The Blogger Genius Podcast

Today I’m doing my first two-on-one interview with Cara Newhart and C.J. Oldenkamp, founders of My Haute Society, a community for bloggers, and are both bloggers in their own right. We talk about how to start a blog with your friend. We delve into balancing a shared business and a personal blog, plus how they dealt with the growing pains of working together in a new venture. Cara and C.J. are Instagram pros and share their Instagram strategies. You'll want to learn this!   Resources: My Haute Society Everyday Chiffon Never Skip Brunch Catch My Party MiloTree Canva Planoly Transcript: How to Start a Blog with Your Friend with Cara Newhart and C.J. Oldenkamp Host:[00:00:03] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today I have two guests. I have Cara and C.J. from My Haute Society. So guys, welcome to the show. C.J. : [00:00:25] Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here today. Jillian: [00:00:29] This is my first time with two guests so this is like all new, and you guys are so much fun. So I'm super psyched you're here and we just did a recording where I'm going to be on their podcast. And so now we're going to do it where you guys are on mine. Jillian: [00:00:48] So explain My Haute Society. What is Haute Society? Cara: [00:00:52] Yes. We are a community for bloggers and influencers. We are based online but we have a lot of in person events and workshops and then we have a ton of different resources like guides and workbooks and E-courses to help you grow your following, build your blog, and learn how to monetize your influence. Jillian: [00:01:12] Now you guys are both entrepreneurs, bloggers that kind of thing. Do you mind sharing your stories and then how you guys have hooked up? C.J. : [00:01:21] Yeah, so I'll go first. This is C.J. and I run my own personal blog, Everyday Chiffon, which is a fashion, travel, lifestyle blog and I'm just a new mama to be. I'm also really having a lot of fun kind of adding that family orientation part into my blog. Starting a lifestyle blog with a love of fashion C.J. : [00:01:41] But I started in corporate, right when I first moved out to Denver, right after graduating college and I was kind of the first of my friends to do so. C.J. : [00:01:52] I used to take the random mirror selfies, and as much as I don't love this I did that. I did random weird selfies of like my corporate outfits and everything, just because I was kind of the first of my friends to be in there and I had a girlfriend that recommended I start a blog. C.J. : [00:02:13] Being a very non techie side, I didn't know what a blog technically was. So I just kind of went ahead and started an Instagram page. How a blog evolves C.J. : [00:02:22] And I just had a separate place to kind of post my outfits and give inspiration to some of the girls that were just entering corporate, or thinking about entering corporate. And then it's just really evolved into this blog and a brand that I've kind of run with. C.J. :  [00:02:37] It didn't even start as Everyday Chiffon. It was like Professionista or something that I cringe at. But it was just something super random and a place for me to be inspirational with my fashion. C.J. : [00:02:49] I've always loved fashion my entire life. It's been something I have such funny pictures of me as a kid like dressing up multiple outfits. So it really just evolved into something that I had no idea could be a business. C.J. :  [00:03:03] I didn't know about blogging and now I've really brought in like the biggest thing for me and my blog that's made it a part of my soul and from me is my positivity post. C.J. : [00:03:13] And that's been like the main thing that I like to push on through everything if you look at my page I'm always smiling, I'm always laughing, and I really try and bring happiness as a mindset, it's kind of like my blog motto. C.J. : [00:03:26] So that's like a big big thing for me that's made it more like a space for me to connect with people alongside of connecting through fashion and through my travels and through everything else like lifestyle. C.J. :  [00:03:37] But that's been like the portion that's kind of a part of everything that I do. So that's really taken off and really evolved and really helped me make Everyday Chiffon what it is today. Jillian: [00:03:49] And they're super cute photos of you pregnant. C.J. :  [00:03:52] Oh thank you, it's been crazy getting used to these curves. But I'm having fun dressing them up. Jillian: [00:04:00] Are you more of like tight pregnancy maternity clothes or more of the loose maternity clothes? C.J. :  [00:04:07] You know I'm finding I really thought it because I'm a big Boho kind of dresser and so I love Free People and those types of brands, and I would have thought that I would have gone towards wearing a lot of Free People but with these added curves that I've never had before. I've always been very flat up top. I've always been pretty tiny. C.J. :  [00:04:27] I found that some of the bigger looser clothes kind of make me feel bigger and make me feel less sexy or as into like myself as I normally and so I've actually leaned towards wearing tighter clothes just because I can show that like yes I'm pregnant, I'm not just eating a pizza over and over again. Jillian: [00:04:51] Well you look adorable. C.J. : [00:04:54] I feel lucky to be pregnant during the summer so I don't have to wear tons of like jeans and sweaters I can just kind of be in dresses most of my life. Jillian: [00:05:05] Kara what about you? Cara: [00:05:07] Yeah, so I started out in corporate as well. I always kind of had a blog on the side, like it started in college with an art blog and then I did like a DIY blog, and then I kind of got into having my own online boutique so I designed different leggings and t shirts and stuff with my artwork. Starting a blog because brands were reaching out Cara: [00:05:27] Then I started to have brands reach out to me and offer to like put their products on my blog because I was blogging as part of my boutique. And at that point I didn't really know what blogging was or what influencers were. So I was like, "This is weird like this is my business. Why would I want to promote your product?" Cara: [00:05:44] So now looking back like they probably just thought I was a fashion blogger because I was featuring different people I was like styling my t shirts and showing different looks so they were just reaching out. Cara: [00:05:55] It's like a brand wanting to work with a blogger. But I was like a business and didn't even know what the whole world was so then I kind of decided like hey, maybe I should have an outlet where I could do this. And then I could say yes to these collaborations because they were like products I liked and brands I was interested in working with. Cara: [00:06:13] So I started a fashion blog and it's called Never Skip Brunch. I like love brunch. I always said I love snacks and sleeping. It's kind of a joke. Cara: [00:06:29] I just recently rebranded at the beginning of this year. And it's called Brighter Bold, and it's basically like a movement towards helping women to turn up the volume on their inner voice and kind of find their boldness. Cara: [00:06:44] And so I've kind of expanded out of fashion and now I have like recipes and some DIY projects. And it's a little more lifestyle oriented. So that's been really fun. Cara: [00:06:53] And that decision was kind of just because I realized this is what my audience wanted, like they liked fashion but they kind of wanted a little more in on my lifestyle, and all the little projects that I constantly had going on. So that's been really fun. Jillian: [00:07:08] That's cool. OK so how do you guys then monetize separately and then I guess together? Monetizing blogs through sponsored content, affiliates, and membership Cara: [00:07:19] Yeah. So for our own blogs. We both do like brand collaborations and then affiliate links. I would say for me personally brand collaborations are probably my primary source of income. I do have some affiliate links from people shopping products that I recommend, and all of that stuff but I primarily work with brands. C.J. : [00:07:39] Mine is kind of the same wa,y working with brands through sponsored or ad posts definitely like the biggest thing that I found. C.J. : [00:07:48] I know my affiliate links have definitely started to take off now this past six months, as I've been able to grow more of a connection with my following so I'm definitely seeing more growth there than I have before. C.J. : [00:08:00] But I would definitely still say that like sponsored and you know ads are working with specific brands and trying to kind of grow that long term relationship has been the biggest benefit for me on my personal blog. C.J. : [00:08:13] And with My Haute Society we have so many different ways of monetizing still through affiliate links and then obviously jumping a lot into products and resources that we give out to bloggers, that's like the biggest thing we want to be is obviously a resource. C.J. : [00:08:29] So creating those and being able to help through that has been helpful for us as a business as we try and grow and everything like that. Cara: [00:08:38] Yes I think our biggest thing is like our monthly membership which is just nine bucks a month and you get access to all of our courses all of our guides and then like monthly events whether that's like happy hours or meet ups. And then you get workshops. Cara: [00:08:55] And then you get our big Ecourses are super discounted so that it's kind of amazing. Working on your blog as a team Jillian: [00:09:01] How do you guys... Because my husband and I we run Catch My Party and MiloTree together but those are really different businesses. But again we do it as a team. Now you guys have your own separate businesses. Then you have this together. So how do you manage that? C.J. :  [00:09:20] It's been a lot of learning, to be honest. We started in September of 2017. We hit the ground running. We both were super excited about what we were doing that we just kind of ran with it. It was exhausting. C.J. : [00:09:37] We found a lot of times you know we were trying to work on our own blogs and we had to take away from something so we didn't focus as much on our own blogs as we wanted to. C.J. : [00:09:50] But we just like really couldn't because we just had too much going on in the holiday season and so the beginning of January and the end of December were a huge kind of sit back and take it all in and see where we really want to push our focus to what was most important in growing My Haute Society. And what was most important for like mental health. C.J. : [00:10:11] Because obviously if you look at our blogs, both of them are huge focusing on you know mental health and really being the best person you can be. And so stretching ourselves so thin was the opposite of what we were trying to put out through My Haute Society. So it was a huge moment. C.J. : [00:10:28] We had, I wouldn't say arguments, but we had you know really deep conversations of trying to figure out what was going to be best for both of us because Cara has a little girl and a husband, and I have a husband and had just found out I was pregnant. C.J. : [00:10:42] So it was like we had totally different lives and entirely different things we had to push our emotions into, aside from even just having our personal blogs. So we really did have to re-evaluate what was going on and to make it work. The importance of content calendars for bloggers C.J. : [00:10:57] I think the things you see for every blogger is that content calendars are huge. And we really had to figure out what to do and then when we kind of figured out a strict schedule of like who was doing what. C.J. : [00:11:11] I run all of the social, and deal with our Monday blogger moments, and then Cara does a lot of like the podcast edits as well as like some of the main resource or blog posts that we do and then we do like a little side by side of everything else. C.J. : [00:11:26] So once we really honed in and figure that out we've been able to streamline a lot of things and been able to have certain days where we specifically work on My Haute Society and then have certain days we're basically just working on our own blogs or living our own lives. Cara: [00:11:48] Yeah it's funny because like a lot of people that go into business together have years and years of a friendship or a relationship to kind of go off of. So they already really know the other person. The importance of defined roles as bloggers Cara: [00:12:02] And for us, we were really new friends when we decided to start. Yeah we had to learn who each other was like what our strengths and weaknesses were and kind of how we work together. Cara: [00:12:17] And then also kind of develop the business and define our roles and all of that all at once. So it was definitely a process but I think it was something we needed to go through to be able to be where we are now, where we're kind of like more efficient and we have a system and have more clear communication. Cara: [00:12:35] Like at first you know I would be building the website and putting out all these guides and I'm used to just working with myself and going rogue and like cranking things out. C.J. : [00:12:44] I'm like an over communicator. So I was like "Why are you leaving me in the dark?" type thing and she's just not really like that. So it was kind of me having to learn to pull things out of her as well as you know her just having to learn to like communicate better. C.J. : [00:13:01] So I think that's a good way of putting that though because we did just kind of fall into it, and the benefit of this is that we both tend to jump into change really well in our own personal lives. And I think that made it possible for us to do it. It was just kind of learning how to do it together. Jillian: [00:13:19] Wow what it is like. I mean it's a relationship, it's like a marriage in many ways. Cara: [00:13:25] So I call it business marriage. Jillian: [00:13:30] It's like how people have like a work spouse or you know like a work husband or a work wife you guys are each other's wives. That's terrific. Jillian: [00:13:41] How many hours a week are you guys working and how much of that time, this is if you can quantify it, would you say is working on each of your businesses and then together? Managing your time as a blogger C.J. : [00:13:52] I know I kind of laughed at this question because my answer is all the time. Some weeks are better organized than others but right now with doing a move and you know moving states and doing all this. C.J. : [00:14:09] We've had to be a little bit more scheduled out than normal because like my weekends are completely packed with packing or something like that or going to parties. But I mean as a social influencers I think anyone listening that does that can know that it isn't all the time thing. C.J. : [00:14:26] Like even if you're an entrepreneur and not just a social influencer even if you're not working on something on your web site for instance, I post twice a day on my Instagram almost every day so that's work in itself. C.J. : [00:14:38] You're waking up Saturday morning or Sunday morning and still having to post and then engage with people and then you might like to have brunch and kind of hang out with your husband or take some time off Saturday or Sunday. C.J. : [00:14:47] But then there's other Sundays right up until 11:30 doing something for My Haute Society for Monday, or something so I don't know. I mean it's really hard for me to know. Cara may have a better answer but it's really all over the place. C.J. : [00:15:01] Most of the days during the week are really well scheduled out because we have certain things for our personal blogs and certain things from My Haute Society that go live on specific days. So it's a lot easier to allocate those things out. C.J. : [00:15:13] But the weekend is totally a crapshoot. Sometimes I'm free and living my life, sometimes I'm like doing two hours of shooting and then writing posts and everything like that so it's just really up in the air. Cara: [00:15:26] Yeah it's also weird because it doesn't feel like work. To have to say, "I'm working these hours and these hours I'm free, like it's all just kind of living life and doing what I like doing alongside of the other stuff. Cara: [00:15:40] So if I had to put a number on it, nap time is definitely my go get it time. My daughter is almost 2 and she sleeps for a solid two and a half hours still which like I don't know how long that's going to last. Cara: [00:15:54] That's like my go time and I just knock everything out and then I'm kind of a night owl. So if there's stuff outside of that that I really need to do, I can stay up all night doing it and I love that. I'm at my best at like 12am. C.J. : [00:16:16] Now with being pregnant, for me, I've found that I'll stay up later but then I don't have the energy to get up like I usually did at 7:00 a.m. and kind of started doing things. C.J. : [00:16:26] I'm taking my mornings you know maybe catch up on my phone but like I have to eat breakfast. I have to do certain things, I have to stretch, like all these new things I didn't have to do before is becoming this additive into my days. C.J. : [00:16:42] So I'm learning to schedule around that, but that's like the huge benefit of not having to go to a 9 to 5 job. You can do mornings where sometimes I'll get up at 7:30am and be doing e-mails by 8:00 a.m. you know getting through things. C.J. : [00:16:55] And then other mornings I start working at 9:15am but I might take an hour to work out and then be working until like 8:30pm or something. So it's just kind of all over the place. Which I love because it doesn't stress you out as much because you can do it whenever you want to make time. Jillian: [00:17:11] Right, the funniest thing that I would say is trying to educate your family, like your parents, about what you do. Because we will go on vacation and visit my parents and to explain that the internet doesn't shut down, you know, that you can't put a like "We're on vacation and come back in a week." It just doesn't work that way. Jillian: [00:17:40] They're like, "You work all the time!" and I'm like, well, kind of. C.J. : [00:17:44] It's like what my dad said when we went to Europe. I was obviously making travel blogs and everything through it and taking images, or my husband would be like behind me with the camera and stuff. And my dad's like, "This world is just so different these days." C.J. : [00:18:00] You know you laugh and he's a super successful businessman so I can get where he looks at it but now that he's starting to learn the success you get from it's just connecting the dots and seeing the success