From Subscribers to Super Fans: How to Build Your Email List and Grow Your Community

Hey there! Have you ever wanted to start building an email list for your business, but felt overwhelmed by the process? Well, you’re in luck! In a recent episode of Social Media News Live, host Jeff Sieh talked to Paul Gowder, an expert on email marketing and building online communities, about how to build and maintain a successful email list.

First off, Paul emphasized the importance of giveaways for building your list. He recommended partnering with other businesses in your industry to offer a prize package that would appeal to your audience. By using a tool like KingSumo or Gleam, you can set up the giveaway to require entrants to submit their email addresses in order to enter. This ensures that you’re only getting high-quality leads who are genuinely interested in your content.

But what about all those people who enter the giveaway but aren’t really interested in your business? Paul recommends having a process in place to weed out these “tire-kickers” after the giveaway is over. By tracking who opens your emails and engages with your content, you can remove those who aren’t interested and focus on building relationships with the ones who are.

Once you have a solid email list, the next step is to engage with your subscribers and build a community around your brand. Paul suggests having a welcome sequence in place to introduce new subscribers to your brand and encourage them to engage with your content. This could include a series of emails that share your mission, highlight your best content, and invite subscribers to connect with you on social media or in a private Facebook group.

Speaking of Facebook groups, Paul also talked about how to use them to build your email list. By offering exclusive content or resources in your group, you can encourage members to sign up for your email list in order to receive even more value from your brand. And even if they don’t sign up, having a Facebook group can help you build relationships with your audience and gain valuable insights into their needs and interests.

Overall, Paul’s advice for building and maintaining an email list is to focus on building relationships with your audience and providing them with value. By partnering with other businesses for giveaways, weeding out uninterested subscribers, and engaging with your community through welcome sequences and Facebook groups, you can create a loyal following that is eager to hear from you and support your brand.

So if you’re ready to take your email list to the next level, give Paul’s advice a try and see how it can help you grow your business!

Transcript

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jeff Sieh: Hello folks. Welcome to Social Media.

[00:00:01] News Live. I’m Jeff Sieh and you’re not.

[00:00:04] Conor Brown: And I’m not. No. Wait, that’s not right. That’s not. I’m Conor Brown and this is the show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of social media and more. And today we’ve got Paul Gower to talk about leveling up your email marketing game.

[00:00:22] Jeff Sieh: So Paul, how are you doing today my friend?

[00:00:24] Paul Gowder: I am great. It’s a beautiful day here in South Carolina and I’m heading to Orlando tomorrow. So what can, what can be, what can be bad about that, right?

[00:00:32] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. I’m so jealous. But I’ll be there later this year, but if you don’t know Paul, I can’t wait to introduce you. He’s been on the show before, so if you’re watching or listening, make sure you go back to that episode because he had a another great session talking all about marketing and we wanna make sure you guys go check that out.

[00:00:47] But if you don’t know Paul, he is the owner and founder of powwows.com, which has been a leading online community celebrating Native American culture for the past 25 years. Now, he’s visited [00:01:00] hundreds of powwows around North America, and he’s been able to capture those events and publish them to millions of viewers on his website and YouTube channel.

[00:01:08] Now, having experienced the trials and tribulations of running a successful online community for the past 25 years, Paul has helped other entrepreneurs navigate the successes and pitfalls of building an online business through his public speaking and consulting services. And today we’re gonna talk to him about, taking your subscribers to superfans, how to build your email list to grow your community, which he has done.

[00:01:30] Paul, thank you so much for being on the show today.

[00:01:33] Thanks so much. I, I’m really excited to, to talk about this. I, I think this is one of those topics that everybody skips over and they, you know, they take email for granted. So I’m excited to dig in a little bit today.

[00:01:43] Awesome. And your, your site that we’re talking about, this community you’ve built is@powwows.com, so if people wanna go check it out, that’s where they, they need to go, correct?

[00:01:50] Paul Gowder: Yes. Yeah. Head on over. And if you’re new to POWs, I, I, the link, if you really wanna know what’s going on, pows.com/powwow 1 0 1.And that’ll kind of get you started in the, in the [00:02:00] world of powwows.

[00:02:00] Jeff Sieh: Awesome. And we also have an amazing guest, co-host, Conor Brown. And Conor Brown is a marketer. He’s a podcaster and professional. Disney fan. Well, what’s that? Well, he helps organizations, organizations big and small, achieve their marketing goals, and especially when it comes to emo marketing. And as host as WDW Opinion podcast, he helps Disney fans daydream and plan for their next perfect Disney trip with Connor. If people wanna find out about that service you offer for, where do they need to go?

[00:02:29] Conor Brown: Wdwopinion.com. And I’m excited to be co-host today, and whenever I talk to Paul, I always learn something. He’s the man like you were saying, Jeff, he’s been doing it for a while. So if anyone has any questions about online business entrepreneurship, Paul’s seen it. He’s done it. He has wisdom to share, so this is gonna be a good.

[00:02:51] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, so it’s gonna be awesome. I wanna do a shout out a couple . So, Chris goes cable check. Jeff, thank you. My podcasting friend letting me [00:03:00] know what’s going on. So Amy is here. Amy Keys is another one of our great attenders that we, and she spoke last year at Momentum. So Amy, thank you so much for stopping by.

[00:03:09] And we have another comment from Chris. He goes Paul’s shirt game is on point. So if you’re, if you don’t know Paul, I haven’t met him, he always has these awesome camp shirts. Makes me a little bit jealous. Are you guys listening on the podcast? Usually they’re di I can’t tell if that’s a Disney one or not.

[00:03:23] It looks like, yeah, I see. Yeah, that’s very, very cool. So, he always wears cool shirts, so his game is on point. So I wanna do a big shout out to, to the folks who make this show possible. That’s our friends over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them at socialmedianewlive.com/ecamm

[00:03:40] They just released version four, which I have been waiting for for so long because it allows me to actually, when I’m done with this show, I get a clean feed from Paul and Connor and myself and the mix version, and that’s all in a separate video file so I can mix it and repurpose it just the way I want to.

[00:03:56] It also says the same with audio, so it is amazing for repurposing. Now [00:04:00] you have to have a Mac and it has to be Max Silicon but be to have those four channels of video. But it is amazing. So make sure you check them out at socialmedianewslive.com/ecamm slash Ecamm. So let’s go ahead and get started on the show.

[00:04:13] And we’re gonna talk today a lot about, growing your email list at this is our, kind of our first section. And one of the things, I found some stats that was really interesting to me. 76% of businesses believe that email marketing directly contributes to their success. But only 60% of businesses consider their email marketing campaigns to be successful.

[00:04:33] But even at 60%, they may not be tracking the right metrics, which we’re gonna talk about today. And 37 of these responders says they really don’t feel like their email is 37%, or it’s not standing out in their inbox. And they actually said that most of them are probably going to the wrong folders.

[00:04:49] So, a lot of people are talking about lack of time and focus on their emails and they’re, they don’t really get the support they need for their marketing strategies. And, the metrics and [00:05:00] we’ll dive into this. Is they consider 42% of them consider click-through rates as a marketer of success.

[00:05:05] But I wanna talk about today, like read through rates and all that other stuff that a lot of people just kind of miss. They see that open rate and they say, that’s all I need. So we’re gonna be talking about all this stuff today, but Paul, I wanted to kind of get right off the top of the bat a question where, you know, what are some just kind of general effective strategies for growing your email list?

