Dawn Richardson 00:00:00  I think we all get so caught up in this grind of the TikToks and the dances and the trends, and this is trendy tomorrow. Is it trending on what platform like in a panic. And I think a great email marketing strategy just brings peace to your life because your email is doing the heavy lifting. It is doing those things on autopilot. And then I can utilize social media for the things I really want to talk about, or the things that I want to do, or the pictures and the trends that I care about. That’s so freeing.

Katy Ripp 00:00:29  Hey there. Welcome to hashtag. Actually I can. This is the podcast where us female entrepreneurs are going to ditch the hustle culture, build value based aligned businesses, and finally charge what we’re worth. I’m Katy Ripp, a serial entrepreneur, business mentor, rule breaker, and your go to guide for building a profitable business on your own terms. Around here we do things differently. No hustle for hustle sake. No playing small and definitely no more following antiquated business rules that clearly were we’re not made with midlife women in mind.

Katy Ripp 00:01:01  Each week I am here to ask the hard questions, share the advice that’s actually worked for me, and bring on a guest or two who decided to say, fuck it. Actually, I can do this my way. Expect bite size, high impact episodes ranging from about 25 to 45 minutes, packed with real strategies, mindset shifts and rule breaking business insights. If you are tired of business feeling like an endless to do list and you’re ready to make more money without burning out and feeling guilty, you are absolutely in the right place. Let’s go. Okay, well, welcome Dawn Richardson from Flodesk.

Dawn Richardson 00:01:38  I’m so excited to be here. Katy. Thank you for having me. I’m also a huge fan of your email list, so. Oh. Thank you. I am just so excited to be here.

Katy Ripp 00:01:47  Well, I am extremely excited to have you here. This is a huge connection for me.

Katy Ripp 00:01:52  Do you know when you have those, like, fangirl? I mean, I fangirl over companies.

Katy Ripp 00:01:57  Oh, say people do that. I mean, I’m a small business lover, so when I see and is certainly not a small business, but started out sort of that way. Right. Like, everybody starts out at some place and I’ve just really fangirl over Flo Desk for years. I mean, ever since I got in on Jenna Kutcher’s like list in 2000, I don’t know, the teens whenever it was. And I’ve had it ever since. And now I’m a partner and I just it’s one of those things that you love to endorse people that you love. And I just really like every time you guys roll out something, every time I’m in there, I’m just like.

Katy Ripp 00:02:36  God, this is so cool.

Katy Ripp 00:02:37  It’s so pretty. And I’m a design junkie. Like, I love pretty stuff. I mean, like most people do. We’re so image heavy and so, like, people are into clean, gorgeous designs. I’ve been with other like I’ve been with others.

Dawn Richardson 00:02:56  Same.

Katy Ripp 00:02:57  Never be the same.

Katy Ripp 00:02:59  Never as good. I just like there’s nothing to compare this to. So in any case, I’m extremely excited to have you. I personally still think email is queen. We own our list. I know you’re going to get into this, but we own our lists. We’re renting space on social media. There are some major statistics out there. One of the statistics I just saw was that 88% of Americans check their emails multiple times a day.

Dawn Richardson 00:03:26  Oh my gosh.

Katy Ripp 00:03:27  88%. That is a crazy number and I’m one of them. I check my email multiple times a day, and then I know people that like, have a very complicated relationship with their email inbox. So we’re still trying to, you know, navigate all of that. So I’m so excited to have you here because I know that you have a lot of statistics, but also some really cool things with Flodesk rolling out most of my clients, most of the people I talk to are like in the beginning stages. Either they don’t believe that email is still queen, which I spend some of.

Dawn Richardson 00:04:01  My time learning about. She is.

Katy Ripp 00:04:03  Yeah, we’re gonna learn about that. And she is. So those of you that are like yes she is, but you have so much more knowledge than I do. And I’m just really excited to have you here. So I’m going to let you get into your intro. You’re also a small business owner, so I please want you to introduce that to and I’ll let you take it away and then I’ll ask you some questions.

Dawn Richardson 00:04:22  Yeah of course, of course. So hi everybody. I’m Dawn I have a bit of a full circle story here. I started in tech. I was a software engineer. I worked for Apple. I got a big girl engineering job, and while I was there, I was, you know, living the dream, the corporate girl dream. And I had big girl money is what I called it. So I bought a big girl camera. That’s how it all started. It was a Groupon. I bought this camera and I fell in love with photography.

Dawn Richardson 00:04:52  But I fell in love with the idea of working for myself and working in a way that didn’t limit me. And that was really exciting and enticing to me. And this is in 2015. So I launched a photography business. I learned how to be a wedding photographer. I eventually went full time in that photography business and shot a couple hundred weddings here in the Texas Hill Country. Like I went from software engineering to weddings and I loved it. It was a blast. But one thing that I learned pretty quickly was the part that I loved the most about being my own business owner, which was like the tech and the tools and the systems and like letting things work and make money in your sleep like that was just so satisfying to me. But that was the part that many other small business owners really struggled with. They were intimidated by it. They didn’t think they were smart enough for it. They didn’t love it. It wasn’t working for them. They didn’t have the right tools. So I started pursuing education, teaching other small businesses how to use technology in a very fun and friendly way.

Dawn Richardson 00:05:59  Because you go on YouTube and you look up tutorials, sometimes they’re not very fun. They’re very intimidating and not fun and not friendly, and you just close out of it because you’re like, this is not me. Like, I can’t I can’t focus here. So in 2019, I launched Tech Savvy Creative, which is a online resource for entrepreneurs, creatives, small business owners to learn how to use tech in an unintimidating friendly, fun way. And so I started shifting and pivoting from wedding photography into this like education resource world. And for both of those businesses, I used a suite of tools like I was running my businesses and I was telling you all about these tools. Well, around the time that Tech Savvy launched, desk launched and I was like, oh, a new shiny tool for me to check out. Let me check it out. And at that point in time, I was familiar with email marketing. I knew I needed to email market, and I was using a tool that allowed me to do email marketing.

Dawn Richardson 00:06:55  But it was definitely the thing that if I had a long list of to dos, it was at the bottom, like I did not prioritize it just because it was really painful. And I just like it. Just no, I had other things that I wanted to do. And then Flotus came along and I’m here, and my intent was to review a new tool that came to the surface, you know, like I’m like, oh, these women powerhouses launched an email marketing tool. I gotta check this out. So I signed up on day one for desk. And I get in here and I’m like, wait, this is email marketing. This is so fun. This is beautiful. I could finally create something that was an extension of my brand. I could show up in the inbox in a way that was really impressive. And that’s what I wanted to be impressive, right? Whether it was a tech savvy creative or my photography business, and I have been a desk user since I’ve been there, and I have taught the tool at Tech Savvy and I have used it.

Dawn Richardson 00:07:49  I have made, I would say, over six figures from Flodesk alone in my photography business, and people asked. I was really successful in my photography business. How did you do it? Well, I had a subscriber list of like 200 people. Like, it wasn’t like this crazy number, but that 200 people, those subscribers would sell me out of sessions before I ever had to share about it online. And so they were like, wait, you offered those sessions? And like I did, but only my email list got them and they sold me out. So I’m making tens of thousands of dollars in a weekend because of my email list. And that was so powerful. So I really leaned into that as I phased out of photography. Phasing into the coaching scene just became part of my toolbox. Very happy with it. I use it in tech savvy. Very happy. Well, making a long story even longer here I was speaking at a conference in 2023 and I was speaking as tech savvy.

