🤫3 EMAIL SECRETS from an Expert 🤯 - Katie Skelton 🦆

Send us a Text Message.Email marketing allows small businesses to build relationships, trust, and community with customers in a more personal way compared to social media.Katie Skelton, email marketer and founder of Little Green Duck Ltd, shares this and much more on It's Marketing's Fault.Katie talks about how for businesses to be successful with email marketing, they need a plan, consistency in their communications, and to always provide more value to subscribers than what they are asking f...

Welcome to It's Marketing's Fault, the podcast where we discuss how to do marketing the right way.

I'm your host Eric Rutherford.

I am thrilled today because I have with me Katie Skelton.

She is the founder of Little Green Duck Limited, which makes email marketing simpler, enjoyable, and profitable.

She's also the creator of the Pex newsletter, where every Monday she shares three minutes of email marketing, writing, and entrepreneurship tips.

I personally am a huge fan of this newsletter.

I always get something out of it every week.

Katie, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

What an introduction.

Thank you very much.

It's really good to be here.

Oh, it is my pleasure.

I was thrilled when you accepted the invite.

I have followed you on LinkedIn for a while sign up for the newsletter, and just really have learned a lot from what you've shared and what I've read and I thought, man, she would be great to not only have a conversation with but to be able to share that information with my audience.

So yeah, thrilled that thrilled that you accepted the invite.

Thank you, hopefully I won't disappoint.

I have no doubts it will go well.

No doubts whatsoever.

So just to start with, why should small businesses care about email marketing?

I mean, isn't email marketing like so 20 years ago?

What's up with email marketing?

It's very funny, you should say that because my first introduction or my introduction to email marketing was approximately 20 years ago, when I was working in a record store.

And I went and did like an e commerce course two day course thing where they introduced email marketing to us.

And it was, it was a bit of an alien concept.

I mean, because it was quite new then.

And but it's changed a lot.

is much, much more particularly for small businesses, much more about relationship building and community building now than it is just about driving sales.

If you can actually build in-depth communication, not communications, conversations with people via email, you're just gonna strengthen and solidify relationships with people much faster than you will on social media.

So that's why small businesses should care.

That's a good point.

I like how you described how you're talking about it.

It's the relationship that you're building with the customer.

It's not necessarily like just sales emails and everything like that.

Is that like just with what you share through the email?

Is it their comments and replies?

How does that sort of work in that regard?

So something that I really like doing with email is creating a two-way conversation.

I think a lot of people feel like email marketing is just transmit only and you don't get that dopamine hit and that interaction that you do from like the likes of LinkedIn, for example, but actually you can if you're asking questions in your emails or if you're making them interactive or you're involving your audience in the conversations you're having or in the content that you're putting out there, actually sharing content that they've made part of your world, then actually it can feel interactive and two-way and not just like you're shouting into this room and hoping everyone will listen to you.

Now that makes sense and because I think sometimes the idea of EMR marketing, we think of it as sort of this single direction, single direction communication.

But it sounds like really with asking questions, with inviting responses, it really does become a two way to a conversation.

Yeah, and people get to know each other within your, again, it sounds counterintuitive that people who are on a list that you're transmitting to actually get to know each other.

But if you mention people who are within your community, like again, like you would on social media, if you mention people, they go and find each other and they connect with each other and they collaborate.

And actually it is bringing people together even though it doesn't feel like it should work.

appreciate that distinction, because yeah, it's like you don't think it would, but yeah, people just find people, right?

It's it's but the big thing is sort of that introduction, and finding out who they are, initially.

And so that leads into this next question.

So we said, email marketing is, is very important.

It is as important today, as it was 20 years ago, probably even more so.

What what businesses should use email marketing?

So, I mean, like, are we talking tech companies?

What about like a small plumbing company?

What what businesses should use it?

So I knew this question was coming.

And when I read the question that said a small plumbing company, I really laughed because one of my clients who is doing best is a small plumbing and heating company.

No lie, you did not know this.

But when I saw that, I was like, brilliant, Eric knows exactly what's gonna work.

So yes, any business can use email marketing effectively.

So using that small plumbing company specifically They came to me, they had a huge customer base, all of their businesses trust based, all of it is quite reactive.

So someone's boiler breaks down and they go and fix it.

But actually, what they were struggling with was keeping that constant interaction or constant conversation and contact with their past clients or current clients.