[00:05:26] And, you know, how do you, how do you yourself measure success?

[00:05:31] Paul Gowder: So let, let’s, let’s start with success first. I hear the same kind of things, you know, the people looking at click through rates and open rates and all this and, and those are important, right? And, and open rate is, that’s probably one of the ones I look at most often is, is the open rate.

[00:05:46] Clickthroughs is great, but for me, I just want them to read it. One of the things I measure success with though, is I want, I want to know when people are responding to it. I want that feedback again. You know, I use [00:06:00] we. , we’ve talked about it so many times that the three of us have. That I use email as part of growing my community.

[00:06:05] So when people reply to my emails, that’s probably my number one measure of success. If when I send out an email, I get people replying to it and wanting to continue the conversation. That’s how I know I send out an effective email. Open rates is great and you know, everybody wants to get these good statistics, but if you’re starting conversations and if you are building community and you, you can measure that by your inbox filling up, then that’s where I think success is.

[00:06:33] Jeff Sieh: So I wanna do a follow up question again, Connor, you feel free to chime in on any of this stuff, but you mentioned getting those replies back.

[00:06:40] Are you very specific, and I know this, there’s Justin, I think more is the guy who does video creator brands kind of email and he always asks, inside of his email, he says, Hey re reply to this if you think this is right or I’m wrong, or you’re, what, what your opinion is. Do, are you very specific about [00:07:00] that inside of your emails?

[00:07:01] Are you going like, hit reply if yada, yada, yada? I mean, do you have like strategies that you use to get people to reply?

[00:07:07] Paul Gowder: Yes. And it depends, like if I. One of the things I like doing is I like creating sequences and I segment out my audience and try to create specific series of emails for those folks.

[00:07:19] And so in that I’m asking specific questions. One of those, and I mentioned it earlier, is our what to expect at your first powwow. So that’s one of our most popular sequences, and that’s what people are coming, you know, they want to know more about that. And like in the first email, I’m like, you know, I’ve mentioned, Hey, I’m excited for you to go and experience your first powwow.

[00:07:37] There’s so much to see and do the food, the dancing, the singing, all this kind of stuff. What is it that’s e exciting you most? What is it that you’re looking forward to let me know and people write back. So yeah, I’m trying to be very intentional about that. You know, if I’m sending out a broadcast email to, to the entire list, it’s probably a more general question, you know, where are you heading this summer?

[00:07:57] What powwows are you looking forward to? Those kind of things. [00:08:00] But in those sequences, I’m trying to ask really, really niche down, specific question of, for that particular message.

[00:08:07] Conor Brown: And I think, I think that’s so crucial too in when it comes to building a community, which, which Paul is gonna talk a lot about.

[00:08:14] And I think that it gets overlooked so much the potential to reach out to people. Paul and I were just talking the other day about how someone responded to him and basically said, I don’t think you’re gonna see this. I don’t think you’re gonna respond to this. I think you’re gonna ignore this. And Paul sent over a response and that person became a lifelong fan and it took a couple minutes, not even for Paul to send a response.

[00:08:39] So I think when you’re talking about growing email, growing community through email, it’s all about those personal touches. A as as great as it as it can be. And you, you really should focus on that. Paul, but you know, when it comes to. Getting those emails. I think that’s [00:09:00] something that a lot of people don’t know where to start with collecting the emails before you even get to send them a note or put ’em in a campaign or what have you.

[00:09:09] Sure. You talked a little bit about those sequences that are working for you when it comes to your website. What are ways you’ve optimized your website to encourage more signups, but then also what are some common pitfalls people should avoid?

[00:09:25] Paul Gowder: All right, so over the last couple of weeks, probably three weeks, I have been going through and kind of doing audits and coaching with some folks from momentum, looking at their email and you know, helping them grow their email list, but also what they should be sending and, and what they should be saying in their emails.

[00:09:44] One of the things I’ve noticed in doing that is. The biggest thing, the biggest hurdle that people are having for growing their email list is they’re just not asking for email. Now, I mean, I don’t wanna get too technical in what plugins you can use. I mean, I can, we can talk a little bit about that.

[00:09:59] But [00:10:00] simple, simple enough is make sure that on not just your front page, cuz that’s not where people come to your website, people are coming to your website to an a blog post. If you’re in WordPress, you’re an article page, right? That’s where people are coming and landing on your page. If you don’t have some kind of email opt-in or email ask on that page, then how do you even expect to grow your email list?

[00:10:23] And I think there’s a lot of people that just, they just overlook that they’re not thinking about that. Cuz we spend all this time trying to SEO optimize it and make it look pretty or whatever. . But on those pages where you are writing your content, whether it’s a podcast episode or just a regular blog post, you have to ask for email.

[00:10:40] And there’s, with WordPress, there’s a a hundred different ways and different plugins you can use, but you gotta put something on that page to ask for the email.

[00:10:50] Jeff Sieh: Is there a certain type of ask that you, like, are you giving something away for free or are you saying, Hey, just subscribe to my email list?

[00:10:57] Paul Gowder: That it depends. Right. [00:11:00] So like I said, I, I love to segment my audience and divide them up on you, provide them information for what they’re coming to the website for. So what I like to do is use whatever page they’re on. So, for example, if they’re landing on a page where we’re writing something about, Ancestry or, or genealogy research or DNA testing, those kind of things.

[00:11:24] You know, in WordPress, that’s a category, right? So we have a category just for genealogy. And so I’ll put an, I’ll build an opt-in, whether it’s a lead magnet or just a, hey, you know, get more information about genealogical research, but I’m gonna build an opt-in just for that content and deliver, use the, I use convert box.

[00:11:43] So I’ll, I’ll use that to deliver a specific opt-in for just that audience. And that to me becomes really effective because you’re, it’s not just, Hey, give me your email list and I’ll send you a newsletter. It’s, Hey, if you’re looking for this kind of information and you gimme your email address, I’m [00:12:00] going to deliver you more value in the area you’re looking for.

[00:12:03] Conor Brown: And I think the, the important part about that, Paul’s not reinventing the wheel when it comes up to, well, what kind of campaign should I come up with? It’s so simple. Use the data you already have. Go into Google Analytics and Paul, you’re looking at your top performing pages, which are visiting your first powwow genealogy researching your, your, your ancestry.

[00:12:29] They’re gonna smack you in the face with all the views that you’re getting. When you get into Google Analytics. You have that data, you know, people are going there, give them what they want, and then they start building community with you because you are the one sending out those emails in response to what they need.

[00:12:48] Jeff Sieh: So, Paul, one, one thing I wanted to do, and I should have did this at the top of the. Just, I want you to just mention how big your community is because I, you know, one of the things is like, we talk about community, we hear people like, yeah, I’ve [00:13:00] got a, you know, a list. Can you give us some of the size?

[00:13:02] Because this is what is very impressive and I think it gives you some credibility to people who maybe not have, have heard before.

[00:13:09] Sure.

[00:13:10] Paul Gowder: So our email, listen, since we’re talking about that, we’re it depends on the day. Cause I do prune very heavily, but we’re, I think today we’re at about 105,000 email subscribers on Facebook.

[00:13:21] We have around 850,000 followers on our Facebook page. We have a few different Facebook groups and all totaled our Facebook groups. It’s around 200,000 130,000 on Instagram, 75,000 on YouTube. And we’re, we’re about, we’re 55,000 ish on TikTok.

