Speaker 1: If you're about to make a change in your life
Speaker 1: and you feel uncomfortable, that's the best feeling you can have.
Speaker 2: Because for the first time in your life, you're making
Speaker 2: a decision that's going to be best for you and
Speaker 2: not what somebody told you to do. And that's when
Speaker 2: all bets are off. Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Rashwan McDonald.
Speaker 1: Our theme is there's no perfect time to start following
Speaker 1: your dreams. I recognize that we all have different definitions
Speaker 1: of success. For you and maybe the size of your
Speaker 1: h It's time to stop reading other people's success stories
Speaker 1: to start living your.
Speaker 3: Own keep winning.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 3: There, it's Migain, Rashan McDonald and I host this weekly
Speaker 3: Money Making Conversation Master Class show. Thee the interviews that's right,
Speaker 3: interviews and information that this show provides off for everyone.
Speaker 3: It's time to start reading other people's success stories and
Speaker 3: start living your own. I got a guess coming back today.
Speaker 3: Ask him to come back. He made such an impression
Speaker 3: and on me as well as my audience. My guess
Speaker 3: is the director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact.
Speaker 3: He's also a speaker, host and podcaster. Assessed with helping
Speaker 3: small business owners find time for online marketing. Please welcome
Speaker 3: to Money Making Conversation Masterclass. Dave Charrest, How you doing.
Speaker 4: Dave Rushan. Good to hear from you again.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, William, thank you, you know, and I
Speaker 3: appreciate you because you came on the show and we
Speaker 3: talked about online marketing in particular. Let's let's not assume
Speaker 3: everybody know our relationship. Tell us about your job and
Speaker 3: Constant Contact. What exactly is constant Contact?
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, thank you for the opportunity. Constant Contact is Well,
Speaker 4: let me put it this way, Constant Contact. We have
Speaker 4: a mission at Constant Contact to really help the small
Speaker 4: stand talk and we do that by providing easy to
Speaker 4: use marketing tools that allow businesses to grow. Basically, that's
Speaker 4: it at the end of the day. So we think
Speaker 4: of tools like email, mark getting SMS, marketing, managing your
Speaker 4: social media, running events, doing those types of things that
Speaker 4: small businesses need to know to or need to do
Speaker 4: to get the word out about their business. That's what
Speaker 4: we help people do. And we know not all small
Speaker 4: business owners have a marketing degree. These are folks that
Speaker 4: are business owners first marketers by necessity in many cases,
Speaker 4: and so we try to make those tools by providing
Speaker 4: one there needs to use, but also by giving resources
Speaker 4: and education to help you kind of make the best
Speaker 4: use of your time and get those things done that
Speaker 4: you need to need to get done from a marketing perspective,
Speaker 4: so you can get back to the things you'd actually.
Speaker 3: Rather be doing it would you know, like I said,
Speaker 3: you know, tas a change. You know, like I said,
Speaker 3: when I was growing up going to college, I didn't
Speaker 3: have constant contact. I didn't know our social media. And
Speaker 3: so because of these things, there's a learning curve about
Speaker 3: opportunities to market your brand. Because the key is marketing
Speaker 3: your product or marketing your brand. How does one introduce
Speaker 3: a relationship into the constant contact environment. I'm talking about
Speaker 3: a small business owner or an individual who's an actor
Speaker 3: or a singer or a comedian, or somebody who's trying
Speaker 3: to try to promote their brand or product or business.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the simplest way to think about it is,
Speaker 4: you know, we're most known for our email marketing platform.
Speaker 4: That's kind of the core of any any online marketing strategy.
Speaker 4: Email marketing is at the core, right. Why it's at
Speaker 4: the core, because that is what we call a permission
Speaker 4: based marketing channel. So that means that someone has raised
Speaker 4: their hand to say, you know what, I want to
Speaker 4: learn more about you. I want to learn more about
Speaker 4: your business. I want you to send me information. And
Speaker 4: the inbox is a place that people are every day,
Speaker 4: and so this is really a great opportunity to get
Speaker 4: two of those people where people have raised their hand,
Speaker 4: they want to hear from you, and so we provide
Speaker 4: that tool and the ability to do that for people.