So then when something goes wrong in future, they're the go to people and also giving them an outlet to sell maintenance contracts, for example, so rather than just calling us when your boiler breaks down, how about we service it regularly for you, and then it won't break down as often.

So being able to having an outlet that isn't just social media for communicating the fact that they actually do that stuff.

means that they're getting a bit more recurring income coming into their business.

But they're also staying front of mind for people when they do have those emergency situations.

So yeah, plumbing and heating company, absolutely do the email marketing, but it can work for anyone, like whether you're selling socks, or whether you're selling copywriting services, or you can create this sense of community and connection and, and trust, I think is the main thing with any business.

I'm it wouldn't really work for.

I like that.

I love that description and some of that background and context, especially with the plumbing company.

So just as they are emailing and that is funny because I didn't I had no for everybody listening.

I had no clue she was working with a plumbing company.

So that's awesome.

So as they're sending out emails, is this like on a regular basis?

Is this like I'm sending out information about plumbing, I'm sending out information about other things and then, oh yeah, we also do maintenance contracts.

I guess what's some of the stuff they send?

If you can sort of pull back the curtain and share, I don't know.

Well, I'll leave that totally at your discretion.

No, no, I definitely can.

So the biggest foundational piece of work I do with all of my clients is setting out the objectives that they have for their regular email communication.

So I recommend people send, they're going to send regular emails, you send them once every two weeks is kind of a minimum, just because if you're sending monthly and someone misses a month, then two months is quite a long time to wait.

And someone's probably forgotten about your people will have forgotten about you at that point.

The other thing, so the main thing, foundational piece of work I sit down with people and do at the beginning is talking about what their goals and objectives are for their regular email, and also what they want for their subscribers for their clients, what they want them to feel, what value they want that these people to take away from the email that they're sending, because no one wants a load of rubbish, or trash, if we want to translate into American English in their inbox.

Nobody wants that in their inbox but...

you have to, so you have to amalgamate those two things, amalgamating the, what you want from it and what you want them to get from it.

And then pulling that into or turning that into some content pillars or some structure that means that you're delivering that.

And you've got almost like a set of promises that you can go out to people and go, this is the value you're gonna get week in, week out.

So as a subscriber to my newsletter, you know the kinds of things you're gonna hear from me basis and it builds trust you expect the same sort of stuff and that builds consistency and that all compounds and starts it's an extension of your personal brand essentially And I appreciate that.

I realized I was on mute because I was cheering on rubbish.

I love that word.

I love that term I wish we here in the US use that term.

I think it's much I don't know.

It's much more descriptive And I was on mute.

I'm like, oh anyway But no, I appreciate that and that idea of personal branding even with small business Especially like a plumbing company like a heating and air company like a lot of those small businesses.

I can't It doesn't seem intuitive to me that they would think, oh, I need a personal brand for my business or I need some type of brand.

I'm just doing plumbing.

Is that another kind of conversation you have with them?

Yes, I think that a lot of businesses can fall into, I don't want to call it a trap, because it's more of a comfort zone of knowing, especially quite established businesses that are already doing quite well, you don't really feel like you need to layer another bit of complexity onto your marketing.

But actually, when you do, and you're doing the things that your competitors think aren't worth it, that's when you start to see the differences and start experience the growth that your competitors don't see because you're doing something that everyone else is just going well why would I do email marketing we're just a word of mouth brand and everybody in the local community knows who we are and everything's ticking over nicely we've got some employees it's all fine but what if you want more than fine that's when you can take you can bring things like emails into play and they start really working for you hopefully that It did, and I love that phrase.

What if you want it to be more than just fine?

Because I think that a lot of businesses fall into that category, especially the small businesses.

They're just like, I'm making payroll, I'm making some money, I'm covering my expenses, but sometimes, well, and sometimes it just depends on the market and the economy and everything else.

It's good to be able to engage with more potential customers, right?

Not only...

even if you don't want your business to be huge, I mean, you never know when you're going to lose customers, you just need to keep that, that pipeline rolling and really just being like you said earlier, being, being top of mind when, when something happens, or when they're ready to make a purchase or when there is an emergency and they've got water going everywhere, you know, it's, it's really important.

So what do you need for email marketing to work?

So is there a core component for it to work?

I know you talked about communication, asking questions, some type of regular cadence.

Is there something within that you really need, excuse me, is there something in that you really need in order for it to work well?

Okay, so there's probably I'd say there's three things.