[00:13:44] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, so, so when we say community, just realize that he has grown this, he started at zero like everybody else does, and he was able to grow this to this level.

[00:13:54] So, but I just wanted to let you know because it is very impressive and he knows what he’s talking about when he talks about [00:14:00] growing this. And so we’ve got some great comments. Tim goes, Paul Cower is my hero and Connor is his sidekick, so we’ll just leave it like that.

[00:14:08] Conor Brown: Happy to be along for the ride.

[00:14:10] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. And our friend Jennifer says she’s so ready here about all this because she has heard Paul and Connor speak before and know that they do great stuff. So, and that is a great goal replies. I think that is a really great thing to, to let people know about that. Really ask for those replies and put things in your email that really do help support that.

[00:14:30] And this is a great point from Tim that I’d love you to answer Paul. He goes, is there a point. Where you can place too many links in an email sequence, like, oh yeah. Yeah. So what do you have like a number you always try to hit in your emails or don’t go above this many? What is your, what advice to Tim here?

[00:14:48] Paul Gowder: First I’ve give a shout out. Dion. Thanks for watching. She’s one of our cruise buddies. We’ve traveled with her and her family a couple times. She is a Disney travel agent. So thanks for being here. But [00:15:00] yeah, so email sequences. When when I write my email sequences and we’re, you know, writing for a specific topic, I try to make those as concise as possible, right?

[00:15:10] They’re not gonna be huge emails and I try to break up the topic into smaller bite-sized chunks. And as far as links in a sequence, I’m usually only putting one or two call to actions in something like that. So going back to the what to expect at your first powwow. , one of my emails is, Hey, let me help you find powwows in your area.

[00:15:31] And you can do that by searching on our calendar, you know, using, here’s some resources, right? And at the end of that, the only link there is going to be, here’s a link to our powwow calendar, right? Now I may do that in a couple of different ways. I may say, here’s our calendar, you know, and here’s a place where you can go and search by state, or things like that.

[00:15:49] But the only call to action that I email is go to our calendar. I try to reserve doing lots and lots of links for broadcast messages. That’s where I’m gonna send out lots more stuff. But in the [00:16:00] sequences, I really am trying to do just one or two call to actions.

[00:16:03] Jeff Sieh: See, I think that’s important to realize there’s a difference between sequence emails where you’re trying to get them to, at the end, go to a certain thing and a broadcast thing where you’re like, Hey, we’ve got this, this, and this that’s happening in our calendar kind of thing.

[00:16:16] So I think that’s great advice. Jim says this question. He goes, one pitfall is the amount of time each week it takes to respond effectively. So learn how to do it product productively. So do you have any advice for somebody who, let’s say they’re starting and they’re getting all the, they’ve done what you said, they’ve asked for replies and their email and they start getting a ton of them, is, I mean, with a community your size that could get overwhelming really, really quickly.

[00:16:40] What do you do to help manage that? Do you have tools or do you just sit down and grind them out?

[00:16:46] Paul Gowder: both. But yes, I do have tools and, and it is, it can be very overwhelming. Recently, you know, , I just sent out an email. This was back in January, and I, you know, wish, wish everybody happy New Year. I hope you’re, you know, you’re, you’re, this 2023 is gonna be a great [00:17:00] email.

[00:17:00] I literally had a couple of hundred responses and one of the things I, I, you know, I try to do is when somebody writes me, I want to reply, even if it’s just a thank you. . So that was, that took me a couple of weeks. Right. I mean, that was a little overwhelming. Right. I do use some tools though to help me.

[00:17:17] I’m, I’m a Mac user, so I use text expander . And so for these sequences, when I know that I’m asking a question, I’ll write out a canned response to these. And so for that, going again, going back to the what to expect at Traverse powwow, the first email is there, you know, the question I’m asking is, what is it you’re most excited about?

[00:17:38] Well, I have a canned response that I send to that, but, But I don’t just do, you know, I’ll hit, I’ll use the canned response, but then I’ll go in and customize it. But it’s a great way to start off the conversation. I also have one for general, just when somebody emails me and says, Hey, is there a powwow close to me?

[00:17:55] I have one that I send out to everybody who asks that question with the right [00:18:00] places to go. But then I, you know, I leave some space where I can type in some, you know, something that may help them a little bit or more targeted for what they were asking. But yeah, canned responses and using something like text expander or those kind of tools is super helpful.

[00:18:16] Jeff Sieh: Conor, do you see the question from Amy, do you wanna

[00:18:21] Conor Brown: yeah, when we talk about, you know, Sequences, Paul, and, and we have our topic, we have what we want to do. And when you’re talking about driving people here or there, I know it’s so much about giving, right? You wanna give and give and give be before you ask.

[00:18:38] But when it comes to these topics that you’re building sequences around, is there ever a good rhyme or reason when it comes to the length of the sequences? As in how many emails are they getting that, what’s the cadence of those emails? How long is it going on? Or, I have to imagine at points, it can also vary from sequence to [00:19:00] sequence and topic that you’re talking about.

[00:19:01] Paul Gowder: Sure it does. And so one of the first Sieh sequences I tell people they should write is just a welcome, just a general here’s who I. Sequence. And that one, you know what I, I like to, when we’re, we’re talking about this and we’re trying to figure out what to say is, if we ran into each other at a conference or if we were, you know, sitting down to eat at Bar Taco, for example, , what is it?

[00:19:26] What are those three or five things you’re gonna tell me about your business? Well, those pillars, those points that you’re gonna tell me about your, your business, that’s your first emails. So if you’ve got, you know, if, if you’re a travel agent and you you’re gonna talk about, you know, who I am, what my experiences is, you’re gonna talk about planning trips for theme parks, for cruises, for all inclusives, right?

[00:19:49] Those are your first four or five emails. And so that sequence, there it is. That’s easy. That, that’s all it needs to be. Now, if you like my what to expect at your first powwow, [00:20:00] the, I determined the length because I kind of sat down and again, , great point. What Connor brought up is I looked at my Google Analytics and kind of went through, here are the most popular pages that people visit when they’re trying to figure out, you know, what a powwow is.

[00:20:14] So I took the content I already had on that topic and was able to then figure out how long or how many emails needed to be in that sequence. But I also have sequences. My throwback Thursday sequence is just repurposing all the old content on our website. Because we have been around for two decades, we have a lot of content.

[00:20:35] And so that sequence is, I think right now that sequence is probably sitting at 50 something emails. Wow. And that’s a once a week email and, and we rewrite that once a year or so to, to kind of keep it fresh. But that sequence is, is huge, that that’s a year long sequence. Now the other part of that is, is how often you send them.

[00:20:56] So, You gotta be careful because you don’t [00:21:00] want to overload people. And, and there are times where I do get that response because I’ll have people join two or three different sequences and get the broadcast emails and then ends up, they get three emails in a day. And, you know, I’ll, I will get that emails like, Hey dude, you know, I just got three emails from you today.

[00:21:15] Can you stop it? So that, that is something you want to think about in your cadence. Some of the ways that I do it, the, the what to expect at your first powwow, we do that. It’s a once a day email for nine days. And if you’re gonna do once a day, I say in the first email is, Hey, okay, over the course of the next week or so, I’m gonna send you one email a day.

[00:21:37] And you know, here’s what we’re gonna talk about. And in the title of the email, I’ll actually put in there something like, you know, lesson one, lesson two. So they kind of, when they see that email. On the third day, fourth day, they kind of know, oh, okay, here’s that. I’m, I’m getting the next email in that sequence.

