Episode 20

The Secret Sauce for Email Marketing with Jena Bagley

Welcome Jena Bagley to Saturday Soundbites! Jena is an email marketing dynamo and she is going to offer insights into the magic of email marketing and how it can help you grow your visibility and increase your bottom line. Jena teaches entrepreneurs and creators how to quickly launch their email marketing strategy without the overwhelm.

Through email marketing you can connect with your audience and drive them back to your podcast, blog, website or social platforms over and over again, keeping you top of mind. Trust me, Jena has some great tips and strategies to share on this episode of Saturday Soundbites.

Transcript

Veronica: [00:00:00] Hello? Hello, this is Veronica. So for an, I am so excited that we're here today with another episode of Saturday soundbites. Thanks everyone for joining us. Uh, we have got a great show for you. If you're listening on Facebook, make sure that you let us know where you're watching from. Give us some comments down at the bottom, and if you're catching us on the replay hashtag replay, so we can come back and chat with you.

[00:00:24] And if you're listening on our podcast, make sure you hit the subscribe button because we want to make sure you don't miss. Any great content that we've got for you. So this week on Saturday sound bites, we are going to talk all things, visibility, strategy, branding, advertising, marketing, everything you need to grow your business and a special conversation today about email marketing and how it can help you in generating your business.

[00:00:46] Cause it's all about visibility and making sure that you are getting to your target audience and doing what you need to grow your business. So with that, we're going to go ahead and get started and invite our amazing. Guests. We have Jenna here. Jenna Bagley. Here we are. 

[00:01:01] Jena Bagley: [00:01:01] Hi. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[00:01:05] Happy Saturday. Yes. 

[00:01:06] Veronica: [00:01:06] Happy Saturday. We love Saturdays because we get to chat about our favorites concepts around visibility strategy and growing your business. So Jenna, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got to where you're being an email marketing success coach. Yes. 

[00:01:22] Jena Bagley: [00:01:22] Yes. Well, my name's Jenna Bagley.

[00:01:24] I am an email marketing success coach, as you mentioned, but I'm also the advocate manager for a Webber. And we're one of the leading platforms that you would send your email marketing messages from. And I've been with the company almost two years and. It's it's been amazing. First of all, I love my job, but, um, it's, it's been a long and windy road to get where I am today.

[00:01:51] Uh, as I'm sure everyone's journeys have been. Um, I graduated from Penn state university w a ways back, uh, with a BA in journalism and a minor in theater arts. Love it. Yeah. And I decided. When I graduated, I didn't want to be in journalism. There's just, you know, there's just so much bad news, I guess. And I'm a generally happy person, person.

[00:02:16] And I was like, Oh, maybe I want to do something else. So I just decided to be a bartender. And, um, I started out as a bartender and, uh, I've, I've done a lot of cool things. Um, I was a bank teller. I worked in insurance. But then I kind of found my, my love of sales and marketing. And I was a director of sales for a national wedding services company.

[00:02:40] And that was super fun. Um, I worked with, you know, bridle and got to do a ton of exhibitions and expos and conferences where I worked the boosts and kind of was on the front lines. Um, I did a lot of public speaking. And, um, that was amazing, but I decided let's try something new. So I moved into real estate and I was a sales and marketing rep for a national builder.

[00:03:07] And so I was like that girl that when you walked into a model home, Try to figure out what was the motivation of bringing you there today? Like, what's the why behind removing, like what in your life are you looking to improve? And so you would think it's just, you know, a lot of like, well, here's the house, but it's a lot about layers and relationships and, and really building trust.

[00:03:33] And I've also been in direct sales and, um, affiliate marketing. I've done. Um, I've done a ton of, of speaking engagements. And then I found myself at a Weber and you might think like, well, all of these things are so different, but they're really not because. All of those things, it's very emotional, right?

[00:03:55] Like planning your wedding, buying or building a house, um, finding the right place to work. I did a lot of recruiting as well. And. A lot of that is just relationship building and building trust. And the thing about email marketing is it's exactly that it's building relationships. You're just doing it through the inbox.

[00:04:18] It's building trust, but you're just doing it at scale. So you can send one message to your entire list, but really it's just building that. That relationship off of wherever they found you off of social, off of, you know, maybe an ad off of, you know, somewhere online and you're taking it to a platform that you really control.