Dawn Richardson 00:08:42  We were talking about AI and Rebecca, who is one of the co-founders of dusk, was also speaking at this conference, and I met Rebecca. Got to know I’m fangirling. I had that moment. I was like, I love oDesk, like I teach about you all the time. And that led to opportunities. And I started at Flo Desk in February of 2024, and I’ve been here since. Tech savvy is still going and it’s running. I’m not doing one on one things anymore like I used to, because I am full time over here at Flodesk as the product Education manager. But yeah, that’s a really long story. Just to say, this is how I got here. I love what I do, but not only do I love what I do. I did the things and I’m still doing the things that I get to teach other businesses. And that’s what makes us so cool. It’s just like truly a unicorn moment for me, just because it was so impactful to finally understand email marketing, to have a tool that let me do that, and now I get to share it with the world and tell you guys about it.

Dawn Richardson 00:09:37  I mean, you know, email is queen. We all like we are aware of that. But when you actually talk to somebody that made six figures from an email like it’s a different conversation, it’s not just like this mythical, I should do this anymore. Oh, yeah. So yeah, that’s why I’m here and how I get to do what I do.

Katy Ripp 00:09:53  Yeah. Well, welcome. I am so thrilled to have you a couple of things that you said in there. One is, I feel like photography is like the gateway drug to entrepreneurship, right? Like so many people I know start out as photographers, but then it morphs into something like more beautiful and bigger. And then, you know, when we first met, we had this conversation about, you’re a small business owner at heart, right? Like, you’re an entrepreneur at heart, but and even though you work for somebody else, you can still be this. Right? Like, we can still be. And right. Like, you get to do all of these things and you still get to be a business owner.

Katy Ripp 00:10:31  So I think, I think that’s like such a cool part of your story. But the cool part of this is like, God, when you it’s sort of like getting that shiny object and being like, this is such a gift, I just want you to open it. Like, just open it. Open it already.

Dawn Richardson 00:10:46  Just do.

Katy Ripp 00:10:47  It. And I know it sounds crazy to have like, this kind of I mean, it seems like a very obnoxious relationship to have with a company or like an email platform. But for me, that’s how I feel about it. So again, so excited to have you. Okay, so we did mention that we love email and it’s still queen. But there are I still have people still have clients that are like email is dead. This is for grandparents. This is for, you know, sending your parents pictures of your kids. I don’t check my email box, you know, that kind of thing. What do you say to that?

Dawn Richardson 00:11:23  So great.

Dawn Richardson 00:11:24  So I have a couple of like industry statistics for you. Yes. One of them being that email marketing to this day has the highest ROI of all the marketing channels. So for every dollar you spend in email marketing efforts, we’re seeing an average of $42 back. So. Wow. If you hand me a dollar bill and I give you $42 back, you’re probably going to give me more dollar bills, right? So yeah, please. And of all the channels that’s so important. And I also think something really important to mention here is we’re kind of in a really volatile world when it comes to our social media platforms. Like, we really don’t know what’s going to happen to some of the big ones, you know? And like, I don’t know about you guys, I love TikTok. And one day I woke up and it wasn’t there anymore. And something really interesting here at this job at Flodesk is we work with a lot of creators. We work with a lot of people that have these huge followings on these platforms.

Dawn Richardson 00:12:14  Well, I can tell you around that time when we were really uncertain what’s happening with TikTok, we’re still uncertain about what’s happening over there. But yeah, when that first started coming up and the countdown started happening, there was a really distinct difference between the creators who had all of their eggs in the TikTok basket and the creators that really were like, well, that sucks, But life will go on. And you know, the difference was they had an email list because they had a way to connect with their audience. Even if the platform was gone on social media. You can’t download your followers from TikTok and go upload them to Instagram. But in email marketing, that list is yours. I know it would be right. Wouldn’t that be nice? All those random followers I have on TikTok? Please join me on Instagram. But in email marketing you can download that list. You can move it from platform to platform, whatever those platforms are. That list is yours and you keep it and you take that list.

Dawn Richardson 00:13:09  You move to the platform that works for you. And when it comes to tools and a lot of this information that we talk about today will be relevant to anybody, regardless of what tools they’re using. We love Flodesk. We’re big fans. Again, for me, it changed the game in my email marketing strategy because it was a tool I finally used, and it was a tool that it actually used. And at Tech Savvy, I teach this every single day. The best tool out there is the tool that you will use. It’s not the one that your friend is friends using. It’s not the one that your favorite influencer is using, it’s the one that you will be excited to use and log into every day. It doesn’t matter who uses it if it doesn’t make sense to you, or if it isn’t something that is resonating with you, it’s not the right.

Katy Ripp 00:13:48  Tool, or it’s not pretty.

Dawn Richardson 00:13:49  Or it’s not pretty. Yes. Oh my gosh, there’s some really scary ones out there.

Katy Ripp 00:13:53  If it’s not pretty, I’m not looking at it every day. It just that’s just. Yeah. I think it’s probably for a lot of creatives. Right. Like we want something pretty.

Dawn Richardson 00:14:02  Yes. Well. And so that leads me to my next point too, is we’re in a world where pretty stands out. So we’re talking about being in the inbox. Well, I did a webinar with my friend Molly and something that she said that really resonated with me is like an inbox is a really intimate place. Like you have doctor’s appointment reminders and your taxes are due and you have like all of these conversations and you showing up there where somebody has this intimate information about themself is really quite the honor. and if they have invited us into their mailbox. We really need to be honored that they asked us to be there and show up, because they asked us to be there. So that’s something that has really resonated with me. And when I think about how I show up in the inbox. But with that, though, I want to show up in a way that stands out.

Dawn Richardson 00:14:48  I want to show up in a way that is a representation of my brand that showcases what it’s like to work with me, or who I am as a brand. I want my tech savvy, creative emails to come across as fun and engaging and like, oh, this is cool. You know, I want that, and I want them to remember me. They might not be ready to buy. Like. And that’s okay. Nobody’s going to be ready to buy out the gate. Like, you have to, like, show up. Build that trust that like know and trust factor. And you can do that with beautiful designs and flow desk makes it so easy to do that. The example I love to use. Anytime Starbucks sends me an email, I will open it. I have enough of a Starbucks problem. Them emailing me is not the reason why I’m buying their drinks like I just. Anyway, it’s a thing. But their email marketing isn’t like my reminder everyday of like, oh, I should go buy some coffee.

Dawn Richardson 00:15:37  I don’t need that help, but I open it every single time because they have the most stunning visuals in their emails and I just have to see. I know I don’t like your lavender latte, but you know what? That email is going to be stunning for sure.

Katy Ripp 00:15:50  You say lavender and it’s pretty.

Dawn Richardson 00:15:53  There’s going to be purple in here, and I want to see how you’re going to use it. And, you know, like that kind of relationship. I want people to feel that way about my emails. I want them to know when they open my emails, they’re going to have a really valuable tech tip that can, like, really change the game for them, that they’re going to have messaging that resonates with them. Like, if I know that somebody’s a photographer, you can bet that they’re going to hear photography things from me. I’m really trying to, like, mold what I say to my audience to make sure it’s relevant to them. And I want people to have that experience, and that’s where I flow desk, email marketing, segmentation.

Dawn Richardson 00:16:26  All of these strategies come into play here.

Katy Ripp 00:16:29  Oh, you said so much there that I could like. Really?

Dawn Richardson 00:16:31  Really.

Katy Ripp 00:16:32  I’m sorry. No no no, no, I mean, like, I could really jump on a lot of this. One of the things is the ROI. Well, $42. That’s crazy, right? But, I mean, you have your own story about that, and I have my own story about that. Like, I sold almost all of my coaching packages through email.

Dawn Richardson 00:16:50  Heck yes.

Katy Ripp 00:16:51  You did. I only could post it once on Instagram before it was sold out. And then I never had to do it again. And it was sort of like the people that were on Instagram was like, I didn’t even know you were doing this. And I was like, I know, because it was in my emails. Yeah. And that was a significant amount of money for me early on at the time, in the beginning of my business. But to have that, like I can trace every single piece of that back to my email.