[00:21:54] Other, you know, your general welcome sequence, maybe that’s every other day, every three [00:22:00] days. You don’t want it to something like that in, in, when you’re just introducing yourself to somebody you don’t wanna go, you know, six weeks. Right. Because they’re gonna forget you over that time. So you, you wanna be those be a little closer, but maybe it’s not once a day.

[00:22:11] Right. Maybe it’s, you know, every couple days or twice a week, something like that. So it really just does depend and I’ve done all the above. Right.

[00:22:19] Conor Brown: I also say to that, I think when it is a new Lead a new person coming in that’s joining your email list for the first time when they sign up for that welcome series that we’re talking about.

[00:22:31] Don’t put them in anything else until they complete that series. So once they complete that series, then you can add them to the newsletter list, the broadcast list if they enter other sequences, that’s of course up to them and stuff. But, and I, I don’t want to spam Paul’s email list. Go to Paul’s website, sign up for his welcome email list.

[00:22:54] It’s great. It, it gives you the structure there and then take it and, and you can kind of learn a [00:23:00] lot from that as well.

[00:23:01] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. So before we move on, I want to give the, our friend shout out. He goes, my free three favorite smart entrepreneurs. So one of us needs to pay off Lou and we could probably just take him back.

[00:23:12] Bar taco and that will Yeah. You know, we can pay ’em off that way. So, before we move on to the next section, I wanted to talk a little bit about your list hygiene, your like email list hygiene. And that sounds like it’s, you know, what does that mean? Hygiene? So, but how can you like, avoid common pitfalls?

[00:23:28] Like, you know, the buying email list spamming your subscribers and how often should you call ’em? I mean, it’s so scary for us who don’t have gazillion, you know, email lists. Like Paul, when we think about calling our email list, we’re like, ugh. Because you do go to brands and say, listen, I’ve got X amount of, you know, emails that we can send to, and if you call it, then you can’t really say that number anymore.

[00:23:50] So there’s a balance. That we need to, to do like, and, and you also pay more for the more for most of all these, these companies, the more [00:24:00] emails that you have, the more you’re paying for. So there’s this catch 22 of like, do I pay for it or do I have keep it for social proof or should I call it down so it really gets delivered.

[00:24:08] What do you say about all that kind of stuff for your, your email list hygiene, I guess?

[00:24:13] Paul Gowder: Yeah. When I first started culling, it was a scary thing and it’s, you know, that number is important, right? And it is important. So one of the things you can do is you start, start doing this and cleaning your email list.

[00:24:24] Look back at like how many emails you sent in a month. So maybe you can use that in addition to how many subscribers you have. You could say, you know, I have 500 subscribers, but last month I was able to send 3000 emails. Okay, so you, there’s ways you can kind of massage those numbers. For me, I’m calling about every other month and I’m doing it based on If they, their engagement with the list.

[00:24:51] So I’m looking at their open rates and you know, I’ve got a, an automation inside of, I use Convert Kit. So there’s an automation there that determines if they’re [00:25:00] a cold subscriber and I think it’s that they have an open an email in 60 days and they’re put into this segment called Cold Subscribers. I do that and for me, I, I do it for a couple reasons.

[00:25:09] One, I want to get them off my list because if they’re not interested, I don’t wanna keep spamming them cuz that’s gonna hurt your deliverability and other things with Google and everybody else. But two, like you said, I don’t wanna pay for ’em and it can get expensive. You start running up these numbers you know, I’m, I’m in the thousands paying for this email list.

[00:25:27] It, it’s very expensive, so you want to call them out. And it took me a while, you know, it was scary at first to all of a sudden delete 20,000 emails off your list. But what I’ve looked at and what I, the mindset I kind of try to keep is that unsubscribe is actually a really good thing. Because you are, you are, you’re targeting down your audience.

[00:25:50] Again, you’re delivering your message to the people who really want it. And if they’re not there, if they’re not, if your content is not what they’re interested in, then yeah, we don’t, [00:26:00] I don’t need them on the list. I don’t want to keep just spamming them. I want to only send to the people who are really interested and what the more I call the higher my open rates go.

[00:26:11] Because again, I’m getting that list down to a tighter and tighter group of people who really want the information. So that, that’s one of the things you, you know, keep that mindset of calling is a good thing. You know, it’s, it’s can be scary, but getting them off your list is a good thing because you are delivering your message to your right people.

[00:26:31] Jeff Sieh: So Amy says, I recently did a rebrand and niche down my ideal client. I sent a breakup email and completely started over a huge, huge shout out for Paul for helping me with building it back up. And yes, unsubscribe. Bye. So,

[00:26:45] Conor Brown: love breakup email. I love the breakup email.

[00:26:48] Jeff Sieh: I, real question before we move on to the next section, this is kind of a real quick follow up, is that okay, you said you move them like 60 days unopened, they go to a cold email segment. Yes. Do you try to reengage with that before [00:27:00] you kick ’em off? Like, how many times do you try and like, what’s your kind of ninja tips for that?

[00:27:05] Paul Gowder: The way I do it is I send a, I do send a breakup email and say, Hey, you know, I, I, thanks for subscribing, thanks for being part of our community, but I have noticed you haven’t opened our email in a couple months and that’s okay.

[00:27:17] And as soon as I send that email, I go ahead and unsubscribe the whole list. But I give them a link and say, you know, if you are interested, if you wanna continue see receiving our emails, click here. And and Convert Kit, you can do what’s called Link Triggers. So if they click that link, then Convert Kit will reengage them and put them in a new segment called Reengaged.

[00:27:37] So then they’re taken outta that cold subscriber list. So that’s the way I do it, is I’ll unsubscribe ’em immediately and then send them a breakup email.

[00:27:45] Jeff Sieh: That’s great advice. And something that you’ll never send a breakup email to is our friends over at Ecamm see how that just a smooth, smooth segue they allow this show to happen.

[00:27:55] I really appreciate you guys to support them, supporting them, help support us. You can find out more about them at [00:28:00] socialmedianewslive.com/ecamm, what was it? I was like, I’m not just the president, I’m also a member. I love these guys before they even sponsored the show. They are incredible for live Streaming presentations podcasts, all sorts of things.

[00:28:13] They’re kind of your one stop shop for like content with video, so it’s amazing. So make sure you check them out at socialmedianewslive.com/ecamm thank you to them for sponsoring the show. But Connor, let’s talk about building this community with email. So let’s take the first question.

[00:28:29] You can take the first question and then I’ll just kind of follow up from there.

[00:28:33] Conor Brown: Yeah. I think we kind of talked a little bit about, about targeting and, and personalization and, and things like that. And when it comes to growing your community with email marketing, I think people get a little. . I don’t know if it’s hesitant, but not sure where to start, because unlike Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, we’re putting something out there for the [00:29:00] masses, right?

[00:29:00] For all to see, and we hope that they share that content out or that others come in through seo, through searching, through whatever it is with email marketing, in theory. Yeah, Paul, you might have a huge list, but it’s really just one email to one person. One person is receiving that email. A whole bunch of other people might be receiving that email.

[00:29:20] They don’t know that. So it’s much more direct. It’s much more one-to-one versus overall community aspects. But there are some ways to encourage people to share that content, right? So how do you take your subscribers to share your email content and then to continue to promote your brand to their networks as well?

