Turning Email into Profit with Shannon Vondy
In this special episode of the Wealth Witches podcast, host Katelyn Magnuson sits down with Shannon Vondy, founder of The Email Club, to explore the untapped potential of email marketing. Shannon shares how she pivoted from a burnout-prone career as a wedding photographer to becoming an email marketing pro. She reveals how sending just one email generated over $2600, prompting her to embrace email as an easy and profitable marketing strategy. Throughout the episode, Shannon emphasizes that email doesn’t have to be complicated and encourages business owners to approach it with consistency rather than perfection.
The conversation covers actionable strategies for building and maintaining an engaged email list, including starting small, segmenting audiences, and sending regular, valuable content. Shannon and Katelyn discuss why smaller, targeted lists often perform better than massive, unengaged ones, debunking the myth that list size determines success. They also highlight the importance of crafting polarizing content to attract the right audience and how email offers more control than social media algorithms. Whether you’re new to email marketing or looking to optimize your current approach, this episode is packed with tips on how to connect authentically with your audience and turn your inbox into a profit center.
Key Takeaways
- Email marketing becomes profitable with consistency.
- Regular emails build trust and engagement.
- Polarizing content draws aligned audiences.
- Email offers control unmatched by social media.
- Subscribers want to hear from you—show up authentically.
Guest Bio:
Connect with Shannon:
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Website:
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Music credit: Neon Fairies by Wolves
Transcript
Hello, and welcome magical creatures to the Wealth Witches podcast.
Speaker:This is a place where we brew financial empowerment and mix in a little sprinkle
Speaker:of magic. I'm Caitlin Magnuson, your guide on this enchanted
Speaker:journey to financial enlightenment. Here, we honor all identities and
Speaker:invoke our inner witches to create holistic wealth and prosperity. So
Speaker:grab your crystals, open your minds, and let's get ready to conjure some
Speaker:financial clarity clarity.
Speaker:Hi. Welcome back to Wealth Witches. I have Shannon
Speaker:Vondey here today. Little bit about Shannon. She's the founder and the
Speaker:CEO of the Email Club, and she went from being a burnt
Speaker:out wedding photographer to email obsessed when she sent one
Speaker:email and earned $26100. She wanted to earn an
Speaker:additional 13,000 in 6 months from email marketing alone. Now she's
Speaker:on a mission to help business owners discover that email is easy,
Speaker:fun, and extremely profitable. Shannon, thank you
Speaker:so much for being here. I'm so excited to chat email
Speaker:and demystify some of the clunkiness that I think people have
Speaker:associated with it. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited
Speaker:to be here and to talk email because this is my favorite subject.
Speaker:It is. I know. You do really love to nerd out. It's like me talking
Speaker:about retirement in 401 k, and this is you talking about email. Exactly.
Speaker:We all It's fantastic. I
Speaker:would love just out of, like, background here because I know a lot about
Speaker:this. But where, like, where and why
Speaker:did you start to transition or make the leap into email? Like, when did
Speaker:you figure out that, like, hey. There might actually be something, like, fucking do this
Speaker:instead of just, like, you should email your list. You should email your list.
Speaker:Exactly. I'd always heard that. I always heard you should have an email list. I
Speaker:I collected emails a little bit. So I was a wedding photographer
Speaker:for about 10 years once we got to 2020, and everyone knows
Speaker:what happened then. And so I had emailed before. I
Speaker:really didn't see any results. I embarrassed I'm, like, embarrassed to say this, but
Speaker:I legit was like, I don't think, emails work for photographers. Like,
Speaker:I could not have been more wrong. So yeah. And
Speaker:it's crazy. So then once 2020 happened, my whole
Speaker:calendar was free. I actually wound up helping a friend of mine who does email
Speaker:marketing and who was at home with her 2 kids, no babysitter, and
Speaker:needed support, like, so badly. So I was like, what can I do
Speaker:for you? I have nothing going on. So I learned more about email and how
Speaker:to use it. And I thought, you know, maybe I should just try this again,
Speaker:see what happens. And I sent one email, made $26100.
Speaker:To be fair, I did think it might have been a fluke. And so I
Speaker:was like, you know what? I'm a try this again in a few months and
Speaker:see what happens, right, as I, you know, as you do. So I
Speaker:ran another print sale, so that's kinda what I did. I ran a print sale
Speaker:the first time I ran a print sale a couple months later, and I made
Speaker:another, like, $1400. And I was like, okay.
Speaker:This is what people are saying when they're saying have a list, grow a list.
Speaker:You know? I feel like people should actually be saying, learn how to use an
Speaker:email list, not just start a list. Because anyone can start one, but
Speaker:if you don't know what you're doing, it's kind of not gonna It was valuable.
Speaker:3 years ago, probably. Shocker.
Speaker:No. That's I know that we've seen big, big
Speaker:things from our email list, especially with having you, you know, managing all of that,
Speaker:reviving it, so to speak. Because I know what had happened for me is I
Speaker:fall into the cycle, especially with a seasonal business of
Speaker:oh, shit. I'm gonna launch something. Or, oh, it's we're coming up on that time.
