davies, otherwise known as the two Lauras!

A little bit about the Two Lauras’ amazing business…

Laura and Laura own The Hub for Social Media Managers – providing support for freelance social media managers to grow their business through a membership and online courses.

Where you can find the Two Lauras

Website: https://thetwolauras.com/

Facebook Group: @smmhub

Transcript below

Hello, and a very warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? Oh, it's not this week's episode. I keep saying that all the time. I keep saying this week's episode.

Lauras: Hello

Um, yeah. So

Teresa: for me, what was interesting? Two things, first off, you doing learning about a job and doing it are two entirely different things.

Like I did a marketing degree. I can tell you that first day I walked into my first marketing job and they said, "You want to fax that thing and you want to do some franking." I was like, "Sorry, where's the strategy I'm putting together? Uh, where's this, this, this?" Like, it's so different. So I think to, to realize that even if you've done that learning to become a social media manager or a freelancer.

It's going to be very different in practice. And then secondly, the thing I want to pick up on and ask you was when you started the hub, which was a Facebook group initially, wasn't it just the Facebook group. Was it for the intention of we're going to take this business in this direction? Or was it just a support thing in the first instance?

And then the business idea came later.

Lauras: It was a bit of both wasn't it to start with. We had a business idea, but it wasn't what it is now. Um, it was it, we were just going to have this standalone, our social media managers tool kit, which was going to be a standardized product to help fill the gap. But then we realized that there was a lot more things that we could do to help people.

So it kind of grew and snowballed from there really. Yeah. Talk you a good way for us to, I suppose, tech the market really too. We felt that there was a gap. A lot of people were DM us. Just on our own kind of socials thing or where do you do that? Or how can I do this? Or I don't know how to get a client or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But we needed to know whether that was a mass need for the, the ideas that we had. So the toolkit was a good way for us to kind of test the water really. Um, but yeah, it's grown very much based on the needs of the audience rather than our original grand plans. They weren't that grand.

Teresa: And, and also share with us how you both got to work together because like, when I think of.

The, the, the business couples that I know they've grown up together. They've worked in the same industry for long time together. So tell people the story, if you don't mind, like how you got to work as a, as a pair.

Lauras: So we talked to me on Instagram.

Teresa: It was always a dream to be Laura most best friends.

Lauras: We both, um, we just met, we met online. We didn't, we didn't like right. Um, we, um, so was he, we were both doing well and we'd both done similar courses. We both. I didn't actually, Laura Moore followed me on Facebook. I actually didn't follow her. And yeah, we just started having conversations like, you know, in our DMs, you know, that's thinkers.

Do you get asked this a lot? I get asked this a lot. We both had similar ideas on how we turnt kind of fill that gap really. So it just was very organic. Um, but yeah, now we've Laura and I've only probably met each other in person like five times.

And

Teresa: Know what, that blows my flipping mind, like, you know, you know how like some people meet.

And the relationships they're so meant to be together. It's like, this is the business version of this because to, to create a business together, having met through the way you met and then not like being in person next to each other, like you don't even live near each other. Do you like what's how many hours drive?

Lauras: 24 hours away are we? Yeah. Birmingham. They're not, they're not near.

Teresa: So yeah. I love that. I love the fact of. You know, I talked to my husband about it, you know, should I have a partner? Should there be, should there be two of us? And he's like, God, no, not two of you. But like the problem is now I'm so with my business, it's my business.

And in reality, now that I can have lots of team members, which is great and people who support me, but it's always just going to be me. Whereas actually what I love about this is, is the fact that, you know, this didn't have to be a. I kind of, we grew up together and therefore, you know, but you'd had similar backgrounds as well.

Haven't you?

Lauras: Yeah, similar. Yeah. Weird, given that we also have the same name, but we also base, um, before this, when we kind of had a gap in our careers around sort of kids being young, we both had take businesses and we both also used to teach cake decorating classes while at those things. So. Yeah, it's very, very strange.

