Mastering Email Marketing: Strategies to Build a High-Quality Subscriber List with M. Shannon Hernandez
Shannon is the founder of Joyful Business Revolution™, a business growth strategy and consultancy company that works with coaches, consultants, and service-based business owners. Shannon and her team specialize in organic mission-driven marketing and creative email marketing campaigns that help their clients grow aligned audiences, deepen community relationships, and double revenue.
You will learn:
How to craft messaging that resonates with and engages subscribers.
The importance of quality over quantity when growing an email list.
Effective techniques for increasing email open and conversion rates.
The risks of relying solely on social media for marketing and why email is more reliable.
Strategies for using workshops and Q&A sessions to convert subscribers into clients.
GIFT FOR YOU
If you’re a meditation teacher or coach who wants to create unique meditations people listen to over and over again, enroll in my free course Meditation Script Mastery
Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello there, friends. Welcome to another episode of the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. I am your host, Lou Redmond, and today this is going to be a fun one. We have M. Shannon Hernandez, who is all about that joy in her life in her business. She is specifically known around the globe for the content personality wheel and she's the founder of the Joyful Business Revolution, which is a business growth strategy and consultancy company that works with coaches, consultants, and service based business owners, which is probably you listening? Shannon and her team specialize in organic, mission driven marketing and creative email marketing campaigns that help their clients grow, aligned audiences, deepen community relationships, and double their revenue. We'll definitely talk about some of that. And she's also a sought after expert in the world of business strategy. She has been featured on CB's ABC, Fox, NBC, and has over 25 years in curriculum design working with NFL and the us military. Shannon, welcome to the show.
Shannon: Thank you. I am so happy to be here.
Lou: Yay. So we met, we live not too far from each other. We've actually met in person before, but before that, we actually methadore online in a mastermind group that we are a part of. I know you are into masterminds. I'm big into masterminds. So I was curious, when did masterminds enter the picture for you and or maybe color in any of your early entrepreneurial journey into starting your business?
Shannon: Yeah, I love that question. Well, before I was an entrepreneur, I was a teacher, and it was great. Like, the teaching part was great, but I think one of the things that I really craved, that I was missing is we were very siloed in our classroom. And if we did talk to anyone, we were siloed in our department of the subject we taught. And I actually wanted to be doing cross collaborations across departments because I really believe that people, we shouldn't be teaching in silo. Life doesn't happen in silo. So I think the need for masterminding, even way back then, I wouldn't have called it that because I didn't know that language, but collaboration. Right. So when I left teaching and started my business, of course, the first few years were like everyone, when we start business, it's hectic. You're trying to figure out what the hell you're doing, how you're going to pay your bills, get over yourself so you can go tell your stories and bring people in with your marketing. And masterminding was not on my radar, but as my business grew, as I realized, not realized, but as I identified the things that I didn't know, but that other people would be willing to help me with. If only I would ask. Then the search became how do I find a mastermind that fits where I am right now, which continues to be the journey 13 years in. One of the things about my business that's been really hard is I've grown really fast. It's fast, sustainable way, but I'm always looking to be in the room where I don't know everything. And so I'm constantly, often having to find new groups to go join because I outgrow the groups and it's a thing, it's a whole thing.
Lou: So tell me, what were, like, how did you find those groups? Like, how do you, I think people here, and this is not going to be a big promo for my mastermind, by the way, even though some of you know that I have a mastermind. But how did you find, how did you even think of, like, okay, I know that collaboration is important, getting around other people. Like, what do you search? How to find other people, business owners? Like, how did, how did that start coming into your world?
Shannon: Well, I didn't search online. I started with the people who were maybe in my orbit in my world, my coaches, perhaps. And I remember asking, and I still ask, I mean, even to this day, where are you getting your development from? Where are you masterminding? Like, what groups do you belong to? And really it's word of mouth. And then what I like to do is I go read the page. If there's a page, go read about it. And then I set up a meeting with the person who's running the mastermind. Because at the end of the day, I need to feel like we're going to connect energetically and get along. And just by the nature of my work, I'm an email marketing strategist and a messaging strategist. It's been hard to find communities that are really doing marketing in service of people, are doing it in an ethical way, are not filling programs or masterminds to capacity, are not like going for the quick sale. And that's been the hardest thing is where am I aligned people? And as I grow, it continues to be the thing. Where are the aligned people?
Lou: Yeah, I mean, there's so many groups out there that are just about, just about revenue, just about money, and that's great. We need to make money. We need to have a sustainable and hopefully thriving business, and that's a part of it. But doing it in a way that we feel really aligned and feels really good and works for is nurturing and supportive of everything. And so how has being in masterminds helped your business or helped you grow fast? Or how did you know? When I hear that, there's a part of me that wants to know about your specific growth, but also I know you have so much to give around helping others with their growth, but maybe they're both similar insights.
Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think just to address my growth, I learned early on, I mean, I learned a couple things early on. No matter where you're going to share your business, if, or your service or goods or whatever that is, if your messaging isn't resonating, it doesn't matter how good the marketing strategy is. Right. It doesn't matter how good my emails are if the people on my list can't hear what I'm saying because the messaging isn't resonant with them. Right. And for many years, I fought that, actually, I wanted to only help people with like, the brass tax marketing strategy. And I realized it was such a disservice to my clients and to people because I could give them the best marketing strategy, but if they didn't have the messaging as the foundation, it didn't matter. Right. So me learning how to teach messaging frameworks made my messaging better, which only supercharged the growth right at the end of the day. So I'd say, you know, how do you have, and, you know, fast is fast growth. It is relative. So I think we need to be honest. That is relative to everyone, whatever that means. For me, I was at six figures within two years and have gone on to multiple six figures into the seven figures with the power of giving a shit about people. That is the number one thing. There is no secret sauce to this. I wouldn't be around 13 years later and have the business I have if I didn't care and love people. That's people who buy, people who don't buy, people who write and say, I don't agree with your viewpoint. Right. You've got to care and you've got to love people, because at the end of the day, business is a people business. Right. Business is about the people. If you want to stay in business, I think it's about the people.
Lou: Well, I think you're talking to people in this audience I know who deeply care about people and want to do a really good job. And I think the question that comes up from what you shared around messaging, I can imagine, and even myself not even understanding what that is like. Okay, what are you talking about when you say messaging?
Shannon: Yeah, yeah. It's a whole thing. We just actually, because we were getting the questions so much, we're releasing season seven of our podcast now. And every episode is on brand messaging. There's eight episodes that where we're dialing it in, but you can podcast call.
Lou: Just to plug it while it's here.
Shannon: It's called grow your business for good.
Lou: Love it. What a great name.
Shannon: Yeah. Let's see. Messaging is such a big topic, so I'm glad that you asked that. I like to say it like this. If we all envision an island in an ocean, I. The only thing that we can see, you know, from above is the top of the island itself. But if you go all the way deep down to the ocean floor, it is sitting on a foundation. Right? And messaging is that foundation. So messaging is everything. It's the email signature. It's how you respond to people. It's your website copy, it's your blog copy, it's your emails, it's your social media copy of. It's the things you say. It's the things people wonder that you don't say, and they fill in the gaps for you, which is interesting when you think about it. Right? I have people, you know, this is crazy, but I have people literally across the world in a grocery store and they see something that says joy. Like, the joy of the season was on Oreos last year, and they're texting me pictures and they're like, I thought of you. Cause I saw the word joy.
Lou: That's great.
Shannon: So your messaging lives beyond, you know, all the words we have to use to keep a business going. And one of the cases I love to make is your brand. Messaging is really about how you make people feel. How do you make people feel every time there's an interaction with you? And that. That's huge when you really think about it.
Lou: It's a good example. I'm having a. Is it different than branding in any ways? Like, is. Is it just because one's using words and one's using aesthetics? Is that maybe a simple way to think of it?
Shannon: Yeah. So more people generally seem to think about branding as your logos, your colors, which are important. Right? Those are, those make people feel certain ways, too. But beyond all of that is the words that you use day in and day out, in your sales calls, in your marketing, in your email copy, in your LinkedIn posts, in your podcasts. It's all messaging. At the end of the day, what.
Lou: Does the lack of strong messaging look like? Do you know someone that you've worked with and examples of that.
Shannon: So it sounds like. I'll give an example. I help coaches make more money.
Lou: Yeah.
Shannon: And that is common. That is common. But to me, that's like, bad messaging. Okay? There's a lot of things in there. All right? If you compare that to, like, my statement, if we will. I help coaches, consultants, and service based business owners deepen relationships and double revenue with the power of email marketing. It is so clear, right? Everyone knows from that statement. They either know, would I fit in here? Am I using email? Do I want to? How do I feel about email? Is this something I'm curious about? What's she mean? Deep in relate? Like, your messaging should be creating that kind of response. And yet we're all taught, unfortunately, to do these statements like, I help coaches make money. Let's just get lost in the words, like, what's that even mean with speaking with email? I don't know. Selling to corporate, there's not enough there. So unclear messaging is unkind messaging. That's what I say.
Lou: And so I know there's always those, like, I helped blank do this through this. Right? Those, like, common. Um, you're trying to find, you know, who you help and, like, kind of the value proposition that you're offering. Do you have, like, other ways to color that in, that helped you be like, okay, it's. You know, I think it's great to add in those service providers because that brings in a whole different sort of, you know, not just needing to be like, the coach. When you think of just coaches, that's going to give some energy to it. Um, like, do you have other ways that you would have? Because I'm sure people listening have done an exercise like this. Like, how would you help them continue to get clear?