Speaker 3: Now, when social media came out, that was supposed to
Speaker 3: be the hand raiser, you know, everybody kind of like
Speaker 3: ran away from I may be mistaken, but I know
Speaker 3: the thought was, hey, man, get these likes, get these followers.
Speaker 3: That's the way to go to promote your product, promote
Speaker 3: your business. How does that align itself? Because of the
Speaker 3: fact that I don't want to make any comments yet,
Speaker 3: because I have some I'm a firm believer in the
Speaker 3: email system, the constant contact system, because I believe a
Speaker 3: hand raiser who makes an actual commitment to fill out
Speaker 3: of the form or fill out information is more likely
Speaker 3: to want to follow you and understand your brand to
Speaker 3: somebody who likes you. Because of the fact that you
Speaker 3: were wearing a certain item or eating a piece of cake,
Speaker 3: your thoughts.
Speaker 4: So there's an interesting thing that's happened with social media
Speaker 4: in many ways. I think it was the great bait
Speaker 4: and switch in many ways. Right. So not to say
Speaker 4: that social media is bad. I think it serves its
Speaker 4: purpose and I'll tell you how it is that. But
Speaker 4: I think the thing with social media is, you know,
Speaker 4: in the early days, it was like, yeah, come build
Speaker 4: your land over here, and you know, build your platform,
Speaker 4: get these likes, get all these people, basically, get all
Speaker 4: of these people that are interested in you on our platform.
Speaker 4: And then once we've got all these people on our platform, oh,
Speaker 4: you want to access those people that you brought to
Speaker 4: this platform to be with us, Well, you're gonna have
Speaker 4: to pay for that. Not a bad thing that that's
Speaker 4: their business model, Fine, but you don't actually, you know,
Speaker 4: always have access to those people on the social channels. Now, look,
Speaker 4: it's good for engaging with people that are already connected
Speaker 4: with you. It's good for potentially reaching you people through
Speaker 4: those engagements. But at the end of the day, today
Speaker 4: it's all run by algorithms, right, and so you know,
Speaker 4: everything you post, people will often go with the idea.
Speaker 4: They're like, well, well I posted it on social Well
Speaker 4: not everybody is going to see that, right, because everybody's
Speaker 4: on a kind of different thing, and so it's not
Speaker 4: a way to actually connect with your customers directly. And
Speaker 4: that's where the email marketing piece or text marketing for example,
Speaker 4: come in, because you actually own that relationship, whereas some
Speaker 4: social media you're there to help them build their land.
Speaker 4: They want to have people stuck on their properties, and
Speaker 4: they don't like you to, you know, put links off
Speaker 4: to someplace else. They want everything to happen on their
Speaker 4: platform because that's where they make their money. And if
Speaker 4: that site goes down or they make an algorithm change,
Speaker 4: which are all things that have happened recently, if you
Speaker 4: are putting all of your eggs in that basket, or
Speaker 4: they decide, hey, you've violated one of our terms. We're
Speaker 4: going to shut your page down, and then you've got
Speaker 4: no one to contact, You've got no one to speak to,
Speaker 4: and then it's just like all of that work that
Speaker 4: you've done is gone and you have nothing for that.
Speaker 4: And that's why again, it's a tool. It's like a gateway, right.
Speaker 4: I always kind of explain it like it's a great
Speaker 4: place to start to engage and do things and you know,
Speaker 4: get and raise awareness. But ultimately you want to try
Speaker 4: to move people from that social platform, find those people
Speaker 4: that like you and your business and move them to
Speaker 4: that thing that you own. Again, that leads us back
Speaker 4: to email or text marketing, because then again you have
Speaker 4: a way to reach people directly and you just really
Speaker 4: can't guarantee that's going to happen on social.
