What I Changed to Grow My Business and Revenue This Year
If you're new here, I'm Shelby. I'm a best-selling author and a marketing coach for creatives. I love teaching sustainable, doable marketing strategies for my introverted creatives and really for anyone to get your products more visible.
In today’s post, I'm going to be breaking down some different email marketing strategies that I've been using this year as I experiment and adapt. This is part two of this series where I share different things I've been trying this year. The previous one was all about social media strategies that I've been experimenting with, so if you want to check it out, click HERE.
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Last time, I discussed my recent birthday week campaign, where I had a few different days of activities and strategies and free resources, as well as other paid resources for my community. So, I want to break that down a little bit more for you today.
Host a Sale
One of the things that I did for this birthday week was host a sale, and I sent this sale out to my email list as well and my social media following. It was a standard flash sale, but there was a catch to it. What I did was offer a standard percentage off for 24 hours (it was a quick flash sale), but if they took a quick survey, they would get a coupon code to double the sale and double the length of the discount. So, instead of it being 24 hours, it was over 50% off (about double the standard percentage off), and the sale extended for a few days total, versus only having one day to decide.
I wasn't sure what to expect. I actually thought that I would get a lot more takers for the regular sale, like, “Oh, I don't really have to do anything, and I get almost 30% off,” but hardly anyone took that offer. Over 90% of the buyers did the survey and got over 50% off and extended the sale. Because of this, I got a lot of market research, which has been so helpful for me in my business.
Market research is always important, but especially when you notice things might be shifting or changing in your market, in the world in general, and the economy. So I’ve been wanting to get a sense of what was changing for my audience because I felt like things were a little bit different this year. This special offer resulted in a lot of data, and I made a lot of sales because so many people were using the coupon code that they got for taking the survey. I would highly recommend this strategy if you sell directly.
If you have an offer where you can provide a coupon code, a bonus, or something expiring, give the option for people to take a quick market research survey. In the survey, I asked things like, "What is your biggest challenge this year? How have things felt different this year? What are some of the number one things you're really looking for help with this year? What types of formats do you like best so that I could really think about different offers?” And because of this, I was able to clearly and distinctly see what people needed.
One thing that I was already offering in my club, the Creators Content Club, exactly tailored to what many people were saying they had challenges with. I was thinking, "Okay, perfect. This offer is still good for people.” I had just revamped it in May, so this helped to solidify that and know that it was the right thing.
The other thing that I learned was some folks were replying that they wanted something personalized to them, a step-by-step strategy. Seeing this need in the survey results, I offered a higher ticket item for customized marketing strategies, and they sold out within 48 hours of offering them.
And that was just a couple weeks ago. So, this survey was so helpful for me and is definitely something that I would recommend offering to your email list or to your social media following.
Growing Your Email List
All right, let's talk about growing your email list a little bit, and then I'm going to talk more about what I've been sending my email list shortly.
A couple things that I've done (that I mentioned in part one) was using ManyChat, which is an automation tool for Instagram, where people comment a word and it automatically sends them a DM with whatever you'd like to send them. I used that to grow my email list by asking people to comment a word where they would get a free resource. And sometimes I put that behind an opt-in page for my email list, meaning they have to sign up to get the free resource.
I also did this for my birthday giveaway that I did where they had to comment a word, and then they would be sent a link to subscribe to my email list, which is how they entered the giveaway. The giveaway winner randomly selected from my email list, and I emailed that person to let them know. So, that also helped to boost open rates because people were excited to open the email to see if they had won. This helped grow my email list by over 100 new people, which was really helpful and is definitely something that I plan to do again.
Collaborations
Another thing that I've been doing more of this year is collaborations and seeing where there are opportunities for email swaps, where someone of a similar-ish list size to me shares my freebie to their email list, and I share theirs in mine. So, we both get views and new subscribers from each other's audiences. Collaborating is one of my favorites. It is so helpful, because getting in front of someone else's audience that they've already built helps to form those relationships for further collaborations and helps you grow your audience, while also helping them to grow their audience too.
I also started offering email sponsorships this year, along with email segmentation. If you’d like to hear more, check out the YouTube video or podcast episode listed below the picture at the top of the page.
Affiliates
Let's switch to some business strategies that I've been trying this year and finding to be effective. The first one is similar to the collaborations that we've been talking about, but I've been trying more affiliate partnerships this year.
I’ve had an affiliate program for a while for the Marketing by Shelby side of things, where you get commission if you refer people to my courses or to my club or anything like that. But it wasn't something that I pushed too hard or really promoted that often. And I’m still not, to be honest with you. But what I have been doing is reaching out to people and asking if they want to be an affiliate and do a campaign together.
I've done this with three or four people so far this year where I directly reached out to them. I knew that they were in my niche and would have an audience who was interested in what I'm doing. That alignment is important.
I think my affiliate program is pretty compelling because I offer 40% commission. All they have to do is let their audience know about it, and they can make 40% of a sale just by doing that. Then I also made it a little bit more interesting, because I told them that I would film a personalized video for their audience if they wanted, like a short training. I would give them the email swipe file so they don't have to really do a lot of work on their end. I've had a couple affiliates both earn over $1,000 in commission this year, and it's been really effective in promoting my products.
So, if you have an affiliate program, do some reach-outs. Get people aware of it and see if you can make it even easier for them by giving them email templates to send out to their email list. You know, doing a free interview with them or a free training and offering that to their audience, because then their audience actually gets to know you and what you're all about.
Secret Menu
The next thing that I've had so much fun with is a secret menu. For Marketing by Shelby this year, I launched a secret menu that you get access to whenever you purchase anything from me. I put it right in the student login page, so when someone logs in to check out their courses, there is a secret menu at the bottom where you just click to access it and see what is currently available. I've been rotating through different offers every couple of months and just trying new things, and it's been a really fun way to experiment.
Some examples of things that I've offered in this secret menu: first is free resources. Sometimes I'll test out a free resource and see how it lands on the secret menu before releasing it to the public. I have done some things that have never made it to the public. Second, I've done some website and podcast audits, where I gave them a pitch letter template and researched podcasts that would be a good fit for them.
So a little bit more personalized offers that I don't offer to the public, mostly because I don't want to sell a ton of them and have all my time taken up. But also because I wanted to experiment and see what price points resonated and what offers resonated with people.
I'll be honest, it's a little hard to keep up with. After the first few months, I was thinking, "Okay, I'm kind of running out of ideas” or “Oh, I have to go in and update the secret menu with some new offers, but I don't really have anything ready right now." I just need to strategize a little bit more with how I'm using it. But it's something that I would recommend and it's something that I've had a lot of fun with this year. There are just so many ways to experiment and pivot and adapt.
But I also have some ideas for some free resources to offer just behind the scenes for my customers. And I think it's a nice way to offer them special things for being a customer to say, “Thank you for being a part of the community. Here's a special space that no one else has access to except for you and other students.”
This year, I could have just said it's a challenge and things are harder than they used to be. But marketing is what I love. It's creative, and this is allowing me to really use my brain energy to come up with some fun ideas and try new things. So, I hope that this series inspired you to try new things in your business as well.
I hope that you enjoyed this post on email marketing strategies and general business strategies as well. See you in the next one. Bye!