Shannon: Yeah, well, I think it's really important that we just honor that your messaging just keeps evolving as you evolve. Right? So, you know, up until about eight months ago, I just had marketing strategist. But what was happening is I was getting people who wanted to be TikTok sensations and Instagram influencers. And that's not where my joy is. My joy is not that my joy is helping thought leaders, right, people with their intellectual property help others with whatever they do, right, with their craft, so to speak, with their skills. So your messaging evolves. Your messaging continues on. You're gonna see what resonates and what doesn't. And, yes, there's just. I mean, there's so many frameworks, Lou, that we teach in terms of helping people get clear on their messaging. A great example is even like, what are your top five brand values? I bet most people haven't even thought about that, right? And once we can get them clear, we can use those in emails, in a social media campaign, because people buy what you stand for. Right. And so this is just one little area of, like, we work on our clients. Like, what are your brand values? What do you believe and what is your mission? Who can you align your mission with? How do you use your mission to call in, like, your best clients, your best collaborators, your best connectors? It's big. It's a big, big topic.
Lou: Yeah. I love that. Thinking of brand values. Is there an exercise that you would take people through or like, I'm just even thinking. I was like, I wonder what a meditation I can create that helps people come up with their brand values. Yeah.
Shannon: Oh, my God.
Lou: Similar to your own values.
Shannon: Fun to collaborate on.
Lou: Yeah.
Shannon: Let's see what most people do. Let me start with the opposite I think is not helpful. Most people would go Google, how do I define my brand values? Or what are my brand values? Right? And you get a list of about 400 adjectives, and that's not an exaggeration. And then they're telling you to sit there and just, like, go through. It's overwhelming.
Lou: It's not a good way. I totally agree. Totally agree with that.
Shannon: But that's what most people do. So of course we flipped it. We actually teach brand values in terms of first year mission. So our mission here is to really help people have more joy, more revenue, and more time off. Those are our values. Right. Why the joy? Because I know marketing does not bring a lot of people joy, and I needed to crack through that noise real fast. So joyful marketing was born years ago. Right. Why? More revenue. More revenue allows you to have more choices, give to donations, give, hire more team, whatever those things are that are important to you. Right. And then more time off. I saw so many business owners, like, hustle, hustle, hustle, not taking time off. They're get all unbalanced, out of whack, burn out, close the business. Now I got to go get a job again. Like, that's not joyful for anyone. Right. So those are our values. And so the values really come from what are the core beliefs that we believe? So I would ask you, Lou, like, what is one of your core beliefs as a human?
Lou: A core belief is that I am human with a deep connection to something I can't understand, and that I feel like my time on earth is of service or to be an instrument and to be guided by that, first and foremost, yeah.
Shannon: Okay. That is so beautiful. And we could finesse that a little. But to lead with that, can you imagine if your website homepage led with that? Now, maybe it does. I don't know because I haven't looked at it. Right. But your website homepage, like, we landed there and say, we are a community who believes that we are here a limited time on earth and we're here to do good for the world or whatever that is. You can automatically just feel the expansiveness in that. Right. So the core, the values of the brand or of the business really come from. In most of our cases, we are the CEO, we're the owner. They come from what we believe. It's why we started businesses. And I don't understand why so many people hide that. Like, it's the biggest differentiator for people really love that.
Lou: So really valuable. Let's move more into specifically, like, the email. Like the email marketing, sending emails. Uh, I mean, there might be some people newer to it. I know you, you know, I think this, to me and you, like, we understand, like, why it's important, but maybe just on a very high level, like email one on one. Like, why should, should people be thinking about email marketing and its importance in business and communicating with your audience?
Shannon: Okay, good. I'm going to give you my top three reasons because I speak on this all over the world. All right? So reason number one, when people join your email list, they have total choice that's important to leave or come when they want. I call this permission based marketing. We can hit unsubscribe at any time on any list we don't want to be on. But when people join your list, they have given you permission to share with them. And most of the people that I realize have this hate, hate relationship with marketing, it's because they're sitting on social media shouting with all the other noise, and nobody actually asked for that information can you know what I'm talking about? Right? Like, we log into Facebook right now. I don't know about you, but I'm seeing all the political stuff and all the ads and all the discussion around it. Whether it's political or me advertising my business, nobody's asked for that. That is like, what I would call disruptive. Not in a good way. All right, so I like to say email is permission based marketing. They have said, wow, Lou, you are really interesting. I want to be on your email and see what that's about. That is an honor. Every email that comes to me, every person that comes to me and gives me their email. I do not take that lightly. Like, it is an honor to have space in people's inboxes. That's the first thing. Permission based marketing. The second thing I would say is, I have watched, unfortunately, countless people have social media accounts just disappear. They can't reach anyone. Their Instagram got hacked, their Facebook disappeared. They violated some rule. They didn't even know there was somebody accidentally hit report the content, and your thing got shut down. And if they've grown solely a business on social media, they're done. Your audience is gone. Right. So I like to say social media is like, you're borrowing someone else's house until the house is no longer there. So we need to actually build your house in your email so you can communicate with people. Right? So those are the first two. And the third one is, you know, when I do a lot of training around this email converts 42% higher to sales than social, which is huge. And if you think about how many people are betting, like, they're focused on social, social, we hear it all the time, but they don't have the business, they don't have the revenue. And I'm always like, can we just get your social people over to your email? And then we can cultivate a community in your email? And that's really the deep in relationships and double revenue. Because I'm all about the community and I'm all about people gave me permission to be there and I like it.