Speaker 3: And nominally ask you this question now, you know you
Speaker 3: said email and text marketing is constant contact into text
Speaker 3: marketing too, Yes.
Speaker 4: That's also a service that we provide for our customers.
Speaker 3: Well, how do you build that relationship because I'm assuming
Speaker 3: those are phone numbers that you have to get people
Speaker 3: to commit to and sign off of, just like email addresses.
Speaker 4: Correct, Yeah, absolutely, So it's basically the same type of thing.
Speaker 4: It's a permission based channel where people are you know,
Speaker 4: again raising their hands to say yes you can, you know,
Speaker 4: I'll give you that information and you can contact me
Speaker 4: via that. And I think it's a delicate balance with
Speaker 4: text marketing. And so when you think about the strengths
Speaker 4: of the channels, right, so we mentioned social, we're talking
Speaker 4: about it allows you to kind of engage with people
Speaker 4: and reach new people, right, but you don't know those contacts, right.
Speaker 4: So email allows you to reach people directly and be
Speaker 4: more robust in the messaging that you're sending and doing
Speaker 4: things like that. But you know everybody uses email. Now
Speaker 4: there's an overcrowded inbox because we're you know, working out
Speaker 4: our daily work lives and things like that too, so
Speaker 4: you're often competing with a lot of noise in there
Speaker 4: as well. And then text marketing is interesting because now
Speaker 4: you've got this opportunity to connect with people on a
Speaker 4: device that they have with them all times. And when
Speaker 4: that thing dings, what do you do? The first thing
Speaker 4: you do is you look at that, right, and so
Speaker 4: you've got this immediacy that you didn't have access to before. Now,
Speaker 4: the trick here is to use each of the strengths
Speaker 4: of those channels, but not abuse that strength, right. And
Speaker 4: so you want to make sure that when you're sending
Speaker 4: things via text that you're thinking of doing that in
Speaker 4: a way that allows you to offer something exclusive that
Speaker 4: maybe that person wouldn't get someplace else. You want to
Speaker 4: use it for only for things that are really timely
Speaker 4: and relevant. So you take advantage of the strength of
Speaker 4: that channel and so and you're collecting that text address
Speaker 4: or that text number, I should say, that email address.
Speaker 4: It's really the same. You're offering something of value in
Speaker 4: exchange for that information from somebody. And so when people
Speaker 4: subscribe or they give up that information, it's usually to
Speaker 4: access something like a discount or something like that, or
Speaker 4: maybe it's access to exclusive piece of content or I
Speaker 4: mean in many cases it's just to show support too,
Speaker 4: depending on the relationship with the small business in the
Speaker 4: community that you're serving. But it's really all about thinking
Speaker 4: through those things and giving looking at it as a
Speaker 4: tool to provide value to people so that they want
Speaker 4: to give you that information.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's really answered. I've talking to the
Speaker 3: director of small business Success at Constant Contact, and it's
Speaker 3: important that I bring them on this show because so
Speaker 3: many people trying to figure out how to market their
Speaker 3: brands and they don't know what to do.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't know how.
Speaker 3: To go back because you know, there's no standard ways
Speaker 3: to be success. We've talked about social media, We've talked
Speaker 3: about text marketing, we talked about email. Now I've used
Speaker 3: social media. I'll be honest with you day and I've
Speaker 3: used emails. I am much more confident that when I
Speaker 3: send out an email, I'm going to get an honest
Speaker 3: reaction versus when I send out a social media post,
Speaker 3: because I really don't know who I'm talking to, you know,
Speaker 3: I have far more followers, Like I think I got
Speaker 3: a million social media followers, and I got like eighty
Speaker 3: five thousand emails in my fan club base. I feel
Speaker 3: those eighty five thousand much more authentic than the million
Speaker 3: social media followers because I don't know where they followed me.