Speaker:I haven't reached out to buy a list in 3 months.
Speaker:Maybe I should send some things right now. Then, you know, like rapid fire before
Speaker:you just start, like, sending, hey. Buy these things for me. And I
Speaker:think that consistency has been one of the best things that we've been
Speaker:doing over the last couple of years because some people are used to
Speaker:hearing from us. They're used to having, like, value provided. And then it's not just
Speaker:like, hi. Here. Please pay me to do these things for you. It's, hey. We've
Speaker:actually, like, nurtured and built a relationship. So
Speaker:what tips can you give or direction could you give for someone that's like, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. I know I should be doing the email listing or I have an
Speaker:email list, but I'm not doing anything with it.
Speaker:So I would say if you're brand brand new, I
Speaker:would just start collect be sure you're collecting. Or
Speaker:if you're already collecting, great. And I would just set up
Speaker:one welcome email so that when people come on your list, they get at least
Speaker:welcome to your list. And then I would just start emailing weekly. I mean, if
Speaker:you can't handle weekly, I know that that might be a lot if it's brand
Speaker:new to you, try every other week or even just, like, once a month if
Speaker:you can't handle weekly. I will say I think weekly works best, and
Speaker:I think that that's the best strategy. I like just setting a
Speaker:day I'm gonna email and know that the day before I need to just get
Speaker:my email done. And if I always tell people too, if you're a batch worker,
Speaker:you could batch. I mean, 4 emails is you know, one email a week is
Speaker:4 emails, so a month. So you could literally sit down at the beginning of
Speaker:the month and write 4 emails, if that's your thing. I'm not a big batch
Speaker:person, so I don't like doing it that way. But people a ton of people
Speaker:in my membership do it that way too. So it's really whatever works best for
Speaker:you, but I would just pick a frequency and just stick to it. Because I
Speaker:think, often, we think we need these, like, crazy complicated funnels and, like,
Speaker:things before we can really start emailing, or we need a certain amount of people
Speaker:on our list before we start emailing. But what if we just started
Speaker:emailing? Stop making it so complicated.
Speaker:Right? Why don't just do a thing? Take a stop. Just do
Speaker:it. That brought up so I've
Speaker:encountered and you know this, but I've encountered some things where, like, our list, I
Speaker:think, is under 5,000. And I have encountered sometimes where it's
Speaker:been required that you have x number of subscribers
Speaker:or, you know, x number of whatever. And I would really love for you to
Speaker:chat about that because I think there are like, we'll have vanity
Speaker:metrics for, like, Instagram or, you know, I don't know, TikTok
Speaker:or whatever. But vanity metrics with email, like, what what thoughts
Speaker:do you have on that? So many thoughts, but I'll try and simplify
Speaker:it. Essentially, I remember when you told me that, like, some
Speaker:places were saying that or they I think they wanted maybe to speak, and they
Speaker:were like, if you don't have this big of a list, then you you're not
Speaker:qualified or whatever. Mhmm. I think it's kind of
Speaker:bullshit because because somebody can have even on
Speaker:Instagram. Right? Somebody can have less than a 1000 followers and be making
Speaker:money versus somebody who can have 50,000 followers and not
Speaker:be making money. And the same is true with an email list. It's really about
Speaker:who is on your list. So if you have really engaged
Speaker:subscribers, people who love being there, who open your emails and are
Speaker:interested in what you have to say, I feel like your list is so much
Speaker:more powerful than having a huge list just
Speaker:for a number. Especially with email, it doesn't make any sense to me why
Speaker:somebody would have that metric and not, like, what's your open
Speaker:rate? What's your click rate? What are these are much more telling
Speaker:metrics, I feel like, in email than, amount of
Speaker:subscribers. Absolutely. I think that that gets really
Speaker:overlooked. It's like the same thing with, like, what's your engagement rate? Right? Like, what's
Speaker:your engagement rate with email? What's your like, how
Speaker:invested in, like, what kind of relationship have you built? Because, yeah, I could totally
Speaker:have a list of, like, thousands more people. But is it gonna do any
Speaker:good? Is it worth it? For us, it's more expensive potentially to maintain. Like, there's
Speaker:just so much more that goes with it. I'd rather have I know that we've
Speaker:seen this chatted about for, like, Instagram or things like that. I'd rather have a
Speaker:smaller amount of engaged, like, invested
Speaker:followers, subscribers, etcetera, than have, like, vanity metrics or
Speaker:bots or whatever else that you can, like, have on there with media.
Speaker:It's just wild to me that it was a requirement without having qualifiers. Right? It
Speaker:would have made way more sense that they're like, hey. We're wanting to see, you
Speaker:know, 2,000 or 3,000. Like, if you're looking at, like,
Speaker:an average
Speaker:email that you'd send out based on, like, clicks through rate, open rate, like, we're
Speaker:wanting to see these results. Mhmm. Exactly. What are your
Speaker:averages for this? That would make so much more sense to me. So much more
Speaker:so much more sense. Or, like, do you have these types of subscribers. Right? Like,
Speaker:because maybe they're an event for coaches. Right? And so Mhmm. People on there who
Speaker:are also coaches, potentially. Or, you know, if you were doing one like that and
Speaker:you had only wedding industry people on your list, it wouldn't make sense
Speaker:for you to be in that space.
