301 - Smart Email Strategies for Podcasters & Weekly Wins

0:04 Good morning podcast, podcasting, Morning Chat. Today is Friday, May 9th, 2025, and today we're talking about your e-mail list and newsletters. And we're going to have some wins too, because it is Friday. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 ish seconds and we'll get things rolling. And as always, thanks for being here.

1:21 Good morning podcasting, morning chat. I hope everyone's great today. And no, I am not Mark. Mark has not been taking extra hormones to make his voice sound like this. No, Mark is still gallivanting in in, in Espana. He's in Spain today and while Big Daddy is away, some of his cohorts, some of his Co hosts are taking over and today is my turn. I'm Dr. Fay and today on the stage we have Ashley, Dan, Alex, Sid and Nick and if anyone else feels compelled to come up and talk with us on stage then please come on up.

2:05 We won't bite you unless you know you want us to. So today is going to be all about e-mail lists and newsletters. And I really wanted to, I've been wanting to do this subject for a a little while, a little while because I'm kind of embarking on maybe having a newsletter myself. And so I'm just, I'm compelled to learn everything about it, everything about it. So today we're going to be playing some clips from a couple of interviews that Mark has done, and we'll introduce those as they come up. And as a matter of fact, it's time for the icebreaker. So Dan, why don't you go ahead and play that first clip for the icebreaker and I'll ask the question afterwards. So I did a carousel about newsletters, the five types of newsletters that podcasters.

3:03 Can use to grow their show. And I tried like high, like focus where is like you're breaking down something that you talked. On the show. And like things that are just like lists. And then I turned that social media post, that carousel post into a newsletter. So it it was very medic because it was a newsletter about newsletters. But right, like it literally. Got people like, Oh my gosh, I never thought about this. And then a creator said that she was going to expand on those and add more confidence and like, awesome. So you really need to work smarter and not harder. And so look at a post and say, hey, can that post be actually what I talk about on a newsletter? Awesome.

3:45 So my first question is, how many people on stage and in the audience, how many people do actually have a newsletter right now? Give me a show of hands, Dan and Sid. Yay. Dan and Sid. Well, all right. OK, so the icebreaker is what's the last piece of content you created that could easily be turned into a newsletter? And have you done it yet? Or what's if you don't have a newsletter? What's the last piece of content that you created that might make it into your future newsletter?

4:27 Sid, go ahead. Good morning, everybody. So I published A newsletter yesterday, and my newsletter yesterday was about just a brief recap of four books that I've recently read that have had a big impact on me or that word Game changing. I think the title was four books that I've read that are game changing. And so that's what I did with yesterday's newsletter. It's a LinkedIn newsletter, I suppose. I don't call it a newsletter, but I do e-mail my community, my podcast community, the subscribers that I have every time I launch a podcast about this, about that day's episode or that week's episode. So you could call that a newsletter. It describes the show.

5:11 But to me, a newsletter has multiple components to it, and that's more of just a. You know, I call that I call that a nudge because I have from from one of my clients. Whenever she whenever we drop an episode, I have her do a little nudge. Hey, everyone, just wanted to drop in and tell you that we have Joe Blow on the show today. And I hope you can make it. And also it might leave a little room at the very bottom. You know, please rate and review or you know, here's a book I've written or something like that. But the main thing is just those one or two lines. It's just like a little nudge, just like and Nick, I saw your hand up. I, I don't, I don't have a newsletter currently, but I can speak to what I would do.

5:57 I think exactly what Anna was talking about is kind of the mindset that I took with it is like if I'm consistently creating content for social media or for a podcast or whatever, I would likely think of ways that I can, OK, let's take podcast specifically because Sid was talking about that. I would probably take one aspect of the interview or one thing specifically that got discussed that you could maybe dive into a little bit deeper and then almost use that to tease the podcast episode. It's like, this is a topic that we discussed and here's some other things we discussed in the episode.

6:38 So you should go check that out. So I recorded a podcast the other day about innovation. It's a solo podcast and I wrote an article for the magazine that I write for about innovation. So I took that article and I turned it into a podcast episode, one of my tend to win episodes. And then in July I will take that and I'll turn it into a newsletter and I'll go a little bit deeper with it in my newsletter. And that particular newsletter, I'm going to link to the episode and you can, and LinkedIn, you can actually put the Spotify player into the newsletter. It's the only one you can. You can't do Apple, it's only Spotify. So put the Spotify player in there. So I will use an article that I wrote, repurpose it as a podcast, and then repurpose it as a newsletter so that I'm getting a lot of value out of that one piece of content that I created.