[00:29:44] Paul Gowder: So a couple things that I do that I, I think has worked really well is. One a couple years ago, I, I did a complete rebranding of my email, and that’s when I really saw things accelerate is, and that was just how my email looks. I used to have, I always like [00:30:00] to joke, I kind of had the, the Sunday sales paper look to my emails.

[00:30:03] You know, it was really flashy, big layout lots of graphics, lots of buttons. And somebody was helping me out the email, you know, a few years ago and, and they, that’s what the, their response was is you look like you’re, you know, a brand marketing to somebody. . I had to stop and kind of think about that.

[00:30:21] And that’s not what you want to be, right. You want to be that one-on-one communication. So I change it all. I still use some, you know, buttons occasionally, or, or some photos, but it’s a simple one column email that’s mostly text. Now, the first part of my emails are always a personal message from me. I do use VAs to help write the, like, the body of the emails, but the top of it is always reserved.

[00:30:47] That’s a spot where I talk to people and I you know, like Connor said, this is one-on-one communication. So I write it from my point of view. I write it in first person, and I try to write to speaking to that one [00:31:00] person. You know, Lou man says all the time, even on live video, you need to be talking to the one person, not talking like you’re in, in a conference at a, on a big keynote.

[00:31:08] Right. It’s all about one-on-one relationships. So I treat my email the same way I’m writing that for one person to read it as far as getting people to share it and really engage with it. You know, that goes back to what you talked about earlier, Connor, in looking at your Google analytics. I, I want to deliver in my emails, like especially in my sequences, I want to deliver.

[00:31:29] The, the content I see people interacting with, I want to take my best stuff and share it with people. And it’s, when you do share your best stuff, it’s, you know, you already know that people like it cuz you’re looking at your analytics, you know what your best performing pages and content is. So you, when you deliver that to your audience in, in email, they’re gonna have the same response.

[00:31:50] If they, if they were reading it on Facebook or somewhere else, they want to talk about it, they want to share it, they’re gonna reply to you, they’re gonna, you know, post it, they’re gonna click on the links. So it’s really about making sure that you are delivering [00:32:00] the best value hand in those emails and talking directly to a person.

[00:32:04] Conor Brown: And I, I think with that too, when you provide the value, they’re excited when they get an email from you for the next time. Because when you’re delivering the goods, when you’re giving them exactly what they want, and you’re doing it in a nice and concise way. You don’t come at the mercy of an open rate at, at how catchy is your subject line, right?

[00:32:27] You still should focus on that to a certain extent, but when they’re looking for your content, that’s great. And one piggyback I wanted to have on that is, Paul, when you send these emails, powwows.com, who are they actually coming from?

[00:32:43] Paul Gowder: So the email address, actually I send it from an email address called newsletter powells.com.

[00:32:48] But I sign the emails, Paul G I always put my name in there so that they see that in, in the message that I am writing this email.

[00:32:57] Jeff Sieh: Hmm. That’s great. That’s a great piece of [00:33:00] advice. The other question that I wanted to ask is, you know, once again, we’re talking all about community. Like how, because it’s, it’s a weird thing.

[00:33:09] Email is, it’s like you said, it’s one-to-one. It’s almost like a podcast cuz you’re in somebody’s ear, you know, it’s like, how do you get community out of this one-to-one thing? So do you use like, like exclusive events or v i p perks or, you know, how, how do you, I mean you kind of mentioned it, you’re talk how you talk to people, but like, what do you do to create that sense of community?

[00:33:28] Do you funnel them into a group where that is where the community happens? Or how, how do you build community with email, I guess is I, I want you to dig down in some of the like, tips that you do.

[00:33:37] Paul Gowder: Yeah. So for me, the mindset of community. Not necessarily that they’re in a group and interacting with each other.

[00:33:44] For me, the community is, is that everybody in the email is that we have the sh same shared beliefs, we have the same shared interests, and that we are trying to do something for our, our common good, right? Or, you know, our common collective. That’s kinda how [00:34:00] I think of community. An offshoot of that can be that they join a Facebook group and they interact with each other.

[00:34:05] That’s part of community too. But really, I’m just looking for people to you know, have this shared experiences. And so if we are all excited, you know, for example, the, going back to that same one, what to expect is your first pow, we’re all excited about to go and explore this new thing, and we’re all kind of looking forward to seeing these things for the first time.

[00:34:28] We, you get a sense of being part of that group, even though there you, you may not see that the other people are out there, right? , but you. , you still, I’m creating that sense of, that there’s a group here and that you’re part of it through the content now. Yes, I do offer other things that they can then become a part of, whether it’s our Facebook groups or we, one of our big ways that we build community on the website is our livestreams.

[00:34:52] And so, we’ll, we’ll travel to powwows and we’ll actually, you know, stream the entire event live. And so we encourage our email subscribers, our, you know, followers on Facebook or [00:35:00] whatever to all come into that and interact with each other and kind of, you know, it’s like a watch party, right? , we’re all watching this event together, and so we’re talking about it and we’re sharing it.

[00:35:09] And so that is one of the things that people really look forward to is that, you know, we have these shared online experiences.

[00:35:16] Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. One. So real quick, and I wanna talk about tools and then I’ll let Conor, I know you have that question I want you to get to. But one of the things, and I mentioned Justin Moore and I, I sent it to you guys too because one of the cool things that he does inside of his emails is he has this, like the more you forward it to somebody, it’s like a referral code for his email.

[00:35:38] And once you do so many, you unlock things like, I sent it out because I got unlocked to. He adds an extra section to his emails for his people who have unlocked it, that give you brand deals, like from brands and who to contact. Like you only get that if you get five people to sign up for his, his email and then he has another one.

[00:35:55] Like it’s, that’s why I sent it to, it wasn’t because I was looking out for you. It’s because I [00:36:00] wanted something. Yes. So, and like the the 20, you get like a hundred dollars off his course and then like there’s another one where you get like a free one-on-one with him. And I thought that was genius. And I, I, you can find out if you sign up and I’ll drop the link below.

[00:36:14] Gosh, . So because there’s a service that he, he uses to do this, but what do you use, I mean, one, I think that’s genius, but what do you use to, in like, to encourage your people? Like do you use poll surveys? Like, you know, come in here, we’re gonna be, I’m gonna be in my Discord server doing this live thing.

[00:36:32] I mean, what are some, what are some cool ways you’ve seen to, to grow community with email?

[00:36:38] Paul Gowder: Like, like I said, our, our live events are really big, people love that. The giveaways and, and I know you put that on here, that’s another thing that, because we’re all doing it together, that people really do feel like they’re part of, of something because we’re all kind of competing and, and doing the task of the giveaway together.

[00:36:57] People love that and I hear about that. [00:37:00] But, you know, yeah. I do a weekly live show and I encourage people to come and, you know, you’ll start seeing, if you start doing this, you know, you start seeing the same people coming, coming back over and over again. So you start feeling, you know, That you’ve got a group of people and you can kind of right, know their names and, and talk to ’em there too.

[00:37:18] Jeff Sieh: So I, I, I, I mean like do you do like polls or stuff? I mean, I know you do products, like do you have people like, Hey, help me, it’s design this, you know, thing we’re going out, or, which one do you like better? Do you do any of those little You see ’em all the time in emails?

[00:37:29] Paul Gowder: Yeah. No, I don’t, I don’t do a whole lot of that.