Speaker 3: I don't know what time period, what time period they
Speaker 3: became engaged in my life. I may have been working
Speaker 3: with Steve Harvey every time. I may have been, you know,
Speaker 3: doing some some baking sessions I was doing on my
Speaker 3: social media. Is it a way to define where your
Speaker 3: base can be most successful when you're dealing with marketing
Speaker 3: your brand, product or business.
Speaker 4: So I think there's a there's a couple of things.
Speaker 4: If if we're talking about you know, social there are
Speaker 4: obviously there are paid opportunities where you can start to
Speaker 4: do like target marketing.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: You can use Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and you can
Speaker 4: try to target specific people. But again that's advertising, right,
Speaker 4: So that's that thing that you're kind of interrupting people, right,
Speaker 4: versus being the thing that people are trying to consume
Speaker 4: or engage with. As you move into to your point
Speaker 4: about you know, knowing those customers, you feel more confident
Speaker 4: in those email subscribers that you have, well, yeah, because
Speaker 4: those are the people that have taken that next step
Speaker 4: right again, those are the hand raisers, those are the
Speaker 4: people that have said, yeah, I want to learn more
Speaker 4: about you, I want to hear more. And so in
Speaker 4: that it's also a data play, right where you start
Speaker 4: thinking about like what types of information are you collecting,
Speaker 4: what lists are people subscribing to. So when you start
Speaker 4: to go to the back end of what email marketing
Speaker 4: can do for you, you can start to create lists
Speaker 4: of people. So let me give you an example here.
Speaker 4: So let's say I was actually I was talking to
Speaker 4: a business owner the other day, or a director of
Speaker 4: sales and marketing for a business and customer of ours
Speaker 4: who they sell industry lighting design and they typically work
Speaker 4: with or it should say they're business is fifty to fifty, right,
Speaker 4: so they work with professional professionals in that space where
Speaker 4: they're architects or lighting designers like people that are more
Speaker 4: industrial use cases. And then they also have another side
Speaker 4: of the business that sells directly to consumers. And so
Speaker 4: when they have that email contact information, what they can
Speaker 4: do is they can build lists of professionals and consumers,
Speaker 4: and the way you're going to have a conversation or
Speaker 4: the things you're going to share with those people are
Speaker 4: completely different, and so it really boils down to knowing
Speaker 4: who those people are so you can have the right
Speaker 4: conversations with them. Because at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: that's what marketing is, right, it's communicating with people about
Speaker 4: information that they're open to receiving, right, and providing value
Speaker 4: that way. And so now I can have a conversation
Speaker 4: about like, hey, we're creating this new lighting thing that
Speaker 4: would be great in your new design of this restaurant
Speaker 4: that you're creating, or something like that, versus hey, do
Speaker 4: you need a really cool lamp for your desk? Right,
Speaker 4: there's different needs there, and so you can start to
Speaker 4: really get targeted with the messaging that you're creating so
Speaker 4: that you start to get better results. You know, another
Speaker 4: example I'll give you would be like if you're on
Speaker 4: a nonprofit side, because it's really clear to see you'll
Speaker 4: have board members, you'll have donors, you'll have volunteers, you'll
Speaker 4: have staff, you'll have all of these different people the
Speaker 4: people that use your services. If you're providing services like that,
Speaker 4: you can see really quickly how oh you know, I
Speaker 4: would want to talk to each of those people a
Speaker 4: little bit differently, and you're able to kind of manage
Speaker 4: that and know, Okay, this message goes to this group,
Speaker 4: and you don't have to bother people who don't need
Speaker 4: to get that message with information that they're not going
Speaker 4: to be interested in.
Speaker 3: Well, it's really amazing because of the fact that we're
Speaker 3: all trying to communicate. We're all trying to and that's
Speaker 3: why one of the primary reasons why I brought Day
Speaker 3: back on the show, cause we need to know, we
Speaker 3: need to know what I'm options because of the fact
Speaker 3: that we're all playing this information game and and as
Speaker 3: we're trying to move our product. It was key things
Speaker 3: he said, like, when I get a text message, I
Speaker 3: can be annoyed a little bit, Dave, I can be
Speaker 3: annoyed a little bit. Okay, when I get an email
Speaker 3: which I'm I sign up for loyalty programs. You know,
Speaker 3: I tend to get more information about what you know.