Katy Ripp 00:17:16  It was a link. It was a click. It was a sales launch. Now there’s coaches, right? Like, I’m a coach. I’m a creator. I’m a you know, I have an online business. What do you say to the people that have brick and mortars? About email lists.

Dawn Richardson 00:17:32  Even more important. Absolutely right.

Katy Ripp 00:17:34  Yes. I’m so glad you said that, because I also own two brick and mortars, and we use email marketing for those. And I can also very easily track back money to that. Yeah. And see the analytics and see how much money people spend. And it’s significant.

Dawn Richardson 00:17:51  Yeah. Well in every brick and mortar is different too. So this might like generalizing is a little hard here. But when you have a brick and mortar or a physical product or a physical service, there’s an experience that comes with it. Right. It’s not like like a digital experience. It’s a little bit different. It’s not quite as tangible. But maybe you’re selling a product, maybe you’re selling soap or lotions or I don’t know, I’m just trying to think of like random examples.

Dawn Richardson 00:18:13  Or maybe it’s a like a med spa or something like that. Like there’s an experience attached to it. Right. You want to welcome people into your brick and mortar, and you can do that through your inbox. You can offer them different offers that are specific to the inbox. Like, that’s a really great way. I know we’re going to talk about opt ins and stuff here, but a great way to invite people into your world is by giving them something in exchange for their email address. So are there special offers? Do they get first dibs on things? Do they learn about new products and new services? Like those are all things that email marketing is going to be your like your queen strategy with, you know, and leaning into that. And I also think that there’s an experience that’s different too, because when you have a tangible product like that’s a product you want to showcase, so you want to show up in a really beautiful way as well, because we want to let that product shine.

Dawn Richardson 00:19:03  We want to showcase that product and show people why it’s so great, where a digital product like I can make something in Canva and we’re like, good to go, but I want my email inbox to be an extension of this great product that I’m selling. So it’s I would say it’s even more important for those brick and mortar type businesses.

Katy Ripp 00:19:18  And the social media, the like the welcome. Right. Like the you get to see who I am, right? I want to tell you, like, if that’s the first introduction you have to somebody, you might do a Friday introduction on Instagram every single Friday for seven months in a row, and somebody might miss it. But your email, if they get a first email from you and they are thinking about coming to meet you in person, wouldn’t it be nice to see a picture first? Like, who is this person, right?

Dawn Richardson 00:19:48  Am I going to see?

Katy Ripp 00:19:49  Yeah. So that part of it is so, so good too.

Dawn Richardson 00:19:53  Well, Katy, you bring up something.

Dawn Richardson 00:19:54  That’s a really great point here. You talked about like, okay, I can post this every Friday on Instagram, but you’re lucky to get a 5% engagement rate on Instagram if you’re lucky, right? So I mean, thousands of followers, only 5% possibly can see this or engage with your post like that’s crazy. Well, email marketing industry average is about a 25% open rate. I mean, that’s already way higher than your likelihood of being seen on social. But with platforms like desk and with great email marketing practices and strategies, we’re seeing an average of anywhere from 50 to 80% open rates. So think of a world where you can get in front of that much of your audience. Like you can’t do that on Instagram, TikTok, all those other channels. I’m not saying, though, that like social media is not important. I think it is part of the strategy. We like to think of it as like social media as the handshake. The nice to meet you. Here I am where email marketing is that? Like, let’s sit down and have coffee and I want to learn about you.

Katy Ripp 00:20:48  And right, like we don’t have to live in this either or, which I’m a total black and white. My audience certainly knows I’m a black and white thinker, and I’ve been trying to live in the gray and trying to live in the and and we’re all trying together.

Dawn Richardson 00:21:00  But like.

Katy Ripp 00:21:01  You can do this and and and there’s so much connection between the two of them. Right. Like, hey from Instagram, come to my email list, from my email list, come to my Instagram and they can do both. And I we talk about Instagram a lot, but TikTok or you know, all the social media channels. The intro part of this right. Like the introduction to somebody. So let’s say you’re let’s say somebody doesn’t have a list yet, or they have that lovely notebook that’s been sitting at their checkout counter and people are like, like give like I’m interested. Here’s my email address, which I’m pretty protective of my email address. I also have an email address that’s like Katy Ripp junk at gmail.com.

Katy Ripp 00:21:47  Right. Like like the things that I don’t, you know, like whatever, I have to sign up with something. So that’s it. But if there is, you know, a notebook that’s sitting there or you’ve got let’s say, I mean, square is a great example of, you know, we own a coffee shop. So we have square of like all of our customers that have put in their email addresses that are waiting for us to send them a coupon or send them, you know, the Starbucks of the world. Yes. Tell me about the people that are like I have email addresses. What do I do?

Dawn Richardson 00:22:20  Okay great. Now great question. And this opens a couple of different topics here. But I want to start with what I believe is the most important one. I’m a rule follower. So you’re gonna we’re gonna talk about some rules when it comes to email marketing. So in the email world there’s really two types of emails. There’s transactional emails, which is like here’s your receipt okay.

Dawn Richardson 00:22:38  You don’t have to have permission to email somebody your receipt. Okay. So that’s called a transactional email. There’s no regulations around that or very limited regulations rather. And then you have your marketing emails which are seen differently by email providers. They have rules and regulations around them. They have to have an unsubscribe button. They have to come from an authenticated domain. There’s all of these different things. So in this world that we’re talking about, we are talking explicitly about email marketing. We’re talking about the marketing emails here. Now when you have, let’s say, a list or square or whatever, the first thing that you want to make sure is that you have consent to email these people. So on your square checkout, is there a box that checks the box that says, I would like to receive emails from you that is considered consent? A spreadsheet on your desk might be a little bit harder to prove consent, but if you had something at the top that was like, like sign up for our newsletter.

Dawn Richardson 00:23:31  Like making it very clear that they’re going to be put onto an email list. That’s really important. And a lot of those laws and regulations are getting stricter and stricter, and they are more prominent in other countries as well. So you hear about GDPR, you hear about these different terms and words, and those are just the regulations that manage how we can use emails and protect people’s privacy. So I just want to start there. If you are collecting emails, just make sure you’re very clear and that they are saying yes to something like being sneaky and trying to like buy a list of people is like not good practice. Like don’t do that. Yes. You know, which some people do. And it’s like common in some industries. But that’s like not a good practice. So you don’t want to do that. So like, let’s say we’ve gotten past that. You have gotten consent from these people. You do. Add them to your email list. Okay. So now what do I do with this? Right.

Dawn Richardson 00:24:22  Well, you have to start somewhere. Okay. And that’s going to be my motto here. So you just have to start. And Flo desk makes this really easy to start because we offer forms. Now a form is an electronic way to take somebody’s email address and their information. So like your, their first name, their email address, maybe something about them. Like what are they interested in that is there like opt in consent. You can have those on your website. It can be a pop up. You can post it on your Instagram. You can put it in your link in bio. You can put it really anywhere that your customers are. So with a form though, on Flodesk, those are totally free. So if you are somebody who’s in a place where you’re like, yeah, you know, I really should probably look into this email marketing thing, but you’re not quite ready to like, dive in, fully, get a form up on your website, say, hey, join our VIP list.

Dawn Richardson 00:25:10  We’ll update you when we have something to update you about or whatever that is. Extend the invitation to invite people in. You can do that totally free on oDesk using any of our forms. So start collecting those subscribers and building that list. So when you do sit down, you are ready to start emailing them. You have people to email. So no excuses everybody.

Katy Ripp 00:25:29  No excuses.