So consistency, a plan, this is probably the wrong order, actually get the plan first a plan, then consistency.

So even if that is monthly to begin with, it's not ideal, but commit to something that you can do on a regular basis and then build on it.

So a plan consistency.

And the last thing is every bit I know everybody bangs on about giving value, but always more than you're asking for.

So nobody wants to sign up for someone's email list, not receive anything for six months and then get bombarded with sales emails just because it's Christmas.

You if you want to make those sales at the point that you're launching something or that you actually need to make sales, you need to have built that trust and that report is the same as any marketing.

And I mean, I say there's three things I've thought of a fourth thing.

I marketing should always be an additional layer on top of things that are already working.

So if you have got a business and you're not quite sure what you're offering, who you're offering it to, you've not really proved a concept, you're not making any sales, yes, you could start doing some brand building via email, but the most effective way to make email work for you more quickly is to have proved your concept and made some sales and had some foundations and had like a another marketing channel.

social media working for you, and then layer them up the email on top of it, because that will help you elevate rather than thinking that it's going to be like a quick fix or a silver bullet, which it's not because it's a longer play, it takes a bit longer to bed in and settle down.

So a lot of people come to me and say, I'm not making any sales, I'm going to do email marketing.

And a lot of the time, depending on who the business owner is, and where they're at, I'll say actually, you need to go and look at the foundations of your business before you start this, because otherwise, you're just manner of mess to unpick in the future.

Now, and that makes sense, and I appreciate that idea.

You need to have, you need to know who your customers are.

You need to, you know, make a few sales so that you've got a feel.

So it sounds like then if you don't, you can, you know, you talked about plan consistency value on top of what's working.

If you don't have those things, it sounds like really the making sure it's on top of something that's working is really.

kind of the first piece of the puzzle, right?

Yeah, because otherwise you might just be collecting a load of people that aren't quite relevant.

And that's not always a bad thing.

I'm a big advocate for actually sometimes the people on your email list might just be your biggest fans.

They might never buy from you.

I talk a lot about people talking about you in rooms that you're not in.

So if, for example, you were at an event and somebody started talking to you about email marketing and I've been emailing you every week for the last year, buy from me, but you might talk to me about that person that instantly builds trust and credibility, they'll come to me and they'll buy from me much more quickly than if I approached them cold, because I then have to convince them that I'm a credible source of information.

But if you're the person they trust, and you're telling them, actually, Katie's the person to talk to, then you've done part of my job for me.

So don't be afraid of having the wrong people, the wrong people, non ideal clients on your list.

However, if you have many people who are never going to buy from you or you don't know what you're selling to those people you run the risk of just having like a confused message and I'll let a load of confused people out there not really knowing what it is you do No, that's a very good point.

And I like that how you describe that.

Having people talking about you in rooms where you're not at.

I think I boogered that description up.

I'm so sorry.

Okay, yeah.

But I think that's really true.

We forget about that, right?

That it's not always the person who receives the email, who makes it a buying decision.

But if you've built that familiarity and trust with them, if you stay top of mind with them, they're they are more than likely going to at least refer you if it comes up in conversation.

Now, do you have you experienced that yourself?

Have your clients experienced that?

I know I'm sort of throwing that in there as a weird question, but I didn't know if you had any stories with that.

No, I have.

I've had people.

It happens quite a lot on LinkedIn, people will tag me saying, Oh, Katie's your go to person for this.

But I have had people and these are this is what I was talking about with like the quick sale thing.

I have had people come into my world because somebody else has mentioned my newsletter to them.

already feel like they know me because somebody they know has mentioned me, book a call with me and sign up on the day because they know that they're ready because they've already had this conversation with this person saying well I'm struggling with my email marketing and then that person has said oh I know someone you should speak to, they speak to me and they're in the door within 24 hours of being in my virtual world because of all that groundwork I've done but they're a very valuable friend to my business.

Wow.

And I think it's a great example.

And I think it's sometimes underappreciated in terms of how those things go.

And, you know, I'm, I'm just thinking back, you know, I know we're on the plumber, you know, the plumber thing.

But a couple years ago, I had a leak in our house.

I didn't look up online to find anybody.

I called a friend said, Hey, I know you guys have had plumbing issues in the past year or two, who did you use?

And that's how I reached out.

So that word of mouth.

is incredibly important and it's not just word of mouth, it happens through email, through social, through those other means.