Speaker:Space. So it would be a much better qualifier than amount of people.
Speaker:Because, again, anyone. It could be anybody on that list. Anyone
Speaker:could get to that number, but are they gonna actually buy or take action?
Speaker:My guess would probably be no if you're throwing for numbers' sake.
Speaker:No. I think that that that's really important to
Speaker:remember. And I also, like I remember this wasn't that long
Speaker:ago when my email was was, like, under a1000, under 500.
Speaker:I was so excited for, like, every little you know, every subscribe
Speaker:that occurred. It was like, oh, we're growing. We're doing it.
Speaker:My question for you. So there's a lot of wedding wedding industry professionals that we
Speaker:work with and what kind of a freebie? Because
Speaker:I feel like sometimes people can get stuck with like, how
Speaker:do I how do we even start having people subscribe? Because you can always have
Speaker:a little newsletter sign up box. But I know that it's been really
Speaker:commonplace like, have a freebie, have an opt in, have something of
Speaker:value in order to get someone's email because they don't always wanna
Speaker:just, like, hand over their email. That's the entry. Like, the the entry ticket for
Speaker:anything is your email address. So what would your
Speaker:suggestion be if someone was like, I don't even know, like, what
Speaker:should I put out there? Like, I wanna send emails, but, like, how do I
Speaker:get people on my list? Yeah. So
Speaker:one thing that is probably the easiest thing and that I think a lot
Speaker:of business owners in general overlook that I find it grew my
Speaker:list to 50 people was just talking about it.
Speaker:Okay. Now that seems so silly and that we should think of it,
Speaker:but legit just sharing that I had an email list every
Speaker:week and talking about that I was sending an email every week, I grew my
Speaker:list to 50 people. I mean, it took a while. It it took longer than,
Speaker:like, a you know, maybe if you did other strategies,
Speaker:but it worked really well. And it was people who wanted to be there,
Speaker:and they were all very engaged. But
Speaker:I like to think when I'm working, especially with wedding pros, I like to think,
Speaker:okay, what is our end goal? Right? Like, who do we want on this list?
Speaker:And who do you what do you want them to do, ultimately? So are
Speaker:you looking to get more couples? Like, if you are in the wedding space, are
Speaker:you wanting more couples on your list? In that case, you need to think
Speaker:about, I'll give you example. I had somebody tell
Speaker:me she was like, I a photographer. And she goes, I'm going to do a
Speaker:what to wear to your engagement session freebie. And I was like, that's a great
Speaker:idea for a freebie. However, let's keep in mind
Speaker:that by the time a couple is looking for what to wear to their engagement
Speaker:session, they've probably already hired a photographer. So if your
Speaker:goal is to get somebody to hire you for their wedding, giving them a
Speaker:freebie that meets them after they probably booked a photographer
Speaker:isn't probably gonna work in your favor. And so I think, in that
Speaker:case, you probably wanna think about where you could meet them earlier in their
Speaker:buyer journey. Right? Like, could you give them, like, venue help
Speaker:assistance? You know, could you share things to ask a photographer before
Speaker:you book them? Like, where can you hit them a little bit earlier in that
Speaker:journey so that you're not gonna send them something that, yes, it could be very
Speaker:helpful, but it's not gonna also benefit you? Right. It's like I
Speaker:captured them in the right part of the journey for you to have any sort
Speaker:of, like, long term relationship at that point. Like, cool. It's of value,
Speaker:but yes. Exactly. Exactly. I think that's really
Speaker:important to think of that way because I think that would be, like, I would
Speaker:have been really excited for something like that. But you're right. By the time you've
Speaker:gotten, like, what office should I pick for my engagement session? Yeah.
Speaker:You because like I said, you could probably book somebody at that point, so you're
Speaker:probably not looking for a wedding photographer anymore. I mean, maybe if you only did
Speaker:engagements, that would be a great freebie. Oh, that's fair. That's fair.
Speaker:Yeah. Like, if that was your focus. But, yeah, I think
Speaker:meeting them earlier. Or, again, another thing I find actually,
Speaker:a member in my, membership who does she's a
Speaker:photographer. She does senior photography. And she we were talking about
Speaker:her list and, like, she's so booked out that she said she has
Speaker:inquiries to 2026 right now because they're seniors.
Speaker:They know they're graduating. They know like, she's just got a really good community. And
Speaker:I'm like, you probably don't need to be emailing
Speaker:them regularly. Like, they are very, very, very warm.