7:31 And I say that to say that when I started my LinkedIn newsletter, the first place that I went was to my archives of all the articles that I've written over the last since 2019 and started looking for things that I thought would be appropriate for my newsletter. And then if they need updating and updating and then I turned them into a newsletter. I am I am re personate pre purposing good morning, old or content or older article into my newsletter currently. Oh. That's awesome. With the embedded Spotify player, how does that show up in your analytics? Does it just show up as a Spotify play, do you know? Or does it actually say that you have plays on that specifically in the LinkedIn article?

8:16 So that's above my pay grade, Nick, because I haven't gone to the Spotify analytics in a really long time. So it says I locked the LinkedIn newsletter. I've only embedded 1 podcast episode so I'd have to go and figure, remember which one that was and then go and look. But I don't look at the spot, the Spotify analytics all that much. Sorry I'm not very helpful there. No, that's fine. And I I haven't spent a lot of time with LinkedIn articles. I wonder if they have like a time on page kind of thing similar to like Google. Analytics. No, they do not, No. No. So basically what they tell you in the LinkedIn newsletter analytics is different than an article, but you go to the newsletter analytics, it'll tell you, Jonathan can speak to this too, and Dan too, because they both have LinkedIn newsletters.

9:02 It tells you how many they emailed because the people that have subscribed, this is what I like about LinkedIn is that you have to consciously click the button that says subscribe to the newsletter and E and LinkedIn automatically notifies your followers that you have a newsletter and invites them to follow it. And every time you get a new connection, they about your new connections are your new followers. They, they invite your connection and follower to actually, so it keeps growing, right? But it is a conscious choice to click the button and say, I want to hear content from this person or see content from this person. And then if, Nick, you've done that and you've also set up your newsletter option inside of your LinkedIn to e-mail you, then you get a notification, a red dot, if you will, on LinkedIn that the newsletter is published.

9:52 And sometime that day you get an e-mail that is published. And it tells you in the analytics, it tells you how many emails that it's sent, right? And then I have to go look at it again, how many it's sent, I think how many open and that kind of stuff. It's not deep dive analytics like you get on a podcast player by any means. Cool. We actually have a pretty good question in the chat and Adam. Adam is asking what are some ways to make a newsletter stand out in inboxes. People are usually bombarded with so many e-mail messages. Anyone on that one? Your subject line is one of the only things that really works. Sometimes some emails will show the first line or preview line, but those are really where you're looking to highlight some value that you're offering in there so that it interests the audience.

10:45 So can you give us a, for instance, like the last couple of newsletters that you sent out, Jonathan, what were the subjects? I'm terrible at this, so no, somebody else can. I appreciate that, Nick. I saw. Oh, go ahead, Dan. So subject lines, you know, are interesting and really you want to think about it like creating a hook for your podcast, only probably much shorter in in the case of an e-mail subject line. And I can't give examples off the top of my head of my last few newsletters, but they're related to the topic and I'm not I don't spend a lot of time in strategy.

11:26 What I do spend a lot of time in when it comes to creating the content is content that's easy to read, contents that's relatable, content that is when I say easy to read, I guess I should clarify, it's in a language as if I'm talking to you. So it's much easier for people to read. If you have too many things in your newsletter, you're talking about your latest podcast, you're talking about a new strategy, you're talking about whatever else you add to a newsletter. There's there's a reason that that a lot of people are talking about newsletters and how nobody wants to read them.

12:09 It's because you're trying to pack too much information and too many ideas into one e-mail. So your comment earlier DRI think it was about a nudge is probably a much better way to look at a newsletter. It's what's the main idea you want people to walk away with from this e-mail. That's how you increase your open rates. That's how you stand out amongst all the other e-mail providing creators. We also, I also think one of the other things is, and this is the biggest problem of newsletters and it's not a problem so to speak, but you know, everybody's worried about click rates and people resonate with different titles. And I know a strategy that's been working for me in the past is you send out the same newsletter 3 times and before you tell me, Oh my God, that's the dumbest thing in the world, just hear me out.

13:02 You change the title every time because by changing the title, you may end up picking somebody else up. And when you send it out the second and third time, you scrub the people that already opened it so that your click rate can go up a little bit higher. You can say the same thing two or three different times and still get your people to look at it just by the title itself. But I know Sid wanted to jump in. Well, Ashley had her hand up, so I'm going to let her go 1st and then I will come after Ashley. Thank you, Sid. I was just going to say I know that Dr. is a fan of the pen pivot and that is a great website and we were talking about subject lines if you go.