just for being different. C.J. : [00:18:15] But then it's funny because he's like, "You're always on your phone" and I'm like, "Well, if you got paid money to be on your phone maybe you would do it too." C.J. : [00:18:25] My siblings are trained now when we are planning vacations or over holidays, they'll be like, "oOh we could go here, that would be really good place to take blog pictures." I'm like "Now you get it." Ways of using Instagram as a blogger to grow your business Jillian: [00:18:36] Can we talk about social media? You guys are very active on Instagram. It sounds like Instagram is your jam. Can you share a little bit about how you use it? What do you think the best ways are to connect on it. Like what do you love about Instagram? Cara: [00:18:56] Yes. I think it's kind of like the current go-to platform for influencers just because that's where a lot of brands want to collaborate with you, because it's the hot platform so that's probably why it's our go-to. Cara: [00:19:12] And C.J. probably has a lot of really good tips for you as far as how to really engage with your followers and connect. She's kind of always full of amazing pointers and I'm like, "Why didn't I know that?" C.J. : [00:19:26] Well the biggest thing with Instagram, because I run My Haute Society's and mine as well, and it is really just truly engagement which can be absolutely exhausting to be honest. I think trying to be on there all the time is what's hard for a lot of people. C.J. : [00:19:42] But I think building the most important thing like the one tip I can give with it is, we love our IG Lives on My Haute Society and sometimes there won't be 30 people on there every single time we do it or anything like that. C.J. : [00:19:58] We do a playback and just having that live and making that connection of being real with your followers is the biggest thing people are looking for on Instagram these days. C.J. : [00:20:07] They do love to see your perfectly curated feed. I don't think that's going away anywhere time any time soon because people love beautiful images and they love placing themselves in places that they haven't been and beautiful scenes that they've never been into. So I think people love that. C.J. : [00:20:20] But being through your Stories I think is the easiest way like IG lives and stories because people are yearning for that connection through real life. And once I started like really doing that, aside from still engaging and consistency and posting is a huge thing. C.J. : [00:20:39] I know a ton of people want to take like a week or two off and you need to understand that that's going to hurt your engagement. I think that's like a big thing but really just being consistent with doing Stories and connecting your face to people not just putting your curated image in your story or random things. C.J. : [00:20:56] That is what people want to see, they want to know what you're doing, they want to know your side of yourself that's not perfect. They want to know what you're eating. C.J. : [00:21:04] I think just things like that really makes people want to follow and connect with you and stay around, at least that's what I've found through My Haute Society and my own blog. C.J. : [00:21:14] It's just being consistent with posting engaging and really being active on my stories even though I might not look gorgeous in the morning or still just get used to kind of being on there and people love it. They love the realness is what I have found. Jillian: [00:21:29] So you're posting two images a day on your feed and how often are you popping in to do Stories? C.J. : [00:21:39] You know, some days are different than others, if I have a super busy day wanting to get multiple posts done I won't be on there as often and just because I need to focus like on any other kind of business. C.J. : [00:21:50] But most days I can do 10 to 15+ stories depending on what's going on. Yesterday, I went through my morning moisturizer routine because my face has been insane with this pregnancy. Hormones are on fleek at an all time high and so I kind of just went through some of the products I was using. And some like the face masks I just received from a different brand and I mean that alone was probably 10 to 15 stories right there. C.J. : [00:22:19] And then like I go through sometimes what I'm eating, because being pregnant people are really curious and that kind of started connecting with all these new moms to be. How you eat and everything and so even something like that. C.J. : [00:22:32] And then if I put on an outfit I'll do like what I'm doing that day and the like tonight I have like a blogger event so I'll be kind of storying throughout that whole thing. So it really just depends. C.J. : [00:22:43] But I try and pop on there as much as I can. Some people really focus on creating the perfect story. And it can take them a long time to get it out there. I just kind of go with it throw it up there and it is what it is. C.J. : [00:22:58] And then I found it to be really easy to just do a Story of like here's my breakfast and then I'm typing away at my post five minutes later, it's not like a 30 minute thing to get a few stories up for me. C.J. : [00:23:11] I'm a very real person so I just have turned my stories into like literally what I'm doing. Jillian: [00:23:17] Cara what about you? How often are you posting on your feed and what about your Stories? Cara: [00:23:23] So I post like once a day on my feed. I don't do weekends and occasionally I just take a string of random days off if I just don't feel like doing it. Cara: [00:23:32] I'm not as outgoing as CJ. So like all the engaging stuff drains me. It's not something that energizes me. So I love engaging with my followers, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I have to mentally prepare. Cara: [00:23:50] If I'm not in the mood to like really connect with people. I don't want to post because I don't want to be just throwing up a piece of content that's something to be looked at, I want it to be engaging and kind of like a starting point for those conversations. Cara: [00:24:05] Sometimes I just take a few days off and recharge and so I think it can go either way. And then Stories, so I kind of like creating graphics. I still do a bunch of different ones of things I'm doing. I do sneak peeks of, like I just re-did my powder bath, so I did like a little sneak peek video about that. Cara: [00:24:29] But I also like to do graphics little videos or moving things or like swipe ups that tell people there's a new post on the blog. So I try to involve my real life and what I'm doing but I would say it's a little bit more of graphic design type stuff because that's what I really enjoy doing. Jillian: [00:24:48] OK so given that you guys have been at this for a while. What is the one piece of advice you wish somebody had told you when you guys were both just starting out. ADVICE: Create a brand around yourself as a blogger C.J. : [00:25:03] For me personally I didn't know the blogging world existed. So I just kind of wish that I had known that was even a big thing and known it was like this business that people were really trying to do curated photos for. C.J. : [00:25:19] I guess I wish I would have known and would have been told to create a brand around yourself before just pushing content out. I was just posting, I was enjoying it and everything, but I would still have that same stress that I do today. But I didn't have like a why or brand behind it. C.J. : [00:25:37] So I think knowing your "why" and really creating what your brand is and who you are behind your brand is the most important thing to do before starting out. C.J. : [00:25:47] Because without that you're just going to go on a circle of posting things and trying to figure out what you want out of it. Each post in changing things up and if you keep changing things up it's going to be extremely hard to grow a following. C.J. : [00:26:01] Instead of knowing your "why" and knowing your brand and running with that and then you're down the road you know if you want to add something or take something away you can play with that because you've had this connection. C.J. : [00:26:11] But without knowing that, that's a huge thing. I wish I would have because not knowing the blogging world and then not knowing my brand. It took me twice as long to get to a following that other people can get to maybe in six months just because I had no idea what I was doing and what was behind what I was posting. Jillian: [00:26:32] Interesting. OK so really having a point of view. C.J. : [00:26:35] Totally and knowing what you want people to get from your content instead of just like ,"Here's my outfit," which is great but like what do you what do you hope they get, and how does it help them? C.J. : [00:26:46] And so without that it took me a while and then once I started figuring that out that's when I really became Everyday Chiffon and what I wanted from it and was able to play around with things and became fun instead of what the heck am I gonna do. Jillian: [00:27:00] And what about you? Cara: [00:27:03] So I would say, I wish I knew the importance and value of community which sounds funny but as an introvert I really didn't know how valuable it was to really have people to surround yourself with and support you and bounce ideas off of. Cara: [00:27:20] And I am kind of a competitive person just naturally, so in my mind for a while, community and success were kind of mutually exclusive. It was like I had to go do it on my own and be successful. Cara: [00:27:36] But really what I've learned through the whole process of what goes into My Haute Society and our community, is that community is a competitive strategy. To be successful you need others to support you and help you along the way. ADVICE: Don't compare yourself to other bloggers Cara: [00:27:52] And then kind of a second piece of that is not comparing yourself, realizing that the community means that you can look at other people's success and you can celebrate with them and be excited, but that success for them isn't what successes look like for you. Cara: [00:28:08] So trying to achieve that by looking like what they're doing is going to be really unfulfilling and it's going to lead to burnout and you're not going to find your best way of doing things in your best type of success unless you really dig in and define that phrase like that. Jillian: [00:28:26] I like that. I think that the same themes keep coming through my interviews on The Blogger Genius which is, it is about helping each other grow. Jillian: [00:28:40] And it is also about working hard not to compare yourself, like those are two themes, because when you work together all of a sudden the Internet can feel really small. Jillian: [00:28:51] Like the internet consists of the six other people that I work with and we all kind of help each other grow. But it's really hard not to compare yourself to these people and you lose sight of the scale at which you work. You know that the Internet is a very big place. Jillian: [00:29:10] So what is the one tool that you guys use that you couldn't live without? Blogger tools you can't live without C.J. : [00:29:20] This one is really hard to choose one tool. I can let Cara talk more about Canva. We both love love love Canva for our personal blogs with creating like Pinterest images and that kind of stuff. But I don't think she could live without Canva for My Haute Society. C.J. : [00:29:35] And then for me for My Haute Society and still my personal blogs I couldn't live without Planoly or Social Pilot. They're kind of different apps totally but like, they do some of the same things are scheduling for social media. C.J. : [00:29:57] Planoly really lets you help see your feed. And like for My Haute Society with running my own social media I have been in the great habit of planning every caption and every photo out Monday morning or Sunday night and have that on auto post so I can still go on there and engage with everyone. But it's more about like when I want to do that instead of having to have a specific high point to do it as well as my own blog. C.J. : [00:30:23] So planning for my own while I don't do auto piloting but I am able to kind of like figure out my feed from there which really helps my weeks go by a lot easier if I've already had like an image and a caption kind of ready. C.J. : [00:30:36] And then Social Pilot is huge because we try and reach people on LinkedIn, Twitter like the Denver blogger page, our My Haute Society page. Then we also have our own personal ones hooked up to that. And so as a business you know Cara can go ahead and create these super cute things on Canva like videos and everything and these really cute graphics. C.J. : [00:30:55] And then I'll just go in there being the community person and make a really fun caption for it and then I'll actually go ahead and schedule everything out for like weeks and months and that's sort consistently posting on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. C.J. : [00:31:11] Every single day if not you know two or three times a day with different things so all of our things are constantly being pushed out there without us having to do a ton of work and people can continue to see us as a resource. C.J. : [00:31:25] So those would be the two that like I cannot live without with social media just because with how much scheduling it goes and behind two different platforms it's huge to be able to have things to be scheduled now and really only use an hour or two out of my Mondays to kind of get it all set. And then just have to poke around and fix things as I go. Jillian: [00:31:44] OK so how about you Cara? Cara: [00:31:50] Oh yeah Canva is my number one. I can do all the design in Photoshop and InDesign but Canva is just so easy. We have templates set up where we make, for example Pinterest images for every single blog post so that at the bottom there's like a couple images that people can pin to save the post. Cara: [00:32:11] So having templates set up for those or I also use them a lot to make Instagram stories like swipe ups or little like moving video gifs so just having like a template and then I make a bunch of different copies and move stuff around and they're so easy. It's amazing. Cara: [00:32:29] I have it for my personal blog where my fonts are uploaded and my colors are uploaded so that I could use my actual like font. That is my branding and everything is ready to go. Jillian: [00:32:45] How can people connect with you? How can they learn more about My Haute Society and also your individual sites? C.J. : [00:32:58] We're all over social. As My Haute Society so like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter Instagram. Cara: [00:33:08] And Haute means like classy fashionable. That's kind of why we chose that name. Cara: [00:33:14] I like thought it was "hot" for the longest time, even when we named it that. Staring at me I thought CJ was just saying Haute because she's from like the Midwest. Like that's how you say it yeah. Yeah. Cara: [00:33:28] And then our website is My Haute Society.com and we have like a ton of blog, posts that's where you can find our podcast. Cara: [00:33:35] All our resources if you're interested in like looking into membership you can just go to like MyHauteSociety.com/join and learn all about that. Cara: [00:33:44] And then my own blog is NeverSkipBrunch.com. C.J. : [00:34:01] And then mine is Everyday Chiffon, and for chiffon I get asked out a lot and it's like a type of material. My favorite one that I found I wear the most. That's why I named it that. C.J. : [00:34:12] But I am all over everything as well Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook probably more that I don't even know that I'm still on somewhere. And that is EverydayChiffon.com for my website. Jillian: [00:34:27] Cara and C.J., thank you guys so much for being on the show. Get more Instagram followers fast and free with MiloTree! Jillian: [00:34:37] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and e-mail subscribers? Well if you've got two minutes I've got a product for you. It's MiloTree. Jillian: [00:34:46] MiloTree is a smart pop up slider. You install on your site and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:35:01] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code and it's Google friendly on mobile and desktop so we know where your traffic is coming from. Jillian: [00:35:14] We show a Google friendly pop up on desktop and a smaller Google friendly pop up on mobile. Check it out. Sign up today and get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today I’m interviewing Abeer Rizvi, from the blog, Cake Whiz.  