Speaker:Right. Kind of scale back on that side of your business. But what
Speaker:if you built up your photographers on your list? What if you started
Speaker:going into, like, teaching more? And that was very much an interest
Speaker:for her. So now she's working that side of her list and, like, coming up
Speaker:with stuff that, like, photographers can learn from her and how they can come onto
Speaker:her list instead of trying to nurture an already pretty warm
Speaker:buying like, I would say my Right. Geography business too is the same. My my
Speaker:clients are pretty warm. They don't really need weekly emails for me to remember me
Speaker:anymore. But when I you know, for 10 years, I didn't use
Speaker:email, and I imagine it would have made a huge world of difference. We
Speaker:won't we won't talk about all the money I left on the table. We're not
Speaker:gonna live in the past. Yes. For a decade.
Speaker:Another thing I was thinking too when we were talking was, about the email
Speaker:list size. I was thinking that I have had so
Speaker:much success with really small email lists. And even if
Speaker:it's just segmenting a piece of a list, which I don't wanna go too too
Speaker:crazy down segmenting because it's like I swear, it could be a full time job
Speaker:of segmenting a list. But, essentially, what it means is when you take just a
Speaker:small piece of your list and send them something specific.
Speaker:And so, for instance, when I did something just for photographers, like, I was teaching
Speaker:them my print sales method of what I do, and I just had a wait
Speaker:list of photographers. And I have, like, 50 photographers,
Speaker:and it was I think I had a sales rate of, like, 30%
Speaker:on that. Oh, wow. So it's just kind of one of those things
Speaker:how important and kinda cool it can be to have
Speaker:a very, very targeted part of your list when it comes
Speaker:to selling a specific offer. No. I think that
Speaker:that's really overlooked as well. I was thinking about that when you're talking about, like,
Speaker:the person that had, you know, divvied into, like, education versus, like, the seniors because
Speaker:that was such a warm area. And, like, you don't want one of those getting
Speaker:the email meant for the other necessarily because, like, they are very
Speaker:different. And so making sure that you are segmenting where
Speaker:or targeting segmenting, you know, any of those, like, where relevant so
Speaker:that you're if you're speaking directly to me and you know
Speaker:that I'm on your list and I'm a copywriter or a digital
Speaker:like, whatever it is. And you're like, hey. I have a program specifically for copywriters.
Speaker:I'm like, the ins and outs of understanding your accounting. That'll be so much more
Speaker:relevant for me than, like, oh, hey. I know you do x y z, but
Speaker:I'm just emailing everyone about this copywriting course. Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly. So, I mean, that's why I think a small list is actually
Speaker:really mighty because Mhmm. It's still again, you can have as big
Speaker:or as small list as you have, and you can
Speaker:still make money from you can make money from
Speaker:1 person on your email list. That's what I love about an
Speaker:email. And, like, you always have mostly direct access to
Speaker:them unlike social. Right? Like, how many times do we mean, heck, half the time,
Speaker:I don't even see your posts on social, and it's not because I don't want
Speaker:to. It's just the algorithm doesn't always show us everything. But
Speaker:with email, it's such a better way to get in front of people and,
Speaker:like, they see it, usually.
Speaker:I mean, obviously, there's times they don't, but in much higher percentage does.
Speaker:No. That's I'm I'm glad you brought that up because I know that everyone will
Speaker:always you'll see these pop up. Right? When, like, Instagram goes down for the day
Speaker:or something else, you know, it pops up and you're like, hey. You don't actually,
Speaker:like, own or have, like, access to all of these. Whereas,
Speaker:like, email is something that is yours. Mhmm. You know, you
Speaker:you've built I actually kind of equate it's like working for
Speaker:someone else versus building your own business.
Speaker:Like, yes, there's, you know, some increased
Speaker:stability potentially. Right? Because you have, like, a different audience that, like, things may get
Speaker:pushed out differently. But having that email list, like, having your
Speaker:own nurtured section that will, like, reliably
Speaker:hear from you rather than, like, yeah. We're gonna just go ahead and hope people
Speaker:see this on Instagram. They may or may not. Kinda depends on the whim. Depends
Speaker:on the algorithm. Depends on what features being pushed right now. Like, TikTok
Speaker:right now with all the sponsored or, you know, like, the shop store or
Speaker:whatever thing. So it's come like, that is all that I'm seeing. That's my end.
Speaker:I'm sure there's tons of things that I'm missing. Mhmm. Yeah. I keep
Speaker:hearing about that. I love your analogy
Speaker:of being somebody you work for versus somebody, like or
Speaker:working for yourself. I think that's such a cool analogy for it. And the cool
Speaker:thing I love about email as well I mean, there's many things, obviously, I love
Speaker:about it, but people are saying they wanna be there. Right? So, yeah, you
Speaker:might follow someone on social and want to hear from them. But, again, we have
Speaker:an algorithm that doesn't always provide that. But email, it's
Speaker:like, somebody has taken a moment. They've seen what you've done.
Speaker:They have taken a moment and said, oh my gosh. I love
Speaker:what you have so much. I want to hear more. I will
Speaker:give you my email. Please send me more about what you have to say.
Speaker:And I'm like, so let's let's email them. Like, those people
Speaker:want to hear from you. They want to know what you're doing, what you have
Speaker:going on, what you're selling. Like, I think a lot of times I hear,
Speaker:you know, people are too they're worried they're going to, quote, unquote, annoy their lists
Speaker:when they email, and I'm like, they've said they wanna hear from you.