Speaker 3: I get more product information. I think I get more
Speaker 3: benefits when I get email information. And then when I
Speaker 3: on social media, that timeline can go away. You have
Speaker 3: to go find it, you got to go search it down.
Speaker 3: So I think that when I'm when I when I'm
Speaker 3: looking at trying to market anything that I'm doing, I
Speaker 3: feel comfortable with the messaging. And I'm not trying to
Speaker 3: sell anybody in any direction. I'm just bringing Dave back
Speaker 3: on the show so you can hear reality that's out
Speaker 3: there because you may not have the social media numbers.
Speaker 3: You may not have, but but I'm just when you
Speaker 3: heard me say I got a million follows over here,
Speaker 3: and and I got eighty five thousand email addresses through
Speaker 3: my fan club, and I feel more confident with that.
Speaker 3: I think you can get to eighty five thousand faster.
Speaker 3: You can get to a million social media followers. And
Speaker 3: that's all I'm saying. When we come back, Dave, I
Speaker 3: want to talk about the whole spam situation, also talk
Speaker 3: about the new partnership that you guys have created. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about Constant Contact and Square because it's more about
Speaker 3: demographics and learn how you guys take these email addresses
Speaker 3: and understand better about the customer base that you're dealing with,
Speaker 3: especially small businesses. When we will come back, Dave, thank
Speaker 3: you for coming back on the show. We were right
Speaker 3: back with more money Making Conversation Masterclass.
Speaker 5: We'll be right back with more money Making Conversations Masterclass
Speaker 5: with Rashaan McDonald. Welcome back to the Money Making Conversations
Speaker 5: Masterclass hosted by Rashaan McDonald. Making Conversations Masterclass continues online
Speaker 5: at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making Conversations Masterclass
Speaker 5: on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 3: We're talking about small business product marketing as well as
Speaker 3: brand marketing. As an individual people who are have plays
Speaker 3: or have a product you want to get out there
Speaker 3: and small business who need to recognize the ability to
Speaker 3: be able to take what you're doing and spread the word.
Speaker 3: How do you consistently wrap your hand around that? And
Speaker 3: because we would love to open our doors and there's
Speaker 3: a line of people waiting for you out there, or
Speaker 3: you sell your product at a flea market or a
Speaker 3: weekend event and then you run out because people just
Speaker 3: enthused by it. It's called marketing. You have to market,
Speaker 3: you have to market a brand consistently. And have brought
Speaker 3: Day back on the show just to get more insight
Speaker 3: to slow down the conversation. They when we talk about emails.
Speaker 3: You know, you guys are a big company, and I
Speaker 3: know that individuals they start collecting emails and they think
Speaker 3: they can just send these emails out. But that doesn't
Speaker 3: That not how it really works because eventually the big
Speaker 3: spam machine to pop up and say you can't send
Speaker 3: those emails out like that. Correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there there's there's a bunch of laws in
Speaker 4: place that you really, you know, say you shouldn't be
Speaker 4: doing that, right, you don't want to be doing that.
Speaker 4: And the good thing about a tool like constant Contact
Speaker 4: is it keeps you in compliance with those laws and
Speaker 4: so it allows basically it says, you know, you shouldn't
Speaker 4: email people without their permission. So one, we allow you
Speaker 4: to use forms for example, so people get to enter
Speaker 4: that information and it catalogs that they've given you permission
Speaker 4: to email them. And then you have to give people
Speaker 4: the ability to unsubscribe. So that means of like, yeah,
Speaker 4: maybe they changed their mind, or maybe they've moved away.
Speaker 4: They need to update an email aggress or they didn't
Speaker 4: work for a company anymore that was interested in that thing.