[00:37:32] Mine is just more of of conversation starters. Okay. You know? Right. Asking questions and getting those responses, and then it’s continuing those conversations as they start appearing in my inbox that that’s what works best for me. You know, I, I’ve tried other things. It, my audience really isn’t into some of those kind of things.

[00:37:48] It’s, they’re more about this relationship. So I, I’m offering conversation starters and, and kind of what do you think? Questions. That’s great.

[00:37:55] Jeff Sieh: That’s great. Yeah. Okay. Conor go ahead and ask you your question? I’m sorry.

[00:37:58] Conor Brown: Morning Brew. All of their [00:38:00] newsletters do do a great job of that as well. Collecting the points and stuff like that.

[00:38:04] We talked Paul, about. how big your, your other communities are, or I guess it’s one consistent community, but Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, you know me, we’re both of the same mindset. We wave the email marketing flag because we know that we can actually own that info. We can right contact our community directly.

[00:38:25] Don’t have to play into an algorithm, those sorts of things. But I think we’re also very aware that social media, other marketing channels are still incredibly powerful and need to be in your toolbox. You need to create strategies around them. So when it comes to your email community, either building it or just really integrating it with your other social media and marketing channels, best practices for cross promotion what, what do you find works for you.

[00:38:56] Paul Gowder: Couple things that work really well for me. One is I [00:39:00] like using landing pages on social media. So whether it’s a link in bio or you know, however you’re gonna pro provide the link. But driving people to a page on your website that, again, going back to the, what I said about sequences with the landing pages, it’s gonna be a page that’s stripped away from all the regular navigation, the look, whatever it’s going to be a simple page with one message and all the only call to action on it is an email box.

[00:39:28] So, for example, I’ll use this if somebody asks me a question, whether it’s in an email, on a live Restream or on a social media post, and hey, I, I see you talking about powwows and I see this really cool video. , is there a powwow coming up in Ohio? And so I’ll write them back and say, yes, here’s where you can find out more about it.

[00:39:49] powwows.com/powwows near me. That takes you to a landing page. And all it says is, Hey, you wanna know about powwows in your state? Here’s the email signup box. And it’s very simple. So I’m able to push people to landing pages, [00:40:00] again, segmenting people based on the content they’re looking for. So landing pages work really well for me.

[00:40:06] The other one that I use a lot on social media I keep talking about is giveaways. , if you’re able to, you know, provide a, a prize that your audience is gonna really like, they, you’re, you got a better chance of getting them off that social media platform, which is the hardest thing, right? It’s getting them off that social media platform into your website or landing page or whatever it is.

[00:40:28] Giveaways is a really good way to do that. And, you know, to enter one of my giveaways, the first thing you have to do is gimme your email address.

[00:40:36] Jeff Sieh: Awesome. So let’s go ahead and just, let’s move on to the third section. Yeah. Because this is, this is probably why people stayed in because something new they probably haven’t tried before.

[00:40:46] But let’s talk about like, what are some effective content types for building your emails? Like as these sweepstakes quizzes, you know, user-generated contests, like what have you found that is the most successful for you? [00:41:00]

[00:41:01] Paul Gowder: Let me go back for a second. I did wanna remind mention one other tool when we’re talking about social media and getting people off of social media onto your platform. If you have a Facebook group well, if you don’t have a Facebook group, you need to create one and create a public Facebook group in your niche. Facebook loves groups right now and you’ve created public one. They’re going to, you know, they’re gonna put you in their algorithm sauce a little bit inside of.

[00:41:25] Group, you’re able to ask your people questions before they are able to join the group, ask ’em for their email, and then you can use if, if you get, you know, start getting a lot of them instead of just copying and pacing those into your email list. You can use, I use a tool called Group leads, and as we approve people, it automatically collects those emails and puts ’em in a spreadsheet and then drops ’em into our, our email subscriber list.

[00:41:49] So yeah, you, that’s a great way to do it too, is, you know, build a public group, attract people into your group and ask for the email. Again, you gotta ask for the email. Make sure you’re asking. Now [00:42:00] as far as giveaways, so I my, most of my giveaways are sweepstakes type giveaways. My favorite software is Viral Sweep.

[00:42:09] What’s that? Lets me do this kind of thing. But I’ve also used Raffle Press, Rafflecopter king Sumo. Those are some of the ones I’ve used. But yeah, mine are, are sweepstakes based and the way I structure ’em, Most of the time is you gimme your email address and that gets you entered in the contest.

[00:42:26] That’s all you have to do. But if you want to earn extra entries into it, then I give them a series of tasks they complete can complete. Then as part of that, when you enter into one of my contests, most of my contests will have an email sequence based on just that contest. So you enter the contest and then I’m gonna start sending you some emails about that contest.

[00:42:50] So right now, the contest we kicked off from March is called Countdown to Gathering. Gathering Nations is the biggest powwow of the year. It’s happening in April. So we’re doing a contest to, to [00:43:00] get excited and, and to kind of build, you know, the momentum toward that. And there you go, Lou. I just said Momentum

[00:43:07] But, so in, when you join that contest, I’m gonna send you a series of emails about gathering nations and it’s going to be, you know, Here’s what gathering nations is, here’s where it’s happening, here’s how you can watch our live Restream. I, I interviewed one of the participants, or one of the, the principals for the powwow yesterday, so that’s gonna be some content I put out in the email and, and other places.

[00:43:29] So yeah, I’m gonna build a sequence for it too. And so that’s, it’s a great way just, you know, keep this whole community feeling going. And once they get in your giveaway, I’m going to start delivering them more content based on that giveaway.

[00:43:42] Jeff Sieh: So in that sequence, do you go back and say, Hey, thanks for joining the, the email, I mean the, the, the giveaway, if you wanna earn more, do this, this, and this.

[00:43:50] Do you constantly remind them to like, like upsell the, the sweepstakes a little bit?

[00:43:55] Paul Gowder: Yes. Yes. And, and most of your sweepstakes programs are gonna have some of that built in too. And s [00:44:00] it’ll send reminder emails, but yeah, in my sequence I’m telling them, Hey, don’t forget, you can. And enter things daily. And one of the, one of the things that people love, my audience absolutely loves, and I don’t do this every time because it, it is a lot of work and more, a little more complicated for me, but I use bonus codes and that is viral Suite, for example, lets me have, one of the tasks that people complete is they can put in a, a numeric value.

[00:44:26] And so I generate a bunch of values, I put that into the software, and then I hide those bonus codes to, you know, on my live streams or on the website , I put ’em in emails. And so people love to go around and find these bonus codes and earn extra ways to enter. And that, I mean, it can, I’ve had contests where it’s literally like a feeding frenzy of people collecting these, these things.

[00:44:48] And if I mess up and don’t send one, one day, right. You know, I, I, all of a sudden I have 30 people writing me going, where’s my bonus code? So that’s a really cool way to get people excited and to get them to dig into [00:45:00] content or, or whatever. Listen more. That’s, that’s, that’s pretty fun. And I think that’s good.

[00:45:05] Conor Brown: It comes to, you can make it as simple or as complex as you want. Yes. Right. But I think the simplicity needs to be an easy way for them to sign up for it. They don’t, they can jump through as many hoops as they want to, but that first thing, email has to be the first thing. Get in that email address. Make it as simple as possible for them.

[00:45:28] And those services are, are always great to use. But then when it comes to getting people excited about the contest, it usually comes down to what you’re giving away, what that offer is, what that special contest thing is. , I’ve run ones before where I’ve said, Hey, sign up and I’ll send you a free headshot of me signed

[00:45:52] And no one, no one signed, signed up.