[00:04:42] And so that's how I got to be an email marketing success coach. I've taken all of the things that I've learned over my 15 plus years. And I teach entrepreneurs, coaches, creators, um, you know how to take relationships. From online to offline, through email. I love it. 

[00:05:01] Veronica: [00:05:01] I love it. And when you talk about trust, I think that's ultimately the key.

[00:05:05] You know, we have Amy Lee watching, she just sent us a little message here and we were just having a conversation about emails. And the question was posed. Do you read my emails? And we were discussing in a small group chat. What makes a good email? Who, who opens it, why you open it and, um, if you find value in it.

[00:05:27] So talk to us a little bit about the magic of email marketing, because for some folks they'll say, Oh, it's dead. Everything's over on Instagram or things on Tik TOK or clubhouse. No one checks their email. Tell us why you don't think that's necessarily true. 

[00:05:41] Jena Bagley: [00:05:41] Yeah. Well, I, I get this question all the time and people are like, Oh, email is dead, but here's the question I always ask back.

[00:05:49] How many times today, have you checked your email? Right. It's probably, I mean, at this time of day, I've checked my email, like five times already guilty, guilty. And so if email were dead, why would we spend so much time in our inbox? And it's because. All of the things that I know are important or things that I like that are interesting to me or in my inbox, because here's the thing I've opted into that information.

[00:06:19] I've raised my hand. I say, yes, I want you in my inbox. I'm giving you permission. I gave up my, my email address, which is so sacred to me. Right. We just don't give that to anybody. And when someone opts into your content. Well, they want to hear from you. Right. And, and I see a lot of people collect emails and then never do anything with it.

[00:06:40] And it's like, people are waiting and excited to get your first email. And, you know, a lot of times, like when I sign up for email lists and I don't get anything, I'm disappointed. Um, but here's the thing too, is that not only are we constantly in our inboxes? Email gives us a lot more control because it's a platform that we own.

[00:07:03] We own our list. We don't own social media. Um, we don't have control over that. Right. We are at the mercy of. Facebook or Instagram or check tack. They're deciding who they're showing your content to. And with email, there's no algorithm, the only variable, right? Like you get to decide like I'm going to send this message.

[00:07:24] I'm going to send it at this time. This is how frequently I'm going to send it. The only variable is, is your subscribers are going to open it or not. That's the only thing they're, they're not, you know, they're they see it in your inbox, uh, in their inbox, I should say. And they're going to decide, do I open that or do I not?

[00:07:41] But at least they saw it. Right, right. Whereas with social media, um, we don't get to decide what content we get to see for the most part. Right. So, so an average open rate of email is about 22% and that's across all industries. Whereas seeing a social post is maybe like two or 3% of your followers. And so, you know, just that alone tells me that email marketing is not dead.

[00:08:09] Because you have such better reach and such better visibility. And here's the trick. If you have, you know, social media should be part of your strategy. Absolutely sure. But the ultimate goal of social media is awareness. Like they know about you, they know you exist, they may know what you do. Um, it's good for engagement, right?

[00:08:30] We all see like the engagement posts and open-ended questions, but ultimately our goal should be to take people from social media. And, uh, continue the conversation in a, in a more intimate way. Social media is very public where email marketing can be a lot more intimate. And even though you're doing it at scale and you're sending the same message to multiple people, um, it still feels like that one-on-one conversation.

[00:08:58] And so, um, in my opinion, you need to, um, harmoniously have social media and email working for you. And guess what you can take. Your email subscribers and drive them back to your social media and then take your social media fans and followers, take them to your email list. So it all works together. 

[00:09:18] Veronica: [00:09:18] I love it.

[00:09:18] I mean, and that's the secret sauce right there. And I went ahead and put it down for everyone who, who needs to read it. If you are a visual learner, social media should be about awareness. I love that. No one has said that to me, so succinctly. Um, and I, I think that that's really, really key to, um, What it is, we're learning.

[00:09:37] So tell us a little bit about, you mentioned people have an email list and they're not doing anything with it. So some of us might be guilty of that. I'm going, I'm just saying, so if you're up to doing a little coaching, um, what, so I have an email list for another different, uh, a different project. And it's only got about, I dunno, a hundred, a hundred emails on it.