Speaker 4: They can easily just click click a button and not
Speaker 4: receive those unwanted emails anymore, And so it helps keep
Speaker 4: you in line with all of that stuff. But I
Speaker 4: think a good thing to think about in general is
Speaker 4: you know when people, I mean, think about how you
Speaker 4: process your own email, right, if you start getting emails
Speaker 4: from people you don't really recognize or you don't understand,
Speaker 4: or particularly when it's like a I would say, a
Speaker 4: marketing email that's specifically designed to be like like, hey,
Speaker 4: you know a promotional type of thing. You kind of
Speaker 4: you kind of bristle a little bit when they show
Speaker 4: up in your inbox because you're trying to process your inbox, right,
Speaker 4: You've got a lot of things to do in there.
Speaker 4: And so that often leads to people either just deleting
Speaker 4: those emails or again marketing those as spam. And when
Speaker 4: you do that, when that happens to your business, if
Speaker 4: you're the person sending that stuff, it ends up hurting
Speaker 4: your reputation as a business. So it actually has the
Speaker 4: opposite effect of with of you, which you wish it
Speaker 4: had right, which would you know, get your business in
Speaker 4: front of people. And so that's why it's always important. Again.
Speaker 4: Why email marketing works so well again is because it
Speaker 4: is that permission based right, It's it's that idea of
Speaker 4: people saying, yep, send me that information.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, Dave, when you think about the whole process
Speaker 3: of trying to find people and trying to go I've
Speaker 3: read where you guys, because now it's trying to understand
Speaker 3: what does a phone number mean? What do you know
Speaker 3: because the phone number has a backstory, it has demographics
Speaker 3: tied to an email address, has a backstore and email
Speaker 3: and tied to it. So you guys recently went in,
Speaker 3: I'm talking about constant contact partners with Square to streamline
Speaker 3: sales and marketing efforts for small businesses. Explain that to us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what this allows, what this integration allows to
Speaker 4: have happened is when you know, a lot of a
Speaker 4: lot of small business owners will use Square as their
Speaker 4: payment processor, and so as part of that process, you
Speaker 4: are typically also you know, agreeing to or you're clicking
Speaker 4: a box to say like yes, I want to hear
Speaker 4: more from this company. And so what happens is on
Speaker 4: the on the back end, Constant Contact integrates with squares
Speaker 4: so that the contact information gets added automatically to your
Speaker 4: constant content have to count, and it does some other
Speaker 4: things as well, because you have purchased details or information
Speaker 4: that are happening on the square side of things. What
Speaker 4: Square and constant Contact together will allow you to do
Speaker 4: is start to build lists like use that data to
Speaker 4: say like, hey, here are people who have you know,
Speaker 4: spent x amount of money with you and over a
Speaker 4: specific time period. Or here are the people that spend
Speaker 4: more frequently with you. These are your VIP people, these
Speaker 4: are people that haven't purchased anything yet, or these are
Speaker 4: people that have you know, haven't purchased anything in a while.
Speaker 4: And so it starts to give you these avenues we mentioned.
Speaker 4: The idea of segmentation is creating these lists for you
Speaker 4: so then you can say, like, hmm, I have these
Speaker 4: VIP people that you know account for, like, let's say
Speaker 4: a vast majority of my sales. I want to do
Speaker 4: something nice for these people because I want to continue
Speaker 4: to increase that loyalty. So I'm going to send out
Speaker 4: a special campaign with uh, maybe a special access to
Speaker 4: something before it's available to anybody. Else right, or here
Speaker 4: there are some people that haven't purchased for me in
Speaker 4: a while, I'm going to send them something, maybe a
Speaker 4: little coupon to get them to come back and do
Speaker 4: something again. Right. So it allows you to start to
Speaker 4: look at the information that you have based on how
Speaker 4: people are spending with you, and use your marketing tools
Speaker 4: to then say, okay, let's come up with a campaign.
Speaker 4: Let's come up with something that speaks directly to those people.