[00:45:54] Jeff Sieh: Your mom didn’t even get that one did she?

[00:45:56] Conor Brown: That’s, yeah. That’s like so shortsighted them. That’s gonna be worth [00:46:00] a lot of money someday, . So clearly that wasn’t a good prize to my community. But for you, Paul, what is the right prize to pick? How do you know what to pick?

[00:46:10] And then also what’s the compelling offer to get them to sign up for those giveaways?

[00:46:15] Paul Gowder: Right. So it, it took me a, it did take me a while. I, the same kind of thing. I, I offered prizes that one people didn’t want, so nobody signed up. Or two, I offered something that was so general, like, you know, an Amazon gift card.

[00:46:26] Yeah. And all of a sudden you’ve got people outside your audience joining the giveaway and they’re not really interested in your content. Yeah. They’re just taking your money. So I, I do try to be very targeted in my prize selection. Most of the time and hold on actually happened right here. So this was, sorry, off camera there for a second.

[00:46:48] So this was the, the prize we gave away in February. And I’m waiting for the person to respond and give me their email address. But we use blankets. Blankets is something that’s really popular in our, in our [00:47:00] community. This one is from Pendleton. You can see here, these are gorgeous wool blankets. The giveaway we just started for our countdown to gathering, we’re working with a partner who produces blankets and so they’ve given us three blankets to use in the giveaway.

[00:47:16] So that’s what we, we like to use. I’ve also done passes to like tickets to a powwow. So that’s again, something that’s in my niche and something that people won’t, you know, they’re coming for that. And I’ve, I’ve seen in the Disney world, I’ve seen some really great contests where people are offering things that are maybe exclusive like a, an annual passholder thing or a, a popcorn bucket that everybody wanted but couldn’t give.

[00:47:41] Right, right. You know, think about what your audience will respond to and what’s that thing they, they cove, you know, what’s that thing they want? And offer that as your prize.

[00:47:48] Conor Brown: And it’s also a great way when they do win and they display that great prize or, or whatever it is, yeah. They’re always gonna link it back to you and they’re always gonna remember, well, that’s from Paul G from [00:48:00] powwows.com.

[00:48:01] Paul Gowder: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really cool that when I, when I send these blankets out and I’ll get an email from somebody, you know, Hey, here it is. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s on the, in our, you know, on our couch and we, you know, wrap up under it every night when we watch TV or something, you know, you get those kind of emails and it’s really cool.

[00:48:15] I’ve had people like put them up on the wall as decoration, cuz these blankets are really, really awesome. You know, you get all kinds of emails, but it’s really, really cool when you get to see that the people love ’em and they’re sending you those emails in debt. That’s when you know you’ve got the right.

[00:48:29] Jeff Sieh: Awesome. So, speaking of the right prize, Jennifer says, wait, I miss Connor’s signed headshot giveaway . So you at least have somebody that will, will take that off your hands. I know you printed up like 2000 of ’em yeah. Really quickly, cuz I, so when I started I, a podcast is back in the day I did one of those things.

[00:48:51] I use Gleam, it’s like Rafflecopter, it’s like that. Where do they signed up. And I use, used it to launch a a podcast and I had it you know, they would win the, the free [00:49:00] prize would be like a, not a free prize, but the prize would be like an iPad mini or something like that. And it worked really well.

[00:49:05] I got a lot of subscribers. I got a lot of you know, comments as, that was one of the added things like, go, leave me a, a rating and review, which I think now is illegal by Apple to do this, but I did it back then. What are some pitfalls or common mistakes that you’ve seen or that you have done actually when you run a contest?

[00:49:23] Because you got, you’re gonna have those people in there who are just trying to get free stuff. Yes. Especially like you were saying, like the Amazon card or the, the rules. Now are those like, and like there’s even stuff like across state lines and what you can give away and how you report it. Do these software programs take care of that, or what are some things that you found?

[00:49:41] To help with this because this can, it can be a nightmare and can, like the size of your group could really go crazy really, really fast.

[00:49:49] Paul Gowder: So one of the things I like about viral Sweep is they do have a template for your rules. You put in your basic information and, and kind of what your thing is, and it generates this long, huge, rule [00:50:00] set. That, that helps a lot. Set, set a baseline of, of what people can expect. But I do, I, I have people all the time that read those rules and then they write me and say, well, you said in your rules this, you know, so one of the things is the rules say, you know, we’re gonna display the winners and announce the winners publicly.

[00:50:20] So, you know, if, if I forget or it takes a couple me days for me to post, who won? I do, they, they let me know. When they wanna know, right. You know, they want to know where, where their things were. So some of the things I do, and I’ve made that same mistake of, of offering like an iPad mini or something like that, and all of a sudden you’ve got these thousands of, of subscribers.

[00:50:41] You gotta be careful because there’s also, there are websites out there where the community and these websites are people who like to go and enter giveaways. Yeah. And I’ll see in my Google analytics sometimes that all of a sudden these that I’m getting all these referrals from these giveaway websites.

[00:50:57] So one, I make [00:51:00] sure that the prize I’m offering is something that my community is gonna like. Now these, these blankets are, you know, they do have some value. Most of these blankets are like 200, $300 items. So yeah, somebody out my outside of my community might want that. But that’s the first thing is kind of hoping to limit them.

[00:51:17] Then when, when I start offering these other ways to enter you know, those are things that I’m going to take you and, and let you explore more of the content on powwows.com, whether it’s clicking links or listening to the podcast, right? Those things. I feel like that I’m also putting up barriers for if anybody’s coming here just to win the prize and they’re not really part of my community, they’re probably not gonna dig as deep into all that.

[00:51:44] Now, some people will, right? Some people are just gonna go through and do everything. But I feel like I’m rewarding my loyal community because they’re the ones who are going to going to do that. So that, that’s one of the ways I like to do it. One of the things I’ve started doing recently, [00:52:00] like my bonus codes, is a, again, I don’t wanna get too technical into the nitty gritty, but here’s a, here’s a really cool way that I’ve helped reward my loyal folks, is I actually used Convert Box, which lets you do opt-ins and and pop-ups and things on your website. And I have, I have a couple programmed that will only display if you have visited X number of pages on the website. And I actually have one right now that you won’t see the bonus code unless you visited more than 500 pages on our website. Wow. So, wow. And, and I’ve got people that are, you know, I’m, I’m looking at the stats and I’ve got people that are getting that re that bonus code.

[00:52:36] And so that’s really cool. You know, that’s, that’s an easy way that you’re gonna be able to I’m not, I don’t tell anybody that it’s out there. Right. It’s just happening organically because there are people that just come to the website every day and read, and read and read. So I’m rewarding those folks in, in that way.

[00:52:50] Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. That is a genius.

[00:52:52] Conor Brown: That is so smart. And, and again, the power of your community of actually having people out there. Who are already reading all [00:53:00] these things. You’re not like, they’re there, they’re set. And I just had a friend who, who ran a contest and was kind of running the same thing.

[00:53:06] Someone from a, a giveaway group found out. And now what do they have to do with all those emails? They have to kind of go line by line and figure out if it, if it’s right or if it’s wrong for their community. Right. Which kind leads me to, to this question of you give the getaways giveaway all set up, they give you the email, it’s all done.