And I think sometimes it's really, I think underappreciated how much that can impact.

Yeah, just having a presence in places, especially in places where your competitors or other people in your space don't have a presence is really powerful.

it is.

Yeah, it's being where your competitors aren't and yet your customers are.

So where do small businesses go wrong in their email strategy?

So I think a lot of small businesses see some of the big newsletter players out there.

So the likes of, I'm just trying to think of one that's a relevant example, maybe Justin Welsh, although his email is actually quite valuable.

There's some people who have massive, massive subscriber lists and all they do is they post on LinkedIn, copy and paste their LinkedIn post into an email and send it out to their subscribers.

That's fine.

If you've got a massive following list and actually all you're trying to do is get eyes on the content that you're already creating, but actually as a small business, the stuff I was saying at the beginning, the brand building, the trust building, the authority building and the relationship building that you can do as an individual with people is the thing to focus on.

So I would say make sure that this is a very long-winded answer to your question, but make sure you're not just kind of churning out what you're already giving to people on social media because people will soon get bored of that.

If you can give people additional, make them feel special.

Like I talk about my email subscribers as being my VIP so rather than just collecting a load of people and then just shoving stuff at them, think really hard about what you can give them that's going to make them feel like they're part of your inner circle because then that trust and authority building just accelerates more than it will on social media.

I like that making your email subscribers feel like they are VIPs.

That they get the above and beyond, the special as opposed to what everybody else gets when everybody else gets it.

I think that's really, I think that's a brilliant perspective and idea to use.

Otherwise, like you say, you can just check them out on LinkedIn, you can check them out on Twitter, wherever it is they're posting.

like, I'll catch their stuff whenever the newsletter and that relationship doesn't matter as much in that regard.

One of your posts from three weeks ago, you described how to leverage the power of a small list by focusing on three areas.

What were those areas?

Would you elaborate on how that works?

I didn't know if that question made sense.

Oh, it was, well, no, it's okay.

no, what are they?

know.

Yeah.

So for everybody listening, if you want to go check out her profile, it's the one with the rainbow umbrella.

That was that's the one that I remember.

You talked about strategy, human first subscriber journeys, organic growth.

How does that work?

You know, just from especially that human first subscriber journey.

I'd love to hear anything you have on those.

So that is what I call always considering the human at the end of the inbox.

So your end user, end reader, if you like, rather than it's kind of copywriting 101.

But rather than writing to the many, think of the individual that's going to receive your email and how they're going to feel about receiving that.

And also being really conscious of the fact that receiving an email from you into their inbox and it taking time, space and energy to consume is a privilege for me as a business owner, being able to send you an email.

I wanna make sure that I'm appreciative of the fact that you're reading my emails.

I'm giving you what you need and I'm not.

I'm not undervaluing the trust that you've given me.

I know it sounds big and a bit dramatic, but actually it really matters.

And when you realise that it really matters, it really works as well, because that's when people will start feeling like your VIPs and like they're actually friends with you, rather than just, it's just another way to get hold of you and make sales, which is when it starts feeling impersonal switch off.

So hopefully that answers the human first thing, always thinking of that, that person that is going to receive your message and how it will be received.

Is that something that you sort of, I'll say, improve upon?

Or I mean, obviously, the more you do it, the better you get.

But is that something you sort of develop over time, that feel for how to do that, just based on comments, based on feedback?

How do you begin that journey or think of the other person?

I mean, do you start out with, OK, this is likely one of my readers?

And so I just want to speak directly to them.

Is that how you kind of start?

think that the way I started looking back was thinking about what I would like to receive.

Don't tell anyone but I don't really like reading emails.

We'll keep it quiet just between us here.

exactly.

I'm sure no one's listening.

Um.

I don't really like reading emails, but I think that has been a bit of a superpower for me because I've got the lowest attention span, I'm the least engaged email receiver.

So it takes something special to engage me in my inbox.

So I put myself, it's weird, but I put myself in my own shoes as a receiver and thought, what can I give to people that is gonna make them feel like I'm worthy of being there?

And then, as you said, it is something that has just improved over time.

confidence builds over time when you get responses from people saying I really love your emails or this particular part resonated with me and then remembering the parts that resonated for people and doing more of it so it's definitely a quite a slow build I mean I'm nearly I think I'm coming up for a hundred weeks into my email now so it's quite a long time to have built up that confidence and that knowing what people want from me.