13:44 On to the pen pivot and just type in their search field subject line generator. I guarantee you there will be a prompt that will come up and it will help you. Create some great subject line for your emails. I think I heard about that in our group chat a week or so ago. I listened to a podcast by Amy Porterfield and it is a podcast all about subject lines that stop the scroll with this guy named Jay and Alex. He talks about what you talked about. He also talks about the statistics of you need 7 times before somebody's likely going to open the actual e-mail so send it differently, talks a lot about subject lines and how to change them to really grab people's attention and even shares the strategy about emailing everyday. I don't do that.

14:34 To me, it's bugging my audience, right? I don't have 500 subscribers and I don't want to pester them. And when I e-mail my group, it's every other week is when I e-mail them, it's about the podcast. There might be a call to action like go follow my LinkedIn newsletter or fill out this form that I'm doing a survey for whatever. So it's very limited and it's always above the scroll. I hate emails that you have to scroll, scroll, scroll and scroll, right? And I get between A50 and a 51% open rate and an average of a 4% click rate, which is really great in the world of e-mail marketing. And I'm super happy with it. And I see a bump in my downloads over because I send it out Tuesday mornings at 9:15 and I see a bump in my downloads on Tuesday from the episode of that week.

15:20 So I know that it's working and it feels good to me and I'm trying not to. And again, this is about me doing it my way. There's so many opinions about this and e-mail marketing and all this kind of you just do it your way, but listen to what experts quote, UN quote, have to say about the topic and then take away your best practices and incorporate it into your content. And just to, I'm sorry, I'm in the kitchen, but I just had to say that I put in in our backstage chat the actual podcast that Amy's guest has. It's called this, not that or do this, not that. And I listen to it every now and then. He's fun. He's he. It's a fun listen.

16:01 Great. Yeah, I mean, there, there are a couple strategies. And at the end of the day, it said you hit the nail on the head. If it's if it's what you can fit into your schedule as well as, you know, what the what your listeners want to hear. I mean, if they're thirsty for daily content, that's great, but you may not be thirsty to produce it or you're thirsty to produce it and they don't want it. And I think that's that's the main thing. You have to figure it out. OK, so I I have another question for you. It's all on e-mail and your list and everything. So what do you believe is more valuable? A subscriber on your e-mail list or an engaged follower? And why?

16:45 A subscriber on your e-mail list is always more valuable. OK. And why? Because you're going to make more money off them in the long term. OK, it's. Just the way it goes, engagement. I love having engagement though. But yes, I feel your answer. I feel yeah, talk can. You talk for just a quick second about what is an engaged follower. Like what? How are you defining? Someone if you if you post something on social, they reply they like they have a conversation with you basically. If you're doing things right, you're getting those engaged followers on your e-mail list anyway, and you're converting them usually there. OK.

17:25 I don't disagree with Jonathan at all. However, I disagree with the justification. Or at least I have a different perspective. Jonathan, I, I think that yes, the e-mail list is probably more valuable. And my reasoning would be simply because you own more rights to your e-mail list than you do social media. So social media you're on rented space. So that immediately makes something not social media more valuable. Now, is there probable opportunity for conversion? I would say yes, there's more opportunity for conversion on your e-mail list. People are directly engaged.

18:08 That doesn't mean though, that they're not directly engaged on your social media. Everything I do from social media content to e-mail to podcast is stand alone content meant to create an an engagement or entry point for people where I can have a conversation with them. So I think there's equal value from that perspective. Like kind of further backing Jonathan's point about you're more likely to make money off of someone if they're on your e-mail list. I'm not good at sales, but I understand sales and I know like one of the big strategy is getting people to say, yes, you can get them to say yes. So many times the likelihood of you closing that deal goes up significantly. And by them putting their e-mail in, by them taking that step of actually doing it, like it's not clicking the follow button, they're actually putting an e-mail in and saying, send me this stuff to me.

19:05 That's that's one of the first yeses you can get from somebody. So it kind of puts a little bit of skin in the game because they're actually having to go through the extra effort to join your e-mail list. And that means that they they are genuinely interested in what you have to say, what you might be selling. I have to agree. I can see that, I can see that. See I'm learning as we go along because I really do want to start. Started a, a newsletter. So we have another clip to play and this one is with Mark and Chris. Is it Vaglio? Is that how you pronounce it? Vaglio And Dan, is that clip ready to go?