Dawn Richardson 00:25:30  So start there. But once you’re there and once you are emailing, what do I email them? So a lot of people start with a newsletter that’s really common. What I would recommend with a newsletter is choose a cadence that you can stick to. Consistency matters here. And there are a lot of weird things that we can talk about that are really deep into the email space. But when you have an email list, your email domain could go cold. That’s what it’s called. So it’s like if I have a list and I don’t email anybody for a year, and then it’s Black Friday and all of a sudden I take all of my lists and I blast them with an email.

Dawn Richardson 00:26:09  Google is going to be like, who is this? Straight to spam. It’s not a good thing. You don’t want to just like, blast your list after being dormant for so long. So we have this. There’s a concept in email marketing called like warming your list. You want to warm up. You want to tell Google and Yahoo that you’re trustworthy, that people want to open your emails. So you kind of want to start there. But the reason I’m mentioning this is after about six weeks is when your list starts to go cold. So if you can start with a newsletter that’s maybe monthly, it’ll help you maintain that warm domain. So that’s really, really good. Quarterly it’s okay. Monthly would be better. So if you can stick I mean that’s 12 emails a month. You can do a year. Sorry, not a month, 12 emails a year. If you could fuel a whole strategy with 12 emails a year, like, yeah, I’m here because it all goes on autopilot.

Dawn Richardson 00:27:00  Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:27:00  Well, by the way, you can schedule them. You can’t. I mean, it’s automated. There’s so much here. There’s so much here. I love.

Dawn Richardson 00:27:08  It. That’s typically where I point people. And that’s also something that’s most familiar to people is like they’re on other newsletters, they’re getting blog post updates or like what weddings I went to or what products are available, like whatever story. I worked with a photographer who had this weekly series called Friday Feels, and she just told love stories of her clients. And that’s not my genre is like the romantic, but there’s a lot of people out there that are and they like. She has thousands of subscribers on this Friday’s feels and like people know her and call her out like, oh, I saw your email. You know, like even though they’re not in her area, but they are sending clicks to her website. They are buying her online products. They are following her, commenting on her stuff, building up her presence. And that just affects her overall business.

Dawn Richardson 00:27:54  And that’s really powerful. So newsletters are a great place to start. Also look into like something like a welcome sequence. Give them the ability to get to know you better. Again, you said the hello on social media. Let’s let’s have the coffee shop conversation. Let’s learn about you. Your story. How did your business come to be? How did you get here? What problem were you trying to solve? What are some testimonials from your clients? Tell me stories. And like even the craziest stories. Those. The crazy stories are the ones that perform the best. My friend Natalie, her best performing email ever was a story about her. Just like eating it in the middle of an airport, like she was running and just like, face planted and like everybody, it was like. But that was like her best performing email. When I was.

Dawn Richardson 00:28:37  Like, the story.

Katy Ripp 00:28:38  Mine was because I got had an allergic reaction to poison ivy.

Dawn Richardson 00:28:42  Oh my gosh, it’s terrible. It was horrible.

Katy Ripp 00:28:44  But everybody read that email.

Dawn Richardson 00:28:46  Everybody. They wanted to see.

Katy Ripp 00:28:48  How ugly I could really be. And we.

Dawn Richardson 00:28:50  Did.

Katy Ripp 00:28:51  We shared it.

Dawn Richardson 00:28:52  Yes.

Dawn Richardson 00:28:52  But Katy, think about it. That’s the conversation that you that story you would tell me if we were sitting having coffee for sure, you know, not a lavender latte, but we were.

Dawn Richardson 00:29:00  Having.

Dawn Richardson 00:29:00  Coffee, you know, and just having that banter. And then that story just makes me feel like I know you better. It makes me feel like I’m connected to you. So when I have a problem and all of a sudden my friend Katy can solve it. Well, guess where I’m going. And that’s really where the monetization piece comes in, right? You build this trust factor. You build this relationship. You build their excitement around your emails because you’re sending them relevant content. You can’t do that on social media. I can’t say only show this to photographers or only show this to moms, but if you have a strong strategy in your email, you can.

Dawn Richardson 00:29:33  So you’re always sending the right information at the right time. So that’s again to recap here. Where do I start. Make sure you have consent. Get a form up on your website. And when you’re ready to email, start with something maybe small, like a newsletter or a welcome sequence.

Katy Ripp 00:29:47  I love it. You mentioned a couple of things, and I talk about this with my clients and this audience quite a bit is sort of that unsubscribe or the unfollow or the.

Dawn Richardson 00:30:00  Yeah, right.

Katy Ripp 00:30:02  we’re gonna get into this. And I love this conversation so much because I believe wholeheartedly in abundance and there’s enough to go around, but also, like, you’re just not going to be for everybody, period.

Dawn Richardson 00:30:15  And that’s okay.

Katy Ripp 00:30:15  It doesn’t mean that you have to have a thick skin. It doesn’t mean that you have to you can’t be sensitive to it. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have feelings about it. But you have to shift your mindset around when somebody unfollowed me, when somebody unsubscribes, when somebody is in a different headspace than you.

Katy Ripp 00:30:34  That’s all it is. You don’t have to make up a story about why they don’t like you. It doesn’t matter. They’re just not your ideal client. And not having an ideal client actually makes you money. And we talked about this, and I will tell you, after we had this conversation done, I went into my box and like took out people that haven’t engaged.

Dawn Richardson 00:30:56  Yeah. I was like.

Katy Ripp 00:30:57  Oh, this felt so good because my engagement rate went up. Right. Like, all of a sudden I was like, oh, almost everybody engaged this last time. That’s significant. So tell me all about that.

Dawn Richardson 00:31:09  Yes. Okay. I mean, all this is I love talking about this because I was one of those people that said, like, oh, that’s my subscriber. I’m not deleting them. Like, what are you talking about? This is mine. So I get it. But now, like, I really want everybody to, like, sit here for a second and shift their mindset to an unsubscribe.

Dawn Richardson 00:31:27  Just say thank you because they just did you a favor. You know, like that’s something really cool about emailing is that they can often self segment. They can tell you about themselves that helps you drive that data and those decisions. And one of those decisions can be the unsubscribe. And that’s totally fine. Because here’s the thing. If they don’t unsubscribe, they’re just going to stop engaging with your emails. They might move it to the spam folder. They might mark you as spam, which is not a good thing. And it hurts your engagement rate. So like you said, let’s paint a picture with an example like let’s say I have 100 subscribers and I send an email to 100 people. Well, if 25% of them engaged with that email, I have a 25% open rate. Okay. So okay. Cool. And here’s the thing. The inbox providers Googles the Yahoo’s the algorithms of the world are looking at that information. Google is now recognizing like oh, only 25% of the people open that.

Dawn Richardson 00:32:19  Okay. Well, if I can get rid of the people that don’t engage with my emails, maybe they haven’t opened an email from me in six months or three months or whatever you want that rule to be. And now I send an email to 25 people, but all 25 of them opened. That’s a 100% open rate. And Google and Yahoo are going to be like, oh, everybody opened that email. And that helps them prioritize where they place you in the inbox. Like you are more likely to end up in the folder you want to end up in and not in the spam folder. You are more likely to build that, like strong rapport with the algorithm gods out there. Right. And that’s really important. So we teach at dusk. Like if you can clean your list every 3 to 6 months like that is ideal. We have filters and flow dusk. Find the people that have not engaged in your email in a month, a year, whatever you feel comfortable with. And you have a couple options.

Dawn Richardson 00:33:11  So like let’s say we find those people, you can put them through something, what we call like a re-engagement workflow. You can send them that like, hey, are you still there? Like, have you ever got one of those emails that’s like, hey, like, hello, remember me and see who engages there? If they engage. Keep them. If they don’t, it’s time to let them go again. We work so hard to collect these subscribers, so I get it. But it’s really a great thing when somebody unsubscribes. And it’s even better when you do the work for them. And you, you cut them out.