[00:10:00] Number one. I don't have the time or the bandwidth to go out and create lead magnets and do something like that. What is the, the tool that you recommend for people who are looking to buy email lists or who, or, I mean, what's the, is that good? Is that bad? How do people grow it? If that's, if time's a factor.

[00:10:20] Jena Bagley: [00:10:20] Yeah. So it's definitely a no-no to buy email lists. We do not want to do that because here's the thing. If you're doing email marketing the right way, We talked a lot about relationship building. We talked a lot about trust. Um, if you're emailing people that didn't opt in, well, there's no trust. There's never going to be trust God.

[00:10:40] And yeah. And actually it's definitely a it's it's. It's like up there with like the worst things you can do for email marketing, because it's going to really affect your deliverability because people are gonna say like, who is this? I didn't sign up for this. They're going to Mark you as spam. They're going to unsubscribe.

[00:10:58] And if all of like the yahoos and the Gmails and the Alex see like this mass, like spam. Or unsubscribed, they're going to say like, Oh, we're not going to push these messages in inboxes because it's spam. Um, so that's definitely a no-no you want to make sure that you are getting permission from all of your subscribers.

[00:11:17] They're opting in to your, um, to your, uh, email list and that they have a way to unsubscribe. Um, and that there's, you know, I'm not going to get into like the regulations and all the laws, but. You want to make sure that we're sending messages to people that want to hear from us because that's going to help keep an engaged list.

[00:11:39] We want people to open. We want people to click. We want people to reply to our messages. That's really the secret sauce is getting them to reply. That's going to help with your deliverability so much because Gmail's all of them. They're going to say, Oh, Their content is really important. People want this, people like this, we're going to send more to the inbox because you know, it's valuable to the subscribers.

[00:12:06] And one thing you said, you know, I just want to point out, um, you said like, Oh, my list is only like a hundred and some people. People get so caught up in the numbers. Right. And like, for sure, think about it, like on social, like it's just vanity metrics. You know, we hear that all the time. I would rather have a very small, but highly engaged list than a humongous list where no one is engaging with my content.

[00:12:33] It's the same thing with Facebook. Right. We don't want a group, a humongous group, but nobody's seeing anything nobody's commenting or liking or sharing. It's the same thing with your email list. So anytime someone says like, Oh, my list is only 50, but I'm like, well, what's your open rate? And they're like, Oh, it's like 45%.

[00:12:55] I'm like, that is amazing. Like, you want to make sure that the people who are are on your list are engaging. And so that's really the key, but. You know, to get back to your initial question, like, how do I build my list? There's a lot of ways. And one that's often overlooked is using the third-party tools that you're already using in your business to help grow your list.

[00:13:18] So an example would be like WordPress, if you have a WordPress site or a blog, you can add. Uh, people to your list through a plugin. Um, if you're an Etsy shop owner, you can connect your shop to your email list. And when someone purchases they can be added to your email, same thing with Shopify, same thing with, um, PayPal.

[00:13:40] Maybe you take PayPal. As a form of payment, you can integrate that with your email list and add your purchasers to your list. And there's hundreds of third party tools that you can connect your email list, um, where they speak to each other and add to it as well. That's bias. Also use social media as a way to build your list.

[00:14:02] So you could add your sign up form to your Facebook page. Uh, you can do that through a Webers and a Facebook integration. You can also maybe hold a contest. So maybe it's on social media and you have a, you know, a way for them to opt in like a landing page that you can share on all of your social, but to enter the contest, they have to give you their email address.

[00:14:26] Or, um, you're going to announce it on your email list. So people are going to want to be there to see if they won. You can also, um, Um, have like a really great lead magnet. And I hear that a lot too. Like I don't have time to create lead magnets. You probably have so much amazing content already that you can use as a lead magnet.

[00:14:48] So think about the tools and the resources that your clients already have in love that you could attract new clients with. And it doesn't have to be like, Thousand word blog posts. It could be something very simple. It could even be exclusive access or early access. So maybe you give your email lists like early bird access to buy.

[00:15:09] Maybe you have a limited amount of seats in your course. Let your email lists get first dibs and make them feel super sad. Great 

[00:15:17] Veronica: [00:15:17] idea. I hadn't even thought about that. That's fantastic. I hear like, Oh, go ahead. That was you say just my mind is like, I wish I was writing all this down, but I'll go back and listen to the podcast and take 

[00:15:27] Jena Bagley: [00:15:27] notes.