19:46 Here you go, free access to information, by the way, no charging, just offer the access to it and like guides, tips, ebooks, additional content, and basically all they have to give you is an e-mail address because now we're going to be list building. So everything's always about like list building, like name and e-mail address. But they give me tools, quizzes, you know, we'll offer to sign up for a newsletter. What do they get? Right, If they sign up for a newsletter, what are they going to get? I don't know. Incentives, access to more information doesn't cost a lot of money. A lot of times it's just the idea and then the asking of it. And you're going to try different things and some things may bomb and some things may be great, but you got to try it to do it.

20:26 And so there's a lot of ways to to kind of get involved with people. But The thing is you always want to be building that list. And this is the list. Your list is going to be gold. You're on borrowed platforms. Yeah, you are. Every platform you're on is a borrowed platform except for your e-mail list that is yours. And you want to be able to get as much information from those borrowed platforms as you can. And the way to do that is to offer as much free advice, whatever it is that you can to get people to say, wow, yeah, I really like that. That resonates with me. Yes. I'm happy to give you my e-mail address and my, my name, you know? But once again, this is your community. Talk to them. Be part of it. Be active, you know.

21:08 I mean, that's true. The more you give generously, you know, the more you get. But where's the line? Can you be too generous? I mean, some. Sometimes you give stuff out and you think, oh man, I could get be getting paid for this or this is stuff that I actually charge people for. So where is the line between giving generously and giving way too much? Anyone have something for me? Go ahead, Billy. I love this question because I often ask myself and I think I've defined it if, if I can be real simple is I will give on my terms all everything, anything and everything. So if I come into clubhouse and I'm sharing, I'll do my business. I'll give it all away for free.

21:53 But if you start asking me a bunch of questions, so I get my inbox, start taking up my time, my energy, now I go, oh, I get this paid group. And so if it's on my time, if it's out we're going, I'll give it all away. I don't care if you're in the right place at the right time, you'll get everything I know for free if. You're trying to pull. It from me, then there's a fee. So I I also love this question for very similar reasons. I think first of all, yes, I give everything I can away for free without restraint. No lines drawn in the sand and and there's not a if you ask me questions, I'll more I'm more likely to answer them. It sounds like then Billy might be, but I think the line comes when people can take that information and filter for themselves how to put it into reaction reality. And then that's good because that creates space for those who actually want help to reach out with more specific needs. So that's how the line is created, if you will. I, I think it's tremendously valuable to give away as much as possible.

23:03 Information is free, implementation is money. Oh, let's unpack that a little bit. What does that mean? It means I can give you all the information. Not a problem, but if you need help implementing that information then you got to pay. Very good. I totally feel that. Amanda, I wanted to acknowledge that you're up on stage here now. Did you have something to add or you just coming up just to give me support? Give me an Alex support. I thought it for a second, Amanda, Yoa came up. I was like, I'm just sitting here enjoying the conversation. I'm terrible and don't have an e-mail list, probably never will. Not sure why. I I know Sid, I'm so sorry.

23:45 Oh, I thought he was judging me. He was just saying good morning, good morning. I need improvement. I'm not a big e-mail person when it comes to getting e-mail marketing campaign type stuff. So I feel like I prejudge my send off and that's how somebody would receive it, which is not what I should be doing. I often do that too much. And I do need to change that mentality. I will say, like for the store, I've gathered emails in the past and literally have done nothing with them. So there's a huge, huge opportunity there.

24:25 You know, I I admit that I know that. I just, I don't know what's going to make me actually, like, move forward with it. Sid is going to yell at me in a loving way. Go ahead, Sid. Yeah, it looks like he's ready to do it. Go ahead, Sid. I'm not going to yell at you and I'm certainly not going to judge you, woman, but I do think that you are missing an opportunity to increase sales at the store by not emailing people who come into the store, emailing people in your community about the store. I mean, you could do a Thursday e-mail that says new at the store and showcase pictures of things at the store that came in new this week. You could e-mail a Mother's Day coupon a 5% off of a Mother's Day gift, right?

25:08 Or I mean, so there's so many things I think you could do that can actually drive traffic to the store. And I know that you're working hard to do that. So I would absolutely think about how could you use your e-mail list to drive traffic to your store. And I feel that and I hear it and I know you're right said like that's a thing for sure. And so I guess my question to the group would be, and sorry if this is redundant, because I'm sure we've talked about it a million times for somebody who wants to dabble in this and start small, but be very user friendly because remember when we're doing our podcast, Chris does all of the tucky things. So what, what company, what business should I use to like start those e-mail?

25:50 Yes, thank you. That was the word I was looking for. Dr. What platform should I start with that's affordable? So I would say a good platform to start with, even though it may not be as user friendly as is MailChimp because it's free and most people start on MailChimp because it is a free little option. But can I tell you to not send out a 5% coupon, please? Because nobody's going to come into your store for 5% coupon, 5% off. Just saying, Sid, come on. I thought he said $5, which I thought was good. 05 dollars maybe, but not 5%. Need to listen. No I just was using an example but Amanda.