The only differences between Laura and I, Laura like diet routine and I like gin. And apart from that, most of everything.

Teresa: You could be the same person, no, that's crazy gets crazier. Okay. So the idea, now you have say, as I've said, I've worked with you guys. I, I know what you do and you do loads of amazing things.

So I don't know how hard it was for you to pick one thing to talk about when you come on. Uh, but tell us what that one thing is that you have done in the business that actually has really made a difference to you.

Lauras: It probably actually wasn't that difficult to pick this thing. Back in January, we decided that we would make a commitment that we thought we would fail at, um, where we were going to email our list once a week.

And we decided we would do that on a Monday morning, we would always email our list and that was like our new year's resolution. And we were pretty convinced that we would fail at that by February. Um, and we didn't and it made a big difference to us. Didn't it. And Laura was quite anti this idea to start with.

Cause you don't really like email marketing that much do you. I am someone who just deletes emails like I can't barely. It's really, I still combat, but I will read off.

Teresa: It's like, "Oh, we did this this week." I read it on our own email. I do actually own emails. That is brilliant.

Lauras: Because Laura doesn't like emails. We were really, um, like thoughtful about what our emails would be. And we didn't want to just email people saying, "Oh, we've done this thing" or, "Oh, come and buy this thing from us."

And so we decided that at the beginning of the year, these emails would be one thing we would email out to our list. With an idea or a temper, a hack that they could put into their business. So it's like one small thing that they could implement on a Monday, help them throughout the rest of the week. And people really liked it.

And it really worked well for us. We were getting good replies or open rates were really good. And we, because of that, we carried on going and we didn't end up failing at it. And then in the summer, We thought, what if we pushed it a little bit more and with some help from Rob and Kennedy, we decided to email once a day.

Um, so we now Monday to Friday email every day, we don't do a weekends mainly just because we would forget, um, I mean email every single day to our list and that's had a massive impact. People love our emails now because we're really. Not strategic. I think when there is no strategy behind it as such, but we're much more thoughtful about what we're putting in an email and we're giving the people value.

They're really useful emails that people want to open. We have people who accidentally unsubscribed then emailing us, asking to get back on the list or they email us because they haven't had an email, but it's because we haven't sent it yet. Um, because they really want to read our emails. Then when we do then sell something in an email, they're quite open to it because they've had all of this free, great value from us.

Teresa: Yeah. That's awesome. And I know there's going to be people listening to that go in once a week, or, and then you said once a day and they're like, "What the hell?" Cause I have to say right that I remember speaking to Rob and Kennedy years ago when I first met them. And. Kennedy at that point said he emails his list once a day.

And I was like, are you insane? How the actual living hell A. Do you do that? And B. Do you not get people wanting to hate you massively because of it. But I think I want to hear your like, the process because the thing that scares me and the thing that will scare the people. Is, I make such a big deal of writing that email right.

I've always said, I'm not a great writer. You do quite like writing Laura Moore, don't you?

Lauras: I do, yeah.

Teresa: Yeah, So, but I think because I get your emails and it's weird. I want to say to people just so you know, I don't ever feel like you email too much. So if, if someone is sat there thinking, are these people crazy emailing every day, that is the most insane thing I've ever heard in my life.

I am on the receiving end and it doesn't feel too much. Um, I do exactly what I think you want from it, which is I open it. I scan it. I see what that one thing is. Normally. Damn it, I should have done that. Um, and then I put it in my file of copy that a month later and I'm joking. I do not, but like, but you do you give me great ideas.

I have to say, because it tends to be because it is that kind of small. Kind of one hit thing. And it's not that your emails are necessarily very short always. Sometimes they're, you know, a good few paragraphs long. But like, I feel like I pour over creating an email, which is why once a week, for me always felt really hard.