[00:15:28] Well, like here's a real life story. So, um, recently I found on Facebook, right? So awareness. I found out about them through Facebook. Um, this tulip farm that's near me. It's like an hour and 20 minutes from my house. And. They were saying, like, in a couple of weeks, we're going to have millions of tulips in bloom and you can come buy tickets to our farm and like pick tulips.

[00:15:51] And there's a hay and food trucks. And like, there are really selling it. And I was like, You know, I've been stuck in inside all, all winter and I'm like, I love tulips. I want to go pick tulips. And so they're really pushing it on social media. And, um, I followed them on Instagram and all the things, and then they were like, well, join the email list.

[00:16:11] If you want to know the opening date, we don't know when we're opening yet, but be the first to know when the farm opens. So I'm like, well, of course I want to know when, when the farm is opening so I can buy tickets. And they're put there, you know, they finally announced their opening date and they, they were like, we're going to sell tickets starting on Wednesday at 9:00 AM, like set your timers, put it on your calendar.

[00:16:35] Like we will sell out, especially for weekends. And of course I want to go on a weekend with my family. So, so I have it on my calendar. I'm like so excited. I'm like 9:00 AM. I'm going to buy those tickets. Well, guess what? The night before I get an email, cause I'm on their email list and they say, As you know, tickets are going to go on sale tomorrow at 9:00 AM, but because you're an email subscriber, we're going to open up the cart just for you at 8:00 AM to make sure that you get the time, like the day and the time slot that you want.

[00:17:11] And there's no, walk-ins, you have to have a ticket and. I was like the happiest person that I like ever, because I was like, I'm going to get the day in time. I want like, I'm going to get my first choice. And they gave like a little code to like, get access to the car an hour before everybody else. And when, you know, I changed my alarms 8:00 AM for the next day.

[00:17:33] And I. Eight. Oh one, I ordered those tickets. So that just goes to show you, you can start off with social media and you're funneling them in getting them to subscribe to your list. And then there was that really special, like VIP moment. I'm never unsubscribing for their list. Cause guess what? In the fall they do sunflowers and guess who's going to be there at, you know, eight o'clock on the dot when tickets open up me.

[00:17:55] Um, and so that's a way that you can get people. Really pumped and really excited and that they're, they're setting an alarm and get special access and all that was their lead magnet. They didn't have to create anything. Yeah. Right. That's just 

[00:18:08] Veronica: [00:18:08] brilliant. I mean, brilliant. And I guess sometimes we see this and we participate in this and we just don't realize that it's a strategy.

[00:18:17] I mean, we're just like, Oh, this is. I, you know, I'm just a part of this cool club, but as you break down the steps, it is clearly a marketing strategy, um, designed to funnel business. And I just think that that's fantastic. I think it's exciting to, 

[00:18:31] Jena Bagley: [00:18:31] to learn about. Yeah, definitely. 

[00:18:33] Veronica: [00:18:33] Let me ask you real quick.

[00:18:35] This one question, how would a Facebook pixel play into this? So if you don't know anything about email marketing, you're barely learning about analytics and combining your email lists with, with Facebook and some of your other social media platforms. Is there a way to connect the two or have you worked with a client trying to do that?

[00:18:55] Jena Bagley: [00:18:55] Yeah, I I'll tell you. That's definitely not my, my zone, but, um, you can, I do know that. So at least, or a Weber, um, you can, we have landing pages that you can build. So a landing page is great for one call to action. So if you have. Um, maybe like you're having people sign up on your email list. That would be the one thing that they can do on that page.

[00:19:17] There's no navigation or anything. Maybe it's signing up for an event. Maybe it's, you know, direct them to social media, but there's only one call to action. You can put your Facebook pixel or even your Google analytics ID onto the landing page and see like who's coming. Um, and then signing up to your list that way.

[00:19:35] So, um, you know, that, that would be, you know, pretty much the extent of my knowledge on that, but 

[00:19:42] Veronica: [00:19:42] yeah, it definitely makes sense because, you know, we talk about, um, understanding where your traffic is going and where it's coming from. So I think just having that knowledge would be really helpful as you're designing your strategy and, um, you know, how to piece it all together.

