Episode 9 Transcript
Hey everyone, it is me Lisa and we are back with another episode of The Other 99% and I’m super excited today because I have my business bestie here and it’s kind of funny because we have never met in person but I feel like I can just pick up my phone and text her whenever I need her. So I’m super excited to introduce you guys to Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Sami welcome and I just want you to tell..Tell our guests like who you are, what do you do? And how did you find Direct Sales? And how did you find me?
Well, I’m so excited to be here and so proud and excited for you and this podcast. It’s so fun to see it come to light. And it’s so true because I mean, you’re in Canada, I’m in the US, like we would have never crossed paths organically in any way, shape or form. And I think that’s one of my favourite things about Direct Sales. Um, but I am a digital marketer by, I guess you could call it my day job. I have my own business. Um, we support nonprofits in getting more conversions and marketing in the online space. Um, and because I own my own business, multiple streams of revenue are really important to me because I don’t want to rely on one client or one course or whatnot. Like, you know, I wanted to make sure I have multiple streams of income coming in to kind of protect myself. Um, and I’ve always kind of loved the direct sales business model. Um, and then one of like my best best friend from the time I was little, um, she joined Color Street and invited me to her party and we just decided to do it to get him, but it was like the right opportunity presented itself at the right time with somebody that I was excited to walk alongside. Um, so I’ve been with Color Street for almost three years maybe hasn’t been that long already. It feels like it, eh? So I’m so crazy. Well, kind of a newbie compared to you. But, you know, have loved kind of the challenges and the ins and outs and ability with that. And then through that, join Modern Direct Seller. I know you’ve had Becky on the podcast, but join Modern Direct Seller because I knew Becky from my business coach that we both have for our businesses. So it’s like this weird kind of combination of stars aligning and things kind of coming together, join Modern Direct Seller, and just, you know, you naturally connect with some people that you connected with you multiple times and a couple other people in the group. And yeah, the rest, I guess, is history.
It is and I love that when we get together, there’s like we have almost the same brain wave. It’s like we think a lot alike. It’s like you know, my mind is, you know, how can I expand my business outside of my company and direct sales? Because I know that it’s like very important for us to build our own brand with our direct sales business. And I know that like having having our business expand outside of just the party model and so forth. And that’s what I wanted you to talk to our guests about today or our guest, our listeners about today is email marketing. Because I hear a lot of people say, email marketing, it’s dead, people don’t read emails, but that’s like, to me, I don’t think that’s true.
Yeah, I mean, there’s a couple of things that stop us dead in our tracks, especially as direct sellers, right? Our home office sends emails out on our behalf, so I don’t need to do it. Or like you said, nobody opens emails anymore. Or, well how is a 20% open rate? How is that good? Like that’s not gonna generate any money for me. Like we make all these things. I don’t open email, I hate email, yada, yada, yada. So, before like getting into any strategies and things that I would say to that is that over the course of the last few years, the stat has not changed across industry. So not just in direct sales, like in E.com, in consulting, in insert your industry here, not a problem. For every dollar you invest in email marketing, it generates roughly $44 in revenue for your business. That is the highest ROI of absolutely anything that you can do in the digital space by like 300%. I mean, like it’s something crazy. Like social media is not even anywhere close to that. I know it’s a little bit different in the direct sales space because of online parties and things like that. Like it’s, that’s a little bit skewed, but for every dollar you invest, that’s $44 in revenue on average that you’ll get from email marketing specifically. So that’s the first thing just from an ROI perspective. The second thing is that it allows you to know who the people are and have a little bit more information about how things are being delivered, how things are being engaged with. You know, on…it in conjunction with social media. Like on social media, you know if people are commenting, you know if people are liking your post, but you don’t know if people are really seeing it. You don’t know if they’re seeing it and just passing it on. You don’t have any control over deliverability and you don’t have control over how algorithms change and what gets served and what doesn’t get served. So email gives you another level of control as far as really owning that list owning that contact information and being able to kind of personalize and connect with the people that are on your email list.