[00:53:27] You might have to go in and see if they’re, they’re the right person or the wrong person or whatever. But what’s the next step? How do you stay engaged with those people? Do they just go right into a welcome sequence? I know there’s probably plenty of people entering the contest that you’ve already connected with, so they know all about you.

[00:53:46] They’re in there in your community already, but how do you segment them out once the giveaway is done, and, and what are those next steps to stay engaged with them?

[00:53:58] Paul Gowder: Yeah, that’s a good que good point and good question. [00:54:00] So first, make sure that you do have that pruning mechanism, however you’re gonna do it.

[00:54:06] Have that set up ahead of time so that when your giveaways are over, that you are already have a process to start eliminating those people off the list. So if somebody does enter your giveaway and they’re not really interested in your content, you’re gonna know for me, 60 days from now, they’re not gonna have opened any other emails and they’re just gonna be gone for my giveaways.

[00:54:27] The process or what happens to a person is they’re gonna be put into the, the sequence for that giveaway and they’ll be taken through that process. When they’re done with that, I’m gonna put them in a couple other sequences I have, I have a general, here’s what powwows.com is about, sequence. . So they’re gonna be put into that after the contest and that’s gonna take ’em through.

[00:54:47] Just, you know who we are, here’s all the functions on the website, here’s the features. You might wanna go look at, those kind of things. Here’s our podcast, here’s our live streams, you know, all that kind of stuff. . They’ll also be put in our throwback Thursday [00:55:00] sequence. And then they’ll, then they’ll be put in our general broadcast.

[00:55:03] So I, I feel like, you know, as they’re kind of moved into all this and we’re onboarding them, if they’re not our people, I’m gonna know pretty quickly. Yeah.

[00:55:13] Jeff Sieh: So the, I I told Conor this is the, I he had the last question, but I lied cause I have one for you, because I wanna go back to couple things that I thought you, you know, won the contest, things as genius.

[00:55:24] Also the, what you said, if have a Facebook group and then move, get their email, and there’s tools that can do that. The question I had when you said that was one, I just, it, I’m so don’t want to take care of a free Facebook group, but do you move them? Is that just like, Hey, here’s some free content, but I’m really gonna drive you to my Patreon?

[00:55:44] Or like, how do you, what, what is your. Like for that free group? Is that the top of the funnel or what? Or you know, because then they, you can get their email and some people don’t like that. Like he scraped my email from this. I wanna be in this Facebook group. I don’t want to have an email sent to me. [00:56:00] So how do you deal with all of that?

[00:56:03] Paul Gowder: Okay, so the way I look at my public Facebook group is it is an extension of the community. It’s another group of people who are interested in my topic. I ask them when they join, Hey, if you do want to be part of our email list and find out when powwows are coming and get the news and, and happenings from pows.com, gimme your email address.

[00:56:24] Not everybody does it. I know some people that make that a requirement of their Facebook group and they won’t let you join unless you do. That’s not my approach, cuz again, my mindset of. . Our Facebook group is just, this is just an open forum community where people in, in our world can go and interact.

[00:56:40] So for me, that Facebook group isn’t really top of the funnel or anything like that. The only thing I’m extracting from that is their email address. Other than that, we, we post in the Facebook group some of our content. But it, it is, it’s. in its own right. It’s not part of our [00:57:00] funnel. It’s not part of anything else.

[00:57:01] It’s just another extension of ways that people can inter interact with us. So, I, I don’t, I don’t view my Facebook group, and, and maybe I should, I don’t know. But for me, it’s just, these are people that want to, to talk to each other and want to share things about powwows. So I just let them be. And you know, again, you know, when we have a powwow coming up or gathering a nation, something like that, I’m gonna post in there and let them know about those things and hopefully people will come.

[00:57:26] But I’m not gonna be bombarding them with links or things like that. It’s, I’m just, it’s freeform and I kind of, it got to the point, it’s so big now that I, besides moderating, I don’t have to be in there every day creating the content. They’re taking care of that for me. And so I just let them be. And if they want to come over and be a part of the bigger powwows.com thing on our website, they can.

[00:57:47] Jeff Sieh: So it’s more like a big broadcast channel that you created? Yes. That you used to, to do things. Okay. I just wanted to see how that was working, cuz that was fascinating to me. So anyway, I hope you guys got as much out of this [00:58:00] as I did. I can, you know, nerd out about this stuff for a long time. There were so many gems in here.

[00:58:05] This is one that you’re gonna wanna watch. You’re gonna gonna want to go to the show notes. If you’re listening to the podcast, you’re gonna go to, wanna go to the website, see the transcript, because Paul gave a lot of stuff in there and Conor threw in a little bit of good stuff in there as well. So I don’t wanna throw Connor under the bus as well.

[00:58:19] So Paul, I want to give you this last part of the show to tell people where they can find out you, your services, what you offer, all those things. So take it away.

[00:58:27] Paul Gowder: Thanks so much. Yeah, if you wanna continue the conversation first I wanna say if you, if you’re interested in native powwows and we’d love to have you, powwows are open to the public, please come over and check us out powwows.com if you wanna continue the conversation and talk about emails or building community all that, I’d love to have you come over to p paul gutter.com.

[00:58:44] That’s where I’ll have all that information. I do have a couple of services and one is, I do have a course on giveaways and I, I don’t know, Jeff, did you, I, I gave, sent you a coupon code. I don’t know if you have that ready, but we’ll, I’ll drop it in the notes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we do, we are [00:59:00] offering a sale for that.

[00:59:00] If you watch today check out the show notes for that. So we do have a, a course that will take you in detail of all the stuff I talked about. Cause I know it’s, it. It can get complicated and deep. And I went really fast, so I have a course on that. But also have a couple of services. If you’re looking to, if you’re, look, if you’re new and looking to start your email and need some help, I have a, a service, we’ll, we’ll kind of, jumpstart your email and build these sequences together, work through all that, build your opt-ins, you know, and, and all of that together.

[00:59:29] Or if you’ve been doing this a while and your list feels stagnant or you don’t know what to send, and I’ve got a kind of a jumpstart coaching program and we’ll, we’ll redo your email list, we’ll audit it together and revamp it and try to, try to level it up a little bit.

[00:59:43] Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. Thanks Paul for all your information.

[00:59:45] And I will put that discount code in there and I think we may wanna, we’ll talk later about doing like another little special thing for that to kind of get that out there. A little more. Cool. Conor Brown, where can people find out more about the amazing Coner Brown?

[00:59:58] Conor Brown: You can find out [01:00:00] more@wdwopinion.com and you can follow WDW opinion across social media’s.

[01:00:05] Just that handle @WDW opinion.

[01:00:08] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, and Connor’s big on the ticky talks too. So is what’s your ticky talk handle?

[01:00:12] Conor Brown: It’s also at wWDW opinion. I’m not as big as Paul on TikTok, but Paul is just such a great dancer. I mean, the people slot. That’s right. It’s crazy.

[01:00:21] Jeff Sieh: So I wanna give a shout out to everybody who’s watched today.

[01:00:24] Tim says, you all are awesome. Nicely done, my friends. Thanks Tim for watching. To the n and our friend Jim Alt, watching over on YouTube says, thanks for the great Friday. Thank you, Jim, for watching the show today. And with that we’ll see you guys next time. Big shout out to our friends over at Ecamm.

[01:00:41] You can find out more about them, socialmedianewslive.com/ecamm for slash Ecamm. And with that, have a great Friday. We’ll see you guys next week. Bye [01:01:00] everybody.