26:30 So Amanda, Google free e-mail service providers or free e-mail something and it'll tell you MailChimp is free. There's a free version of almost every one of them, right? And what it's going to limit you on is like animate animations automations, where if somebody clicks this, they get another e-mail and they go into another sequence, right? You can do there's plenty that you can do that are free and then use ChatGPT to help you write the e-mail. Just go into ChatGPT and say, hey, I want to send an e-mail to my followers about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it'll give you an e-mail, and then you put your spin on it and you've got an e-mail and literally less than, you know, 5 minutes. And I think I haven't really done this since I've had the tool ChatGPT like before when I originally thought this idea would probably be good for the store. It just seems so overwhelming of a task. But now to your point said, I can craft an e-mail within minutes.

27:26 And I think that's the biggest like hurdle that would get in my way in the past. So I do think I hear you all. I'm going to do that this week. Well this coming week and I saw my Co host, I saw my Co host Alex and. I'm really surprised about the e-mail thing with you, Amanda, especially since you were in the real estate business because I know that's a big piece of it, but you could talk to somebody that you talk to like every Monday. Who? Does actual marketing. I think his name, if I'm not mistaken, is Chris. I understand why you want to keep it simple, and I think that's a really great deal. I really think A4, a 4% coupon is so much better. It's just so much more.

28:11 But even if you keep it simple, like just a couple of things that are new at the store boomed on, then you're ready to go. Yeah, I like that and with Chris doing basically like all the stuff for the podcast behind the scenes, like I definitely don't want to put more on his his workload, even though I know he would help me and he's so much further when he comes to this e-mail strategy. I mean, he's such an expert when it comes to that, that I think it's beyond where I need to start. So I really need that like entry level. So I think I got some good suggestions and I'm going to implement this next week. Thank you guys for the nudge. I'm. Not going to. That he could probably, you know, get you into the right direction, even though you would probably end up doing it. I'm just.

28:52 See, that's the problem. But but you'd have to, you know, be be be a big girl and say, I'm going to do this. I swear I'm going to Dan, I know you had your hand up. I know that Dr. had originally asked me what I use. So I'll just put it out there. I use active campaign and I'll be transparent about the reason. It's because they have one of the best affiliate programs out of all of them. So that's just transparency. I would also encourage you, and you're looking at free platforms to start with, to look at the number of e-mail sends because many of them have an e-mail send of, you know, 1000 emails. Well, if you have 100 subscribers and you send one e-mail a day to 100 subscribers, you might run into issues. So make sure you look at things like that, but also consider what your final goals might be beyond playing with e-mail lists because there are platforms that are designed for more brick and mortar style businesses to help other transactions in the future.

29:57 So that's a consideration I would certainly take into account. If that's overwhelming, stick with I'm just going to play with e-mail and there's nothing wrong with that. If you send me an your e-mail address separately, I will be happy to send you some great examples of a restaurant in Miami that has fabulous emails. I would love that. And Speaking of affiliate links, will you send me a link for your particular account? So and then anyone, anyone who has affiliate links for any kind of e-mail marketing, I'd love to utilize one of those links when signing up. Absolutely. Thank you, Dan. Yvonne, I saw your hand up.

30:39 Good morning, Amanda. I use, I do use MailChimp and I use the free version of it and it's been fine for me so far. My e-mail list is under, you know, whatever number they start to charge you at. So that's good. And I am really thinking, man, I need to get people over to e-mail and off of socials as quick as I can. So I started doing a brainstorm with ChatGPT to help me develop an e-mail campaign and it helped me come up with some some ideas that I feel pretty good about. Also, I use it for every episode that I put out, the little dialogue around the episode content and it knows me so well now that it's really getting good at writing in my voice. And then I make minor tweaks to it and it's a whole brainstorm session and, and it has made getting my emails out the door every week so much, so much easier. Just like it's kind of like having somebody to talk to. So those are, those are kind of a couple of things that are good.

31:45 And by the way, my, my MailChimp open rate, and I don't know if it has to do with the platform or whatever, but I've gotten, I've got an open rate of like 50% plus usually and a pre and a decent click through rate too. So yeah, right out. Yvonne, I have a question for you. Are you using the ChatGPT folder feature? I'm not said I you, I think you mentioned that the other day and I was like have a folder feature. So if you have the paid version, you can create folders, right? Or projects or what they're called, I believe and. Projects. Projects, yeah. And so like I have a project for each one of my things that I'm doing. And to your point, it remembers what you do it like when I go into my newsletter, say, hey, I want to create a newsletter, it remembers all the other newsletters that I've created. It does actually talk.