So tell me the process or tell me

Lauras: the thing once a week, you've got loads of things that you want to tell people, and you don't want them to miss out on anything else that might be happening that week, or that happened the previous week. And there's loads that you want to tell people. So. It's really easy to spend loads of time writing that one email. When you're emailing every day, you're focused on one thing and there's literally that one tip or one strategy or whatever it is, that you want to tell people.

So it could be as simple as a one paragraph email to tell them nothing, or it could be really, really long. But there's a really small focus in that email. You're not telling them about this product and that product and how it helps this person. And that person is just one tiny little thing. And some of our emails it's literally I'll message her.

I don't want to email about today and she'll come up with a really quick idea and we can, we get an amazing email outfit and it's just like that split second idea. There's no long thought process about it. Some of them take longer than others obviously. And we don't particularly plan it in advance.

It's not like we, which may or may not surprise you Teresa. But if we, we don't sit here and go right. For the next month, what are we going to email about every day? Now, obviously we come up with ideas that maybe we have to think about like, well, then we need to schedule it for later in the month. But generally speaking, we're quite reactive to, what's kind of happening what people are talking about in membership.

Well, you know, sometimes we can be a bit strategic about it or we'd see if it's building up to something that we might be launching. We'll obviously bear that in mind, but Laura and I are very reactive people. Um, anyway, so I think that, you know, there might of times we can have a conversation about something that might've happened and, and Laura will say, "There's an email in that.

And then we'll hold the next day that's the email." So that there's never this long planning process. And scheduling they're often done quite on the calf and we do schedule some don't we go to when we particularly busy. But, um, yeah, we're, we're quite reactive to it. We don't, I say we, because Laura writes most of these, if not all of them, but, um, where we, we just try to be as kind of quick about it and not overthink it because then if you overthink something it's, you've missed the point.

That one, that nugget really. Yeah, we're very much us in it. Aren't we we're quite, sometimes we quite controversial. No, that we might annoy people with some of our emails or upset people. But if we've got to say to say, we'll say it. We will only think about how we can, you know, maybe say it so that we don't, because controversy gets our emails open and gets us replies and stuff.

So if we've got something to say, that's our opinion, we will share it.

Teresa: And I think that's the other thing to, to note, and for people to take away from this particular is you are. Like we'd write emails, every single freaking day loads of them in our businesses. You know, we are constantly in and out of emails having conversations and, and it feels like that's what you're doing, but to a much wider audience. It feels like you are writing it as yourself. You're not pouring over the copy. You're not spending hours. I mean, obviously your subject lines are always really good as well, which is irritating. But they are really good. So like, it doesn't feel like it's, it's a long orchestrated. The copyrights has been at it for hours trying to craft it perfectly.

It feels. If you like our approach, you know, from your guys, if people like who you are and what you do, then they're absolutely going to like what you send in an email. And like I said, sometimes they might disagree. Sometimes they might think, well, actually I think you're wrong with that point, but they know that you're not afraid to give that point because they see you and they hear you.

And, and therefore, when they sign up to your list, it's just an extension of you and what you're doing. But I think for me, the one thing that people need to listen to when they. When they hear this is the adding value point of view that your emails are not like, Hey, did you see what Laura Moore did yesterday with her hair?

Or, you know, Laura Davis has got a degree in this dope, you know, like it's not about you as such your personality comes across lovely in it in terms of, it's really honest and authentic, but it's always trying to add something to the day from either an opinion or a thought or strategy or a tool or tip.

So that's what I love about that. I think that is if someone, I don't want people to think I'm going to email every day, go, "Here's my product. Here's my product. Here's my product." So tell me then what happens when you do go into sales mode? Like, and you flip those emails from. Value add to then doing a sale?

Lauras: Well, because we email every day, people are used to seeing our emails spent. So first of all, they open them. Yeah. People have had our emails regularly and we're not for them. They've already unsubscribed. So they've gone. We don't need to worry about those. And when we are selling, we always have an opt-out at the bottom.

So they're not unsubscribing from our list entirely, but they can unsubscribe and choose not to hear any more...