Lou: Yeah, yeah. It's the biggest difference. The way that I've thought of exactly what you said with your first point is that with email and with YouTube too, I actually think YouTube as not a social media as far as an Instagram and Facebook, because with YouTube and email, we're both. You go into the thing, even if you're not, like, subscribed on YouTube, you get thumbnails. You're deciding to go deeper with Facebook and Instagram, it's coming at you, right? You can't decide. And so there's something about the intimacy, especially with email. Like, I'm also a lover of, like, newsletters and reading newsletters that I love, but there's something in that, that intimacy, that one on one connection that you can do with an email that you just can't find elsewhere. And it's also one of those things that has been around the longest, and it's perennial in that way. Like, it's only getting more important even though it's been around beyond all of this. So, um, just to just continue to hone in for you all listening that it is important to start thinking about just even building your email list. So let's give some examples. I want to give some different avatars of people. I want to hear your thoughts on how you would get them started. So I'm, I thinking of, you know, someone who's listening to this. I just did a meditation teacher training, and I'm just starting to, like, think of, okay, now I have some skills and I want to share it with people. I'm brand new. I'm just getting everything set up. I just start off my Instagram, starting up social media, deciding on where to put stuff, and I just enrolled in convertkit or whatever email service provider used. I got a website. I have all the things. How do I start building my email list?
Shannon: Okay, I love this question. This is so fun for this particular person since they clearly are probably doing meditations. I would have them record a meditation, and we would develop some messaging around the benefit of listening to that meditation. So we'd want to think very specifically about who is this meditation for and what is the desired outcome after we listen to the meditation. And then I would have them build a little landing page. We'd put the copy on there, and someone would give their name and email, and the meditation would be sent to the inbox. And now they're on your list.
Lou: So starting a lead magnet. The thing that I have with telling people is that you have meditation apps. You have insight timer, right, where people can go like, well, why do I need a. What? I need to take your meditation when I can go and take, you know, thousands of other meditations. So I sometimes tell people that maybe it's not a meditation. Like, can it be something else? But it is the easiest thing to do, even if you're sending people to an app, like inside timer, but they're getting on the email. So. Okay, lead magnets, let's just park here. What? Okay, let's keep. Keep with that. They got the landing page set up. They got the lead magnet, got a great meditation, but no one's coming to the landing page.
Shannon: They have to market it on social. You have to tell people your meditation is there.
Lou: Okay. Yeah, but they have no following. They have no following on social.
Shannon: Yeah, you have no following. Well, we all start from zero. We all do. And if you lose your account, you're still going to start from zero. So you might as well start now. But. Yeah, I know it. I can make light of it now because I'm, like, on the other side, but I remember, and you know, my clients come to me and they, you know, I only have ten people. Part of this problem, Lou, is what I talked about at the top of the hour, which was, we all have this distorted view of the quality of people versus the quantity of people versus the quality of people, right? And I still fall into this as a marketing strategist. I'm going to give a great example. Yesterday, I had a meeting, talked to my sales team, like, how many people are registered for our workshop next week? And they told me the number. And my first thought was, that's hardly anyone. And I did spin out. I really did. I was like, how do we only have that many people after five days of promo? Thank goodness. My salesperson said, shannon, do you remember that we are so good at conversions when people are in the workshop, we don't have to worry about these metrics on the other side anymore. Like, we don't need hundreds and hundreds of people registering. We just need the right 50. I was like, oh, yeah? Well, your email is the same thing, right? So there's a discussion to be had around, are you paying attention to the wrong things and the wrong metrics will spin you out, right? And if you're listening to any kind of marketing advice, unfortunately, I'm going to just break the news to, they are talking to you about, how many followers do you have? How many likes do you have? How many comments do you have? How many views do you have? How many people are on your email list? Wrong question. You want to build a better business, you ask better questions.
Lou: So the right question is how deep, what's the quality of the person that's on the email list?
Shannon: Yeah, I just had a consultation with someone yesterday, and she started, she started the call with, well, I only have 300 people on my list. And I said, and how many people do you want in this program? She said, ten. I said, and you're complaining about only having 300 people on your list? What if we actually deeply connected to them with messaging that spoke to them? You would probably have three programs filled. Right? But it's been warped because we've been told all this time, how much money are you making? How much is on your list? How many likes do you have? Like, we have to change that dialogue.