Yeah, so dig a little bit more because I know that there’s a lot of people who aren’t using an email marketing system. And I know we both use ConvertKit. So tell people a little bit more for those of them who don’t use it. When you send out an email, like what statistics can you actually see? Yeah, and it does vary a little bit based on the platform. It also does vary a little bit as privacy policies are changing with platforms like Apple and Google and Yahoo and all that good stuff. So I, first of all, like to say, take all of the data with a grain of salt and focus on trends, not individual numbers, right? We want to know, here’s my baseline. So when I send out my general newsletter every Tuesday. I can track, okay, within 24 hours, within 48 hours, whatever, this is what my open rate looks like, this is what my click rate looks like, these are the links that people are clicking on. Like at a very general point, that’s the information you can see. And then I wanna track trends over time. So like, let’s say for example, I’m sending my weekly and it’s about consistency. So I’m sending my newsletter out every Tuesday, after a month. um, kind of taking a look at, are my open rates kind of staying the same? Are they going up? Are they going down? What does that look like? Because if all of a sudden you see a spike, like, let’s say all of a sudden you’re getting, you have a 3% click rate instead of a 1% click rate. That’s when you’re like, okay, what did I put in that email that got people excited? Cause they’re clicking more. Was it the way that I wrote it? Did I change the way that I wrote it? Did I change the content that was in there? Was the link written differently? Now I know that’s something people are excited about. I’m going to do more of that versus worrying so much about the performance of individuals or Hey, this email got way more unsubscribed than what we’ve ever had before Okay Why was it because all of a sudden we imported a bunch of new people that are new to our list and we haven’t you know Communicated with them what to expect was it because we kind of deviated from our traditional content and people are like This is the one I care about You know So it’s more about those trends over time so that you can take a look at the content you’re creating and making sure it’s in alignment with your audience.
Now I know that a lot of the people that I talk to anyway, they always say, oh, I send email marketing and they send one email a month that is strictly sales-based and they think they’re providing a service for their customers. Can you elaborate on sort of what you feel is providing good customer care, good customer service through email marketing? Yeah, well, so let’s make sure we separate out a couple of things. So there’s, um, what we’re talking about here is like the, the broadcast or the mass emails, right? Not necessarily the individual followup that you might be doing with your customers that are purchasing like one on one, right? I just want to make sure we’re clear. Like this would be like your bigger broadcast, your broadcast, your, yeah. Yeah. So I think it’s important to we always want to be adding value. So you’re right, Home Office sends out your emails, they send out product-based emails, they send out new launches, you know, they may or may not have the correct, this is your consultant or person that you should be shopping with right at the bottom, it might be right, it might not be, who knows, and every company does it a little bit differently. The emails that you’re sending out can still be product focused, but you can put a spin on them that allows, like aligns with what you said earlier, your personal brand. So who are you? How do you connect with your customers? What do your customers care about? So let’s say these have multiple types of products, right? So if we look at Color Street, for example, there’s makeup, there’s nail care, there’s the nail strips. Hello, like the most obvious one. So let’s say there’s a lot of nail care products. There’s a 2024, we have our catalogue launch for the whole year and it’s got our core stuff. And so, you could bombard your audience with like, oh my gosh, here’s all of the cool new products that we have here, here, here you go, like take a look at all of them. That’s completely overwhelming. Instead, if you have like a regular newsletter and you know it’s different when it’s. not time-sensitive stuff, but you know this is a core catalogue that’s going to stick around for a period of time. Instead, really pull out like, hey, in this week’s newsletter, I’m going to feature all of our nail care items, and I’m going to talk to you about how to use them and which product is the right product for certain types of things. So you can really kind of get personal and like, drip it out over a period of time. So then you never run out of content to talk about, right? Like, hey, it’s now we’re going into spring. So you really might want to think about how this moisturizer is going to be better because of this XYZ versus how we might want to use it in the winter. Teaching people how to use it. Like you do a great job of this with. Yes, I’m sharing a product with you, but I’m giving you really yummy recipes that you can try that aren’t on the website or that, you know, some of my friends have tried or what have you, so you’re giving the value. that back ends into a product, but instead they’re seeing firsthand like, hey, check out this really yummy Chinese recipe for Lunar New Year, right? Maybe they have it, maybe they don’t, maybe they wanna buy it, but it’s giving them value first as opposed to product first. Right. So when we’re thinking about that, is there ever a point to where you’re sending too many emails or not enough emails, or is that personal to the…the brand, the person. So I’m gonna give you the traditional marketing response, which is you have to test everybody’s audience a little bit different. So there’s a couple of things that I would say there. One is quality over quantity. How often can you consistently show up regularly so that your audience understands and expects, okay, yeah, I get an email every two weeks or I get an email every week and paying attention to the data, but also it’s kind of the expectation that you set. So if you say, hey, I’m going to send you an email every week and it’s going to provide tips and some of my favourite things, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden you start sending them four emails in a week, you’re going to lose people. People are going to get upset by that. But if you have really cool value and really cool things that you’re doing and you know, some people send a longer newsletter and then maybe they send like a motivational quote, like whatever your audience is and whatever your personal brand is, it’s more about communicating to them what to expect. You also wanna consider the other things that you’re utilizing. So maybe you also use project broadcasts and you’re sending out text messages. So, you know, what’s that cadence and what does that look like? So the email goes on a Tuesday, maybe there’s a text message that goes on Thursday, maybe there’s…You know, you wanted to kind of put all of that into perspective as far as how you’re communicating with your audience. But I think it’s more about communicating that expectation and then living up to it. If that makes sense, you just have to test and see what your audience wants and can take. That’s not a very good answer. I, okay. I recommend, I recommend once a week. Yeah. That’s my recommendation. Um, but you got to test.