But I would start with just thinking, okay, if I was my, if I was my ideal reader, what would I want to receive?

What would my attention span be able to handle?

And don't give anyone anything that you wouldn't be prepared to receive yourself.

I think it's a great perspective.

And I gotta confess, I wrestle with it too.

I've wrestled with it with my own newsletter.

I wrestle with it with what I read.

And if I really do an audit on what I read consistently, short wins the day.

It really does just with my own personal reading habits.

And for everybody listening, well, we're gonna assume, dear listener, that you didn't hear that, but...

please subscribe to the email anyway, at podcastprep.xyz selfish plug.

But I get the same thing.

It's something, sometimes it's quick, sometimes my inbox gets so full, it's like, oh, or then I do the dreaded thing of, I wanna read this, so I'll save it because it's gonna take me a couple minutes and then three weeks later, I still haven't read it.

Yeah, yeah, you need to be honest with yourself and just delete it at the start, don't you?

Is it is it harder to write a shorter email or if you tend you know server if you're listening and you know you have extensive or long emails that you tend to write would you suggest saying hey what if you write your long email and then you just break it up and send it in different parts I'd love to get your perspective on that.

Short, as you said, short definitely does win the day these days.

Attention spans are dwindling.

I mean, I, even in the last kind of 10 years, I used to live in London and I used to remember standing on the tube platform.

And if it said that the next train was coming in four minutes, I'd be like, what four minutes that's ages and be really frustrated.

And also like brushing my teeth two minutes.

I'm supposed to do it for, I can never get to the full two minutes.

There's always like one minute, 55 seconds.

And I'm like, I'm bored now.

So I can't even focus on keeping my own teeth clean.

I do keep them clean, they're very good teeth.

But I never get to the two minutes I'm supposed to get to.

So I would always be mindful with my emails of making them as short as possible, cut out as much.

fluff as I possibly can.

And another thing that I always say to people is if you imagine a long form piece of content, like a blog post or something like that, if I receive an email that has a short introduction to that blog post, and then a link out to it, I might read the 2000 word blog post, if you put that blog post in an email, I'm deleting it straight away.

So kind of getting the balance between you can peak someone's interest and pull them off to longer form content, but I would never put that big piece of content in a chunk of text in an email because I just open it and go, oh no, I wasn't expecting that, I don't want it.

That is that's brilliant that is I had not thought of that where you just give the a couple of paragraphs short paragraphs.

And then hey, the rest of the link, you know, the rest of the article is here, it'll take you about however many minutes to read and give them that link so that they have the ability to go out and read it at their convenience, but they don't feel compelled or constricted to say, okay, I got to get through this whole email.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And it's like you would do with your podcast.

You wouldn't write out the entire transcript of our conversation as your show notes.

I assume not anyway, correctly if I'm wrong.

You probably, you would do a little, yeah.

delete that.

But yeah, it's like I get like three key points in the show notes and that's it.

draw people in and they go, oh, okay, I'll take the time on my walk on the beach to listen to that because that sounds like those three key points are actually gonna be relevant to me.

But if you just presented me with the podcast with no introduction or with the entire transcription, I'd just be like, no, sorry, Eric, I'm not doing that.

And this is a conversation between you and me.

I wouldn't even listen to me.

No, but I appreciate that.

It's like, okay, give me the gist of it.

Give me some important stuff and if it sounds good, I'll go read it.

If it doesn't sound good, that's okay.

I'm just going to delete the email anyway, but I open the email and I engage with the email and it gives that opportunity to the reader.

It's almost like, it sounds almost like giving them permission to say, I don't have to read the whole thing based on the blurb.

Yeah, and it's funny as we're as you're mentioning that I was writing about different sections of podcasts recently.

And one of the things I talked about was I usually take a key comment that the guest makes from the podcast and I will put it at the very beginning before any of the introductions very much like that to give the listener Okay, what's this podcast about?

Ooh.

Katie said this fascinating thing, so I wanna make sure I listen to it.

And so that's very much it sounds like what you're doing with email ideas.

It's like, ooh, I really like this, I wanna read more.

Yeah, yeah, it's like a menu, a restaurant menu.

If everyone came and put, if someone came and put all the meals in front of you on the table, you probably wouldn't eat them all.

But if you've given a menu, you choose which things appeal to you and it works in exactly the same way.

I love it.

I love it.

That makes so much sense.

And then, so I'm gonna reference, but I'll read the whole thing.