Lou: I think that's really important to emphasize and brings us to the next example. Okay, so someone I know having a person in mind, she has a 400 person ish email list, a smallish instagram following, definitely not huge, maybe thousand or a couple thousand, and LinkedIn following. And she's starting to get more into email. Nothing. Maybe enrolling as many clients as she would like. How would you. Obviously there's a lot more context that you would probably need to know. But maybe to up, because I think with her, if you have a 400 person list, where would you put the energy? Is it around just actually, like, developing more email messaging and content through email? Or is it like, hey, let's keep sending people to the email list? I'm feeling it's the former for you. So, yeah, how would you, how do you think about someone who does have, or like the person you talked to yesterday? You have a 300 person list. You need ten people. Like, what is the, what is the game plan from there?
Shannon: Yeah, so there's a couple game plans. Of course, more context, but I'll just kind of give the game plan as if I have the context. First question is when was the last time you emailed your list? Because if we're working with a quote unquote stale list, meaning they haven't heard from you in a couple months, we need to reactivate that list. We need to give them a chance to stay or go. It is not the time to sell right now. It is the time to reconnect and build a relationship. All right, so that's always the first question. All right. So the person said, yes, I email my list every week. So I said, okay, what are your open rates and what are your click through rates? Another thing that people hate to reveal because they just have so much shame around it. Right? My open rates are 15%. My click through rates are less than one. Okay. That tells me a lot, actually. Okay. It tells me. There's a lot of things that tells me that I would try and troubleshoot. One, are the people sitting on the list the right people for what you're actually talking about? And that's huge. Right. So there's a way that we're going to figure that out. We're going to send a survey, a quick survey in the email where they literally click one answer so we can find out if any of this is actually resonating. All right, so that's the first thing, the click through rates. There are three things that help the click through rates to sell your stuff or get people to your YouTube or whatever it is, it's fine. Five word or less in your subject line of your email. It is a emotion that is evoked in the first sentence and it is a call to action that does not say, click here to watch.
Lou: This is good. This is good because I have a great open rate but my click to rates, great.
Shannon: Yeah. So, fun fact, I played with my, I treat marketing as an experiment, and I think it's why I can have so much joy around it, because I just pretend I'm going into a science lab and I'm going to blow some shit up. Like, it's the funniest thing ever. So in q two this year, I was like, let me test some click through rates. Like, let me see what I can do. And we actually went from a 2% click through rate to a 5.7% click through rate.
Lou: Wow.
Shannon: And that's huge. If you really think about the average is less than 1%. Right. This means people are not. If people are reading and opening, but they're not clicking, there is a disconnect somewhere in there and the answer is not send more emails.
Lou: Yeah.
Shannon: It's not going to help. Right. The answer is do one of the three things I just said that actually, like, gives people a reason to go click and do the thing. And this is the power of messaging at the end of the day. So we're right back to where we started.
Lou: Great. So let's, let's keep poking here and a couple of things. The first, okay, if it's not click here to watch, let's say it's someone wants to promote their YouTube video that they just did through their email. Not even selling anything, just promoting a video. Um, what is that? What is the alternative?
Shannon: Okay, um, can you give me just.
Lou: A topic of the video is finding inner peace.
Shannon: Okay. Um, here's the email that I would send you. Ready?
Lou: Let's go.
Shannon: Dear Lou, have you ever been sitting around and wondering how you can find more inner peace in the day to day of busy life? If so, I'm sharing my insight on YouTube. That's the click line.
Lou: So that's. There's, so there's no, like something, something here. It's just, it just hyperlink. Share my insight on YouTube. Maybe a picture. And it's just like trusting that people have been around the Internet where they know where to click when they see.
Shannon: Here's the thing, right? I had this biggest discussion. I have an email marketing and messaging mentorship program, and this week I had the biggest discussion with them. And I'm like, it used to be way back in the day you had to tell people to click here. They actually didn't know it was new. What is this hyperlink? What do you mean click here? Why are we still saying this? 20 years in, everyone knows if it's an arrow, you can pretty much click there and go to YouTube. If it's a hyperlink text or a different color, you can click there. Like, people know this now. Two year olds know this now. Right? But it's a great example of how people are still trying to create marketing communication with outdated tactics. We don't need anyone to tell us to click here anymore. We know that's.
Lou: Wouldn't you say, though? It makes it like, I've heard that marketing, it should be almost like it's like a two year old, not two year old, like making things second grader, like, like imagine or second grader and saying like, very clear around, you know, this is how you do this.
Shannon: Yeah, well, this brings up a whole nother thing, right, about messaging, which I think is really important to talk about. How you treat your audience is how they are going to evolve with you. Okay, I want to really talk about this. Like, this is messaging and marketing at its best. For years I have been speaking about people actually publishing their prices on their sales page. Why? You wonder why you're taking so long to sell people? You wonder why you have 20 calls and only two people buy. You're treating people in, in mystery and deceit just so you can get them on the phone and convince them, like, I don't want clients like that. I want clients that have read the whole frickin long sales page and the five emails and they know the price. And when they get on the phone, they have like five questions and then they're like, this was easy. Yes. Right? So you train your people to respond. And this whole thing of creating marketing, like, you know, I've heard it, seven year old or second grader, water it down, make it short people's attention spans or whatever. I mean, I don't know about you, Lou, but to sit and meditate and be mindful, it's work. It's not a fast fix. So are you going to train people in your email audience and youre social media to get fast, fixed solutions and then they come in and they realize the shit ain't aligned. Like, there's a lot here, right? So many moons ago, I ditched, talked to him like a 7th seven year old. No, my people are like fully grown adults who can fricking think for themselves. They can also choose between two things to click.
