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Sales Pitch: Ana Apple

So and tell us again who you are, what you do and then I loved you know, from now on I'd love to know what you're doing with email marketing now and what your next steps are sure, so I'm anna from an apple dot com known for children garments that celebrate curiosity, enjoy and inspire generosity, something I added last night after yeah, after I was really thinking about values like inspired generosity, I think that's a good I think to start adding it okay, so I also use male chimp I think last last week I sent out uh, a list my list was at three twelve or something so it's every other wednesday, sometimes thursday it goes out the issues that I'm facing is that I know that there's so much potential, I'm just like so many things I could talk about, how do I choose and like, how did I plan out? Like, strategically? Okay, so I'm working a couple of months ahead of the holiday season, but I need to start now to make sure that, you know, I'm getting in front of their in front of them enough,...

you know, the six or seven times so that when it comes time for them to make these purchasing decisions that they come to me first and they get everything through me and, you know so it's just kind of like as she mentioned getting a little overwhelmed like knowing that there's so many things I could do and then kind of being like what's the right move to make and when and how often and just kind of cleaning it up and getting like focus yeah so I love the way you think I should tell me what's the format of your emails right now are you sending out a lot of different links two things do you have sort of a single form a single purpose form out what does your average emails so shoot I wish we could bring one up but basically it's I always include a photo since myself so visually driven I always put a photo of like a new product that you know I've either released or like I was just on the this little sacramento morning show so I did a little screenshot of like me with the little kids that were in costume kind of talked about like a halloween contests are running so I do a little like a little blurb in the main content of it that's just like new and good what's happening you know like I want you to be a part of it and then a little blurb about like what's coming up next seizes the events you confine me out this is ah little promo we're running andi I've got a little side by side at the bottom with usually promoting like hey have you followed us on pinterest this is what we're doing these air you know, there's boards about how to use our garments, tio and then like kind of building a whole outfit our halloween costume or how do you build a gift basket with other brands that align with us? And then yeah, I usually another little blurb about something so I'm like I just feel like I got so much stuff but if you wanted to be not enough stuff so it's kind of yes so I'll tell you one minute that I often recommend is cutting way back what you include in e mails and I am a big fan off one thing per came out one thing often times I'll say I cheat myself and I'll do like a block post and then a blurb like the last few e mails that I sent out whereas a block post and then a blurb about this creative live workshop at the bottom, not it so the post takes up the whole format of the top so in your case that might be that screen grab of you on the morning show and some information about that halloween contest that you are promoting and that might be all you need in an email plus perhaps a call the action too enter that halloween contest but what I find so often is that you know, small business marketers air trying to include so much on their emails that it's taking so much time to compile their emails so it's something that gets put off but here's the thing most people are not looking at the vast majority of your content on those those e mails that include so much so you're essentially wasting time right time you don't have to waste put adding in figuring out how you can put in all that content in one email so it doesn't sound like maybe you have that big a problem with this but I would really look att how you could edit out some of those things and that might make you feel more comfortable about sending more often now that you necessarily need to but it might help you feel more comfortable with it or at least allow it to get done on schedule every time that you do want to send out that doesn't make sense because instead of every other wednesday with all this stuff in it and then I siphon that out into two things what's the most important one or two things segment that out split it up into two and then I said have a nice weekly clean precisely on and something that people don't feel like they need teo open oh my gosh that's so much stuff marcus on bread now it's reread right I'm queen of that yeah so yeah so if you could train your customer base your potential customer based tio I know that your emails are short and sweet and always actionable or always, you know there's always something interesting in there that they want to click on on dh that they could do it in thirty seconds or less or sixty seconds or less now you've got a customer base who's very engaged with email campaigns, which is huge so for the second part of your question you mentioned you know, how do you plan out you know, your holiday emails or your maybe your back to school emails do you have a marketing calendar? I have one but it's I know it's not being used in the way that it could be okay, so I know that the cop out answer no, no, no that's totally fine. So you know, I highly recommend everyone having some sort of marketing calendar which could just be the regular calendar that dot that you use that's what ideo I also use a project management program for this as well I use asana, dot com and that's completely free and very low featured, which is actually what I like about it because I don't have to, you know, there's a lot of project management tools out there onda lot they're very full featured and there's a lot to wade through, so this is like my e mails exactly super simple which helps you stay on track better okay for our kind of business is s o that's one thing but yeah so I used my regular calendar and all marked down launch dates on my calendar and so I start with launch date when do I want to open registration on this when you know this workshop for instance and then I reverse engineer I work backwards so what's the message I want people to get three days