[00:19:57] Uh, because some, some entrepreneurs aren't at a spot where they're hiring someone to do all this. For them, they're learning it as they go. And so it's always a learning opportunity to figure it out. So tell us a little bit more about what you're up to. Um, I know we connect on clubhouse and everything you had to say was just like, I, you know, I knew I had to have you on Saturday soundbites cause I was learning and every time I see you in a room, I try to pop in.

[00:20:23] Um, because I know you guys are talking about great things. So tell us some other stuff you're up to. 

[00:20:27] Jena Bagley: [00:20:27] Yeah. So, um, as I mentioned, um, I work for a Weber and I am their advocate manager. And so I run, um, primarily my focus is I run our referral program. So I partner with coaches and entrepreneurs and creators.

[00:20:44] Who want to work with an email service provider, like a Weber. They want to recommend it to their audience. And, um, we, uh, we pay them basically, right. They earn commissions. So it's like an affiliate program. And, um, I work with all of the amazing, um, we call them advocates that. Are, uh, have been with us for years and years, but then I also work with, uh, new partners as well.

[00:21:10] And I also run our, a Weber certified experts program, which is a directory of experts that we recommend to our customers for done for you services. So I love my job because I get to talk to so many amazing, smart savvy people. Who, you know, help entrepreneurs and small businesses, which is our core audience.

[00:21:34] And, um, I helped them get certified and up on our, uh, landing page and I get to connect them to our customers. And it's amazing cause it's a, win-win our customers need done for you services. They need clients. So it's a great connection. So I run that program as well as our advocate program and, um, You mentioned clubhouse.

[00:21:55] I'm also the founder of the email marketing success club, and we do several rooms on clubhouse throughout the week about email marketing for newbies. I do a room for email marketing for direct sellers. I also do a room called how to drive traffic to your content. And so definitely check that out. Um, all of that information is@jennabagley.club.

[00:22:19] Um, all the ways that we can collaborate and work together. I'm all about win-wins and partnering with people. And, um, I do a ton of podcasts and webinars, so I can come to your community, right. Your community and, uh, your membership and help teach them about email marketing. How to get started and we put together a three-step plan to launch their strategy, to grow their business.

[00:22:45] I'm doing wow. 

[00:22:46] Veronica: [00:22:46] I don't know how you have time in the day to do anything else, but I know you do amazing work and I definitely need to circle back with you and learn more about the affiliate program because, um, I know that there are a lot of people. New entrepreneurs, especially who are ready to go.

[00:23:02] They're established, they've used the pandemic to build content, to really dig deep into what it is they want to do. And now they just need to go out there and market it. And so for a lot of people, that's just where they're at. I know a lot of our listeners in some of the comments that we get are around that.

[00:23:16] So Jeanette, thank you. So much I have loved having you. I literally am going to go back, listen to this over again and take notes. I didn't want to be rude and just be off camera writing, lots of notes, but know that I will, because I learned so much 

[00:23:30] Jena Bagley: [00:23:30] today. It's been fantastic. Yeah. I, I, it's been really fun.

[00:23:33] Thanks for having me. And, uh, definitely feel free. If anyone that's listening, please connect with me. I love making connections. I love building relationships and I love teaching people how they can get more visibility, how they can reach. More people, but more importantly, how they can build stronger connections through email.

[00:23:52] So I'd love to hear from you 

[00:23:54] Veronica: [00:23:54] love it. Okay, guys, you heard her, you know how to reach out to her Jenna's website is our low right here. It's a Jenna badly.club. Make sure you check her out. She's looking for opportunities to collaborate. All right, Jenna, you have a great one. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday.

[00:24:09] Oh, you too. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for being with us. This was another fantastic episode of Saturday soundbites, where we talk all things, visibility, strategy, advertising, marketing, branding, public relations, and today email marketing. So if you are looking to connect in a bagley.co club, make sure you reach out to her.

[00:24:28] She's got some fantastic content and she is a great gas. She will bring rich, rich content and value to your audience. If you run a Facebook group or another community. Be sure to connect with her. So with that, we're going to close out another episode of Saturday sound bites, and I look forward to connecting to with you next week.

[00:24:45] And I'm sending you lots of energy and light.