Lou: This is great. I love this. And by the way, I don't think my audience is seven year olds. Just so speaking that out there. But I have heard that and I do try to make it like, okay, click here or sign up here or enroll here, I'm getting ready to get.
Shannon: On your email list because I'm going to be spying.
Lou: Please do. I would love you to spy on my email if you've been on my email list for a long time. That's been my pride and joyous, uh, for, for a long time. Like, I put a lot of. I treat my email list like it's my home. Uh, it's the reason I didn't run ads. I start running ads because it felt like just bringing a bunch of people into my home that I realized, uh, thankfully, that it just didn't, that just felt not good. Um, because then my incentives, I didn't know how my incentives would shift because I'm speaking more to now these people and now. Yeah. So I'd made a decision when I had been through conversations with a person ad guy about running ads, and I just dropped it and decided not to. So I'm, I deeply care about my email list. And I guess another question would be, I, I've been where we're not always with click very click throughs. I don't have the greatest click throughs, but sometimes I'm not asking, you know, I send emails where there's no click. Like, my call to action would be a reply, like, what's, like, what's, you know, a reply to the email. And I'm just curious your thoughts on that. Um, reply, because I've also, what I've been doing with my mastermind is right now, my mastermind has no out, it has no page, like, online, there's a Google Doc. And people, I say, you know, I, when I talk about it, I'll say, reply mastermind, if you're interested in. I have a little conversation back and forth, like, hey, what are you working on? I want to check, like, will this be good for you? If it feels right, if there's space, because it's not a, like a, it's not like a geo mastermind where, you know, there's a lot of people, it's like 1112 people. And so I'll, I'll then just send the Google Doc as an invitation. And that's kind of been this, I don't know, kind of underground way. Something actually, I think I learned from Geo and it's, it's really done. I really enjoyed it. I do plan on having a website for it soon. So I'm not saying that this is like, I think it's like the end all, be all but curious on your that. But I also want to share one thing. I've been back and forth around prices on the website versus prices not on the website. I've spoken my prices on this podcast in a couple episodes before, but I still am like, I don't know. So I appreciate just hearing more. Just like, yeah, there's something about, I know what the price is going into and it's not this big reveal. Right. And then I'm like, oh, my gosh, you know, I didn't realize it would be this much. And then I have to sell in that way. So, yeah, I appreciate you speaking to that. And, yeah, I guess coming back to the reply, right. It's not, you know, I think that, to me, when you're asking for replies and you're saying a good message, like, that's a sign of a really good list. Like, the response, if people are taking time out of their day to respond to an email, like, that's someone that's engaged.
Shannon: Absolutely. And sales happen in conversation. Whether that starts from a reply or they hear you on your podcast and they book a call, I need everyone to remember that sales happen in conversation. How do you get conversation started? Good messaging. That's it. By the way, since you brought it up, the most important email you can ask people to reply to is the very first one where they download your thing.
Lou: Do you know why they're the most engaged, you know, most interested in your stuff at that point?
Shannon: No, but that's a good guess. Email deliverability is a real thing, a lot of things. And so if I respond, if you do a p's on that email and ask me, ask me something fun, like mine says, ps, what's something joyful happening in your world this week? Hit reply and let me know. One, I get to know people and like, what, what they're doing. But two, it marks in my email system that they trust me. Cause they've hit it. And I get good points for email deliverability.
Lou: That's a good one. Yes, the reply, forget about that. Like, the replies are activating the good deliverability. Um, I want to come back really quick, so I don't. That person, 400% email list, you said your person had 15%. Uh, which is, yeah, not a great, uh, open rate. So there's something, you know, something misaligned. But let's just say this person has 40% open rate. Um, get some feedback on some emails, but still just doesn't feel like they're converting, uh, clients or they might have like a, you know, a link at the end of. If you're wanting, you know, to explore this more sign up for coach, you know, here, book a discovery call sort of thing. Any idea? And again, this. I know this is a broad. Broad.
Shannon: Well, I wouldn't know without digging a little deeper, but one thing that's been working really well for myself and all my clients, because they, we have an email. We bring people from social to email. So we've talked about that. Then we need to do something to activate them, give them an experience. I call this a marketing experience. Great marketing is a great experience. So we host a workshop, office hours q and a, whatever it is that we host and we get people that are from reading the email to come to the workshop, whether it's paid or free, then we have the conversation and that is where we sell. I very rarely sell to the email list, only because the work we do is really deep. It requires people to go deep in mindset and beliefs and you can't really get that experience in an email. I mean, you can take them so far, but man in a zoom room, we're having like 40% conversion from events.