Katy Ripp 00:33:42  Yeah, this was one of those it’s hard to see an unsubscribe and then it’s hard to go down the rabbit hole of like, oh my God, this is my sister or my cousin or my, I mean, a friend or a business owner that I thought I had a really good relationship with or whatever it is. And this is totally happened to me. I have definitely gone into my unsubscribes and I’m like, what the fuck? Like, what did I.

Dawn Richardson 00:34:09  Think, mom?

Katy Ripp 00:34:10  Yeah, thanks a lot, mom. Actually, I did like one of the people I just kicked off was my dad. Like, he was on my like list that he hasn’t looked at my house.

Dawn Richardson 00:34:20  Right?

Katy Ripp 00:34:20  But at the same time, like, I deleted him. I was like, whatever. Like, he’s not my ideal client. He’s a supporter of mine. He loves me. He’s my dad. But he’s not a customer. He’s never going to be my small business mentoring client. So it doesn’t make sense for him to be on there. And I have a whole theory about, you know, this hustle network and, you know, kind of a first circle. Second circle, like the dads of the world are. They don’t you shouldn’t have more on your email list anyway. I mean, if they want to read it, that’s cool. Then they have to open it and read it, but just to have them on there. But it is hard to swallow, especially if you’re an empath or a sensitive or.

Katy Ripp 00:35:03  This part is hard to accept that not everybody is going to be your greatest client. Not everybody is going to love your coffee. Like not everybody is going to come to get Botox from you. Not everybody. You know, that’s just the nature of it. And we also know that as consumers, we go to more than one place. So I go to Starbucks and I own a coffee shop. People are like, I actually got in the car with my friend yesterday and I had Starbucks in my hand, and she was like, are you serious? Like, why do you have Starbucks? I was like, well, sometimes I don’t like to go to the coffee shop because they’re busy and like, you know, whatever. I still go to Starbucks, right? Like there’s plenty for Starbucks and for me. But in any case, I think that there’s something really powerful about the letting go of it. And just shifting your mindset into this actually is helpful for me. Maybe Flo Desk should change the name of their list to like thank you instead of unsubscribes.

Dawn Richardson 00:36:00  Oh my gosh, I wish I could come up with something punny and like, witty right here. Yes, like here you go. Like, see yourself out.

Katy Ripp 00:36:07  This is my peace out list.

Dawn Richardson 00:36:09  Ghosted. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:36:11  Or let us customize them. Like Flo desk could just let us customize them.

Dawn Richardson 00:36:15  Oh my gosh. The list. When I clean my list of Flo desk, I actually put them into like, a ghosted segment.

Katy Ripp 00:36:21  That’s what it should be called as a ghost list.

Dawn Richardson 00:36:24  Like, I’ve seen funny names like, you know, like people are really clever with it or unengaged or inactive or see you later. Like, whatever you want to call it. You can call them those things.

Katy Ripp 00:36:33  Left at the alter.

Dawn Richardson 00:36:34  Unengaged. Exactly. I mean, have fun with it. Have fun with it. But, Katy, you mentioned something really early in this conversation, and it was just about like, you don’t know where people are in their lives either. You know, like, maybe somebody that unsubscribed from you is having really bad imposter syndrome, and it might be one of your best friends, but they also run a business.

Dawn Richardson 00:36:54  And you know what? That just. Sometimes we get to get in these places where you’re like, I want my friend to be successful, but I just I need to, like, close my mind for a little bit, like, you subscribed using the wrong email, which I’ve done many times. I also have another I have a subscribe at Tech Savvy Creatives what I sign up for. That way I can just filter it into its own email. And then I go through and like, check everybody’s emails. Yeah, that’s also something great to do. If you have like somebody you’re a fan of, like go open their emails and click their emails, it helps their engagement. Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:37:23  Yes. Same of like going in and following on, you know social media. Like it helps. It’s something free to do.

Dawn Richardson 00:37:30  Exactly, exactly. So if you have somebody that you love following or a creator you get emails from, like go open that email and click on their stuff. That just helps their engagement rates, helps them show up to other people.

Dawn Richardson 00:37:41  So like that’s always a great thing to do. You just made that point of like, you don’t know where everybody is like it. It could be a like, I don’t want to hear from you anymore, but it could also be like came from the wrong email address or like all of these different things that are not related to the content you’re sending or who you are or what you’re doing. So it’s just it’s really healthy to disconnect yourself from it. Yeah. The motto I use is data over drama like this is data. This is not something like, we’re not going to be dramatic here. Like, I’m not going to let my feelings be heard about this. Like this is data. If I have like a high unsubscribe rate from a certain email, that is data. What did they click on? What did they like? What piece of this? Can I make different decisions and improve from here? Because we either we win or we learn like there’s never losing when it comes to business and data and things like that.

Dawn Richardson 00:38:37  So come at it from a data over drama perspective. Use this information to make different decisions and say thank you as they leave and help you.

Katy Ripp 00:38:47  One of the things you just said was, well, we’re not mind readers. We don’t know why somebody pressed unsubscribe. They could have done it on accident and then like, fuck, sorry, I didn’t know or whatever. But also the piece of that where I tell my clients and my audience, my followers what whoever is like taking advice from me or liking what I’m saying. I’m always like, be very intentional about what you’re consuming these days. That’s what people might be doing too. Like, right now, they just got to take a break. They’re cleaning up their inbox. They’re on a declutter challenge that I gave them in March to go through their inbox. And like, nobody’s sitting out here with 38,000 emails anymore, right? Yes. Which there are a few of you out here that I see right now, like I’m talking about your email boxes.

Katy Ripp 00:39:34  So, I mean, no wonder we have a complicated relationship with our inbox. If it’s constantly a I’m never going to get through these right? Like. But not everybody has that complicated relationship with their inbox. Like, I clear it every day. That doesn’t make me better or worse than anybody, but it’s just who I am. But I’m also very intentional about my inbox. I’m very intentional about what emails I subscribe to, what I read, what I consume. And your inbox does not have to be a I don’t need a dungeon, right? Like we we. But just because you don’t like your inbox doesn’t mean the majority of people don’t like their inbox.

Dawn Richardson 00:40:12  Exactly. Exactly. And it’s so true. I mean, a lot of business owners project themselves onto their clients. That’s exactly what you’re saying. You’re like, oh, I’m so overwhelmed by my inbox. I don’t want to be part of the problem. Like, I hear that all the time. I’m like, yeah, but like, just because it’s something you’re experiencing, like, does it mean that like, somebody else is going to like because remember, you got the consent.

Dawn Richardson 00:40:32  They have told you that they want to hear from you, you know, so they it’s not like you’re sneaking your way in because you secretly got their email address. I mean.

Katy Ripp 00:40:41  Also, please don’t do that. Yeah. Don’t be like again. Again. Right. Like that doesn’t. It really doesn’t help anybody. Because even if you’re buying a list, it probably means that one of those people are going to be actually a client out of 60,000 or whatever. Like, it’s just they’re not your ideal client. You have no relationship with them. They’re junk. Don’t do it. Sort of like the follows. Right. Like that’s just a numbers game. Yeah. And speaking of a numbers game, you know, we talked a little bit about these, like, massive followings, massive subscribers, that kind of thing. And in reality it is a numbers game, right? Like if you have 25% of a thousand people, that’s 250. If you have 25% of 100 people, that’s 25. Right.

Katy Ripp 00:41:23  Like it’s all relative, but the 25% or the 30 or the 70, I mean, you don’t need that many people on your list that we we have been so misconstrued by these like, crazy numbers, like, people want to get to 10,000 followers. I could never service 10,000 people.

Dawn Richardson 00:41:44  Exactly.