32:39 I love the fact that it's learning my voice and how I write because I've uploaded articles to it and excuse me, things like that. So the folder feature is just a really great way to keep the content organized by the topic or by the subject of what you're doing. So like I have one for my newsletter. I have one for my blogs that I write. I have one for my new business that I've started with my friend Michelle. And so, I mean, it's just it's a game changer for me. That's amazing. I literally just started paying for ChatGPT last month thinking I was only going to do it for a month, but I don't know, I might have to stick around. I just think they sucked me in. Yeah, I just joined as well and one of the mastermind groups I belong to is all AI. It's called the Laurens.

33:28 It's two women. They're both named Laurens. So they've named their company the Laurens. And she said I was in a meeting, like an open call. And she said the the update that Gemini has done is mind blowing. She says mind blowing. So now I'm looking at that too all. Right, so I have a question going back to the newsletter for a second. I have a question. I haven't LinkedIn newsletter, but I do every other Thursday and it's on the off week of my podcast. So my podcast is on a Monday of one week and my newsletter is on the Thursday of the following week. I know the answer to this question is yes, but I do not send my e-mail list my LinkedIn newsletter as its own newsletter.

34:17 Should I do that? Should I start taking that content and then sending an e-mail? Now I'll be seeing an e-mail every week to my list. So we go out on Thursday and it just basically I don't send them to LinkedIn. I just put the entire newsletter in the body of the e-mail. Yeah. So I edit it specifically for my e-mail list versus my LinkedIn list, if you will. But I use the same content absolutely. I just don't copy and paste it over. So it is definitely has a different feel on e-mail versus on LinkedIn. Hope that's helpful. So, Sid, what I did in this situation is I have a spreadsheet that has the titles of all of my articles that I've used on in a newsletter that also has a column for the date that I used it on LinkedIn and a column for when I created a blog from it.

35:13 And that way I have all three of them. Now, I don't like, I will publish a LinkedIn newsletter about a topic and then 10 weeks later publish it as a regular newsletter and then 10 weeks later publish it as a blog. But I keep the rotation that way the content is going out there. But yeah, and I just made a spreadsheet that gives me the dates to put in for each of those. I love that you have this strategy of every 10 weeks you're sending the same content out to basically three different places. And I think that's actually really good. I'm going to, I do not have a spreadsheet, which is crazy. I'm going to start that. And then I can go back to the last like 5 weeks or so ago, right? And I can take the newsletter that I published because it's been about 5 episodes within 10 weeks, take the first newsletter and I can start sending that to my e-mail list. That's that's a really great idea. Thank you, Jonathan.

36:06 Thank you, Dan as well. Cool. And I see James Cridland in the room. James, how are you? I I'm thinking that you're probably in the UK at the at the show there. Hey, I'm doing very well and good morning from Toronto, which is. Where we are in Toronto, OK. Yeah, because you know, why? Why would I be in one place when another place will do so? Yes. So I've been here for a radio conference here and going to the podcast show in London. Yes, absolutely. In a couple of weeks time, which I'm looking forward to. Going home today, which I'm also looking forward to. So. Yeah. And it's interesting hearing folks talking about newsletters. Of course, I send one every day. You are my accompaniment for putting the finishing touches on the Pod news newsletter which I'm just about to send out. I just jumped in just to have a listen of what you guys are talking about.

36:58 Some of us, like me, I'm thinking about doing a newsletter and so I'm trying to cram all this information into my brain, all this education into my brain. Some people, it sounds like Jonathan's that he's like on a flywheel kind of system. That's what I'm looking at to do as well. One for every day. So you have kind of like this curated list that I think is fantastic and people don't get tired of reading that because you have some really valuable information in there. Do you ever kind of shy away from Oh my God, every day. Every day. I don't know about every day. Certainly every day is is difficult.

37:39 It's the only way that it could work as a business to do it every day. And the newsletter is, you know, what pays my salary every month. So I need to ensure that it's a viable business. I have a weekly version as well, which is called the Pod News. No, it's not. It's called the podcast Business Journal. The Podcast Business Journal is essentially the business news from the daily newsletter. And one of the reasons why we started doing that is that daily was a bit too much for some people and we didn't want to lose them from our universe totally. So the idea was basically, OK, we will firstly buy a competitor. That's always a good thing. But we will make podcast Business Journal be something which is a weekly rather than a daily. So it is.