Lou: Amazing.
Shannon: Without sales calls after those events. Right now, I am one to I give everyone a call if they want to call. I think everyone deserves to get on a call with a human being before they invest. But when they spend three days with us in our messaging or our marketing, email marketing trainings, they're given homework, we're working on mindset. They come back, they've built a little community. It's so easy then to say, would you like to continue? So that experience piece is huge. And especially in this day and age that we live in, where we're just coming off like this huge Covid bubble where everyone was selling everything and it was a lot of shitty products and a lot of bad stuff was happening. People are more discerning and they should be. They really should be. So all of that to say this person might want to try and one doing the survey, let's see what they're interested in. If we get some data there, can we run at a roundtable like something not that takes a lot of energy, but like get people to a roundtable or to a discussion of some point and then let's see what happens. So that would be the path that I would probably take.
Lou: Amazing. And Shannon, you should. You're going to meet the person that we're talking about because you're coming. You're being a guest on my mastermind in September. So this might be fun to like you put this into real life. And so then the next question that naturally comes, you know, I don't know if you have a process. I know a lot of people listening, myself included, get uncomfortable with selling. Right? With, with the pitch, especially after you've just, you just poured your heart out into this workshop and people are like, you know, oh, this is amazing. And then you're like, oh, now I'm gonna sell the. So do you have any thoughts on that?
Shannon: Yes. There is a way to do this where it's not slimy.
Lou: Yeah.
Shannon: I'm going to say it right now. I'm going to pretend you're at my workshop. Okay.
Lou: Okay. Yeah.
Shannon: Here's how it goes. It's called the Covenant, by the way. I help people script this out so it's not weird. Hey there, everyone. Welcome to Joyful email marketing. I'm Shannon Hernandez and this is Amy Hager. And we're going to be spending the next three days with you helping you understand the power of email marketing and the power of messaging to deepen relationships and double revenue. Throughout this entire experience, you're going to hear about our program called the Content Personality Club, where we help you deepen relationships and double revenue. We'll talk a little bit more about it each day, but now let's grab your workbook and get started. That's it.
Lou: And so they're. Okay, they're doing it. But where's the pitch?
Shannon: The pitch is at the end. We're at the end. And you say, okay, I always say this because I'm a former teacher and I, like, want to know that I'm worth people's time because time is valuable. All right. Before I share the program with you and what we have and how we can help you, can you please rate in the chat one to ten?
Lou: One.
Shannon: I should have stayed in my bed and taken a nap. Ten. This was worth every ounce of energy and effort that I put in. I always get tens. All right, great. Before I talk to you about your homework, because you know you have homework, we are actually going to share a little bit about the content personality club and what it looks like to work with us. It's a conversation, just simple, right?
Lou: And then it's like, it looks like this. It looks like this.
Shannon: Here's the thing. You know why it gets weird, Lou? Because, I mean, I used to do it weird. I didn't make sales either, by the way, because I was so nervous about switching from teaching to pitching, and I had to find this way that, okay, all of its teaching. I'm also teaching people how they can work with me. I'm also teaching people what their next step is if they're interested. So I quit going from teaching to pitching. But then I see the offer all along the way. It's not a surprise. And in fact, I will tell you, I start seeding the offer when they. So they register for the free or paid workshop. It's in the email. Here's the information. And by the way, you are going to get a preview of our content personality club. If you want to read more about it now, read it here. Like it is everywhere. So they know and they're very clear. Like, this is not a, we're not about click and bait here, right?
Lou: So it's just clear. Like, yeah, you're going to offer something at it, right? Instead of, yeah, I think. I think just even saying that, like, hey, welcome to this workshop. You know, here's what it is at the end, if this aligns, we're going to also show you ways to go deeper. For those that want to want to go. That want to go deeper. Great. And for those that don't, awesome. I'm going to join your next workshop just to give a one and just to see how you handle that live.
Shannon: Okay.
Lou: Just to. Just be the gesture. Just kidding.
Shannon: I'm going to say, lou, you forgot your two zeros on the end. But let me come back to a minute about pricing. On the page or off the page? Okay. I don't know any other way to say this. Like, you just got married. I'm sure when you guys went to look at tuxedos and dresses and venues, you knew the pricing. Like, these are normal things. We go to the grocery store, we have dollar 40. We need to know what things cost, right? I shop at Carmax only. And the reason why I had this epiphany at Carmax, our car had broken down. It's literally on its last leg going over the Staten island bridge. The engine goes out and we're going on the down. And I'm like, please, brakes. I hope the brakes work. And so there we are. And I'm like, all right, well, we're a one car family and we are going to go to Carmax because Carmax has all their prices listed. I know what my budget is and I don't have to haggle with anyone. I'm going to walk in there and I'm going to look around the lot for the $20,000 car or whatever it was. I'm going to find what I want and then I'm going to go pay for it. I have never stopped shopping at Carmax and I bought two cars. Karma. But that's the reason why I don't want to be surprised. I don't want people saying, yeah, but if you do this, you get this discount. No, I I don't even like bartering in, in countries. When you go like, I don't even barter with people. My friends get so mad. They're like, you know, it's part of the game. And I'm like, I don't do that. They say, ten, I'm giving them ten. You get it for two. Good. I'm giving them ten.