Speaker:Like, why would you if if you told me if somebody if I went to
Speaker:a store and I was like, I wanna hear more about this,
Speaker:bath salt. Right? Like, I wanna hear more about this. And they were like, oh,
Speaker:but have you seen this planter for, you know
Speaker:but I wanna hear hear about it. Like or if they just ignored me, I'd
Speaker:be like, I didn't are you is no one gonna tell me? Like, email
Speaker:them They said they wanna hear from you. Why are we why are we making
Speaker:it complicated? I think that that's really easy to do
Speaker:though when and I think the best way to, like, counteract that
Speaker:is I put myself in my own shoes as someone receiving
Speaker:emails. And if there are 1, if you're not
Speaker:loving getting them, then maybe, like, you're no longer the right target market for
Speaker:that. But if like, there are emails that I get that I read
Speaker:religiously when they come into my inbox from people because I love the value
Speaker:it's really relevant for where I am or they're entertaining or you know some combination
Speaker:of those and I don't give a shit if they email me every day.
Speaker:Totally. Like And that's that's part of it too. Right? Like, if you just set
Speaker:up their expectations from the beginning when somebody comes onto your list, if you just
Speaker:tell them, hey. I'm gonna email you every day. I mean, I'm on a few
Speaker:list like that that they give, like, a biz tip every day. Mhmm. They give
Speaker:something every day, and I, like, don't I don't care. How many emails do we
Speaker:get from Old Navy every day? And I don't Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker:It's like, I might want the sale when it comes the next time.
Speaker:Yes. No. And if you don't write then and there, then there's a delete
Speaker:button. Like, I know it's wild. It's wild. But, yeah, if I wanna
Speaker:stay on someone's list, like, Black Friday sales when they come up or things that
Speaker:I mean, I'm not buying during the rest of the year. Maybe I'm not it's
Speaker:just not relevant to me. That doesn't mean I'm gonna necessarily unsubscribe and then remembering
Speaker:or resubscribe. But it means that, like, maybe I opened them during
Speaker:this week. Maybe I don't open them for a while. But
Speaker:people have. Like, I've said, I'm interested in hearing more,
Speaker:knowing more, being involved. Like, maybe we get out of our
Speaker:own way a little bit and, like, acknowledge about that we do have value to
Speaker:offer and people wanna hear from us. Yeah. Like I said, I always just remind
Speaker:myself they have signed up to be here. And I I think this
Speaker:is actually an interesting opportunity to talk about this too is, like, if they
Speaker:unsubscribe, I I can still get my feels too. Like, I actually,
Speaker:literally, last week, had kind of a bigger unsubscribe for me,
Speaker:normally. Like, I usually get maybe 1 to 2 unsubscribes most, and I think I
Speaker:got, like, 7. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And I
Speaker:had to have this little pep talk with myself too. But
Speaker:we don't 1, maybe people are either changing emails. Right? Like, that's
Speaker:actually a very common one. Sometimes I'll get on a list with an email I
Speaker:don't like being on that list, and I'll just change my email. So, like, that
Speaker:could be a very good reason why people are unsubscribing. Sometimes you would just
Speaker:get so many emails, and we do unsubscribe. And they can always come back if
Speaker:they change their mind. Right? They can always resubscribe. They can you have a
Speaker:different freebie or something else they're interested in. They can come back, and that's
Speaker:okay. But, also, if they unsubscribe, maybe they weren't meant to be
Speaker:there anyway. Right? They're they're self telling self segmenting to say, like,
Speaker:I'm just not interested in this. I'm probably not gonna buy from you, and that's
Speaker:okay too. Right. I would way rather have someone not be on
Speaker:my list if they don't want to be there than have them be
Speaker:there and not enjoy what they're getting. Like, that's yeah.
Speaker:Like, that's a vibe. But I know I know we can sometimes get in our
Speaker:fields. One other story that I love to share too was I have
Speaker:another email friend, and we were talking. She's like, you're not gonna believe this unsubscribe,
Speaker:like, story. And she said that somebody emailed her and said, hey.
Speaker:I just got back on your list. I had unsubscribed 6 months ago or
Speaker:whatever it was. Like, she the woman told her she goes, I had
Speaker:had cancer, and I needed just to clean my inbox. I needed
Speaker:nothing on it. And so I just unsubscribed from everything, and she goes, but your
Speaker:emails were one I missed a lot. Aw. I was like, oh my
Speaker:god. And then she and I were like, we will never complain about unsubscribes again
Speaker:because Right. You never know what somebody is doing or dealing
Speaker:with or again, it's probably not you.
Speaker:It's probably not your email. It is probably something
Speaker:feisty about it, which I think you know sometimes because it doesn't bother me nearly
Speaker:that, like, as much as it used to. I would rather, like, hey.