In this episode, Abeer shares how to go from hobby to business, and all the steps she took to turn her love of cake decorating into a successful food blog. We talk about how to figure out what to charge brands, how to leverage social media for traffic, and why ad revenue is worth pursuing! If you have no idea how to turn your passion into a blog, you're going to love this! Resources: Cake Whiz Catch My Party AdThrive MediaVine ShareaSale Everything Food Conference MiloTree Transcript: How to Go From Hobby to Business with Abeer Rizvi Host: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show today. My guest is my friend, Abeer from the food blog Cake Whiz. So welcome to the show Abeer. Abeer: [00:00:23] Thank you for having me. Jillian: [00:00:25] So we met back in, I looked it up, 2015 and we were at BlogHerFood in Chicago, and we were both kind of standing somewhere and we just kind of struck up a conversation. Do you remember that? Abeer: [00:00:44] Yeah it was by the phone chargers. Jillian: [00:00:47] Yes I can totally picture it! And I had come to BlogHerFood because we had just rolled out MiloTree and I had these postcards and I was handing them out. Jillian: [00:00:59] And it took so much courage on my part to go up to random strangers and talk about it, and you were one of those super sweet people. Abeer: [00:01:10] Aw, well you were pretty amazing yourself. Jillian: [00:01:13] And you started showing me photos of the cakes you make. Abeer: [00:01:20] Yes, I don't know how it came to that, but yeah we started talking about your blog and my blog. Jillian: [00:01:25] Right, you knew Catch My Party, right? Abeer: [00:01:28] Yes. I knew about it, because I did some party posts on the blog and I've seen some of your parties and there very few party blogs out there. Jillian: [00:01:38] Right. Abeer: [00:01:38] Yours is one of them. So that's why I knew you, so when you were talking I'm like, 'Oh, that's who you are, I know you!" Jillian: [00:01:43] Totally. And there I was at BlogHerFood and it was so interesting because what I realized is that we are in these little silos. So I'm Catch My Party, and nobody there knew who I was, except you. Abeer: [00:02:03] I think it's because of the niches. Every blog has a niche. And if someone does a lot of savory food then they probably aren't in the same circle of friends or bloggers who keep a lot of savory food. Same with the low carb bloggers or vegan bloggers. Abeer: [00:02:18] That's not to say they don't overlap, like I have friends who are very healthy food bloggers. I don't do any healthy food right. We all know each other. Abeer: [00:02:27] But since yours was so similar to mine in a sense that, you do a crafty food, it's creative, that I was like "Oh there are very few bloggers that do that." Abeer: [00:02:37] So  someone like that you get really excited. You're like, yes there's someone else out there! Jillian: [00:02:42] Totally, totally. And we bonded because we both have one child. Abeer: [00:02:46] Yes, we do and we started talking about that. Yes. My son was like maybe two or three at the time. And I was like yeah, I only have one. Jillian: [00:02:57] Yes. Yes. And then the other thing that I always remember about you is you are a scientist. Abeer: [00:03:07] I am, I actually have a Masters in Science. I have a Masters in Cellular Biology and Botany and I don't do anything with that degree now. But I guess there is some science that goes into baking. Jillian: [00:03:22] Yeah, isn't it all chemistry? Abeer: [00:03:24] I mean there's a lot of balance and ratios and measurements of all the but I'm not I'm not in a lab anymore. Jillian: [00:03:31] OK. And I remember that you had made such a big change. OK so let's step back. Can you share how you created Cake Whiz? How Cake Whiz started as a hobby Abeer: [00:03:43] So Cake Whiz actually started as a hobby. I have been baking my entire life. With my mom, and my family and this is something I truly enjoy. Abeer: [00:03:51] I never did cake decorating. I never threw parties where there were themes and so forth. When I got married and moved to Chicago from Canada, there was a cake decorating class that was happening nearby and I was like, let me just register for the class because it just looks like fun. Abeer: [00:04:09] So I registered and I was hooked! I haven't stopped decorating and I felt like it was all this creativity that I can channel into this. And it was just so much fun. Abeer: [00:04:20] So I started the blog just to document everything, and just putting all the stuff making or learning just for the sake of my family or friends. And they were the only ones who actually had the link. Abeer: [00:04:32] And next thing I know I've started getting comments from my readers, like regular people I've never met, saying thank you so much for the tutorial. Or, that was really great, can you share that recipe? Abeer: [00:04:43] And I'm like, oh my god. Who are these people who are you reading my blog? I mean it was it was exciting. Jillian: [00:04:52] And what year was this? Abeer: [00:04:55] About six years ago, I think yeah. And then I think things got a little more serious and brands started reaching out to me and they'll be like, "Hey, we wanted to work with you." And this was so new to me, I didn't even know you could make money with a blog. How to determine what price to charge as a blogger working with brands Abeer: [00:05:09] I do not know how to price myself. And obviously made a lot of mistakes along the way. Priced too low and I'm thinking, oh my god this is so much work. Abeer: [00:05:19] But I've learned a lot and I just love what I'm doing now. So the hobby just suddenly turned into this business. Jillian: [00:05:26] OK so were you at this point working in a lab? Abeer: [00:05:33] No I just finished a Masters. I did my thesis and I got married within a month. We'd been engaged for awhile so we were waiting. And then I moved from Canada to Chicago and I was exhausted and tired of studying. I was tired of researching and I was just taking some time off, well maybe a couple of months that was the plan and then blogging things just sort of took over and I just tried to have fun with it. Jillian: [00:06:00] So when you first realized this could be a business. What did you do next? Abeer: [00:06:08] When I realized that, ok. I started doing it with a proper schedule with a proper plan. The marketing of a post, like every other day really sitting down and creating a list of posts I want. Why I'm making those posts? Why am I blogging? Who am I blogging for? Abeer: [00:06:25] And then really creating a plan for myself. What do I want for this year. What do I want for next year, and really discussing those ideas with my husband as well, because it is a family and I need to make sure that all my plans are are in connection with our family as well. Jillian: [00:06:45] So you decided I'm going to make cakes? Desserts? What was your strategy? Abeer: [00:06:50] So initially the plan was just doing cake decorating and desserts because people are asking for the cake recipes as well, because they will not be able to see the cake inside. But they knew that I decorated the cake. Abeer: [00:07:00] So I started doing tutorials initially, and then we'll go into recipes for the cakes and cupcakes and cookies and so forth. Initially, I was just a dessert blogger. I did not even add savory recipes until last year. Jillian: [00:07:15] Really? How to expand beyond your niche as a blogger Abeer: [00:07:16] Yes. And I was actually terrified of doing that and took me that long to actually make the jump. I have always been a comfort food blogger or some other desserts they were fancy and cute looking and I could use those in parties. So do all that. Abeer: [00:07:30] But last year I was like, let me see. I mean you're not going to see kale salads or anything healthy on the blog. But I started doing comfort food savory recipes and then I was like, we could serve this at a party, too. Abeer: [00:07:44] Why can't you serve, fried chicken or a lasagna. These are things that I serve at parties. Jillian: [00:07:53] Did your audience come along for the ride? Abeer: [00:07:56] They did. And that was my biggest fear, and I'm pretty sure if I started sharing salads and like healthy dressings and stuff like that, it would not have worked because that's not my audience. Abeer: [00:08:06] My audience likes comfort food. My audience loves chocolate. My audience loves butter as much as me. It makes no sense for me to be making a jump and then suddenly jumping into a totally different angle. Abeer: [00:08:20] So what I was doing is yes, I made that jump in to savory as well. But I'm still like a 95 percent desert blogger. I still post more deserts than savory, and I made sure that my savory recipes are comfort food as well. Jillian: [00:08:34] Do your friends ever come to you and say, "Will you decorate a cake for me? Will you bake a cake?" Abeer: [00:08:39] Oh yes. All the time and I usually decline. A few reasons. Number one, Chicago has very strict rules about running a business out of your home. And I'm not going to do anything that's illegal. Abeer: [00:08:56] I have always declined because of those reasons. And it makes sense, I mean there are hygiene factors that you have to take into account, hire out the kitchen space and so forth. Abeer: [00:09:05] So I'm not going to suddenly run a business of cakes and pastries out of my house. And the other reason was sometimes you run a business like that, I feel like I might not be able to balance the blogging aspect of the business. Abeer: [00:09:18] And it just seems like blogging was something I enjoyed way more than actually becoming like a baker who is selling to people. Jillian: [00:09:27] Got it. Do you feel pressure though if there's a family event that you need to show up with a cake? Abeer: [00:09:34] Yes. In the past, like, I had a wedding last year, and my brother got married a few years ago actually. He asked me as well and I declined. Abeer: [00:09:41] I mean it's already stressful going to a wedding and getting ready, getting the kid already. Making sure we're on time, and as you know a family member you have to meet the people as they're coming in and be a host. Abeer: [00:09:55] There are already so many little things that I need to take care of that I was like I can not do a cake, in this situation. It's just not possible. I usually apologize and pull away. Jillian: [00:10:07] I love that. OK. So you started this blog and was the first thing that brands started reaching out to you? Did you think about putting ads up? The value of showing ads on your blog or site Abeer: [00:10:21] So ads are something that I didn't even know about. I had this weird, wrong impression that you don't make a lot of money with ads, and I was absolutely crazy. Abeer: [00:10:27] I did not even go on any ad network for a while. I was already working with brands, I didn't have any ads on my site because I had no idea you could make as much money as you do with ads. Abeer: [00:10:38] And I'm sure there are different networks and different CPMs and RPMs with different networks, and as you grow you can go to better paying networks. But at that time I had no idea. Abeer: [00:10:50] So initially I was just making money by working with brands. Jillian: [00:10:55] You were sharing with me though how you would underprice yourself. Abeer: [00:10:59] Yes, I did initially. I had no idea how to price myself because again, this was not something that I knew anyone who was doing and I could ask them. Abeer: [00:11:09] It was something that just sort of fell into my lap and I enjoyed doing. So brands were interested in getting me to work for them, but I had no idea how to price myself. Abeer: [00:11:17] So we sat down and we created different packages for brands like if they want just a blog post or if they want a blog post and social media shares. If they want just social media shares, if they wanted video along with the posts. Abeer: [00:11:32] Basically, knowing what they want and I could price accordingly because then I don't know how much time effort I would have to put into that project. And that really took the stress factor out for me. Jillian: [00:11:44] Did you think about it from an hourly wage? Abeer: [00:11:48] I tried and it got a little complicated for me, because there are some posts that take more work, like cake decorating or party planning. Those posts will take so much more time than like a recipe post. Abeer: [00:12:03] So it was becoming hard for me to figure it out. And then we just started doing a ballpark range of how long it usually takes of those posts and then just creating a round figure for that. That worked out better for us. Jillian: [00:12:15] Got it. And do you think of your husband as your business partner? Abeer: [00:12:21] No he's not officially a business partner, but yes, he's someone that I do run my ideas through, someone whom I discuss all the technical stuff for my blog obviously. Abeer: [00:12:31] And yes he's my rock, right there. He's helping me along and he's been very supportive. Jillian: [00:12:39] At what point did you think to yourself "This is a business." Abeer: [00:12:42] I think when my husband and I actually sat down to create those prices that was probably a turning point for me. Abeer: [00:12:52] Because up until then it was more like, "Oh yeah sure. Here's a little money," and so forth. This little extra income coming in. Not a big deal. Abeer: [00:13:02] But when we sat down and we decided on how we are going to promote our posts, and really sitting down creating a plan for everything. That's when I felt like this is really a business. Abeer: [00:13:19] That's why we decided to put ads on our site as well and who we are going to go with why we're going with them and so forth. Jillian: [00:13:26] And you guys use AdThrive, which is who we used for Catch My Party. Abeer: [00:13:30] Yes. And I love them. They're great. I mean there's Mediavine as well, people really like them, too. I think they're both great, they both have their advantages and people should definitely talk to both before making a decision. Jillian: [00:13:44] So today you're monetizing via ads, via sponsored posts. Any other products or things that you sell or promote? Abeer: [00:13:55] Oh we've been talking about it, me and my husband. We want a product like books or something. But it's very early stages that we haven't really formulated a plan yet as to what we'll be doing. Abeer: [00:14:08] If we do something it will probably be, maybe the end of this year during the holiday season. But again we're still discussing it and figuring out what we want from the product for our blog. Jillian: [00:14:20] And are you thinking more like a digital product? Abeer: [00:14:23] We would prefer digital only because everything is so digitizing everything everyone is on mobile iPad. So it just seems to make more sense that way. Abeer: [00:14:32] But we're are also thinking of the actual products too, like baking products maybe. We haven't really decided what baking products and what's going to be written on them or how we're going to go about it. But that is something definitely that we have been discussing as the next step. Jillian: [00:14:50] Got it. And do you do affiliate sales? Abeer: [00:14:52] I used to. I never had the same success as some other people do. I suppose maybe I don't have that as a strength. Abeer: [00:15:00] Amazon was not paying out as much as I would've wanted. And then there was also I think ShareaSale that I tried. That was a little better. It does pay sometimes for certain conversions. Abeer: [00:15:14] But for me I think the recipe posts are really working out as well for some of the party posts. I felt like the results were a little better. Jillian: [00:15:24] Now what about social media? Where do you live? What works for you? Social media strategy as a food blogger Abeer: [00:15:37] Most of our traffic comes from Pinterest. I think that is the case of most bloggers out there. Abeer: [00:15:43] I feel Facebook is also very important. I've been working on slowly growing it. And you know moving it up there. I do want to keep it active and engaged and share videos, share other people's stuff too. I do think that brands still value Facebook a lot and they're willing to put money into Facebook for ads. Abeer: [00:16:04] So that is something that people should definitely focus on. And that is something I still focus on hugely as well because obviously we have to focus on it, because it is a major source of traffic. Jillian: [00:16:16] Now what about Instagram for you? Abeer: [00:16:19] It's OK for me. I've had some campaigns that are just for Instagram and they were very simple compared to any other campaigns where basically you're told to share a picture or bake a cake or make a recipe and just photograph it share and it with your readers. Abeer: [00:16:37] So it was a very easy way to get an income from Instagram. But I don't think it is my main social media source out there. Jillian: [00:16:48] Because I feel like food bloggers tend to love Instagram. Abeer: [00:16:53] Oh I love sharing stuff on Instagram. I love the stories that they have because it is informal, and you know it goes into archives afterwards. Abeer: [00:17:01] So I can share something with readers "Here I am at this conference, this is what's going on. Look at all the food here." Or I can share a food festival. "Oh my God you need to check this out." Abeer: [00:17:12] It is a lot of fun in that, but in terms of I guess traffic wise, it doesn't really do anything. So, I don't really put much effort into it because at the end of the day, I do want to drive traffic to the site as well. Jillian: [00:17:26] So do you have a group? I kind of feel like food bloggers all know each other. Do you feel like you have friends or other food bloggers that you can bounce ideas off of? How to build a support network as a food blogger Abeer: [00:17:49] I do. I really feel like I do. And I think I'm very fortunate that I have those people in my life right now because at times you need that. For example, book deals. I've never really thought about it until someone reached out to me, and I thought, "I don't want to do this right now." Or maybe I do. I don't know. Abeer: [00:18:07] But you could talk with other bloggers who have been down that road and they would be happy to share their knowledge with you or even just what's working for them in terms of Facebook. Some people are excellent with writing Facebook ads and then they tell you about it. Abeer: [00:18:21] And I think it's so great. So I feel like it does help to have colleagues. That's what I call them, colleagues, they're friends. And just like any other workplace where you have other employees or colleagues that you are working with. This is the same thing. Abeer: [00:18:35] Yes you're at your home. Yes you meet them at conferences. You don't see them every day. But they are there. Technically they're there 24 hours because you are on the internet. Jillian: [00:18:43] Now where do you hook up? Like Facebook groups? Abeer: [00:18:46] Sometimes, and we chat as well, we have each other's numbers if we are really close. If we met at conferences so we have each other's email address, we have Facebook messenger so we chat there. Abeer: [00:19:01] Also meeting at conferences and just hanging out there, you know im each others rooms, hey come over to my room, we'll hang out and if you have concerns or questions you just bring it up. Some one will share something and then it's always very helpful to see how other people are doing things. Jillian: [00:19:20] Your son is how old now? Abeer: [00:19:21] My son just turned 6. Jillian: [00:19:23] Wow ok. And how how does it work for you? How many hours a week are you working, how do you manage being a mom having a young son, and you know building a business? Abeer: [00:19:38] I'm going to be very honest here, I think it's hard. Anyone who is saying it's easy, they need to show me their ways because it is hard. Putting family first as a food blogger Abeer: [00:19:45] My husband and I decided early on that we will make sure our son comes first, our family comes first. We also decided early on that I will usually only work on the blog or anything blog related when he's at school or he's at other activities. Abeer: [00:20:02] I want to spend as much time with him when he's home with me. Yeah so that was our plan and we really stuck to it. That's not to say that things don't come up sometimes. I go to conferences sometimes, so which means I'm away for two or three days. Abeer: [00:20:15] Sometimes, you know there could be a deadline that's looming. And you have to be thinking about that. "Ok sorry sweetie mommy needs to finish photographing this," so he will understand that, but I try to make a habit of doing it every single day. Abeer: [00:20:30] So he knows what I do. He knows that I take photographs and make recipes. I go to conferences and he slowly aware of it, but also make sure that we're doing other activities that are very important to my family. Abeer: [00:20:42] Like taking trips, road trips, take him to the park or just having family events or getting involved in the community. I think those things are equally important if not more. Jillian: [00:20:53] Did you teach yourself photography? Abeer: [00:20:56] Yes I did. Jillian: [00:20:57] How did you do that? Abeer: [00:20:59] Just by practicing. I mean there are YouTube videos that you can follow along to. At least to show you how the buttons work and what you're supposed to do. Abeer: [00:21:12] That was really helpful in the beginning but then honestly, the little guide that comes with the camera was very helpful too because initially I did not know what all those buttons that teachers were doing. Abeer: [00:21:23] Or even the videography. When I started doing videos. I was lost. I did not know how to edit videos. And then as time went on we just kept practicing. Abeer: [00:21:31] And you can see my old pictures or older videos are not the best. But I left them there, because they kind of show how far I've come and how far can you can go. Jillian: [00:21:59] I feel like video is huge. Are you doing a lot of video? Creating video as a food blogger Abeer: [00:22:05] I am. I do four videos a month sometimes more. Abeer: [00:22:09] For each week I do one video. If I do more than one video, it's not really working out for me in terms of promoting it because if I do two videos a week and then promote them both, the videos do mediocre. But if I do one video I'm able to promote it more and I feel like I give it a fighting chance. Abeer: [00:22:29] Again, every person has their own philosophy on videos, there are some some bloggers who say, "Oh I do like a video for every single recipe that I'm doing," and they do share multiple videos a week and that's excellent. Abeer: [00:22:40] I mean if that can work out with their schedule and that's getting the results that they are looking for. For me at this time, with my schedule and the results I'm seeing, one video per week, is where I was at. Jillian: [00:22:53] Are these videos predominantly for YouTube? Abeer: [00:22:56] No, I don't do YouTube. YouTube has a different algorithm altogether. They prefer longer videos, a longer format. People there also prefer I guess more of a talking style where you are actually in the video talking. A little more personal approach to not a hands on style that you do for Facebook. Jillian: [00:23:13] Got it. So these videos are like the Tasty style? Abeer: [00:23:16] Exactly. So I make sure that those go on Facebook and they also go into my post. Jillian: [00:23:20] Got it. And then you also put them on Instagram? Abeer: [00:23:24] Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It just depends on sponsors. If they've asked me to put it on Instagram, I will and then sometimes I will just see how it performs and if it performs well then I will leave it there. Abeer: [00:23:39] If not sometimes the pictures perform better for me on Instagram than the video. It's weird. It depends on the video itself like what the video is about. Jillian: [00:23:50] And do you find that people love the ooey gooey shots? Abeer: [00:23:56] I think they do. I know some people find them very disgusting. I have family members like, "eew weird, that looks gross." But they do really well. Ooey gooey shots with the caramel coming out or the chocolate ganache oozing out. Abeer: [00:24:10] I think people are drawn to it on social media and they want that. You're selling them with a picture. We only have a few seconds to sell our recipe to them or sell our video to them, to really grab their attention. Abeer: [00:24:23] And if an ooey gooey shot is what's working there and I'm happy to do it because that is what the recipe is. It's not like I'm faking an ooey gooey shot. Jillian: [00:24:35] Right. And would cheese work? Do you think it needs to be like chocolate or could it be cheese? Abeer: [00:24:42] Cheese could work well too. I feel like because I personally, even I'm pinning as a user too. I'm glad, if that looks really cool I'm going to pin that, especially the grilled cheese when you show the cheese, a pull and cheese stretch between the two. It looks really good. I would eat that and I would share that on Facebook. Jillian: [00:25:04] That's funny. Now do you find that because Facebook keeps changing its algorithm that your videos do they get as much reach? Abeer: [00:25:14] See that's the reason I started doing one video, before I was doing a few more. Maybe two a week sometimes but then I realized that reach is going down so much that I was not able to get the same traction and I'm still not. Abeer: [00:25:26] Not the same traction I was getting last year. The reach has definitely gone down and I feel like when the brands put in money sometimes that really does help with the video. But overall though it's something which has gone down it's not as high as it used to be. Abeer: [00:25:43] I do know that they're working on a Facebook watch channel. So I guess the attention is probably focused on that right now. But their video style is absolutely different than what I'm doing right now, the Tasty style. Those are longer. Jillian: [00:25:58] Yeah, remember we learned at our conference. Facebook wants people to be creating it sounds like a TV channel. Abeer: [00:26:08] Exactly, it's kind of like YouTube style where they want you to be in there and talk about it. Why are you making this, share some tips and tricks while you're making it. And that's great. I understand what they're doing. I think it is a great user experience. I just don't know if I have the time right now to add that on as well. Jillian: [00:26:23] Right. Right. When you're managing your business, what would you say is one tool that you use that you could not live without? Abeer: [00:26:33] Tool like an appliance? Jillian: [00:26:35] No no no. Like any sort of scheduler or just some something that you use every day to manage your business. Favorite tool: Spreadsheets Abeer: [00:26:44] I think spreadsheets. I live on spreadsheets there is like a spreadsheet for everything. Abeer: [00:26:49] I have a spreadsheet for all my posts so far, and there are columns like, does it have a video? Does it need some photo updates? Do I need to go back and rework the recipe? Maybe I've gotten better at the recipe where I can make it better. How can you update the post for SEO? Abeer: [00:27:08] So I do a lot of those things where I go back and I look to my spreadsheets pretty aggressively figuring out what needs to be done and it also helps me create my to do list. Jillian: [00:27:20] And how scheduled out are you? Are you planning for September or for June? Abeer: [00:27:28] So as a dessert blogger and someone who does a lot of comfort food, for me, the big time is fall. Fall and Christmas. So I'm already ready photographing and basically making videos for those recipes. Abeer: [00:27:42] In the meantime I've also done some for pure summer grilling season like grilled chicken and so forth. Jillian: [00:27:50] Interesting OK. Abeer: [00:27:51] So my main focus right now is for fall and Christmas. Jillian: [00:27:55] Wow OK. And it's only, today is what, May 1st actually. Wow. So you are very organized. Abeer: [00:28:03] I think you need to be if you're running a business. Or if you are doing any work. It's not just a blogging business. Any work that you do even if you're doing a nine to five in an office you need to be super organized in order to be efficient. Abeer: [00:28:18] Because when I don't do that I don't have a to do list. I am honestly all over the place so I need a list. I need structure. Jillian: [00:28:28] And especially working for yourself you don't have a boss telling you, "I need this on my desk tomorrow." Abeer: [00:28:34] Yes. And also you have a family. So you have other commitments there, like my son has PTA meeting coming up or I have to go to school for a fundraiser or something or there's something happening in the community that he's involved in, maybe he has an event happening there I need to be at. Abeer: [00:28:49] For me, I need to make sure that my work is basically scheduled around his work too. Or my husband has something coming up, so yeah. Jillian: [00:28:58] OK. What is the one piece of advice you wished you knew when you were starting out? Advice: Focus on SEO as a blogger Abeer: [00:29:05] I wish I'd focused a bit more on SEO I really wish I did. I feel like I'm getting into it now. It's really really helping and I'm seeing results. But I feel like social media, the algorithm is so volatile and things can change so abruptly you could have a million page views today. And barely anything happen tomorrow. Abeer: [00:29:27] We're all seeing that with Pinterest, we are all seeing that with Facebook. It's just the way it is. You know even with Instagram reach is going down. But that's what people are saying, and I've also been seeing that. Abeer: [00:29:35] So it just seems like with Google, if you know your blog niche and you are writing good content that is relevant. It seems to give you more traffic and that traffic tends to pay better in terms of ads as well. Jillian: [00:29:52] Yes. And I have to say you are not the first person who has said this in terms of what they wish they knew. Abeer: [00:30:00] I feel like I took too long to get into it. But you know we've got to start somewhere. I mean it's a business where you're learning something new every day and you need to keep evolving with the changes. Whether it's social media or whether it's Google. Abeer: [00:30:14] Google's algorithm changes too. But at least you need to understand what's happening and make changes accordingly. But before it was like I was totally ignoring Google, which I should not have. Jillian: [00:30:26] And it seems like from other guests and what I'm learning as well, Google is really smart and if you structure your posts in a way that Google can understand them, then your chances of showing up in search go up drastically. Abeer: [00:30:45] Exactly, that's the thing. Sometimes I have a good post or decent pictures with a lot of social media traffic to back it up. But I'm just not ranking. And I go into the post and I've talked about maybe some random stuff or whatever. Or the posts content was so thin and it had less than 200 words or something. Abeer: [00:31:01] And I'm like come on, I mean I would not click on that post. So it just seems to make more sense when you learn about that. Ok that makes sense. I know why the person is ranking higher. Abeer: [00:31:13] Sometimes I see All Recipes or Genius Kitchen or something. They're ranking high. The reason is because their content is something that the readers are liking and there are a lot of comments and they are engaging with. Abeer: [00:31:28] So we need to make sure that we are doing the same thing with our content too. Obviously backlinks are important too. There's so many little factors that go into the whole concept of SEO which I'm learning and thinking wow, I should've really focus on those. Back in the day when I started. Jillian: [00:31:43] I know. But I always say, SEO is not sexy. It's not not at all like Instagram sexy. It's fun it's like oh look what I just made, and you know it's lots of hearts everywhere. This cute emoji. Abeer: [00:32:02] Totally. No, I think SEO is a lot of work it is also a lot of learning at for me, it is a lot of learning and but at least now that I'm seeing results I'm more motivated to keep doing. Abeer: [00:32:14] Because it's making more sense to me I'm understanding it. And also make sense as to why Google is giving certain posts more priority than others. And it just makes a little more sense then sometimes the traffic that I see for Facebook, where basically I only see traffic when something goes viral. Jillian: [00:32:30] Exactly. Well, Abeer, how can people reach out to you talk to you see what you're doing? Let people know how they can connect. Abeer: [00:32:42] They're more than welcome to email me. My email address is abeer(at)cakewhiz.com, I'm also on Instagram as @cakewhiz1. I'm also on Facebook as CakeWhiz, on Twitter as CakeWhiz. So they can reach out to me anywhere they like and I'm happy to answer any questions they have. Recommended food conferences Jillian: [00:33:01] And are you going to any food conferences? Abeer: [00:33:05] I am. I'm going to do Everything Food Conference in a few days now and I'm presenting there, on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:33:13] Nice. Abeer: [00:33:14] Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. Jillian: [00:33:15] Where is that is happening? Abeer: [00:33:17] In Utah. Jillian: [00:33:18] Okay. Any others that I should try and meet up with you? Abeer: [00:33:23] I was thinking of IFBC but I think it's later in the year around fall. I'm still not sure if I'm going to that or not. So what is it again. It's International Food Blog Conference. Abeer: [00:33:37] I was there last year as a speaker. It was fine, it was just fine. I'm not sure about this here we have a lot of other things happening at the same time, so try to see if I can work that into my schedule. Jillian: [00:33:50] Wonderful, thank you so much. Abeer: [00:33:52] Thank you so much for having me. Jillian: [00:33:56] And thank you for being my friend that first day. Abeer: [00:34:00] You're so sweet. Thank you. How to get free Instagram followers fast Jillian: [00:34:02] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and email subscribers? Well, if you've got two minutes I've got a product for you. It's MiloTree. Jillian: [00:34:11] MiloTree is a smart pop-up slider that you install on your site and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:34:26] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code and it's Google friendly on mobile and desktop, so we know where your traffic is coming from. Jillian: [00:34:39] We show a Google friendly pop-up on desktop and a smaller Google-friendly pop up on mobile. Check it out. 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Today I’m interviewing Kate Kordsmeier, from the blog, Root + Revel.  Kate and I discuss why you need to treat your business like a business from the start, in order to grow. As you'll see, Kate has been able to explode Root + Revel using this strategy. Kate started as a food journalist, but transitioned into full-time food blogger after experiencing a health crisis. We talk a lot about the people Kate has hired to help her grow her business, and why she's not afraid to spend money. If you're thinking of outsourcing your business as a way to grow, you don't want to miss this! Resources: Root + Revel Sway Group Blog Meets Brand TapInfluence Tailwind ShiftCon Butcher Box ConvertKit Food Blogger Pro LeadPages MiloTree Transcript: Why You Need To Treat Your Business Like a Business From The Start with Kate Kordsmeier Host: [00:00:05] Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey guys. Welcome back to the Blogger Genius. I am here today with Kate Kordsmeier. She is the blogger behind Root + Revel. So welcome to the show, Kate. Kate: [00:00:23] Thanks so much for having me. Jillian: [00:00:25] So we were just chatting before and I want you to share your story with everybody because you have an interesting journey. Kate: [00:00:34] Yeah definitely. So you know I went to journalism school for college and graduated, and pretty much immediately started freelance writing for magazines and newspapers. Kate: [00:00:46] So I did that for about seven or eight years. It was amazing. I got to travel the world and I was a food writer so I basically just got paid to eat at the best restaurants around the world. It was, it was great. Jillian: [00:01:01] Wow. Kate: [00:01:02] Yeah. But it was also you know a lot of work and really exhausting. And I started having a lot of health issues around 2014. Kate: [00:01:12] I was really kind of for a while ignoring some issues, and then around 2014 is when I couldn't ignore them anymore. Jillian: [00:01:22] What were you feeling? What were you going through? How healing her body lead to starting a blog Kate: [00:01:24] The biggest thing was that I had a lot of digestion issues. So it was some constipation. And then I also would have these really debilitating bouts of nausea and they would just knock me out and they would come on so suddenly. Kate: [00:01:45] The only link I could ever find to the instances was that it always happened when I was really excited about something. Kate: [00:01:52] So if we were like at a special dinner or on vacation, or I wrote a cookbook and we had a launch party and I was really excited about it, my wedding. Things like that. Kate: [00:02:05] So it was kind of ruined a lot of the most important things in my life. It was really kind of depressing. So that was sort of what kick started it. Kate: [00:02:16] I started going to all these different doctors trying to figure out what was going on with me and to make a long story short. I saw a million different doctors. I tried a bunch of different medications. Nothing was working. Kate: [00:02:28] And so I decided to go go cold turkey on all medication and just see what my body was doing and that included going off the birth control pill, which I had been on for like a decade. Kate: [00:02:39] When I did that my body really freaked out, then I started having a lot of other symptoms from like irregular periods and acne. I had really bad fatigue and just low energy. I had really bad anxiety and it just was kind of this storm of terrible terrible health. Kate: [00:03:01] And so I decided to go the natural route since I had tried everything else and nothing had worked. And that led me really to healing. And so when I saw what a huge difference in my health I found from natural and holistic remedies and just changing the way that I ate it really changed my life. Kate: [00:03:24] I felt like I needed to share that with other people. And so I decided to start a blog. And that was at the end of 2015. Transitioning from freelance food writer to full-time blogger Kate: [00:03:34] And so now I do that full time. I ended up transitioning away from freelance food writing and now I'm with Root + Revel full time. Jillian: [00:03:43] What's it like not having all those fancy meals all over the world and focusing on health? Like how has that been for you. Kate: [00:03:52] Definitely some ups and downs. You know I certainly miss it. And you know you realize like man, this is really expensive to do on your own dollar so that that's not as fun, but I feel so much better. Kate: [00:04:07] And I'm making