And it’s funny because I know, I mean, my goal is to get up to once a week with email marketing and I’ve gone from once a month to twice a month, and I’m happy with that. So, you know, over time I will like test the market and maybe bring out another email. But with my emails, I try to make them as service-based as possible. Like you said about the recipes and my mid-month, I call it my recipe inbox, I send it and it’s not salesy. There’s no sales pitch in there whatsoever, Um, it is just, here’s some great recipes that you could try with products that you might already have in your pantry. Uh, take a peek. And if you see a recipe that you like, that you might not have the product for, then just let me know and we can sort of hook you up, right? But there’s never that, um, Oh, this is, this is on sale this week by this, because I think, I mean, I think if we look at our own inboxes, we are bombarded enough with the company emails that are selling us stuff.
So I like to try and tell people that when you’re focusing on email marketing, I think it needs to be more of how you can help. Like what can you do for them? What services can you provide? How you can enhance their experience with the product, right? I mean, would you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, and my emails are long and we’ve been testing every time because they kind of step away from what I’ve typically done. Um, you know, my emails are like a personal connection story, something that’s more reads more like an email is if I was writing it to you personally, I share a blog post or a podcast episode. Sometimes I share a motivational quote that I’m loving. And then at the bottom is what’s new from color street. And it does because there’s stuff coming out all the time. That is where I do put like, Hey, here’s the new product that’s launching this week, just so you don’t miss out. It is there, but it’s at the very bottom because if they get to the bottom, then it’s like, okay, they’ve already kind of connected. It’s not as much of a sales pitch and my format stays the same. So people learn, you know, if they want to know what’s going on with color street, they can just scroll all the way to the bottom. They can take a look at it. The links are all there. I, so yeah, it’s value, value, value. People shop with direct sellers because they make a personal connection with them. So like that’s the beauty of having your own email versus just the home office or corporate email, because they want your opinion on the product. They want your opinion or tips on how to use it. They want to know what you’re doing with it. They want to have that personal connection with you. Otherwise they would just shop straight from the website and nobody, you know, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t care. They want that personal connection. People crave that. So I think it’s really important that those emails come from a place of service and connection first. And then and then product second, but also I do think it’s important to include, make it easy, make it easy for them to click the links, make it easy for them to find the product that you’re including, and know that people need to see things like so many times before it really clicks in. Right, look, you might send that email about your recipe inbox and they’re like, oh, that recipe was really good, but they’re not thinking about dinner prep right then. So then two days later when they’re like, I don’t know what to make for dinner, they’re like, oh shoot what was that recipe? Where was that recipe? You know, like it takes some back and forth of all of those things, um, for people, to kind of pull the trigger and make that buying decision. So that’s where that consistency comes in and being patient with them.