Speaker:What can we send out this month to, like,
Speaker:polarize more of our ideal, like, clients or ideal audience,
Speaker:into staying and, like, the opposite for people that aren't the right shit for
Speaker:us. Because I think it's really, like, you're not everyone's
Speaker:what what is it? Like, everyone's cup of tea, I think. But for the people
Speaker:that you are, like, you can be a really, really good fit rather than being,
Speaker:like, a mediocre fit for a lot of people. Exactly. You can be a
Speaker:really great fit. And you want people who want to buy from you
Speaker:ultimately. Right? Or at least cheer you on. Right? Like, even Right. Seeing people that
Speaker:are going to be excited for you, be happy for you, wanna see you do
Speaker:well, because I think that there's a time and place to I have definitely have
Speaker:some of those people on my list who are probably never gonna you know, just
Speaker:friends who do not own businesses and are probably not gonna ever buy from me,
Speaker:but they stay there to cheer me on. They stay there to support me. And
Speaker:that's awesome too. But, I mean, we ultimately want those people. We
Speaker:don't want to just have a fluffy list full of 5,000 subscribers
Speaker:who are never gonna buy anything or don't care about each other thing.
Speaker:Yeah. That defeats the entire purpose of the email.
Speaker:Like, can't this be vanity metric? Yeah. But, like, why are you in business
Speaker:again? I know. And we've seen some good success with your emails
Speaker:as far as doing kind of polarizing content and getting
Speaker:more sales versus I actually find we get better sales
Speaker:when we're a little more polarizing because I think it tells people if it's for
Speaker:them or not. Well, and I think, especially, like,
Speaker:with our industry, specifically, it's though easy to be, like,
Speaker:crusty and rigid and not
Speaker:relatable. And I think that gives us a really great opening, like, play
Speaker:to our strengths and to attract people. Some people want that. Some people
Speaker:want the, like, I'm gonna come in an office. I'm like, you come bring your
Speaker:taxes to me, and that's cool. Like, by all means, that's just not
Speaker:us. And so we don't want these people on our list to begin with. We
Speaker:want the people that are like, hell, yeah. I'm here for, like, the asynchronous work
Speaker:environment. Like, everything else that goes on and
Speaker:it yeah. I I like doing that. I I started doing the same thing on
Speaker:TikTok a year or 2 ago. Once I could get over the fact that,
Speaker:like, I'm not for everyone, I would rather have a much smaller group
Speaker:of highly engaged people around me
Speaker:than vanity metrics. And so the best way that I've found to do that
Speaker:is polarizing content. And, like, it could be a little uncomfortable sometimes,
Speaker:especially on TikTok because people can be vicious. I bet.
Speaker:But, yeah, it's so sometimes I just but my sister, but I just don't don't
Speaker:read the comments. I'm like, oh, thanks. Comments. That's fine. Thanks.
Speaker:But it it does it does really well on this, what I want. And, like,
Speaker:that's that's the whole point. It's like where like, you can do the same thing
Speaker:with email with, like, attracting your peeps. I think even in the
Speaker:wedding industries, but, specifically, I think people have a hard time standing
Speaker:out because there are well, at least, I I don't like to subscribe
Speaker:to this theory, but I hear it thrown around a lot of it being, quote,
Speaker:unquote, saturated. And, like, there's so many people and all this. And,
Speaker:again, I don't like to subscribe to that because I just feel like it's negative
Speaker:and not really a fun way to look at it, but I think there's plenty
Speaker:of weddings. There's plenty of work for everyone. But
Speaker:email could help you stand out, could help you get to know
Speaker:people differently. Could I've seen literally, I had a member in my
Speaker:membership couple weeks ago send an email to
Speaker:her warmer list. So she had met with a couple, like,
Speaker:6 weeks before, sent them a proposal, heard nothing. Like, they would not
Speaker:respond. They did not respond to her follow-up. She sent them, like, a
Speaker:weekly email that she sends out. Yeah. 2 hours later, they booked.
Speaker:So she made $68100 off of one email, And it was
Speaker:just because it was probably something different for them. Right? Like, they probably
Speaker:interviewed several different photographers. They were probably, like,
Speaker:couldn't either decide or just weren't sure or were busy and didn't have time to
Speaker:get to it. And then when they saw that email come in, they felt
Speaker:compelled to book her or because she was doing something that probably
Speaker:the other people they had talked to weren't. Well and I
Speaker:think with that, you have such a chance to differentiate your
Speaker:client experience and also who you are, or who
Speaker:your team is, or, like, what you stand for. And I I think, especially with,
Speaker:like, gen x, millennials, gen z, and so on. Like,
Speaker:we are buying a lot of temps based on our shared
Speaker:values. Like, I could go I'm not gonna say to anyone
Speaker:for, you know, a photography needs because you have, like,
Speaker:your specific style. Let's say you're going light and airy and, you know, like, whatever.