more money so I can actually afford to do those things on my own and and really enjoy them to their fullest and not have to be working through some of those special meals and beautiful vacations and that kind of thing. Kate: [00:04:21] So yeah it has its pros and cons but I'm much happier now than than I was. Jillian: [00:04:27] Right. It's like that thing where all of a sudden you take your fate into your own hands. Kate: [00:04:32] Yeah yeah definitely. Jillian: [00:04:35] And I find in certain ways it's scarier. But in other ways it's like I could never go back. Kate: [00:04:41] Right. Well for me, I've always been self-employed so I never worked for one publication. So part of it is very similar. Kate: [00:04:51] You know it's a lot of the same, the same issues of running a business and you know, not necessarily having a steady paycheck and having to wear a lot of different hats so it wasn't maybe quite as scary than somebody who is used to working in like a corporate office job and then leaves that to start their own thing. Helping other bloggers with their businesses Jillian: [00:05:13] Got it, okay now on your blog you do some interesting stuff, so you share about your health and your journey of healing yourself through food. And you also have resources for bloggers who want to start blogs and monetize and stuff like that. So how were you, like how did that come about? Kate: [00:05:31] Yeah so I just started doing that this year because I didn't want to start it you know before I had really figured it out myself. And there's definitely a huge learning curve with monetizing a blog and getting it to a place where you can actually earn a full time income from it. Kate: [00:05:47] Once I felt like I had done that kind of again, you know, I think this is kind of a theme in my life that I learned how to do something. And I think that it's really amazing and could positively impact other people's lives and so that I say I want to help other people do the same thing. Kate: [00:06:03] And so I just sort of started sharing some of my tips and tricks and you know what I've learned throughout the last few years and that kind of thing. So it's fairly new content on the blog. It wasn't something that I did in the beginning but I'm really loving it. Kate: [00:06:21] It's really resonating with a lot of people and I also have started doing one on one coaching, and that's awesome to be able to connect with people in that more intimate capacity and really help them you know target what they're specifically trying to do. Jillian: [00:06:37] So OK so you decide that you're going to start a food blog. And so what was your process? Were you a chef? Did you have any training or were you really just learning learning as you went? Starting a food blog by being a professional food journalist Kate: [00:06:53] I'm not a chef but I was a professional food journalist for eight years before that, so I've spent a lot of time in restaurant kitchens. I've worked with tons of chefs. Kate: [00:07:03] I've done years of research on what makes food delicious and what makes food healthy and and that kind of thing. So you know, it is I guess a little bit more self taught. I didn't go to culinary school. That kind of thing. Kate: [00:07:20] But I didn't feel like I was starting at square one when I started the blog. I already had a very solid background in food. Jillian: [00:07:27] OK. So you would start then creating your own recipes, photographing them, and putting them up. And then when you thought about well I want to make a living off of this, kind of what were you thinking and how did your process go from there? Starting a blog with the intention of it being a successful business Kate: [00:07:44] Well I didn't start the blog and then decide I wanted to make money from it. I started it very much with the intention of this as a business. Kate: [00:07:53] And so it was never something that I just thought, Oh I do this as a hobby or as this is just something I'm passionate about. Of course, I am very passionate about it. But it was very much a business decision. Kate: [00:08:06] So I started you know one of the things I did do in my freelance career is recipe developed for magazines so that was not a new skill for me. That was something I had been doing for many years. Kate: [00:08:20] So there wasn't a learning curve with that. Photography though, there definitely was and I tried doing it myself for a little bit and ultimately decided I'm terrible at this. I hate this, it stresses me out, but I know I need it. Benefits of hiring a professional photographer Kate: [00:08:35] And so I started working with a professional photographer pretty early on and she does all of the photos for Rool + Revel. Jillian: [00:08:43] Wow. Because I was going to say your photos are beautiful. Kate: [00:08:46] Thank you. Yes. I cannot take credit for that. I mean I'm the one making the food and you know it's my hands in the photo and we work together to kind of style and everything. But she 100 percent takes the photos, edits the photos. I would be totally lost. Jillian: [00:09:02] How does that work? You say, OK Mondays we're going to do some recipes, come over? Kate: [00:09:08] Yes, pretty much we meet every other week and we usually knock out like six different shoots in a day. Kate: [00:09:17] Sometimes it's six recipes sometimes it's you know a combination of, we work a lot with brands and so we have some like styled product shots or headshots or you know just depending on what kind of content we're working on. Kate: [00:09:34] We do a bunch of different things and we also do video. So yeah she just comes over every every other week and we just knock it out. Jillian: [00:09:41] How many hours do you guys do it? How long does that take? Kate: [00:09:45] Right now we're usually doing about a half day so probably like four or five hours each time. Kate: [00:09:52] We're also good friends so I'm sure if we work we could get it done faster but we end up talking a lot more which is really nice. But yeah. Kate: [00:10:02] So but it used to be we would meet like once a month and we would do like 20 recipes in a day. And that was like first thing in the morning through you know 9 or 10 at night. It was really long days. Kate: [00:10:16] And then we both were like you know maybe if we split this up and just that more often we could make this a little more doable. Jillian: [00:10:25] So are you super organized? Kate: [00:10:27] Yes yes I'm very OCD. I've always been that way. Jillian: [00:10:34] I'm picturing like, spreadsheets. Are there spreadsheets? Are there you know big shopping days? Kate: [00:10:41] Yes lots of spreadsheets. I am a total spreadsheet nerd. And we have emails going back and forth all the time with our shot list and what we're working on. Kate: [00:10:52] You know I have an editorial calendar that we work on usually two to three months in advance so rarely unless we get behind which sometimes happens but rarely are we like okay this is what's going up on the blog next week. Kate: [00:11:03] It's usually like this is what's going up next month. So we're usually working at least a month in advance. Jillian: [00:11:10] Wow. OK so then you've got your 6. So go back to, this is a business. So you say I need to hire a photographer, you get your photographer and you go. Then what was your next thought? Kate: [00:11:29] You know really, in the beginning it was just like getting as much quality content up on the blog as I could. Kate: [00:11:38] And there are so many hats that you have to wear as a blogger. And I really didn't realize a lot of that until I got into it. You know there's so much behind the scenes stuff that you're constantly working on and everything from social media to SEO. Kate: [00:11:58] And you know just things like coding stuff and making sure you have the right alt text on your photos and you know, networking with other bloggers and working with brands and getting sponsored content deals and that kind of thing. Kate: [00:12:15] So the beginning was mostly just like creating the content. And then after we got like a good library going then I started slowly adding the other aspects to my plate. Jillian: [00:12:28] OK so how did you start monetizing it? How has that changed or has it not changed over time? How to monetize your blog from Day 1 Kate: [00:12:35] I started monetizing from day one. So of course it was much smaller then, but I started just by doing Google Adsense. Jillian: [00:12:45] Got it. Kate: [00:12:46] And so I just had a few ads up on the site and I joined a couple affiliate programs. Amazon was one of the first ones I joined. That was a no brainer. Everybody shops on Amazon. Kate: [00:13:00] So I basically just started with a few affiliate links and ads and you know I'm sure thing in the beginning I was probably making like 20 bucks a month or something like that. Kate: [00:13:09] It was small but it was at least something that felt motivating, like OK if you know if I'm making this much and I only have like 100 readers a month, what if I had 1000 readers a month or 10,000? Kate: [00:13:22] And so it started with that and then I would say maybe about six months or so, I started working with brands doing sponsored content. And so that's changed now, again it's mostly just my rates have changed as we've grown. Kate: [00:13:41] But in the beginning you know I think I've got maybe 100 or 200 dollars for the first post. Jillian: [00:13:47] And do you reach out to these brands? Do they come to you? Were you using one of these intermediary companies. Kate: [00:13:55] Yeah it was a combination. I joined a few of the agencies. So it was like the Sway Group, or gosh, I don't use any of them anymore really but they try to think what the other ones are called, Blog Meets Brand. Kate: [00:14:13] So I joined a few of those Tap Influence I think was one of those, and that was really good in the beginning because they connected you with these brands. You basically just applied to any of the opportunities that you felt like were there. And if you got it you know, great. How to reach out to brands for sponsored posts Kate: [00:14:29] And so that's mostly how I started in the beginning. But the more I grew, and the more sponsored stuff I did with the agencies, the more I started also reaching out to brands myself. Kate: [00:14:41] And so again I created a spreadsheet and basically just made a massive list of all the brands that I already used and loved and would be happy to promote that it was a very natural fit for. Kate: [00:14:55] And then you know spent a couple of days going through all of their websites, getting their contact information, and then pitching them some sponsored content campaigns for Root + Revel. Jillian: [00:15:06] And how did that work out? Did they get back to you? Did they say yes? Kate: [00:15:12] Yeah for the most part I mean it definitely works. It's it's kind of a numbers game and so I recommend casting a wide net. Kate: [00:15:23] I guess in the beginning I mean the great thing I think people are always nervous to do it. And I think freelance writing you know I always had to pitch editors story ideas in order to get work. Kate: [00:15:34] And so I was very used to rejection and to silence not getting a response. But it really taught me like the worst thing that can happen is somebody just says no thanks. Nobody's ever gonna be mad or brood because you pitched them so you really have nothing to lose. Kate: [00:15:51] And so I just started pitching people telling them who I was, what the site was about, you know giving them our media and what we could do for them. And yeah we had a really good success rate. Hiring a brand manager for your blog Kate: [00:16:05] I actually ended up hiring somebody to help me with brand outreach. Pretty early on too and so that was really helpful to have somebody that could kind of serve as a third party. Sometimes it can be awkward kind of pitching yourself. Kate: [00:16:20] And I think it made me look probably more official to have you know a brand manager. Jillian: [00:16:28] So explain. So how did you find this person and what is his or her job? Kate: [00:16:35] Yeah so, the first person I started working with was actually just a friend who had recently had a baby and was on maternity leave and was just looking for some side work to do. Kate: [00:16:47] She had a background in PR so it was a perfect fit. So I just started working with her originally and then as her baby got older and more mobile she didn't have much time. So we parted ways very amicably. Kate: [00:17:06] And then I started looking for more of like an all around assistant, so doing the sponsored content contracts and brand research and outreach and that kind of thing was part of it. But it was just one piece of what I needed help with. Kate: [00:17:24] And so last I think it was last June of 2017, I sent an email out to my list and posted something on social media saying "I'm hiring. Here's what I'm looking for. You know if you are interested apply here send me your resume." and I think I asked a couple specific questions. Kate: [00:17:45] And then I was shocked. I got great response and I think I had like a couple dozen applications and you know weeded through those and then had a few phone interviews and then weeded through some of those. Kate: [00:18:03] I had them do some like skills tests to see how familiar they were with the tasks I needed help with. I really didn't want to have to train somebody you know from scratch I guess, I wanted them to have some some background. Kate: [00:18:17] I ended up deciding on this woman named Sarah. And she's been with me now for almost a year and she saves me every day. I absolutely love her and I think delegating and hiring people to help you is key and growing growing and monetizing your blog quickly. Jillian: [00:18:39] Now is she local or do you do it virtually? Kate: [00:18:41] We actually do it virtually. She does not live in Atlanta, and she actually has lived in like a million different places since we started working together. Kate: [00:18:51] She was originally like in Amsterdam when we started working together but she was from North Carolina and she moved back and she travels all the time, so I think it's a good gig for both of us because she gets the flexibility that she's looking for and I get the help I need. When to hire people for your blog Jillian: [00:19:06] Now how was it for you making the leap to hiring somebody? You know you're just starting out, you're not necessarily making a ton of money. I think that people we hold ourselves back. Jillian: [00:19:20] But you said nope. You know what. This is what I need. It's worth it for me to spend the money to hire somebody. Kate: [00:19:27] Yeah I mean it's definitely a hard decision to make and it will differ for everybody. I think I went back and forth a lot before I did it and said, you know, do you have to spend money to make money or should I wait to spend any money until I'm making money and it is that being irresponsible? Kate: [00:19:46] But ultimately when I really thought about it and I said no this is a business and I would not start any business and expect to not have any investment whether that's in advertising or hiring people or whatever it may be. Most businesses take some some capital to get off the ground. Kate: [00:20:05] And I knew that I also this was what I wanted to do full time, and I wanted it to become my full time income as quickly as possible. And so I think if I was somebody who was doing this as a hobby or just on the side, and I wasn't as eager to get it going than you know hiring somebody early on maybe wouldn't have made sense. Kate: [00:20:28] But for me it ultimately ended up making sense and so I took the risk and hired and I did it for a lot of different areas and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. And that was just you know kind of trial and error. Kate: [00:20:43] And I do have a lot of expenses but ultimately I think it's helped me grow much faster than if I would have tried to do everything myself. Why post your income statements on your blog Jillian: [00:20:52] And so talk about that then, because you can see how you're doing. You're posting your income statements on your blog. Kate: [00:20:59] Yeah yeah that was very scary to deal with but a lot of bloggers that I follow have posted income reports and they've really impacted my career and what I've done and helped me learn and grow and so I thought "No, I think I should do this for other people too," and I know that it was really valuable to me as a reader so I started doing that in January. Kate: [00:21:23] And yeah you can see everything exactly what expenses I have exactly where my revenues coming from and yeah I bear it all. Jillian: [00:21:35] And I have to say I'm very impressed with your growth. Kate: [00:21:39] Thank you. Jillian: [00:21:39] I think there is something about stating this is not a hobby this is my business. Jillian: [00:21:47] That somehow it forces you to make choices like, I need to hire somebody. Like treating it like a business and not like, this is something I do on the side and I'm hoping it turns into a business. Kate: [00:21:59] Yeah I think, you know, some people have success stories doing it that way. Usually it took them you know eight years or something to start making money from their blog and again to each their own. Kate: [00:22:12] You know if you're not trying to do that then that's fine. But yeah I had a very like if I want this to be my business I need to treat it as such. Jillian: [00:22:22] I like that attitude, I feel it's like a little bit like announcing to the universe like "I'm in business!" I'm showing up and I need you to show up. Kate: [00:22:32] Yeah definitely. Hating social media as a food blogger Jillian: [00:22:34] So tell me about then as a food blogger, social media is a big part of it. So what is your experience? OK. Tell me about it. Kate: [00:22:44] I hate social media. I debate all the time about, maybe I'll be one of those bloggers that just doesn't have a social media account and there are not many of them especially food bloggers. Kate: [00:22:58] You know it's interesting because social media can be hugely helpful and growing your blog and monetizing your site and all of that connecting with your readers and that kind of thing. Kate: [00:23:11] But I felt like a lot of what I talk about, you know, it is a food blog but it's also a wellness blog and a lot of what we talk about for health is being mindful and not spending hours a day on your phone and doing things that are good for you and your health and your mind and your body, and I don't believe that social media is one of those things. Kate: [00:23:33] So it feels sometimes like almost hypocritical of me