Yeah. And definitely email marketing is not overnight success. Like, but you, I do notice even myself, when I send out an email, I’ll notice that my online orders will come in and within the next couple days. So it’s putting yourself in their mind and they’re like, oh yeah, I need to top up on my taco dip or my taco seasoning that I am low on. So, and that’s what I love about email marketing. And I even have people who respond to those emails saying, oh my God, Lisa, like those, that recipe was absolutely delicious. And that just makes me happy because that’s the whole point of it, right? To provide that service and that recipe they may have never found buried in my website, But I knew it was there and I brought it forth to them because I think it’s something valuable that they should check out. So I love email marketing. I don’t know how many times I could tell people. I love it. Yeah, and not everybody is on the same channel. So by diversifying your channels of communication, you’re really increasing the opportunity to hit people where they live. So no, not everybody’s that people know that you’re thinking of them and connecting with them. Yeah. Now I know that we can talk a little bit about building a list, building your email list. So right away, we automatically know people who’ve purchased from us are great prospects to be put on your list, but how else can somebody build their email list? Yeah, so the most kind of industry standard is to create what we call a lead magnet. So basically it is something you offer to somebody for free to join your list. People are not just joining newsletters anymore. You can’t just say, sign up to get on my newsletter. People don’t care about that. They’re not gonna do it. They wanna get some value right away. It’s another opportunity for people to connect with you also and learn a little bit more about you and how you operate. So it could be a quiz where people get emailed results. It could be a checklist. Maybe it’s like a food pantry staples checklist. So like, you know, this is what you should have in your house at all time to be able to have a quick and easy meal. It could be like a gated video on like my best secrets for creating a mixed mania, like whatever it could, the sky’s the limit with whatever you want to do. You do not have to have your own website in order to make this happen. There’s lots of different ways, like with ConvertKit, you can create landing pages that have the lead magnet built in. So they’re not complicated. They can be Google Docs. They don’t have to be fully polished designed things. I’ve done full sheet checklists and things like that. So that’s kind of the best way to do it. People get value. You can share it all over social media. You can share it like if you’re doing vendor events or you’re doing in-person events, you can have a simple QR code and say, scan this to get this freebie to convert people at events that may or may not even be purchasing from you. So that’s a great one. If you have a website, obviously making sure that it is there as an option. And then in that case, if you don’t have a lead magnet being sick, hey, join my email list 20 recipes a month delivered to you twice a month, something like that, right? Like you’re gonna hear from me twice a month, with that you’re gonna get 20 different recipes that you can use for the whole month. So being specific about what they’re gonna get in that communication is also great. And then even like asking your existing customers, saying like, hey, I’m launching this new newsletter, this is the value that it’s gonna provide. If you have friends that you think might be interested in learning more about the product you know, it’s not as pitchy in a way. Like, you know, you’re not saying, I’m going to call you, I’m going to ask you to book a party. I’m going to ask you to buy stuff. But if you, if you know people that might be interested in our product and want to learn more, I’d love to get them on our email list. So I think the trick is you got to ask.
Yeah, that’s so true because a lot of it comes down to our business. A lot of the times we sit and hide behind the post and pray method on everything. So just posting our link to our newsletter, people are going to sign up. And it’s like, then we sort of sit there and pout when people aren’t signing up. But we, we’ve lost the knack of communication. And especially with us being on social so often. So I love that you said, you know, you have to ask, you have to ask if people want it, and you have to provide them with value in order for them to get it. But no, I appreciate all the information that you share. And can you just go into a little bit, Sami, about, and I’m not even sure if you know, but like the different types of email, like we both use ConvertKit. So what’s out there that people can use? Like, do you have other options that people could possibly look into if they’re not using email marketing? Yeah, I mean, there’s so many platforms that are coming out all the time. So for me, the way that I like to approach any tech in any business, like if you’re adding a new software solution, I always recommend starting with, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve? So, and what are, like, what do you need it to do? So before we even start looking at software, it’s like, okay, well, I need something that can email people in bulk. I need to be able to do automation. So meaning emails that trigger after certain criteria has passed that you don’t have to manually send, right? I need to be able to have a landing page because I don’t have a website. I need it to be able to take money for certain things, whatever. So make the list of the things that you need the software to do. And then I put them in a spreadsheet. So I just have all of the benefits that I need it to have at the top. I have the platform on the left and then I like the different platforms. And then I give myself a timeline. I say, okay, I’m gonna spend an hour or an hour and a half just researching software platforms and I’m gonna put everything into the spreadsheet. And then you’ll see like which ones you have the check boxes are, you can look at the pricing. A lot of people have free options and you can then give yourself a bigger picture of what’s gonna be the best fit for what you need it to do as opposed to if you ask 10 people what platform they should use, you’ll probably get 15 different answers. So, and then you’re stuck and you’re lost. So that would be my recommendation. There’s a ton of platforms that are out there that are great. A lot of them I haven’t used. Some that I have, some I love, some I don’t particularly enjoy, but I think taking account to what you needed to do and the budget that you have to do it is a better way to go. And that’s true for everything. I mean, Party soft, I mean, there’s so many different things that you can utilize this business, but you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish first.