Speaker:Like, you narrow it down to what type of style you like. Generally, the different
Speaker:like, the differentiating factor for me is going to be price
Speaker:to an extent depending. But, also, like, how much do
Speaker:I I hate saying vibe. It's such a, like, cliche buzzword. But, like, how much
Speaker:do I vibe with them? How much do I relate to them? Like, how much
Speaker:do I feel like this will be a really stellar experience
Speaker:because there's a rapport built here. And that's so much
Speaker:easier to build, I think, over email than it is especially in, like, the
Speaker:remote day and age. You're not just, like, necessarily meeting people all the time. Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely. And I feel like you're a little less inundated with email, and
Speaker:we check our email every day. Every I would say I mean, more
Speaker:Aw. You and I, I know, check, like, 800 times a day. But
Speaker:I think in general and maybe not, like, every single ideal client
Speaker:does that. But in general, people look at their email every day. Don't they
Speaker:don't always check social every single day. I mean, I
Speaker:think business owners do, but I don't think that, like, couples, for
Speaker:instance, do. But I bet you they check their email every day. I bet you
Speaker:they look at, you know, certain things like that every single day. And imagine
Speaker:what they're seeing on their feed if we're seeing all the
Speaker:things we see, like, what are they missing? What are
Speaker:they not seeing that you're posting? That's exactly it. Like, even if they are
Speaker:checking social media every day, are they seeing what you're putting out? Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly. So, yeah, it's I think it's one of those things that we just
Speaker:it's such a great I like to think of it as, like, an omnipresence we
Speaker:can have. Right? Like, so, I think actually, just talking to somebody about this recently
Speaker:about how there used to be the thing that was, like, people need to see
Speaker:something 7 times, and I think we've all heard this. But, apparently,
Speaker:that study was done in, like, the seventies. So it
Speaker:is very old, and I have heard now anywhere between 80 to,
Speaker:like, 200 times from people of needing to see things before
Speaker:they buy. But if you think about your own buying decisions, like,
Speaker:even buying, like, something at Target. Right? Like, we have
Speaker:to see it so many times, walk through the aisle, see a commercial for it,
Speaker:whenever we finally go, oh, maybe I should try it. And so I
Speaker:can only imagine what we're all doing when buying, especially higher
Speaker:ticket things, services for wedding, for any type of business,
Speaker:whatever. Right? We want to feel comfortable in that
Speaker:decision, and there are lots of choices to, you
Speaker:know, satiate many different types of people, and we wanna make sure that we're making
Speaker:the one that is the best fit for us. Absolutely. No.
Speaker:I I thought about that because there are things that TikTok
Speaker:or Instagram Instagram's a big one that will eventually convince me to
Speaker:buy. Right? Like, maybe I see them. There's, like, not
Speaker:sponsored, but if you wanna sponsor me, please reach out. But fluid
Speaker:fluid soaks, and they're like a magnesium rich bath salts. You
Speaker:said bath salts earlier. Right? They're a bath salts. Familiar. Yes.
Speaker:And I love them, but I kept seeing them in my seat. And I
Speaker:was like, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.
Speaker:And there's really 3 or 4 months. I'd be like seeing a baby, like, once
Speaker:or twice a week and, like, noodling on it. No. Like, I I know I
Speaker:do love bath. I'm sure I'm not using physician. Like, most people are, like, going
Speaker:through the whole behind the scenes logic. Like, okay. You know what? Fine. Fuck it.
Speaker:I'm gonna do it. And then I do it, and it's easiest to set stuff
Speaker:up on a subscription because you said, you know, there's that little incentive to save
Speaker:some money. And now it's been 4 months. And actually, this is one of the
Speaker:subscriptions that I have, like, maintained for the last 4 or 5 months. And it's
Speaker:lovely, but it did. Like, how many touch points did that take for
Speaker:me to be like, yeah. And I'm already interested in it. So I wasn't like
Speaker:a completely cold, you know, potential buyer anyways, and it still set that
Speaker:many touch points because I think we can be so inundated with
Speaker:buy this, buy this, buy this, the next quick fix. This is the next help
Speaker:thing. This is the next whatever. Then I think it does take us longer to
Speaker:decide to buy something. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker:And so I think email, along with some again, you
Speaker:wouldn't have to. I do have a client who actually only uses email pretty much
Speaker:as their only marketing strategy, at this point in time and word-of-mouth,
Speaker:but, like, obviously, that's kind of a given in any business. But I
Speaker:think email used really well with a good
Speaker:social strategy is such a cool way to give
Speaker:people more touch points into what you do, how you do it, and
Speaker:how if it's right for them. Absolutely. I
Speaker:couldn't agree more. Any,
Speaker:like, takeaway messages for someone that
Speaker:is wanting to use email more in their business. If there was, like, one
Speaker:thing you could tell them to focus on, to do, that you
Speaker:feel like would move the needle forward, what would it be?