38:23 So if you, if you think that it's too much and you can't deal with an e-mail every single day, then that's fine. But we still don't actually lose you as a, as a reader. So that was the the thinking behind that. I have to say, not sure that I've made my money from that yet, but but you know how? Long have you been doing that. I think probably three years now, now it doesn't take very long. And I think what, what I've found interesting in this chat is hearing people's plans on how they reuse their content in different, on different platforms. And I think that's a really bright thing to do. And, you know, and certainly that that's what I've always, you know, aimed at, aimed at doing so actually the the the weekly podcast Business Journal takes half an hour. That's my next job after sending out the the daily newsletter this morning.

39:15 So it's not an awful lot of, of additional work, but it's certainly a nice way of, you know, reskinning some of the stories that we've that we've covered for a slightly different audience. It's very US focused. I have to remember to use US spelling, you know, and do all of that kind of stuff for it. Yeah. Yeah, colour aluminium, yes. So that's interesting. I, I just wondered whether, and obviously I joined relatively late, but I wondered whether there were conversations around how to get more readers for your newsletter, because that's obviously, you know, a thing that we spend a lot, a lot of time on whether anybody had any magic ideas open? That up to the room yet, but if anyone has any suggestions or anything to add let me see your hands.

40:00 I mean, I can tell you. Looks like you're out of luck. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. I can tell you how we do that, which might be helpful. What what we try and do is we try and partner with companies like the podcast show, for example, events which are focused to the same audience as we are. And we have a package where we will help promote your event. And in return, there is a data share button so that as somebody is buying a ticket for that event, then they can tick a box that says, I'd like to get the the pod news newsletter every day. And I've certainly found that that has been really helpful in finding a ton more people who are interested in the same thing that our newsletter is about, you know, go out and find events which are also focused at the same type of audience. And I've certainly found that as being a very useful and helpful way to find find more people.

40:56 Yeah. Right. And another, there's a platform called Sub Stack that always gives you recommendations. Well, if you like this newsletter, then you might like these newsletters. I subscribe to several people who are on Sub Stack. They're amazing. They're amazing. One is Pen Pivot with that we've already talked about before. And another one is, you know, these are the only two that I actually pay good money for. So one is Pen Pivot and the other one uses both my trigger words, which is podcast strategy and it's by Chris Stone. I want to say I think that's Stone. Let me Scroll down here.

41:39 It's in my notes. Chris Stone. Yes, both of them are from the UK, as a matter of fact. So yeah, so you've got to check those out. But I like the recommendation thing that you get if you don't like, if you like this one, then you'll love these and it gets my you know, it gets my juices going and if I see sometimes I have shiny panty syndrome and I got to click on it so. Yeah. And and of course that's that's only good if your newsletter is on sub stack as well, because that's the only way that your your newsletter will get into that algorithm. But something relatively similar that we have done with a number of other podcast newsletters is we've shared mentions in our welcome e-mail.

42:26 So you can set up a welcome e-mail for every newsletter that you that you do on whatever, whatever platform, essentially. And that welcome e-mail is, hey, you know, thanks for joining. And you know, and this is what to expect from our newsletter. And then it says something like, while we have you, here are a few other newsletters that you might find interesting. And so we end up swapping, you know, mentions. I think Eurosounds is on there, which is a newsletter all about podcasting in Europe, and Earbuds is on there, which is a newsletter all about recommendations. So that that that has certainly been a useful way of, you know, if you're signing up for a newsletter, you're in the mood to sign up for more things to read, Why not capture that?

43:07 Make sure that you can offer a couple more in there as well. So that's handy for others on this on this call. That's great. James. Thanks so much for coming up on stage. I really appreciate it. James, I do. I do have another question. For you, you talked about how you have a weekly and a daily POC newsletter and that the daily is what makes the money, so to speak. I just want to understand like what does that mean to you? Because a lot of us do have newsletters and start thinking about having newsletters and we're just trying to figure out, you know, what does that mean in terms of how to make the words turn into dollars, so to speak? We could, we could get on to how the how the newsletter makes makes money.

43:51 But, you know, obviously on a really basic level, if you're selling advertising in a newsletter, which is one of the ways that I monetize it, then you can't tell advertising on a day that you don't publish. And so if you're publishing five days a week, then that's five opportunities to go out and sell advertising rather than just one. So on a really basic level, that's why the Pod news newsletter makes, you know, as much, as much easier to monetize. But, you know, diversifying. That's fine. I just was, I, I didn't realize that you monetize it that way. And that's all I was really looking for. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. So thank you so much. I, I, you know, there's a whole rabbit hole that we could go down, but I know we got to do some other stuff. And, and thank you so much for, for sharing your knowledge. Hey, no worries, Alex.