Yeah, and I think it’s very important for direct sellers to know that there are some platforms out there that are pro direct sales and some that really don’t support direct sales. So when you’re looking into a platform, be sure to check on those specifics, like see if they have anything in their fine print about that. Terms and conditions. Yeah, terms and conditions. But yeah, I mean, looking into email marketing, it could be simply as something, a platform to send out monthly emails, or it can be as complex as Sami was saying to send out like automations and building landing pages. And most of the platforms that I’ve looked at are pretty flexible in doing all of those things. It’s just a matter of if you need those at the beginning, because I know that-Yeah. Comes into the pricing piece. Like what, because ConvertKit has a great free plan for up to, I think, a thousand subscribers. Yeah, up to a thousand. Yeah, the biggest difference there is the automation piece. So do you need automations or not? And so if you’re just getting started, you probably don’t get started and get consistent. And then it’s really easy to add on from there. So, yeah, I agree. And looking at those terms and conditions is really important. I worked in another. Well, I worked in a regulated industry a few years ago and there was a platform that was just, they changed their terms and conditions and they just started booting anybody. It was in the CBD space and they just started booting anybody that was, that they deemed was a CBD business and they just shut them down. You didn’t get access to your contacts. Like you lost everything because they said you were violating our terms and conditions. I don’t, it’s not that dramatic in the direct and I’m glad that you brought that up making sure. And it can be as simple as when you’re looking at a software, just hop into their chat and say, you don’t even have to read all the legalese, just hop into their chat and say, do you support direct sales businesses? And they’ll tell you.
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I appreciate all the information you share. And I know that you’re gonna be hopping into the digitally direct group on occasion doing some tech talks. And so if you haven’t joined group on Facebook, I’m going to put the link in the show notes, come and join us over there because we’re just ramping up to start sharing like a ton of value for our community. But Sami, before we close off, I always like to ask if there is one quote or one piece of advice that you’ve heard over your years that you think would be beneficial for a direct seller to hear. So when I first started my own business back in 2017, I listened to this podcast with Amy Porterfield and I don’t remember who she was interviewing, but I will get the link to you, Issa, so that you can add it. But it was basically around the value of see work is okay. Like really the perfection of it is gonna hold you back from doing the things that are gonna get you to where you’re going. And nobody starts out perfect. I mean, I have a podcast as well. I think I’m on like episode 240 something crazy. Um, I will never go back and listen to my old episodes. Like they’re awful. They’re not awful, but you know, you just got to get started and practice and put things out there. Don’t worry about the typos. Don’t worry about the errors on the graphics. Don’t worry about, um, you know, accidentally sending something to the wrong list. Anytime you make mistakes, it’s an opportunity to learn. Um, And it’s an opportunity for a conversation. Like when somebody writes me back and is like, Hey, there was a typo in your email. Great. You were reading my email. Like that. Thank you. Like, Oh, I’ll totally get that fixed. It’s an opportunity for a conversation. So really just getting started. Think about if I can just put out C level work, at least I’m getting out there. I’m doing it. And I can always improve from there. Yeah. That reminds me of a quote that I heard, you know, done is better than perfect. And that quote helped me jumpstart into this podcast because let me tell you, I was not ready to do it, but I put it out there to the universe and I put it out there on Becky’s podcast. So I had to get it done and I jumped in. I jumped in. Yep. And it was just like, okay. And then it was funny because when I hit publish on the trailer, I realized, Oh, I should have probably had a couple episodes. They’ll just have to wait. You know, it was one of those things and then talking about the The typo well, yeah I posted my cover with the typo on it and it was up there for a couple weeks because it took that long for Me to get it changed but yeah done is better than perfect So see work is better than you know, not getting anything done. So I I love that.
Well Sami I appreciate your time and I don’t want to keep you too long, but thank you so much for joining us and If the listeners want to connect with you, um, either for your marketing business or color street, where can they find you? Yeah. So the best place is, um, easystylewithsami.com. That’s S A M I. Um, there’s a lot of color show stuff on there, but we also have a podcast. I’m going to make this declaration on your podcast. Okay. I have a podcast for easy style with Sammy that we have had on hiatus for a long time, but it’s coming back in March. Um, so you’ll be able to find that podcast past podcast there and it’s just, you know, inspirational stories from people that I’ve encountered in my life and how they kind of make their own personal style. So not direct sales related, but you can find all that stuff there. And if you’re interested in marketing or you have a nonprofit that needs marketing support, the first click.net is where you can grab all of the freebies and resources there for nonprofits needing support. Awesome. Well, I appreciate your time and thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
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