Katy Ripp 00:41:45  Does anybody even know what 10,000 people looks like in a room? If you were standing on a stage with 10,000 people. That’s an insane number. I think I have actively participating now that I’ve cleaned up my list around 450 subscribers on my list, but I have an 80% open rate. Yeah, but even before I cleaned it and people engage with it. So it’s like I didn’t have 500 people at my wedding, right?

Dawn Richardson 00:42:14  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:42:15  I don’t even know. I mean, I know 500 people, but, like, that’s a really big number. And so I think we sort of get skewed from a it doesn’t really matter what the number is. It’s really the percentage of that number. Because those people it doesn’t.

Katy Ripp 00:42:30  Yes. You might have a bigger number of majors eventually, but starting out, even if you have ten people on your list. It’s a significant number to have four people reply to it.

Dawn Richardson 00:42:43  Yes it is. I mean, those four people could pay your salary for the month for sure.

Katy Ripp 00:42:48  Yeah, depending on what you’re selling.

Dawn Richardson 00:42:50  Exactly. I have a friend. Who. Her name is Sarah and designs. So everybody go follow her, follow.

Katy Ripp 00:42:57  Sarah and designs and subscribe to.

Dawn Richardson 00:42:58  Our newsletter savvy creative website. She’s beautiful, but she has a daily affirmations email list. Oh, cool. And I love it. It’s so great. It’s just like she just reminds me that I need to, like, take a minute and ground myself every day. Like, she’s just like friend that everybody needs. But she does custom web designs, and she’s not taking 100 clients a year. She’s taking, like, a handful of clients every year. You know, she. I love Sarah so much. Sarah, I hope you’re listening to this because she actually doesn’t do social media.

Dawn Richardson 00:43:28  She just does Pinterest and email, like.

Katy Ripp 00:43:30  Oh my God, I love that so much.

Dawn Richardson 00:43:32  On her Instagram once a year where she just posts like all of her designs that she did for the year, and then she logs off for the rest of the year. But I mean, she is.

Katy Ripp 00:43:39  Everybody out here listening is like goals, right? So goal, goal.

Dawn Richardson 00:43:44  But she has millions of hits on Pinterest and she has a great blog. Her email markets, her blog, her email markets, her services. It’s all coming from her email and her Pinterest. And she’s such a great resource. She has a Pinterest course go by it. It’s wonderful.

Katy Ripp 00:44:01  Amazing.

Dawn Richardson 00:44:02  But to me, she’s just like the exactly what I think of as like a peaceful, relaxing business. And I think we all get so caught up in this grind of the TikToks and the the dances and the trends. And this is trendy tomorrow. Is it trending on what platform? Like, you know, like in a panic.

Dawn Richardson 00:44:20  And I think a great email marketing strategy just brings peace to your life because your email is doing the heavy lifting. It is doing those things on autopilot. Because if I look into my analytics on flow desk, like my workflows have sent over 10,000 emails. Like what? I didn’t send.

Katy Ripp 00:44:36  Those. Like you created it once.

Dawn Richardson 00:44:38  It’s a workflow. So it’s an automation, I created it. Once I haven’t touched it. Here it goes. And that’s really powerful I can’t. I didn’t post 10,000 things on Instagram like. But if something is facilitating my business, it’s facilitating my income. It’s creating those relationships. It’s helping me show up authentically in a way that I want to, that I’m proud of. And then I can utilize social media for the things I really want to talk about, or the things that I want to do, or the pictures and the trends that I care about. That’s so freeing. It’s not a like I have to post three times a day kind of thing anymore, because that’s not where you’re driving.

Dawn Richardson 00:45:14  You know, your income for the week or the month or the year or whatever it is. And I just I admire Sarah so much and what she’s built because she’s built this truly peaceful business. It sustains her and her family. It sustains what she loves doing. She has to say no to the things she doesn’t want to do, because she says yes to the people that do understand her and have shown up and have gotten to know her. And she does that all without an Instagram.

Katy Ripp 00:45:39  I mean.

Katy Ripp 00:45:40  Right, like amazing.

Katy Ripp 00:45:42  Amazing. So this is a perfect segue. And I know we’re like sort of getting close to time here. We might have to do a second part. The lead ins, how are we getting email addresses right.

Dawn Richardson 00:45:53  Like oh yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:45:54  Consensual email addresses. Like how are we getting those? You know, you hear lead magnets, you hear pop ups. I mean, I said pop up to somebody the other day and they were like, oh my God, I would never do a pop up.

Katy Ripp 00:46:06  And I was like, these are not like the AOL pop ups of our youth, right? Like, let’s like, the pop ups aren’t the devil anymore, right? Like, they’re actually a thing and it’s fine.

Dawn Richardson 00:46:17  So you can navigate your way out of.

Katy Ripp 00:46:18  That pop ups. And yes, you could just X yourself out. It doesn’t actually just stay on your screen like it did when we were 20. So you know, there’s lead magnets, right. And and any. Well, not any, but a lot of the courses I’ve taken about email and stuff out there, it sort of makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit, because all you hear about is like a checklist, right? Like this is how you get a lead in. This is how you trade their email address for your product. And it’s so easy to do a lead magnet. It’s so that, you know, it’s this and this, and then you have this workflow and it you know, it’s like no big deal, except it kind of is a big deal.

Katy Ripp 00:46:58  On how you get people there because you don’t want to give them something that they’re like just getting to get and then get the fuck out, right. Like we also want to make it relevant. So yes, you can go into Canva, which, by the way, Flodesk has now a relationship with Canva. We’re going to get into that surprise. But also you can go in and do a PDF. There’s nothing wrong with that. It still works. I’m not saying that, but if that’s not your thing, what are some other like Underrated lead ins.

Dawn Richardson 00:47:30  I love this question. Okay. So first let’s talk about our opt in. Just the concept. In general, when you have an incentive to opting into your list, you can see conversions that like double, triple, quadruple like it’s really amazing. And there are a couple of ways, like you mentioned like the PDF, the checklist like those are great. When you do those though, remember that this could very possibly be the first time that somebody is seeing your brand and who you are.

Dawn Richardson 00:47:56  So you want to put a little bit of effort in there. Like creating the opt in itself is almost always the hardest part, right? Like the actual opt in. It’s not the email marketing setup, it’s not the form, it’s not the automations, it’s the actual opt in itself. So, you know, make sure you spend some time on that and give something that’s really valuable to them, that makes them go, oh, I need to learn more about this person. But it is so much more than the PDF or the checklist. And I’ll tell you about options that have been really successful for me in my business. My number one opt in and I’m talking like 40% of my list is from a quiz and I use interact. There is a direct integration between Interact and Flow, dusk. And guys, I love this integration so much because not only when somebody gets an answer to my quiz does it put them into a segment in Flodesk. But I can segment somebody by their answers from the questions throughout the quiz.

Dawn Richardson 00:48:49  So like in the quiz, I say like, tell me about what you do and have like a checklist, like I’m a photographer or a videographer, like whatever. And whatever one they click on it segments them into the correct audience and flow desk. So now if I know that somebody’s a photographer and I have a photography course or I’m speaking at a photography conference, guess who’s getting an email about photography? You know, so I have like a set audience ready to go. Now, the cool thing about opt ins is that they can be beneficial to you, too. It’s not always about your audience, and this is one reason I really love my quiz. I used to get questions all the time about in my DMs. Like multiple times a day, people are saying, hey, I’m a photographer, I do this, I don’t know what to buy, which Mac should I buy? And I literally got that question like four times a day. And I was honestly tired of answering the same question every day because, you know, if you’re a photographer using Adobe Suite, like you’re gonna require more power to your computer than somebody who is just using it for Canva and email like it’s they’re very different requirements.