to be on social media a lot and to spend a lot of time there and personally I just hate it. Kate: [00:23:45] I try to spend less than five minutes a day on social media and it's really difficult to do. If you have a blog like you said, especially a food blog. So I've gone through phases I've tried different things. Jillian: [00:24:04] Have you hired hired it out? Kate: [00:24:06] Yes. Yes I have. I've worked with a bunch of different types of firms and people to manage different social media platforms and even the same platforms in different ways. Kate: [00:24:20] Currently right now what I'm doing is my assistant will schedule posts in Tailwind for Instagram, and now Tailwind lets you auto post so you don't have to get the alert that says "Hey it's time to post." You can actually just schedule it to go. Hiring people to help with social media as a blogger Kate: [00:24:37] So she does that and you know I log in every day I check my messages I respond to any comments and then I'm off. I'm not looking at anybody else's stuff. I'm not doing anything else because I just don't care. I just don't want to spend the time on that. Kate: [00:24:54] So that's how we're doing it now for Instagram. Jillian: [00:24:59] For Instagram OK. Yeah. Kate: [00:25:01] But I have worked with several different firms growing my Instagram and some of which did not do any posting, they just did a lot of growth strategies and engagement techniques and things like that for me. Kate: [00:25:14] Some were actually posting on my behalf. I found that really difficult because it was just hard for them to get my voice. So yeah that's very expensive. I mean I used to be spending over a thousand dollars a month on Instagram help. Jillian: [00:25:30] And what do you think that was giving you, was it to grow your followers so that brands would want to work with you? Because Instagram, up until this point has not been a great way to drive traffic. Kate: [00:25:46] Right. Very very true yes. And that's one of the reasons that I stopped working with some of the firms, it was not because they were doing a bad job but because I felt like it wasn't driving traffic and my ultimate goal. Kate: [00:26:00] Really I had this kind of revelation so to speak in February. I went to a blogger conference in California called Shiftcon. And when I was there it just I had this sort of moment where I said you know my goal is not to be an Instagram influencer. That is not what I want for my life. Kate: [00:26:23] I don't feel that that is the best way for me personally to affect change and to impact people's lives. I think that my strong suit is doing more in-depth blog posts, and things where I can really dig into something deeply and I can't do that on Instagram. Kate: [00:26:42] And so I just kind of decided to move the focus back to my blog and my email list where I feel like I have more impact than Instagram. Kate: [00:26:55] But of course there's plenty of influencers on Instagram that have hundreds of thousands of followers and make lots of money and have huge audiences and you know that's great for them, it just wasn't what I wanted. Jillian: [00:27:07] So what other social media platforms are important to you? The importance of Pinterest to drive traffic as a food blogger Kate: [00:27:13] So I say Pinterest, although I really don't think of Pinterest as a social media platform. I think of it more as like a search engine because of the way people use it. But Pinterest is by far outside of Google. My number one traffic driver. Kate: [00:27:30] And so I do put some time and money into Pinterest and I feel like it really pays off. Versus Instagram it's a little less tangible. Jillian: [00:27:41] Okay. And so what kind of time and money are you putting into Pinterest? Kate: [00:27:48] So  in the beginning I ended up hiring a Pinterest firm which is sometimes I'm like, I can't believe these things exist. There's like a whole field of people that make money doing Pinterest for other brands. But there are and they're great. Kate: [00:28:05] And so I worked with one firm for about a year and a half and they just managed my Pinterest entirely. I didn't touch it and they just posted for me and repinned stuff and did my schedule and everything. Jillian: [00:28:19] And would you be giving them the pins? Kate: [00:28:22] They would be pulling the pins themselves from my blog. Jillian: [00:28:25] Wow. Kate: [00:28:26] Yeah. So sometimes I might say like I really want to promote XYZ right now. You know, it's the holidays here are a bunch of holiday posts that I have. Let's promote these. But for the most part they were doing everything. Jillian: [00:28:38] Wow ok. Are you still doing that? Like have somebody doing your Pinterest or a firm? Kate: [00:28:49] No I don't anymore. What I decided to do earlier this year, we had kind of had a plateau where I felt like for a long time, many months we had we had a good amount of traffic coming to the site but it wasn't growing at all. Kate: [00:29:06] And so I thought I need to try something else and so I asked them if we could kind of push pause for a few months and they were great about it and said sure. Kate: [00:29:15] And so I stopped working with them and then I started using this tool called Board Booster. And that has been great. *** Update: Board Booster has recently shut down because they were not an approved Pinterest partner! Kate: [00:29:28] I went from spending like four hundred dollars a month to spending like 40 dollars a month. Board Booster does take a little bit more upfront time because you have to kind of set up all these different campaigns and looping features and I won't get it into all the technical details but once you do it it's very set it and forget it. And it runs on autopilot. Kate: [00:29:51] So that's what I do now and my traffic has increased and is growing since I started doing that, and it's way cheaper so I think I'm going to stick with that for a while. Jillian: [00:30:00] That's terrific. So how then are you monetizing? What are your different streams? What are your income streams as a food blogger? Kate: [00:30:05] Yeah good question. So in 2017, 75% of my income came from sponsored content. I think I have like 50 or 60 thousand dollars that year. Kate: [00:30:21] That was from working with brands and I loved it but I decided in 2018 that I wanted to scale back on how much sponsored content I was doing and try to come up with some more passive income streams. Kate: [00:30:38] And so right now I still do sponsor content, but I've gotten much choosier. I raised my rates, we really only work with brands on a long term basis now instead of one off posts. So that kind of helps streamline the workflow as well. Kate: [00:30:56] And then I have my ad network and affiliates and we've really been focusing a lot on affiliates this year and that's been awesome it's been growing like crazy. Jillian: [00:31:07] And now give me an example of how how you promote affiliate products. How to promote affiliate products as a food blogger Kate: [00:31:19] So for affiliate products I'll use Butcher Box as an example. They are by far my number one affiliate program and they are a meat delivery service and so, really their mission really fits in with Root + Revel. Kate: [00:31:36] You know, we both focus on like organic grass fed hormone and antibiotic free meat. And they deliver it to your door and they are a great affiliate partner to work with because they're always doing new promotions. Kate: [00:31:49] So the way that we've worked with them thus far has been doing a few blog posts, some of which actually are not focus solely on Butcher Box, but they will be like a roundup of organic meat delivery services or something like that. Kate: [00:32:09] And we'll talk about some of our favorites and why we like them. But Butcher Box is just one of them. Jillian: [00:32:15] Will each one be an affiliate link? Kate: [00:32:19] Not always. Most of them are affiliate links but some don't have affiliate programs, but I still like their product so I'll promote it anyway. But yeah I mean it's obviously better for us if they do have an affiliate program. Kate: [00:32:34] So yes we do that, we also have an email list and so we send out emails to them. Usually for Butcher Box, like once a month because they always have a new promotion. Kate: [00:32:44] So we'll send out an email to our lists telling them you know, "Take advantage of this offer. This is a great company. This is why we love them." And yes I'm now making about $2,000 a month just from Butcher Box. Jillian: [00:32:59] That's terrific! When you find that partner that just connects with you and your audience. It's terrific. Kate: [00:33:08] Yeah it really is so nice. I wish I could figure out exactly why Butcher Box specifically is working so well. There's other affiliates that we've promoted just as much that we don't make anywhere near that much with. Kate: [00:33:25] So I don't have it down to a science yet but they really resonates with my audience I guess people really like getting their, you know high quality meat, delivered to their doorstep. Jillian: [00:33:36] Wow that's terrific. OK so what would be the one piece of advice that you wish someone had told you when you were starting out? Advice: Invest in your business as a blogger Kate: [00:33:47] To invest. I know we kind of already talked about that. I don't mean to be a broken record. But to treat your blog like a business and spend, you know, set aside some money to invest in and growing it. And and that you know it will help you grow faster and it will save your sanity because blogging is very overwhelming. Kate: [00:34:09] There's a million things to be doing all the time, and so having some help and just delegating and using experts because you're not going to be good at everything. Like I said, you have to wear so many different hats. I'm terrible at photography and I don't care to learn. So hire it out. Jillian: [00:34:26] I love that piece of advice. You're one of the only people has who has come on the show and has so aggressively said this is a business spend spend money where you need to. Kate: [00:34:40] Yeah that's so interesting. I'm surprised that more people take that approach. But it is hard. I mean you know you have to have the money to spend. Kate: [00:34:47] I wouldn't recommend going into debt necessarily to do it. But I set aside some money that I had saved up and said, This is what I'm going to invest in my business. And it's worked for me. I think it's important to treat it like a business. Jillian: [00:35:05] And what then, is the one tool that you use that you can't live without? Kate: [00:35:11] Oh gosh there's so many. Jillian: [00:35:15] OK. Favorite tools, just a couple. What are your favorite services as a food blogger Kate: [00:35:18] Yeah. Let's see. I definitely I love ConvertKit. That's what I use for my email list and that's super helpful and I feel like my email list has really been beneficial in connecting with my audience more and getting more clients and selling more affiliate products and all that kind of stuff. So I love ConvertKit. Kate: [00:35:43] I love Food Blogger Pro. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Jillian: [00:35:47] Yes. I was on Bjork's podcast. Kate: [00:35:51] You were? OK I'll have to listen to it. I was just on his podcast too. So we'll have to go back and listen to each other's episodes. Jillian: [00:35:58] Totally. Kate: [00:35:59] Yeah I love Bjork. I think he's awesome, so smart and I joined Food Blogger Pro actually before I started Root + Revel, and I basically went through their entire video course, all of their modules before I started, so that I would know what I was doing. Kate: [00:36:16] And so I'm still a member you know, I don't use that nearly as often as I did then, but I love being able to go into the forums when I have a question and you know connecting. Kate: [00:36:30] A lot of the people that I've hired for my business I've found through Food Blogger Pro, so it's been really helpful and putting me in touch with like a Pinterest form or a SEO adviser or something like that. Jillian: [00:36:44] Any other tools? Kate: [00:36:47] I love Tailwnd. That's another scheduler that's helpful for social media. Let's see let's see what other tools I know there's more. Jillian: [00:36:58] That's OK. Kate: [00:36:58] LeadPages. That's another one that I use a lot. Really to do all my pop-ups and email sign ups and opt in offers and that kind of thing, that's super helpful for growing my list. Jillian: [00:37:10] Awesome. OK, so Kate how can people reach out to you? How can they learn about what you're doing, see your income statements and if they have any questions get in touch with you? Kate: [00:37:23] Yeah I would love to hear from your listeners so they can just head over to Root+Revel.com on the home page. There's the tab that says "For Bloggers" so they can go there. Kate: [00:37:35] There's income reports, the one-on-one coaching services. I have some other resources that kind of thing. Kate: [00:37:43] And then you know if they're not interested in blogging and would be looking more at the food and health stuff then there's plenty of that content too. Kate: [00:37:50] And my contact information is on the site. And let's see I'm @RootandRevel on social media, though like I said, I don't really hang out there too much. Jillian: [00:38:03] Well Kate, thank you so much for being on the show. Kate: [00:38:06] Yeah thanks for having me. It was great. Looking for free Instagram followers fast? Jillian: [00:38:08] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and email subscribers? Well if you've got two minutes I've got a product for you. Jillian: [00:38:16] It's MiloTree. MiloTree is a smart pop-up slider that you install on your site and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:38:32] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code, and it's Google-friendly on mobile and desktop so we know where your traffic is coming from. Jillian: [00:38:45] We show a Google friendly pop-up on desktop and a smaller Google friendly pop up on mobile. Check it out. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today I'm returning with Part 2 of my chat with Laura Fuentes, creator of MOMables, food plans for moms. In this episode, we talk about how to sell to moms by being a giver. Laura proves that by being helpful, you can grow a hugely successful business. Also, don't miss all of Laura's favorite marketing mentors. You're going to love this! Resources: MOMables LauraFuentes.com Marie Forleo's B-School Food Blogger Pro Go Giver Gary Vaynerchuck Amy Porterfield Derek Halpern Lewis Howes The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript –How to Sell to Moms by Being a Giver with Laura Fuentes (Part 2) Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the show. I'm still in my echoey Airbnb. So I'm going to make this short. But welcome back, because this is part two of my interview with Laura Fuentes, where we talk about how she nurtures her list, how she provides value to them, and how she sells to them. So without further ado... here we go. Jillian: [00:00:35] So let's go back now to your newsletter and how you build a relationship and how you ultimately sell to people. How to build an authentic relationship with your audience Laura: [00:00:43] Yeah. So if you're listening and you sell anything, like at some point in your blog you may want to create like an ebook or course. But also I feel like selling includes when you work with a brand and maybe you're doing a promotion or discount. Laura: [00:01:02] And they can seem very forced and awkward to say, "Buy this," or "Try this," for a lot of people. It feels odd. You have to kind of rethink the relationship that you have with your audience. Laura: [00:01:16] Which is what your original question was is how do I really form that and so when people come to my list -- Jillian: [00:01:23] But I just want to interrupt for one second. Definitely get on her list. Right. It's MOMables.com But that way people can get healthy meals, but also see how you do it because I think you do it so well. Laura: [00:01:39] Thank you. Yeah. Either you go to my website LauraFuentes.com or momables.com You get the same on-boarding experience. Laura: [00:01:50] So and also you know like a lot of brands, you get to think of this as a brand. And I think of Momables as my food brand. But at the same time people see my face all the time. Right. It's a real person speaking behind the brand. Laura: [00:02:06] And so most people think of growing their list as a way to send them the new blog content every week. Right. So somebody opts in, you offer some kind of freebie, and then you give them the freebie when they sign up and then you send them the blog posts that are happening that week. Laura: [00:02:26] But what you have to rethink is that that is a very automated and impersonal process. I used to do it like that and I learned that that really didn't build a relationship. Send a series of email so your audience can get to know you Laura: [00:02:40] I felt like my job was to, once people opted in, was to send them a series of emails where they got to know me and what I'm all about. Laura: [00:02:53] And then after that after they kind of go like OK. So she's got kids, she works. Here's her most helpful content, here's her best recipes. Here's some downloadable freebies from a series of emails. Then I send them my weekly newsletter. Laura: [00:03:10] Because I've just started doing that a couple years ago maybe two years ago and the relationship that I have with people is so much stronger than because imagine like you know if you signed up this week and you get my Sunday newsletter and I'm telling you how I just bombed this week or something, you're like What is she talking about? Right. Laura: [00:03:34] Like you don't even know that I have kids. You don't have a perspective of my life. So before I send them on my newsletter I create a series of emails where people received some of my best content, the most helpful content, and some free downloads. Laura: [00:03:52] I send them to my videos so they got to see me and get to know me on video and then I send them what's happening this week. Jillian: [00:04:00] Got it. So it's like a welcome series. Laura: [00:04:02] Yes. It's a welcome series. Jillian: [00:04:05] And how many emails are in your welcome series? Laura: [00:04:05] I believe there are nine. Jillian: [00:04:07] OK. And do they come out once a week or? Laura: [00:04:10] They're timed. And we still I think we're still a/b testing. But basically it's like the download after you sign up and then there's another one that day and then two days later, and then three days later, and then five days later, and then