Speaker 3: Now I've seen the square. That's a little square. There's
Speaker 3: a little white square or top of the fall the
Speaker 3: people run their credit card through a lot of times,
Speaker 3: I see it. A lot of small business owners use
Speaker 3: that there was a lifeline of how they could do
Speaker 3: a mobile business in general, especially what they're telling sandwiches,
Speaker 3: food trucks. I see that a lot. Correct, that's what you're.
Speaker 4: Talking about, right, absolutely, yep.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now I'm just being educated here. So you're taking
Speaker 3: that information, I'm assuming that what kind of information does
Speaker 3: that square have about you? Does it have your email address,
Speaker 3: does it have your phone number? And then that's partnered
Speaker 3: in a relationship with constant contact, which you can create
Speaker 3: a database. Is that what we're talking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So from the constant the contact side of things,
Speaker 4: we're we're looking at the contact information still rightly, so
Speaker 4: Square might have other information, but we're looking at what's
Speaker 4: happening from the contact levels. So let's say that's that's
Speaker 4: the mobile number, or it's the email address, whatever that is.
Speaker 4: We're looking at that information, and then we're creating information
Speaker 4: based on the data that Square will have to help
Speaker 4: you import those contacts directly into constant contacts so then
Speaker 4: you can communicate with them in the future.
Speaker 3: And that's important for people to understand that. Now on
Speaker 3: my end, Okay, when you're talking about emails, you're talking
Speaker 3: about text openings and stuff like that. Open rate means something.
Speaker 3: What if somebody's listening, they are developing the hand raisers
Speaker 3: and the side of the text side text phone number
Speaker 3: when I say text, when that's what I'm referencing on
Speaker 3: the side of the email. What's a good open rate
Speaker 3: for people to can look at and grow their brand through.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think in any
Speaker 4: of these, if you look at the two of them,
Speaker 4: so email, I think we're somewhere around thirty six percent
Speaker 4: right now is a good open rate. But that's a
Speaker 4: good leading indicator of things, right, that's showing you that
Speaker 4: there's some interest. There's some other things that kind of
Speaker 4: elevate that open rate a little bit, technical things going
Speaker 4: on the background, like things like Apple privacy rules, like
Speaker 4: they now open emails for you without you actually opening
Speaker 4: the email. So it's elevated a little bit in those instances.
Speaker 4: But then when you look at a text message for example,
Speaker 4: again we said, you know, if somebody pings your phone,
Speaker 4: you're looking at that right away. And so those are
Speaker 4: around like ninety eight percent.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: Right, So it's not that you want to use one
Speaker 4: or the other, but they've served for different purposes, right.
Speaker 4: But I think what's most important is to look beyond
Speaker 4: those open rates though, because you want to look at
Speaker 4: your open rates, you want to look at your click rates.
Speaker 4: You want to see our people actually taking some actions.
Speaker 4: But beyond that, you want to look at are they
Speaker 4: taking the actions that you want them to take, because
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, that's really the important thing.
Speaker 4: Because if everybody opens your emails but nobody buys anything,
Speaker 4: or nobody comes to your event or nobody goes to
Speaker 4: see your show or whatever the case may be, well
Speaker 4: who cares right, and so you have to move beyond
Speaker 4: that and really set goals for yourself, Like the reason
Speaker 4: I'm sending this email is for this purpose, and ultimately
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, you want to say, like, well,
Speaker 4: how many people did that thing? And that's how you
Speaker 4: really want to start to measure and do that, whether
Speaker 4: that's a sale or again, or registering for something or
Speaker 4: come to your website, whatever it may be. But you
Speaker 4: kind of got to look beyond just the open rate
Speaker 4: on its own. It's a good thing to look at.
Speaker 4: It's a good thing to get a sense of like
Speaker 4: is your content resonating or people you know, engaging with that,
Speaker 4: But it's got to go a step further, you know.