44:39 James, again, thanks so much for popping in. This was great. There is one other clip that is so important to me that we include and I really, really want to play it. Dan, are you back to play this? Yep, here we go. The number one thing I really want to open with today is I have fallen in love with e-mail marketing as an ethical. Tool. For marketing, because it is permission based marketing, if you're doing it correctly, which means you're letting people opt in and opt out at their own will and you're using what we call kind messaging and ethical marketing practices, you can really make your e-mail list a beautiful, beautiful community.

45:22 And so you'll often hear me say, you know, in my own trainings. Or out and about on the speaking tour I'm currently on, or wherever that is. Because if we start just thinking about the shift from e-mail list to e-mail community, the whole energy shifts. And there's just so. Much. Fun you can have building a beautiful community that where e-mail is now a two way conversation tool and not just a broadcast of messages out to a list. It was so important to me that we include that clip. That was from a show that I produce. It's called Life After Corporate and that was I think show number think 206 or something from that, from that podcast. But her name is Shannon Hernandez and she is an e-mail guru.

46:19 And I, I hope you tune into that show because it was really great. And just imagine your e-mail list as a room full of your favorite people. How would you show up differently versus, you know, just a bunch of faceless e-mail addresses? So it was just really important to me that I include that. I appreciate you indulging me on that. So we are very close to the end, but we still have to do our wins. So I'm just going to go down the line here. Ashley, what is your quick win? My quick win for the week is that I got a new mouse and keyboard this week. I had a really hard tech day yesterday. My Bluetooth mouse and keyboard just would not cooperate and so I got a new one.

47:04 So that's my win for the week. Awesome. Alex, my Co host, what is your win for the day for the week? Sorry. We survived without Mark, That's it. Very true, Sid, and your win. So I'm going to say the same one that I said last week, which is my kids are home and it's really great to have them home. We had our first family dinner last night with all four of us at the table for the first time in several months. So it was really nice. It's really great to have them home. My daughter leaves on Monday, so it's only for a few days that we have both of them here, but it's really great to have both of them here. Awesome, awesome, Jonathan, your turn. I'm going to do one for the podcast, which is that we had completed 300 episodes as of yesterday, which is a big number. Yay.

47:50 For us. Exactly. And I know Amanda, I have two I well, one, I got five baby chicks yesterday, so I'm so excited about. That I'm. In the background, they're excited now. They're so cute. Oh my gosh, I love them so much and they're so happy. I love them. And this month at the store is just going so well and I'm just super grateful for that too. So thanks for letting me share. Imagine, imagine how much better it would go if you had a newsletter. That would be great. Yes, next week, Yvonne, let's see. Well, I got to go skating 2 times this week because it stopped raining for a couple of days, so that I'm going to call that my big win this week.

48:32 Awesome. And Dan? I have so many. I guess the biggest one this week is I am officially a board member for Main Street Cocoa Beach, which is a good move to plug into communities. Awesome, awesome. Dan, how did you do on your final? Well, so one of them it was a pass or fail. I got an 88 on my second one yesterday. So there you go. OK, awesome. Oh, and the first one was a pass Thanks. OK, James, I'm including you. What is your win for the week? My win is that I get to go home in 12 hours, so I'm looking forward to that. Congratulations. And Billy, what is your win for the week? Who knows, my move to Puerto Rico is going good, so there we all leave it there.

49:17 That is awesome. So my win for the week is that I got to host today along with Alex and I appreciate that. And we're just we're going to land the plane here today. We've unpacked the real power behind newsletters and e-mail lists and how they're not just a place to dump content, but an actual space to connect, to sell, to serve your audience. And we talked strategy, repurposing generosity and treating your list like your VIP community, not just a broadcast system. So here's some of your quick takeaways. That e-mail is greater than algorithm. You own your list, so use it wisely. Give value, then sell confidently because selling is serving when you do it right, Amanda, make it a habit. Repurpose your podcast, your posts, even your voice notes. So your next newsletter will already be half written. So if today kind of lit a fire underneath you, make sure that you grab the replay, check out the resources in the chat and stay connected.

50:31 And if something sparked an idea or a pivot or a plan, well, don't keep it to yourself. Comment in the Empowered Podcasting Facebook page. And thanks for showing up and sharing today. I appreciate it and for being in this creative room with me. Now go make your newsletter actually work for your business. You got this. So until Monday, have a good one everyone.