Dawn Richardson 00:49:49  There’s so many options in the Apple Suite and things like that. So I built a quiz called What Mac Should You Buy? And it has 12 answers. There are 12 different answers. I point you to different computers, different configurations based off of how you answer this quiz. I get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of opt ins to this quiz, and I provided them value. I take them to a landing page. I send them an email with a link to the landing page so they can come back and access it. And now I know what the result is. So when Apple turns around and releases a new MacBook air, guess who’s getting an email that Apple released the new MacBook air. Now I’m their trusted guide. They come to me when they’re making these decisions, you know. And I built that trust factor. And those options have just really fueled my business. It’s so great. So think of things like what are your problems that you’re trying to solve and like try to like work backwards. Like is there a way that you can offer an opt in that solves a problem for you, a pain point for you and for me, it was the DMs and collecting email addresses at the same time.

Dawn Richardson 00:50:47  So now it’s all on autopilot. So huge fan of the quiz. Love love love interact. And if you’re curious if you want to see this in action tech savvy creative quiz, go play with love it. Sign up. Unsubscribe after does not hurt my feelings. If you just want to see how it works, go for it.

Katy Ripp 00:51:03  Yes, and I will. I also love interact, so if you are in my community, I will put a little tutorial of interact and how it integrates with Flodesk in there. Because I love the quiz and actually I got when I tried it, I had like a kind of like, what kind of creative entrepreneur are you? And it was so fun and like, it helped me do all the questions and the answers. That’s the other thing. It’s got an amazing AI in there of like, yeah, like helps you with the questions and answer. And then it kind of splits everybody off depending on like whatever their algorithm is, which is way beyond who I am as a person.

Katy Ripp 00:51:41  But it was amazing. I loved it so much and I got the most opt ins from it too. Now I did it as like a this is a fun, cute thing to do, but it didn’t really give me anything on the back end. So I have to like kind of go back and re like, where is the pain point here? What am I trying to learn? Rather than just like, this is a cute like, what kind of entrepreneur are you? There has to be a little bit of strategy to it, but if you’re interested in the quiz and you’re in the actually we can collective, I will be doing a little tutorial.

Dawn Richardson 00:52:09  Video that’s so valuable. Don’t miss that guys. It’s so good. Yeah. So good. So we we talked about quizzes. Let’s talk about other things okay. We have the PDFs. We have the checklist. We have the quizzes. What you’re offering can be an opt in. So one thing that worked so well for me was the exclusive access.

Dawn Richardson 00:52:24  The first dibs, the like my mini sessions only go out to my email list. My coaching sessions are only available to my VIP email list. Like that. Scarcity is a huge piece too. Or if you’re doing something timed like let’s say you have a webinar coming up, utilize a countdown timer on your form. So let us we have these countdown timer forms. They are my favorite. You can count down to an event. So it’s like like literally ticking clock that you can customize. And it’s like sign up before it’s too late. They’re like, get ready for our Black Fridays, like whatever it is, and put it behind a countdown timer. That sense of urgency alone can increase your opt ins like double. It’s incredible. So think about like, what are you offering? Is it limited? Like, can you offer exclusive access? Can you offer Sneak Peak discount as another very popular. Yeah, maybe a free item like brick and mortar. Everybody’s different. Maybe your email list gets a, like early shopping access or shopping hours.

Dawn Richardson 00:53:22  You know, Costco does like the early shopping for gold card members. You know, like, what are different ways that you can offer things that are not a checklist, but those are some of the popular ones that I see that work really well. And coming from my own business that like exclusive, this is if you want these sessions that I don’t talk about anywhere else, this is how you get it. That was really what fueled my email list for my photography business. And I’m telling you, like I’m talking about six figures with 200 people. Like, again, it’s not this huge crazy number. Like we all aspire to have these crazy numbers, but at the end of the day, you know, a handful of people can really change the trajectory of your business and your income. It doesn’t take all, you know, 200 people buying into a $1,000 product. Like, you just have to have the people and like a small subset of those, if they convert like that’s a game changer. Like don’t discredit the power of one person.

Dawn Richardson 00:54:12  Yeah. Well, really.

Katy Ripp 00:54:13  The other thing I was going to say is like, you know, if you segment out somebody and you have one person on that email, that one person doesn’t know, they’re the only one.

Dawn Richardson 00:54:21  Exactly.

Katy Ripp 00:54:22  So.

Dawn Richardson 00:54:23  Yeah, exactly.

Katy Ripp 00:54:24  I mean, we’re getting a little bit further into the nitty gritty of this. And, you know, I only really made it through like my first section of questions here.

Dawn Richardson 00:54:32  Oh my.

Katy Ripp 00:54:32  Goodness. Maybe we can do a part two. We will do a part two for sure.

Dawn Richardson 00:54:36  Let’s do that.

Katy Ripp 00:54:38  Tell me a little bit before we wrap up, what advice do you have for somebody who thinks they’re bothering somebody or that they sound salesy? Or they’re like, oh, I don’t want to have to show up in their email. I don’t want to get annoying. I hear this a lot, and I was this person. So tell me your advice.

Dawn Richardson 00:54:57  So is this really mind shift here? Like, remember that if you are annoying that they will exit, they will leave.

Dawn Richardson 00:55:04  And that’s okay. Like that’s where it’s so powerful. That’s so cool. Like we have the ability to unfollow people. We have the ability to unsubscribe. It’s okay. Like let them. That’s fine. You know, again, if they are there in the first place, they have at some point in time so that they’re interested in hearing from you. Lean into that. Not so much the possibility or the assumption that somebody’s going to make a decision based off of what you’re feeling. Don’t project onto them. Yeah. So again, like try things out, maybe again data over drama, maybe try different things like in Flodesk we have really engaging blocks. So like we have poll blocks, we have the countdown timer. We have different images and layouts and all of that stuff. And that’s really exciting. So experiment, see if people engage more with one type versus another. Let’s see if they prefer the newsletter or if they prefer something that’s a little bit more personalized. Or do they prefer the opt in like you have to experience? And you won’t know until you try your audience? Because again, at the end of the day, my audience is different than your audience, Katy, versus the person that’s listening to this.

Dawn Richardson 00:56:08  Yeah, all of our audience is different. You are their expert. You have to experiment, try new things, and if somebody leaves, that’s data. That’s okay, it’s okay. Show up. You are a business. It is your job to sell.

Katy Ripp 00:56:22  At the end of the day, you are a sales person. I’m sorry. Like you’re in sales? Yes. Amazing. Tell me about. Well, we can talk a little bit about this because people are always like, well, it’s just another expense, right? Like it’s another expense. It’s another system I have to have. It’s another, you know, that kind of thing. I have always been the I’m in the school of how many people can this replace for me. Right. Like or how many hours a week does this replace for me? If I don’t have to be out there selling on Instagram and I can make 4 or 5 sales through my email, that’s a mindset shift for sure. Yes, but Flodesk has not changed their price for a while.

Katy Ripp 00:57:08  I mean, I think I’ve been paying the same since I started and they just keep adding stuff. So this is the part where I’m going to like gild Flo desk and gold here, right? I’m also going to give everybody my 50% off coupon. Right. So you get 50% off for a year if you use my invitation, which I will put it in the show notes. But tell me about like, all the fun stuff that Full Desk has going on. And every time I go in there and also I do actually read the Flodesk emails. Oh, yes. When they come through, I actually read them. So I do know what’s going on most of the time, but there’s some really cool things even. I mean, I actually didn’t know that you could use because I’ve been paying member for so long. I didn’t actually know that you could use the forms for free, which means that you can go in, you can download a form, put it on your website, put it in your, you know, a link to it, right?

Dawn Richardson 00:58:04  Yeah.

Dawn Richardson 00:58:05  Depending on the form.

Katy Ripp 00:58:05  Yeah. Yeah. Depending on the form. And you can collect email addresses for no dollars, which means that all of a sudden you’ve got a list that you can do what you want with, but you don’t have to pay anything for if you’re not ready. Yeah. So amazing. Yes. But then if you’re ready, what’s the next level here? What are we talking about for services.