So a couple of weeks ago on LinkedIn, you had, you had referenced five email marketing mistakes that are super easy to fix.

And number four on the list is not telling people what to expect.

So we talked a little bit about it earlier, but.

How do you go about fixing this one if this is something you are messing up on today?

Okay, so this goes back to that foundational strategy, content pillars work that I spoke about earlier on.

If you have that stuff in place and you know roughly what you're gonna send, when you're gonna send it, what time, how long it's gonna be, the not telling people what to expect bit is all about communicating those promises to people.

So for example, my promises are I will always reply to every single response get to my emails, you're never just going to if I ask you a question and you respond, I'm not going to leave you hanging.

It will never take more than three minutes to read.

And yes, you're going to get some advice and some value, but it doesn't take itself too seriously.

There's always some like lightheartedness and fun in there as well.

And those are my promises that I go to people with and making sure that they and also making sure that they know that it's going to arrive at 717 on a Monday morning, different time zone for you.

So it will appear in the middle of the night for you.

But 7.17 UK time Monday morning without fail.

I like that.

And it's not a big list of things that you commit to, but it's three things, but yet there is that.

That's what they can expect from you each time.

So I appreciate that.

You mentioned sometimes there's some humor.

It's not heavy.

There's definitely some light in there.

Do you find humor helps?

Or does it just depend on the business or the situation?

I think it definitely depends on your business and your situation and your brand and its voice.

Humor isn't gonna work for every business.

There's certain businesses that are a lot more serious and formal than my business.

It works for me and I'm a huge advocate for using it where you can, but I wouldn't say that it's a...

an essential to make email marketing a success.

The more important thing is consistency of voice than actually using specific types of voice or approaches within emails.

Okay, that makes sense.

And because that's something I've seen, I've, I've wondered about.

Yeah, I guess it just should come naturally depending on kind of the context of the business and the person.

So you've also in your email lately, you've been talking about your Revive program.

So what is the Revive program?

Unless you just want to restrict that to the VIPs in your email, in which case we'll just skip the question.

Now I'm happy to talk about it.

So my Revive program works in two different ways.

So I have a six month program, which brings people in with that foundational work that I talked about.

So we have a strategy session right at the beginning where we get clear on your objectives, your goals, your content pillars, your promises, and set some intentions and next steps so you know what the regular cadence of your email is gonna be.

And then for the rest of the six months, nice community and group where every week we learn a different lesson and we slowly build out your entire, I call it your email ecosystem around the core of your newsletter.

So that could be welcome sequences, approaching sales, I'm delivering a session tomorrow on customer journey, so not just email marketing but what you can use email for to actually enhance the journeys for people once they become a customer.

Loads of just loads of stuff that gradually builds out with the support of community around you and then on the flip side I have the Revive Accelerator.

which is a similar thing, but it's a much smaller group.

It's four to five people maximum.

It's over four weeks and we get all of the core key things that you need in place within four weeks.

So I've got people coming in now who are just like, Katie, I just need to get this stuff in place before the end of the year.

Let's just do it.

Let's not mess around for six months.

Some people prefer the longer process and the ongoing support mainly for habit building and accountability.

And some people prefer like short, sharp, I've got the habit down.

I just need to get the stuff in place.

So that's kind of how the two ways of working work.

Now that makes sense.

And so it sounds like then in both programs then it's really more of a do with you kind of format as opposed to you come in and you fix it.

It sounds like they come in and together you basically guide them through the process so that they in turn can apply this on their own.

Is that am I hearing that correctly?

you are hearing that correctly.

And the reason I do that over delivering something for people is because it's so much more powerful to give people this information and these tools that then they can implement time and time and time again, even if they end up closing the business that they're working on now and starting another business or going and working in a marketing position in another business, or even conveying some of this stuff that they've learned to their clients.

I work with who actually go, I don't know that much about email marketing, I want to implement it in my business, but this stuff will actually be useful for my clients as well.

So by doing that, and actually teaching them what to implement step by step.

And when I'm giving feedback on emails, actually telling people why I'm making suggested changes, not just going change this, saying change this, because actually, by changing the format or the order of this, you're more likely to make a conversion, or change the format of this question.

you're more likely to get someone to respond.

And then they just gradually build up their skill base and their knowledge base and they can nail it and they don't need me after six months.

I don't want people to be kind of stuck with me forever.