Speaker 3: As we wrap up the interview, David, thank you for
Speaker 3: coming back on the show. I'm talking to Dave of
Speaker 3: Constant Contact. Can you give us a couple example how
Speaker 3: constant contact tools have helped a small business owned to
Speaker 3: effectively drive traffic and boost their sales.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say a
Speaker 4: couple of things to think about would be well, I'll
Speaker 4: give you some examples right where you have people that
Speaker 4: basically so I mentioned the industrial lighting folks, right. So
Speaker 4: they have they use an integration with a platform called Shopify,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure many of your listeners may use that
Speaker 4: as well as your seven Products online, right. And so
Speaker 4: what they've done is they've set up an automation between
Speaker 4: Constant Contact and Shopify, which is an abandoned cart email.
Speaker 4: And so somebody goes to their store and they add
Speaker 4: something to the cart, but they don't actually purchase that thing.
Speaker 4: We send an automatic email that goes out to that
Speaker 4: person that's like, hey, you know, did you want to
Speaker 4: purchase this thing or this was in your cart? You know,
Speaker 4: how you use that is really up to you in
Speaker 4: terms of like the messaging that you put in there,
Speaker 4: but that allows them to capture sales from people that
Speaker 4: they may not have otherwise gone. Right. We have another
Speaker 4: customer that she sends a newsletter every every week, Right,
Speaker 4: she sends like a week newsletter, and she's in the
Speaker 4: leadership training business, and every week she sends this educational email.
Speaker 4: But in that email she also includes like a special
Speaker 4: deals that's a product or a tool that people can
Speaker 4: use a leadership tool in on her website. And so
Speaker 4: every Wednesday that goes out and she's like every Wednesday
Speaker 4: is a good sales day reading that information, but then
Speaker 4: also going to the website and purchasing the deal. I
Speaker 4: have another example just to highlight the power of what
Speaker 4: this can mean, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: it's really about keeping your business top of mind. And
Speaker 4: this isn't necessarily about driving traffic, but I want to
Speaker 4: give it because I think it's important. So we have
Speaker 4: a real estate customer who he sends a weekly newsletter
Speaker 4: to his list and it includes his analysis of what's
Speaker 4: going on in the real estate market, and he no
Speaker 4: longer prospects for clients, and he still closes one hundred
Speaker 4: deals a year because when anybody is buying or selling
Speaker 4: and they're on his list, the first person they think
Speaker 4: about is him, right, And so that's really the power
Speaker 4: of this thing. It's not always about asking for a
Speaker 4: sale or doing that. It's about keeping your business top
Speaker 4: of mind and providing value to people so that when
Speaker 4: they do need what you offer, or when somebody says, hey,
Speaker 4: do you know anybody that does this, They're going to
Speaker 4: think of you first. And that's you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of what all of this is is about that. Just
Speaker 4: you know, at the end of the day, it's relationship
Speaker 4: building stame top of mind, so people come to you
Speaker 4: when they need to Wow.
Speaker 3: Hey, Dave, thank you again as when you come on
Speaker 3: my show. Hopefully the people who are listening to show
Speaker 3: really understand. I try to slow it down this time
Speaker 3: a little bit and also create a narrative that they
Speaker 3: can understand and know where to go to get this
Speaker 3: great information that you give me every time I interview
Speaker 3: own Money Making Conversations massaclast Dave, Again, I called you,
Speaker 3: you came back. Does that mean I can get a
Speaker 3: three for three when I call you in the fall?
Speaker 4: Any time you shot it? Any time, It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 3: I appreciate your manning. Again, congratulations on that partnership with
Speaker 3: Square and again, individuals, Dave is not a person that's
Speaker 3: affiliate with the show from a professional level. He's just
Speaker 3: an asset that I've created that I want to provide
Speaker 3: information through. Again, Dave, thanks for coming on Money Making
Speaker 3: Conversation Masterclass.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you for joining us for this edition
Speaker 5: of Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Money Making Conversations Masterclass with
Speaker 5: rough Shan McDonald is produced by thirty eight to fifteen Media, Inc.
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