Dawn Richardson 00:58:26  Yeah. So we offer it’s pretty simple right now. So we have essentially two primary products I guess is the way you want to say it. So email is our our bread and butter. This is what we do is what we’re good at. Email includes forms emails automations. So we call those automations workflows. But we also close the sales loop here. And we have another piece to this called checkout. And checkout essentially provides you a sales page. It integrates directly with stripe, and you can build a stunning high converting sales page for a fraction of the cost of some of these other e-commerce platforms out there.

Dawn Richardson 00:59:04  And it’s really nice. We actually, a couple of weeks ago just introduced, e-commerce connections in our email. So you can link directly to your checkouts, which is really cool in your email. So sell from your emails. Beautiful. And many, many more exciting things coming for checkout. So I just wanted to preface what checkout was before I mentioned checkout here. But we have a flat rate, so we are $35 a month for email. So that includes the forms that are free unlimited emails, unlimited subscribers, unlimited automations.

Katy Ripp 00:59:33  Yeah. So that’s different than some of the other ones right? Like, yeah, I’m not sure how many of the other ones have changed because again, I haven’t left, but so many of them are based on how many. Basically you’re getting punished for more people.

Dawn Richardson 00:59:47  Oh yes, for sure, for sure. No no no, we don’t want to do our base pricing. Yeah. And everybody’s a little different. But I know I talk to somebody, a friend of mine recently and she is on a different platform, and she was telling me that she was paying $1,200 a month because she had 500,000 subscribers.

Dawn Richardson 01:00:04  Whoa! It was bananas. So at dusk, we are flat, right?

Katy Ripp 01:00:08  I mean, that’s amazing.

Katy Ripp 01:00:09  To have 500,000, but also, like, that’s a lot of money. Wow.

Dawn Richardson 01:00:13  It takes the wind out of your sails a little bit. Like. Oh, that’s. That’s a lot of money. Wow. Okay. So we do offer that. And that’s something that we’ve offered since the beginning, which is really cool. And then we have a higher tier. I believe it’s $59 a month. That includes checkout. So if you want to have that e-commerce platform, those beautiful sales pages integrated with stripe that’s available to you.

Katy Ripp 01:00:33  And I will say I use checkouts for my checkouts for my store, basically because, I mean, I sell digital downloads, I have events, I’ve done a lot of those things that I’ve used checkouts for, and it is a it’s seamless be it’s super easy and extremely user friendly, but also like everybody’s collected in there, right? Like everything’s email all it’s all collected to the segments.

Katy Ripp 01:00:59  I can then segment out and figure out, okay, this person came to this event, but they didn’t come to this one. They might be interested in this or whatever it is, but that basically has become my store. Yes. And there’s just checkouts only. So you could just like blanket costs, you know, give somebody a cost for something and here’s a checkout. It’s just I mean, I have really gone down a rabbit hole on checkouts and I love it so much.

Dawn Richardson 01:01:24  I love checkouts.

Katy Ripp 01:01:26  I love checkouts.

Dawn Richardson 01:01:27  It’s so fun.

Katy Ripp 01:01:28  That’s what you’re gonna see. My Art of hello workshop is going to be through checkouts and I love it. That’s perfect.

Dawn Richardson 01:01:33  I know some people that use it for free offers to like, oh yeah, like they have a workshop. Like you can use a form that’s great, but like if you can build like a full sales page, like for your workshop, describe who’s coming, what you’re talking about. Like it’s truly, really beautiful and.

Katy Ripp 01:01:47  Yeah.

Dawn Richardson 01:01:48  And drag and drop all easy.

Katy Ripp 01:01:50  Yeah. And they’re gorgeous right. Like you can you can really customize them man. I could go down a hole on this Okay, as we wrap up here, what suggestion do you have for somebody that’s just starting out? We talked about this a little bit at the beginning. I mean, we’ve got like just start but then what.

Dawn Richardson 01:02:09  So obviously just start. But also I want you to take a minute and like picture what your ideal business looks like. Right. Because I think a small business owners, we have this dream of like what we want this to look like. And we learn that we left the 9 to 5 to work 100 hours a week instead. And it was like, not what we expected. Or like I wanted to be home with my kids and now I’m just like crazy busy and overwhelmed all the time. So I think something helpful to me is like, I think of my ideal, I think of Sarah, I think of, what this world could look like.

Dawn Richardson 01:02:39  And I asked myself what strategies could get me there. And it’s almost always not the social media world. It’s almost always things like strong email marketing and a strong strategy. I want to show up for the right person at the right time with the right message, and I can do that on autopilot while I’m sleeping, while I’m with my babies, while I’m taking care of family members, whatever that may be. And that’s not a freedom that I get across other channels. So not only do I encourage you to start, but I encourage you to think about like what this could look like in your world. And when you get that picture, it’s just so much easier to dedicate some time and some resources to that. Because for any tool, there’s always some startup time. It’s going to take you a while to like to figure out what you want to say. And now we have ChatGPT like y’all. I love me some ChatGPT. I spent hours in there talking to it, refining things, but getting there, it takes some time and some effort and you want like you’re not going to just like, get an account and all of a sudden all of your problems are solved, like, you still are the brains here, right? so it’s going to take some time, but when you have a Y and you have a vision in mind of, like where you want your business to be, it really changes how you see it.

Dawn Richardson 01:03:48  Your time doesn’t feel wasted. Your time is not as frustrating or like you’re struggling to spend it. So lean into that with the encouragement to just get started. Because once you get this started and get this going, the autopilot numbers are just so satisfying. Yeah, just watch it roll in.

Katy Ripp 01:04:05  I think about that, like how many hours? When I first started doing reels, I spent making one reel.

Dawn Richardson 01:04:13  Three.

Katy Ripp 01:04:15  Three hours I know. Right, right. Like three hours sometimes. Like making one reel that got, like one like or 12 likes. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? But I have spent, like to spend three hours on an email, which I think I’ve never done. And to make $3,000, like that’s a real ROI that I don’t know why we can’t quite connect it, but my mission in life for the next few months is to figure out how we can connect this. Yeah.

Dawn Richardson 01:04:45  So, yeah. And we’re making it even easier for you. So we just launched our Canva integration this week.

Dawn Richardson 01:04:50  We’re going to be talking about it later in April. But now you can directly connect your Canva account. So when you have an image block inside of your email, you can like select Canva and all of your Canva designs populate so you don’t even have to leave the desk to bring in those designs. So like we talk about beautiful designs. We talk about all the possibilities. But now, like the possibilities are like truly endless. Yes, Canva has entered the chat and that just makes it more fun and more customizable. And again, show up. Make that impression be an extension of your brand so you can focus on the things that matter, which is probably not the things that you’re spending all your time on right now 100%.

Katy Ripp 01:05:28  Don, thank you so much for joining me today. Really, I am really excited for all of the things that Flodesk has, but also just to meet you and have our relationship so we can bring more stuff to us. So appreciate it. Thank you.

Dawn Richardson 01:05:44  Well, thank you for having me.

Katy Ripp 01:05:46  Well, that is a wrap on today’s episode, but the conversation doesn’t have to end here. If this episode resonated with you at all. Come hang out with us inside. Actually we can. This is my private community for midlife women entrepreneurs who are just done with the hustle and ready to build businesses that actually work for them. Inside, you’ll find support and strategy and a whole lot of real talk from women who get it. You can join us at Katy Ripp community. We can also stay connected on socials. You can follow me on Instagram at Katy Ripp for behind the scenes extra insights and plenty of business wisdom. But most importantly, make sure you follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. If you love today’s topic, please leave me a review and share it with another badass woman who needs to hear this. As always, thank you for being here. Now go do your thing and I’ll see you next time.