Lou: Right? Yeah, relatively. It's, it's, it's still probably good for you.
Shannon: Absolutely.
Lou: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's so, it's so right. And it's, it's clear and, yeah, it's a good conversation to have. Cause I keep, I keep find myself, for whatever reason, going back and forth and, um, you know, get different advice from different people. Right. Different people that's saying, well, you know, they're not gonna know the value of it if. Right from afar. Right. That. That you need to get on the call and then you can understand that there's like, the value from being in that conversation and then like, oh, yeah. That there is something valuable here. Or they might see themselves as someone who can't afford that kind of, uh, price. And so they wouldn't price that they got on the call. They might be like, oh, wow, this is something. But I totally hear, and I trust that, yes. Continue to work with that and how I think about it. So thanks for talking about it. Um, before we, you know, I wanted to, you know, hear again a little bit about what you coming up because I think it's really cool and something that I've thought about, but just really quick because I think it's a. It's on everyone's mind who does emails. How many emails is too many emails to send?
Shannon: Well, you need to have something compelling to say, so that's the first thing I'll say. I don't know. I send two a week. I like it. Sometimes it's, it's always one a week. It's mostly two a week. I think this comes down to preference, but I think more than that, it comes down to you setting the expectation. Expectation. So, you know, that first email that I said that people should reply to, the next email that comes in that welcome sequence is. It's literally called email expectations. And I lay out, this is how often you'll hear from me. If this isn't cool with you, you can unsubscribe, but I give people the choice, like, it's permission. Personally, I always, I always think I'm going to like emails. Like, I like reading people's emails, these emails that come once a week, once a day. I get so overwhelmed because I can't even, like, digest the information. So for me, I can't even stay on those lists when they're my friends and I want to because it's so much clutter coming into my space. So I definitely am not doing once a day because I don't like it on the receiving end. Right. I will say that.
Shannon: How do I want to say this? You know, the adage is, the more emails you send, the more money you make. I think it can go both ways. But if you're definitely only sending one email a month, people are not going to be paying attention to who you are and what you're doing unless you have a different kind of business. Like, I have a travel agent. Her people know her. They know that she's around, right. They refer her. She just sends ideas for travel based on the season or the month. One a month. It works for her. Right. Um, so you've got to kind of find your own way there. But the best place to really start is to ask yourself, how often do I like to receive the emails that I love and when would it be too much? And that's really a good starting point for setting your own rules.
Lou: That's amazing. I love that. Shannon, what do you got coming up? Tell me more about your trip.
Shannon: I got a fun trip coming up. I am getting ready to go hike 80 miles of the Camino de Santiago. We are a leadership group of women who have been together for about four months now, preparing on Zoom, and we are getting ready to meet up mid September in Lyon, Spain, and we are going to hike all the way out to the coast. And I'm super excited. I think it's going to be so fun. And I've been, you know, I'm here in your neck of the woods in New Jersey, and it has been like 110 degrees here. And I've been training on these seven and ten mile walks at a time. And I'm just like, this is going to be so easy when I get over there and it's 50 degrees.
Lou: Oh, you're going to crush it. Yeah, it's something. I almost did it a few times because my wife, now, she runs a retreat company that was going to do a retreat there. One Covid made it not happen, and then the other one just wasn't enough interest for it just wasn't meant to be at the end of the day. But yeah, it's going to be an amazing, amazing trip. So have fun with that. And anywhere else you want to plug, anywhere else you want to send people to in your work. Joyfulbusinessrevolution.com comma, I believe is the website and we'll joyfulbusinessrevolution.com.
Shannon: The other thing I would say is there's an amazing resource. We didn't touch on it today, but it's called the content personality quiz. It is an eight question quiz that helps you determine what you're already great at in terms of marketing so that you don't feel like you need to be on twelve different places trying video and podcasts and written and all this stuff. So you can take the quiz at content personality. Sorry. Joyfulbusinessrevolution.com backslash quiz.
Lou: Amazing. And is that what you're bringing to the mastermind?
Shannon: I can't remember. I have to look at my notes.
Lou: I don't remember, but it's going to be awesome. Shannon's going to be the mastermind. So if you want to check out shannon, you can talk to me about that. So thank you, shannon, everyone. Go check out all of her marketing wisdom. This was super fun. I think we could have talked for another hour around email. Maybe we'll have to do it again. So thanks again. Thanks so much for spending the time.
Shannon: Thanks for having me.
Lou: All right, goodbye, friends.
Shannon: Bye.