As much as I love everyone, I want them to be able to do this stuff by themselves or teach someone else to do it for them.

I like that you're really just giving them the skills that they can use anywhere and everywhere and just apply it going forward.

And I appreciate that because that's, in many ways, that is very freeing for them and for you because then it's like, okay, we get to move on to the next problem, the next question, the next...

you know, everything else, which, which to me would feel a little more exciting and encouraging, as opposed to working on the same thing every day.

Yeah, and it means I get to connect with and help more people and different types of businesses and stuff as well.

If I was writing week in, week out for the same people, it would be probably a maximum of five people.

And as long as they're on retainer, that's kind of me done.

Obviously, I can still do community building and stuff in the background, but being able to onboard and help move people through a process time and time again, a process that I know works is so much more valuable to me as well, because I know I can help more people.

And I'm sure you get to have with the more conversations you get to have with different businesses really that even the broader perspective you gain from From all of these different situations that you then get to bring together and apply and share with Everybody who signs up next Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I had a, I had a call with a client just this morning, in fact, where I was making suggestions to him for things that he could approach in his business when it came to email.

And then I was going, I'm not even doing this.

This is a really good idea for me.

And so just having that two way conversation with someone and me thinking, Oh, this could work for you, made me realize that there's stuff that I don't necessarily not know, but that I'm not leveraging in my own business.

Um, and you're right.

that stuff just compounds, it just builds on top of each other and then each cohort, I don't work in cohorts, people can work, can join at any time, particularly with the six month thing, but each new joiner gets an extra bit of something that I've learned or implemented myself.

Yeah, I like it sounds like very much like you're getting.

I don't want to say inside information because that sounds like sometimes that has the negative connotation, I don't know, but you're really getting to read and learn and.

Just glean all of this.

this information that you wouldn't otherwise and selfishly, that's one of the beauties of podcasting as well as I get to talk to really smart people who are doing amazing things and I just get to ask questions and I listen.

It's like and then I go back and I listen and look, you know, take notes and it's all good but you learn so much from that process.

Just as we, before we wrap up here, any takeaway you'd like to leave our listeners with.

So this might differ from a lot of business advice that you hear.

A lot of people out there with most business activities will say, just start.

With email, I say, don't just start, do a bit of thinking first, do sit down, talk about those objectives or think about those objectives and just get some core foundations in place before you start.

Because as I mentioned earlier on, it's much harder to unpick a lot of mistakes.

down the line that it is to just set those foundations at the beginning.

So if you take one thing away and you haven't started yet, then just give it some thought before you start.

Um, if you have started and you feel like you've made some mistakes, that doesn't matter either.

Any, everything is solvable.

Nothing is awful.

It's own.

I mean, it's only marketing.

You can unpick anything.

You can make anything right.

it's not that bad.

So as much as I'm saying don't just start, if you have just started and things aren't working there are ways of bringing it back and making it work.

Excellent point.

I like that.

It's just marketing, right?

I say that in jest, but at the same time it's true.

You can adjust as you go, but I appreciate you saying don't lay some foundation work before you begin so that you don't have to redo things later.

Yeah, it's just time saving.

If you can save time as a person who is doing all the things in your business, then grab that opportunity.

Indeed, indeed.

So if listeners want to know more about you, more about your business, your newsletter, where would you like them to go?

Okay, so my website is a bit of a disgrace at the moment, but you can sign up for the newsletter there.

So it's littlegreenduck.co.uk.

And if you want to sign up for the newsletter, there's a nice big link on there to sign up for that.

Or if LinkedIn is more your style, just search for Katie Skelton on LinkedIn, and I would love to connect with you.

Excellent.

So if you're listening, we're going to put all of that information in the show notes.

I would encourage you to sign up for her newsletter.

It is excellent.

I learn from it every week.

Connect with her on LinkedIn and definitely reach out to her about email marketing.

She is incredibly knowledgeable and can definitely get you going in the right direction.

Katie, this has been a blast.

I really appreciate you joining me today.

I've learned a ton.

I know the audience will as well.

Thank you, thank you so much for having me.

to the record button.

We'll chop this end part off here once we...

Just a second, me and my mouse.

I think I need new batteries in my mouse.

you.

Creators and Guests

person
Host
Eric Rutherford
Eric is the founder of Build That Podcast, a podcast production agency focused on the B2B marketplace
🤫3 EMAIL SECRETS from an Expert 🤯 - Katie Skelton 🦆
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