Speaker:That's a great question. I feel like when
Speaker:it comes to email, I think, again, I think
Speaker:we just get in our heads about it needs to be so overly
Speaker:complicated. And I I find that a lot of people think it needs to
Speaker:be, like, you can only
Speaker:talk about business in your email. And I think
Speaker:people actually want to hear different things in any sort
Speaker:of communication with you, but, especially, in email, they don't mind. Like, I've literally talked
Speaker:about chocolate chip cookies in my email, or I've talked about Christmas ornaments. Like, I
Speaker:don't always talk about email and everything. And if I can tie it back to
Speaker:business, great, I will. But, like, sometimes I just wanna share a cool recipe I
Speaker:found. You know? And it doesn't have to be that complicated,
Speaker:and people will relate to it. They do enjoy it. And, yes, you may like
Speaker:we were saying, you may oppose some people with sending, like, oh, you're a,
Speaker:you know, accountant sending me a recipe. Like but how many
Speaker:people will probably be like, oh my god. I love that recipe. And anytime they
Speaker:make it, they're probably gonna think about you because you referred it. I get DMs
Speaker:all the time with people sending me Target, like, stuff because I go to Target
Speaker:and post it all the time. Halloween. They're Halloween things. That's Exactly.
Speaker:So it's just I think again, I think if you're sitting there going,
Speaker:I really wanna do email. I just don't have the time, quote, unquote.
Speaker:One, I would encourage you to figure out a
Speaker:frequency that can work for you. So if, again, if ideally, I would love you
Speaker:to do every week, but if you can only handle every other week or even
Speaker:once a month, let's just start there. And take
Speaker:an hour. Again, I think you could I can do my emails in about an
Speaker:hour a week, and you will get faster as you do them more. And it's
Speaker:just just try it. Like, just just try
Speaker:and stay consistent with it. I will say I managed I realized
Speaker:this not that long ago. In 2021, we had all of our reschedules and everything
Speaker:happened in our year. We literally had, basically, like, 40 weddings in
Speaker:6 months. That's, like, more than a year's worth of weddings in 6 months for
Speaker:us. It was absolutely insane, and I somehow managed to keep up with
Speaker:my email list every week. Wow. So if I could do it,
Speaker:you can too because I was the same person who said I never had time.
Speaker:I couldn't do another thing. It doesn't work. And
Speaker:learn how you can best leverage it too, because
Speaker:that's gonna really help you figure out how to use it
Speaker:and not feel so frustrated when you're just sending something and hearing crickets.
Speaker:Right. Speaking of learning how to best manage it, you have a really
Speaker:fantastic email club that I would love for you to share a little bit about
Speaker:because I think that could be a really valuable resource for a lot of the
Speaker:listeners. Yeah. So, I started a membership in January
Speaker:for email, and it's amazing. We have so much fun in there.
Speaker:Every month, I give out email prompts, subject lines,
Speaker:graphics to grow your list. So if you, like, don't know how to talk about
Speaker:your list on social, I give you those graphics for you. And then we also
Speaker:give you email templates every month, so there's really no excuse that you can't get
Speaker:your emails done. You get 3 a month, so 3 of your emails are done
Speaker:for you. And then you can we have a whole
Speaker:community, and we have biz chats in there, and we talk about business
Speaker:things. And then we also I do email reviews. And, in fact, that email I
Speaker:told you that my, one of our members made $68100 from
Speaker:was one we reviewed in the email review. And we didn't really change a
Speaker:lot. We just kinda streamlined some things and kinda focused where she was going with
Speaker:the email. And, obviously, she had great results from it. So it's those
Speaker:are almost every week as well. So, I mean, it's just it's just a really
Speaker:fun space and my people inside are are amazing. I
Speaker:adore them. So, if you'd like to join us, I'll give Caitlin the link
Speaker:and you can. Perfect. We'll make sure to drop that in the notes. And
Speaker:if you're not ready to hop in or they wanna follow along and see all
Speaker:of your Halloween and Target and email tip shenanigans,
Speaker:I know we'll drop the link in here, but where is the best place to
Speaker:find you? I basically live on Instagram, so you can find
Speaker:me there. I am at missus.vondy, v o n d
Speaker:y. Like we said, Caitlyn will have that for you. And I would love to
Speaker:connect with you. If you have email questions, feel free to DM me. I love
Speaker:talking email. I'm, like, such a nerd, so feel free to reach
Speaker:out anytime. But, yeah, that I would I would love to connect with
Speaker:anybody, so feel free. Single handedly
Speaker:spreading the gospel of email.
Speaker:Shannon, thank you so much. This was really fun. I appreciate you being
Speaker:here today. Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be
Speaker:here. That's a wrap for this episode of the Wealth
Speaker:Witches podcast. I hope our magical money talks have left you feeling
Speaker:empowered and inspired. Remember, wealth isn't just about dollars
Speaker:in the bank, it's about abundance and financial freedom in all aspects of your
Speaker:life. I'm Caitlin Magnuson encouraging you to keep challenging the status
Speaker:quo and embrace your inner witch on this financial journey. Until
Speaker:next time, stay
Speaker:magical.
Speaker:Hey there, magical listener. Are you ready to take your financial journey to the next
Speaker:level? This is Caitlin Magnuson inviting you to join us at the wealth, which
Speaker:is monthly program where we dive even deeper into the cauldron of wealth.
Speaker:From live training sessions about money, taxes, retirement, and business
Speaker:support to an inclusive community that's here to support your growth, we've got
Speaker:everything you need to embrace your inner wealth witch. Visit our website
Speaker:at wealthwitches.com to join us. Your wealthier self
Speaker:is waiting.