before that workshop what's the message I want them to get week before the workshop and then what are the messages ahead of that that are going toe to move them in the direction of making the decision I want them to make which is to enroll in the workshop right on dso you khun you can take people kind of threw that journey so for you it might be you might start off with just kind of a general gift guide and you might include some items from your line and then you might include other items from other people's lines from friends lines that make also would make awesome gifts for your particular most valued customers. You might start that off at the beginning of your what the holiday marketing campaign sort of just doesn't like a teaser you know you've got to start thinking about gifts people so here's some ideas and then you could move them through a siri's of emails that become stronger and stronger reminders that the holiday season is upon us and, you know, for maker businesses, you guys have shipping timelines, right? So that's, another key message that has to be in any kind of e mail campaign, like that same thing goes when you're starting a collection, there are yeah, when you're launching a collection, there are special citic time frame things, so you want to send out an email twenty four hours before a collection launches, say, it's twenty four hours before the collection launches, so definitely think about time constraints, urgency anytime you can build up urgent see, in a marketing campaign like that, you're doing something right, but yeah, so I take a marketing calendar, I marked down the deeds of the things that I want to promote, and then I work backwards from there. I'm someone who likes to fly by the seat of my pants and in terms of content, so that's, that's, really the only kind of editorial calendar I have is just for a launch. What are the messages that are going to work, people tour, being able to make the best buying decision for them? But then, during the mean time, you know, I'll send out whatever it just kind of moving or inspiring me, but yes, so start with the date of what you're doing and work backwards from there and actually market on a calendar or use a project management tool that's going to send you an email reminder that you've got to write this campaign and loaded into your programs that you can get going and of course, this stuff can all be done far ahead of time to you might choose a day or an afternoon where you write out your whole holiday campaign, plug it into email program and the schedule those emails out you don't ever have to think about it again. It's just it's on autopilot, okay, that's a good yeah, okay, um, any questions? Not maybe not so much a question is like a, uh just something I've been thinking about because I have, you know, my three hundred something regular individual customers, and then I have I think maybe twelve of my store owners on my retail is sure different, but I think I've emailed them twice and I like I'm kind of just a little bit stuck on what I should just kind of ways to get more like re inspired with and I know this kind of may be the perfect time. Tio revisit that list because it is like they're like yes and inventory give us, like, help us help you kind of thing, yeah, exactly and help and another thing to think about in terms of retailers help your retailers help their customers right? Right so it's not only about getting their shelves stocked up with your product but it's also about giving them the story is giving them those value statement that they need to be able to sell to customers because they're looking to you guys they're looking to you guys as the sales people essentially they're looking for you for sales scripts so just like yesterday when I mentioned that you know megan leeds in her trade show booth now with the story is lightweight and indestructible that's a value statement for retailers take back to their stores and so when someone starts looking at her jewelry the first thing they say to a new customer is it's lightweight and indestructible so you know what do you want your custom or what do you want your retailers to be telling their customers right? No oh, sorry. You know, I knew you were going to do that so I'm gonna put you out of hot um that yeah that they work well with maybe things that they've merchandise me next to you on the store like that's a that's a convenient upsell for them opportunity for them about the like the quality and values the quality of the way it's made as well as you know the values that my company is built on exactly community and generosity and everything um yeah okay cool, yeah, but think about that and you know when you can include that in your retailer emails as well retailers don't want to hear from you obviously nearly as consumers once a month for them once quarter whenever it makes sense to be sending out an email about to either push new orders are to give new scripts but yeah that's what you kind of want to be thinking about? Okay, cool all right? And I also liked I'm sorry front I liked what you said about the ultimate follow through because I think that's also where I'm just like buy from me the first time and then I'm forgetting tio reach out to the people that have like putting enough trusting me and my brand teo to buy yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up again because I think so many small business is is to think of growing their businesses as finding new customers and yes, I want to help you find new customers on I want you to find new customers but sometimes the easiest way to grow our businesses and to boost our bottom lines is to revisit customers who have bought from us in the past on dh for a lot of people also another way to think about this is revisiting products that have sold well in the past. A lot of times we get excited about new stuff and we forget about the old best sellers s o. You know, I've done great things for my own business when I remember, yeah, I have that product that I don't talk about any more, and I could probably make some money by just, like, mention it again. You know, lo and behold, I could bring in, you know, a couple hundred a couple thousand dollars just by mentioning an old product, so you might want to think about that as well. You might have new customers that have come in because of a new product launch for a new collection, but they they're not familiar with the whole other part of your line. So following up with something like that might be really helpful. A swell. Okay, okay, thank you.