day seven, and then day eleven or twelve. Using email to build a deeper connection with your audience Laura: [00:04:42] You know so like they're staggered right. You know basically it really, imagine it as you and I just met and the first time we were at the coffee shop. And I'm like, Oh look I got an extra coupon. Here's a dollar off of your coffee because I got an extra one so you know, she's nice, she's helpful. That's your freebie, right. Jillian: [00:05:04] Yeah. Laura: [00:05:05] And then while we're waiting for a coffee drink, at the end of the bar, then you and I are like, Oh so you would probably thank me for your coffee or the coupon, and then I'm like also what are you doing here. Do you work around here? You know, it's kind of like get to know me, and you're like "oh I'm visiting my..." oh you're visiting the area, then check out this restaurant on the right, that's me being helpful to you. Laura: [00:05:30] And then after that, it's like you know, we move on to, oh well next time you are in town, let's grab coffee again and you're like, oh I'm going to be or I'm still here for a few more days. Awesome, we'll get coffee again. Laura: [00:05:47] So there's kind of the same way you would naturally develop a friendship with someone that you click with. Right? I do that via email. Some things are helpful, some things are freebees tangible items. Laura: [00:06:01] Think of it as a coupon, even though I don't give out coupons, but there are tangible things that people can use right away. But for the most part, and all of that what that creates is them understanding my life, and what the content that I'll be sharing on my blog is all about. Jillian: [00:06:19] So OK, so now I've gotten through your welcome series and now I am in your weekly emails. So talk to me about them and how you're sharing your content for the week. Jillian: [00:06:32] You're sharing about your life and then how do you sprinkle in "Hey, if you're stuck figuring out what to pack for lunch or what to make for dinner. You can check out my meal plans." Jillian: [00:06:47] And how often are you selling that? Laura: [00:06:49] Not as often as I should. From a marketer's perspective, from some people's perspective more often than I should. You can't please everyone. Laura: [00:07:04] OK I'm going to answer your question, and then I'm going to make a very important point on this. The short answer is that now I have a sales series where it's almost like here's the problem. It's like a sandwich here's the problem, here is where you want to be, and here's how you're going to get there. So my meal plan is the solution. Laura: [00:07:27] So that could be from a picky eater... I mean you know it doesn't matter what it is but it's a separate series of emails, separate from that Sunday email. The Sunday email doesn't mention the meal plans because I am a meal planning company and that is what you know. Laura: [00:07:53] At the end of the day, like that's one of the products that I sell. And I feel super strongly about meal planning as being the solution to relieving stress in the kitchen, to feeling better about yourself because of the foods that you eat, and it's feeling better as a parent because you are providing good nutrition. Laura: [00:08:17] So honestly, I have no problem telling people that if you're not meal planning, you really are doing yourself a disservice. Laura: [00:08:29] Because being unprepared does not give you the opportunity to feel your best. And planning is the way to achieve whatever mealtime goals may have for you and your family. So honestly I had to make a mind shift. Laura: [00:08:47] I feel so strongly about it for my family. Why not share that as much as I could. So some of the email I do mention, hey this is what our meal plan people are going to be eating this week. If you want to grab the recipes you can go here. Changing your mindset from selling to being helpful Laura: [00:09:04] So sort of give them a preview. But they have to buy a meal plan in order to get the five recipes that done for you and your shopping list. The meal prep sheet so you really do get a lot of value for two bucks a week or less. Laura: [00:09:19] So I kind of had to get out of my mind that I was selling. I am not selling I am being helpful. Jillian: [00:09:27] Yes! Laura: [00:09:27] It's just that planned help costs money. You can DIY yourself a remodel of your house on Pinterest or you can hire somebody like an interior designer to cut the work for you. Jillian: [00:09:40] I like that. Laura: [00:09:42] So I don't feel like I'm selling, but of course there's people on my list who are like, "I just want your free content so you could just stop selling to me." And I'm like OK well then you need to unsubscribe, because I do sell a product that helps thousands of families. Laura: [00:09:58] So if it's not helpful for you, you can come to my website. Of course I don't say these things but you have to be prepared to not be liked by everyone. Jillian: [00:10:07] Yes. Laura: [00:10:08] That's OK. Jillian: [00:10:09] Yes. Yes. And there are people who do expect your content for free. Laura: [00:10:17] And that's ok but not in my newsletter. Like it costs a lot of time, effort, and manpower and intention for me to sit down and build the content, and create the video, and it's totally fine that people will sit on my newsletter for free for years. Laura: [00:10:37] I literally have people that email me and go, gosh I've been on your newsletter for X amount of time, some of them years, and they're like I've never bought a product. Is there a way I can send you money? Laura: [00:10:48] And I'm like, oh my gosh you just made my day. I say to them  it's really my honor to have somebody that's like minded. All I ask is that if you find my content helpful. Share it with your friends online. Laura: [00:11:03] So it's really not about selling. It's really for me, it's always been about creating that relationship and having people understand that I feel super strongly about meal planning. And hopefully they'll give me the opportunity to do that for them and their family. Jillian: [00:11:21] Right. Well the truth is that you can draw a line from meal planning to love, to love of your family, to love of yourself, to living a better life. Yeah. What could be better. Laura: [00:11:38] Yeah I mean in meals. The reality is that meals are something that's very stressful for a lot of people, and I don't understand sometimes how people come to my list, and they tell me that they're just, it is the most stressful meal everyday. Laura: [00:11:51] They don't know what to make, they go through the drive-thru more often they should, like there's all these things at the at the end of the day they're telling me, even in their own words and point blank that they don't think they're doing a good job. Laura: [00:12:05] And I'm like here's a solution for you. And they don't buy. And I'm not sure why. Like we're just so stubborn about accepting help and two dollars or less a week. That is that sometimes I'm like if what you're doing is not working you have to change something. Laura: [00:12:22] You know and the only reason I look online like I've it together is because I plan to death, and not because it's my job to plan, it's because it's the only way that I can make sure that I personally eat good for me food, that my family eats good food and that I can actually make it happen. Laura: [00:12:42] When we get home from karate at 6:45 or 7:15 at night and my family is starving, so it's really easy to go through Chick-Fil-A or something like that on a Wednesday night when we get home at 7 or 7:15. How to solve a problem for your audience Laura: [00:12:56] Or I can say you know what, I have something in the slow cooker, or I already made the meal yesterday with leftovers. All I gotta do is heat it up. Jillian: [00:13:07] I've got say that one thing you've been able to leverage is the fact that you are a planner, so you're able to say let me be the planner because that comes naturally to me, and let's say you're a mom who is not a good planner. I can give you a little bit of extra planning. Jillian: [00:13:24] Like I I'm providing that service for somebody who might not be able to get it together. Laura: [00:13:30] Right. And I would go a little bit further to say that if I looked at me, I've learned to plan because I was not good at it. Jillian: [00:13:40] Interesting, I would have said that you are a natural planner. Laura: [00:13:44] I'm a really good executioner. Like if I have a plan, I can execute like no other, right. I can also wing it because now it's my job and I'm confident the kitchen. Laura: [00:13:54] I look at the ingredients in my fridge and I'm like you know what, I can make something out of nothing. And when in doubt when in doubt serve breakfast for dinner. Laura: [00:14:02] But at the beginning you know, I had to learn myself as well. And it created a process which is what I sell is the process of doing that for any family. How to set up a sales funnel Jillian: [00:14:13] That's great. So you said that you have these funnels to help them sell your meal plans. And can you explain what that means? Laura: [00:14:24] Right. So I think oftentimes we hear the word sales funnel and we think of it like this sleazy marketing way of like some funnel. That all these people go to the top and then they kind of go down. Right. It's really not like that. Laura: [00:14:38] The way we do it it's really about understanding that not everyone is going to open every email that you send. Laura: [00:14:49] And so therefore while you feel like, gosh if I send them an email about my product every week they're not going to like that. Laura: [00:14:58] I mean of course there's a right way of crafting this email with email copy. But the point is is that the reality is that they're probably not opening that email, they're opening one out of every four emails that you're sending out. And people read information differently. Laura: [00:15:12] So in my funnel, I call it funnel but it's really a series, because it's linear more than it's not like, buy the small product. And then the next natural fit is to buy the more expensive one. Laura: [00:15:25] Like for me is a continuous introduction, an education about the products and services that I have to offer that help them in an area of their life. How to use email to sell more than one product Laura: [00:15:37] So beyond the meal plans we also have like other programs, like the picky eaters course that's super successful. Laura: [00:15:45] We have a course on budgeting and meal plans. It is kind of like meal planning 101, How to do it on a budget. This is like when people don't buy meal plans and because they want to do it themselves, but don't know how. Budgeting helps them learn to meal plan, learn how to shop for their food, how to make everything really cost effective. Laura: [00:16:07] And then the other program that we also launched this year is called Kickstart. Family Kickstart which is really helping families like reset the way they eat, is kind of like Whole 30. Laura: [00:16:22] But what I observed when I did Whole 30, gosh like four years ago, is that the Whole 30 community of moms, like they're super successful they feel great when they do it, but they're not taking their families along for the Whole 30 journey. Laura: [00:16:35] And I'm like, oh my gosh you're making multiple meals. And by week 3 you're feeling great but then you're not feeling so great when you look at the table and you're looking at the meals that the rest of your family is eating because you know what your eating is so much better. Laura: [00:16:52] Then it's almost like your mom guilt sets in. And this was happening with a lot of community members of mine that were using our meal plans for most of their families. But then they were also cooking themselves. Laura: [00:17:04] There's very strict Whole 30 meal and they were feeling great but physically but also great emotionally because they felt, gosh I could do so much better right. Laura: [00:17:16] And so that's kind of like what we tried to solve with Family Kickstart. And we have hundreds of families that did it this year to take the entire family on a journey to cut out sugar or cut out processed foods, learned to try new things. Laura: [00:17:31] You know all the principles that I kind of talk about in everything else but kind of like more of a full family approach. Laura: [00:17:39] So whether it's programs, meal plans, you know it's really about figuring out that not everyone knows all that I do. Use your sales funnel to educate and not just sell Laura: [00:17:50] So my funnel is really more of a series that educates them of what's possible and how to get there. Jillian: [00:17:59] And what are you most excited about right now that you're building, that you're selling? You know what are you most proud of? Laura: [00:18:09] So what I'm most proud of is the fact that I've been able to take my real lif,e and I'm still living my life as is. And I'm able to share that with like-minded people and that I'm able to provide for my family. Laura: [00:18:30] My business is my family's livelihood. My husband now works with me for the last two, almost two years now. He quit his corporate job. He was in healthcare for 15 years. And this is what we do. Laura: [00:18:51] There's so much room to grow and change and improve but thus far, I feel like I've done really well because I've stuck to what I believe is true for me and my family. Laura: [00:19:03] And I'm trying to find my customers and the people in my community are like-minded families. That's really what I'm most proud of. Laura: [00:19:12] I've grown as my business has grown. I've been on television. I've had all these opportunities. But at the end of the day, you know I'm still me. I go out without makeup. You know I don't document everything. Laura: [00:19:27] I feel really good about the lifestyle that I've created even though it's not perfect, it's the perfect lifestyle for my family. Jillian: [00:19:34] So if I am a blogger just starting out, or I want to blog and start a business, what advice would you have for me? Laura: [00:19:45] Create a plan for the vision that you see for yourself. Jillian: [00:19:51] Explain what you mean. Laura: [00:19:52] So we all have goals, but like the first thing is to create you know build that vision, like what is it that you want to do. Laura: [00:20:03] Dream it's not just about dreaming, but fill in the color. Like make it real. Paint that picture in your mind day in and day out. And then plan it out how you're going to get there. Laura: [00:20:19] Do you need to invest in courses? There are things you need to learn that quite frankly for free on the Internet it's not going to cut it. Laura: [00:20:29] You know, I've invested thousands in courses to learn things for online marketing. Laura: [00:20:35] Make yourself the best version of yourself so that you can really propel your own growth rate. That's why I say paint a picture, create a vision, and then build a plan on how you're going to get there, because if you have a plan you can then execute it. Laura: [00:20:57] Sometimes it takes longer than other times but you can execute it, you know, planning is huge. Jillian: [00:21:03] Who have you learned from the most? Recommended online marketing courses Laura: [00:21:13] OK so it's been an evolution. So when I first started back in 2013 everybody knows who Marie Forleo is? I took B-School back in 2012 or 2013. Laura: [00:21:26] One of the earlier versions of Bschool and I kind of learned a lot from there at that time. Which is now like that early version of the school is so outdated which is great that Marie updates it. Laura: [00:21:39] So that's really a great investment if you want to take your blog into a business level. If you want to learn how to kind of like grow your blog. Laura: [00:21:55] If you are a food blogger I think Food Blogger Pro is really good. It's by the Pinch Of Yum couple. Jillian: [00:22:01] Bjork? Laura: [00:22:07] Yes they are phenomenal. Laura: [00:22:09] Your blog is a great resource. Laura: [00:22:11] I just think that people need to sit down and learn and seek out the information that you know you're not best at. Laura: [00:22:20] I read a book or two a month. So one to two a month is my kind of good rate on the areas that are my weaknesses. So I'm in business so that I can get better and see a different perspective. Jillian: [00:22:37] Any you can recommend? Laura: [00:22:41] Well I've recently read a ton of how to be a better boss type of books because I need to. I've been hiring. I'm in the hiring process and it's very very difficult to hire where I'm at. Laura: [00:23:03] A book that I really love is the Go Giver. The Go Giver is by Bob Berg and John Mann. In fairness I recently read it. My friend, Alice Chase, she gave it to me because it really puts you in a how to succeed from a giving mindset. Jillian: [00:23:26] I love that. Laura: [00:23:27] She and I got to talk about you know, we met at a conference recently and you know she and I the both are the type of people that will give people five minutes but never like an hour of our time unless we really kind of click and connect and she's like gosh I have an extra copy of this book. Laura: [00:23:45] She sent her husband to go get this book and give it to me. She said, you are everything that this book talks about and I was like, Really? Laura: [00:23:52] And I read it and now it's a book that I've actually given like probably five or six copies recently in the last three months. Jillian: [00:23:59] Wow. I will check it out. Laura: [00:24:00] Yes the Go Giver and it will really change your mind shift of how to really live your life. Laura: [00:24:13] But really for me was like how to position your blog in the role of giving. Laura: [00:24:20] Of course I feel like Gary Vaynerchuk is like my spirit animal in a way. If I've had a bad day. I just I have him on my podcast and I really like to listen. Laura: [00:24:32] It's really about like getting that push you know all the courage like almost like OK go get them right. I'm like, oh, OK. Laura: [00:24:41] He's got me right when I'm feeling low. There are a lot of low days. I feel like I've also learned a ton from Amy Porterfield. She has a great podcast. Laura: [00:24:56] So Amy Porterfield is really really good. I've learned a ton. I've purchased quite a few of Derek Halpern's courses he's socialtriggers.com his courses are second to none. Laura: [00:25:11] And then I also really like Lewis Howes' School of Greatness. Before he was huge. He's got some really great content. Laura: [00:25:24] Wait, have to tell you about this one more, I'm sorry to take so much for your time. I love learning and making myself better. Laura: [00:25:37] There is a woman. Her name is Mel Robbins. At MelRobbins.com. She has a book but she has a she's actually great, you'll love her. And Lewis Howes podcasts. You might want to put this in the show notes. Laura: [00:25:58] The five second rule. She's also on YouTube. But she's written this book about how sometimes, you know, you want to do things and you just don't know how. [00:26:10] There are five crucial seconds to just get up and do it right. And then if you go, and you basically count yourself downed five, four, three, two, one. And it's like a rocket launch like you literally just like there's no nothing to think about. Laura: [00:26:27] You just count yourself down and go do it, whatever it is, and Jillian when I'm telling you that I used to get up at four thirty two mornings a week to go work out for 5:00 AM work out. I'm like OK I envision that in my head. And by the time I get to one, I'm out of bed. Laura: [00:26:46] So I use that and it's so powerful. It is a great resource. So clearly like I find learning an inspiration from everywhere. Laura: [00:26:58] It's always like you said, a few minutes ago it's to fill a hole or a need in your life right now. Laura: [00:27:05] And those are the things that make us better. Jillian: [00:27:08] Right. Right. And I think the the willingness to learn says a lot. I think that people can feel that in your business, that you know you're always challenging yourself and I feel that in you're content. Laura: [00:27:26] You know if not, we remain stagnant. If you remain stagnant like you're going to stay where you're at forever. I don't want to do that. I want my life to be exciting to me, to live it every day. Laura: [00:27:42] If I stay the same way as I was and it's really not that exciting. I so agree. Jillian: [00:27:49] So Laura, this has been wonderful. Jillian: [00:27:52] Where can people reach out to you learn more about you and connect? Laura: [00:27:57] OK. So if you want to connect with me, unscripted just what it is that's happening. Instagram is a great place @LauraSFuentes. I do manage my own Instagram. And that's just really a great place for people to see;, well, shoot, she really does like jump on a plane on a whatever notice you know. Laura: [00:28:21] So I love Instagram for that. You can of course go to LauraFuentes.com and find out more about me there and then you know MOMables. Like really LauraFuentes.com is really a great hub for all of the things lifestyle and MOMables. I will be launching a business site really soon. Laura: [00:28:45] I will be launching Laura Fuentes CEO, which is like the company of Laura and because for years, people are like, How is it that you do it? Walk me through the steps. You know when I feel like my personal blog it's really the lifestyle of living a fresh life but not the business side of my life. Laura: [00:29:06] So that's something that I'm excited to kind of develop more this year. Jillian: [00:29:11] That's wonderful, Laura. Truly I thank you so much for being on the show. Laura: [00:29:17] My pleasure. I had a great time and if I can be a resource to anyone that's listening, I'm not going anywhere. Jillian: [00:29:23] Oh great. And I always learn so much from you. Laura: [00:29:25] Thank you. MiloTree is the easiest way to grow your social media followers and email list Jillian: [00:29:27] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and email subscribers? Well if you've got two minutes I've got a product for you. Jillian: [00:29:34] It's MiloTree. Milo tree is a smart pop-up slider that you install on your site and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. [00:29:51] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code, and it's Google-friendly on mobile and desktop. So we know where your traffic is coming from. We show a Google-friendly pop up on desktop and a smaller Google-friendly pop up on mobile. Check it out. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today my guest is Laura Fuentes creator of MOMables, food plans to moms. Our discussion was all about how to start a business by solving a problem for moms, and I thought the interview was so good, I didn't want to cut anything out. So I've split it into 2 parts. Part 1 is about how Laura has worked hard to build a community of like-minded moms by creating content they will enjoy, and Part 2 is about how she sells to them. I think you're going to be impressed with how Laura has turned herself into a YouTuube influencer,  that her community trusts. Resources: MOMables LauraFuentes.com Catch My Party MOMables - Laura Fuentes YouTube MiloTree Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript –How to Start a Business by Solving a Problem for Moms (Part 1) [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:12] Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. I'm recording this intro in my new city of Austin, Texas. I'm recording it in my Airbnb, so it sounds kind of echoey but the interview will sound much better today. Jillian: [00:00:40] My guest is my friend, Laura Fuentes. The interview went long, so I am splitting this one into two parts because I think it is that good. Jillian: [00:00:46] Let me tell you a little bit about Laura, where she is the creator of momables.com. She sells food plans to families to help them eat healthier, fresh foods. Jillian: [00:00:55] She's a cookbook writer. She is a YouTuber, she's been on TV shows like Good Morning America. I think you're going to really like this. So here is Part 1. Jillian: [00:01:04] So welcome to the show, Laura. Laura: [00:01:06] Thanks so much. I'm so excited to be here with you. I am a listener of your podcast. I love how helpful your emails that you send out are, you know I'm a fan. Laura: [00:01:16] So what am I going to say. The ones are listening it is such a pleasure to be here. Jillian: [00:01:19] Yes. And OK so we met as I said yep gosh maybe four years ago, and I went to your session, you did a session on email and I was blown away by what you were doing. Jillian: [00:01:31] And I went up to you. We started talking and we became friends, and then we've seen each other I guess at other conferences and we're going to be at a conference together. Momables started with a blog for her family Jillian: [00:01:38] Mom 2.0 very soon so we'll get to hang out IRL. So will you share your journey and how you started creating recipes food plans all of that? Laura: [00:01:51] Sure. So in the blogging age, I'm a dinosaur, seems like nine years ago now I started with a personal blog. It wasn't really even what we see today at momables.com or LauraFuentes.com. Laura: [00:02:08] I really started blogging because after I came to the south for my MBA, I married a southern man. I live right outside of New Orleans, and my whole family is in Spain. I was born and raised in Spain and my mom was in California. Laura: [00:02:23] And you know like we used to have these megapixel phones that took photos, and like my mom wanted me to share all the things that we were doing, and I just found it so tedious to tell my mom the things that we were doing, and my aunt and my friends. [00:02:40] I was a newish mom at the time, and a friend of mine said, Why don't you start a blog? And I'm like, What is that? Laura: [00:02:47] And she's like a blog is really just like a website, but instead of sending everybody an email with things that you're doing, or your mom, she's like you can just put it out there. It's called a blog post and you can put the pictures in the post and you basically say shared this story for everyone to read. Laura: [00:03:04] So you don't have to customize an email to your mom and your aunt and your friends. And I was like wow that's brilliant. Right? Because moms didn't have a lot of time. So actually if you go to my blog, years ago, I still have old blog posts where the pictures are a tiny tiny tiny. Laura: [00:03:21] And you know this was before DSLR cameras and stuff, so I started really just by sharing what I was doing with my family, and my mom wanted to know the recipes that were working for me, and the things that I was trying. So I started putting all that on the internet and on my blog. Laura: [00:03:43] And I found out that at the time, you know nine years ago, eight years ago, you know there was no Pinterest, it was Facebook, and it was really in its infancy. People weren't sharing and consuming content like they are now. Laura: [00:03:56] So the posts that I shared recipes that my kids enjoyed, or school lunches, or you know the things that were working. It really resonated with people and people started coming to me as a resource. Laura: [00:04:08] So it really started shifting towards the documenting of my life into a place where I could just I realized that I had this creativity with food. And I could help other people make fresh meals possible for their family. Jillian: [00:04:23] So you started this just for your family and then were other people coming to your blog? Were you surprised? Laura: [00:04:30] Yeah I mean, we had the early Google you know I was one of the few people that shared a healthy school lunches. Laura: [00:04:36] And my school lunch idea was, you know, and I am super practical by nature so of course like when I wrote something or created something it was all about, OK it's not just a recipe but it was like, "How do you pack it so it doesn't get soggy in a lunchbox?" "How do you store it for later?" "How do you prep ahead?" Laura: [00:04:55] So I would answer all those questions even how to boil an egg, you know. I think that's sort of what defined my type of content. And then started creating later on, more strategically but really being a helpful resource of how to make it happen when you're a really busy parent. Jillian: [00:05:17] How many kids do you have? Laura: [00:05:19] So I have three kids. Currently they are 6, 10 and almost 12. Jillian: [00:05:23] OK got it. So you were solving your own problem and then sharing about it. Laura: [00:05:28] Exactly. And what happens when you do that is you actually really connect with people that are like-minded. I don't try to appeal to the masses. I try to appeal to people that are going through what I was going through and and still am in the world of parenting. Laura: [00:05:46] And that's really how I realized and I connected with people and then we know as we've evolved I really created a whole business of sharing my ideas with momables, cookbooks, video, like all that stuff. At the the end of the day I really love connecting with this community that I built over email. Solving a food problem for other mothers as a way to start a business Jillian: [00:06:11] OK. So you start emailing, you start blogging about food and about being a mom and how to kind of solve the food issue. As a mom with kids. Laura: [00:06:24] Picky eaters. Jillian: [00:06:25] I have a picky eater so I so relate. You know, literally I will still to this day go, "I don't know what to make you because you are a picky eater." Jillian: [00:06:37] So then how did you start to think about this as a business, like you ultimately make most of your money via meal plans. Laura: [00:06:49] Right. So yes. So I started thinking about scaling what I knew. So if you don't know me very well. You're listening. My background is really on strategic like strategy global economics. Laura: [00:07:04] I think about scaling and you know if you were a blogger and you're listening you know that you start very passionately about something and then, it's almost like your life and your time gets consumed with creating and promoting your content. Laura: [00:07:20] And then you begin to think about, "my time is worth something" right and I need to figure out how to make money out of this. Laura: [00:07:31] And ad revenue was really in its infancy and I didn't really have like millions of page views at the time that would really make a significant impact in the revenue that I was bringing in. So I had to think about it I was like, "How can it create something that solves the problem that my community has that I can be authentic relatable helpful and make money." Jillian: [00:08:01] Love it. Solving what moms should pack for lunch [00:08:02] So that's where the meal plans were originally born and my original meal plans were just school lunches. I solved the what to pack for lunch. Jillian: [00:08:13] I need you. Okay. And then, so you started you created let's say a prototype or a template or something, and you started putting it out on your blog and saying, hey guys if you want to buy this? Laura: [00:08:28] Yup, I learned really quickly that if you don't ask no one will buy. But I also had to learn how to create the ask. Laura: [00:08:42] I knew that on social media people would share my content. So I started creating content around the meal planning and solving problems. I started creating content that would attract the kind of customer that was seeking. Laura: [00:08:57] So this is a really early say 2012-2013 before I think I might have just gotten a Facebook page at the time and it would be definitely before Instagram and Pinterest. So I knew that it was up to me to think about content in a way that people would share it. Why building a relationship with your community is key Laura: [00:09:19] But then I thought okay it's great that people share it but I can't put a Facebook post that says, "Hey buy my plans!" People are like "that's spammy." You know so I knew that building a relationship with people was key. Laura: [00:09:33] So about a year earlier I started really studying online marketing and I realized that bloggers or content creators. I wouldn't even say bloggers, like really content creators of all walks and niches, they really weren't focusing on email strategy. Laura: [00:09:53] They were just like in the days when we had RSS feeds, Feedly, you know. People felt that their content was so good that people would just come to their blog, or maybe subscribe to their feed. But I just thought gosh, that is just such a passive way of like, "Oh if you like it, grab it grab the feed." Laura: [00:10:23] But the reality is that the readers at the time, like they weren't so educated in how to do all that right. And I knew that there was one thing that would never go away. That's email. The importance of email marketing in starting a business Laura: [00:10:34] I wake up in the morning at 5:00 a.m. or 5:30 I check my email. I sort my inbox. I mean I've been doing that for years so I knew that my customer avatar or people that I wanted to attract really primarily gather their information sorted their inboxes subscribe to things you know. Laura: [00:10:53] And I remember people telling me like OK so you're capturing their email and now what? And I'm like oh my gosh, that's my opportunity to build a relationship with these people via email every single week via newsletter. Laura: [00:11:07] So that's, you met me four years ago. You know probably a few years in speaking about how to create that newsletter that people would want to open and read. So I had already been doing that for about four years. Laura: [00:11:21] I've been sending out a newsletter on Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. Central for the last seven years now. Jillian: [00:11:30] Yes. In fact you opened my eyes to email marketing, email funnels and I was blown away when you talked about it, because it was so intentional. And it was so not spammy. It was going to provide value. Jillian: [00:11:47] And if you like it buy my product. If you don't just come along for the ride. Laura: [00:11:52] Totally and that's what you want. You know you want to build a relationship that people see you as a resource a trustworthy person. Your customers need to see you as a resource Laura: [00:12:03] And sometimes they're not buyers. I have customers who I've had on my list for like five or six years when they just had babies and they wanted to eat healthier themselves, and now their kids five years later are going to school and now they're buying my meal plans. Laura: [00:12:16] Right. So it's really not about that instant sale. I would rather have a community of engaged people that are like-minded. That also finds the rest of my content that I produce that it's free helpful and they're going to share that online with their network and therefore attract other parents who might be at the right time to purchase my meal plans or any of my other programs. Jillian: [00:12:42] So in your newsletter what do you write every week? Laura: [00:12:47] So in my newsletter I write a personal story about my life. The person that I am, what happened that week, my traveling, How did I pull it together to jump on a plane and still left my family with food. You know it's basically an email from me to a friend. Laura: [00:13:10] And I literally write an email I know it goes out to thousands of people but I imagine that I'm just writing to one person. Jillian: [00:13:34] Oooh. yes. And do you always put a recipe in your newsletter? Laura: [00:13:43] So I do it a bit differently now that I used to but my newsletter is built around the new content of the week. So whatever items were published Monday through Friday that week go in my newsletter. Jillian: [00:13:56] Okay. And one thing we haven't touched on is you create amazing video. Laura: [00:14:01] I love video production. Jillian: [00:14:05] Yeah, and like you have your own studio that you built. And you like you have this amazing process where you like have a team come in and shoot a bunch of video a bunch of recipes, and this is how you also work with brands. Right. Which is you'll create video for brands. Jillian: [00:14:22] We'll come back to to your newsletter and to your email strategy. But could you just quickly talk about that. Like how many videos a week are you making? Laura: [00:14:30] So my newsletter includes no only blog posts but it also includes video content that I release every week. Laura: [00:14:36] So I've made a commitment to release a new video every single week. I've been doing that for three years. So since Fall 2014 I believe. Jillian: [00:14:52] And are these always recipes? Laura: [00:14:54] They are mostly recipes. So what happens is that I taught myself how to cook and you know I feel like cooking is something that anyone can do. If you have a good process and recipe. Laura: [00:15:07] So back in 2014 I realized that video was the direction that people were consuming content. This is really early on and of course look at where we are today. Having a video production process to make lots of video content Laura: [00:15:22] And so I had never been in front of a camera in my life and I competed on Food Network that year. Jillian: [00:15:30] In what? Laura: [00:15:32] And won! Jillian: [00:15:34] What show? Laura: [00:15:35] Oh it was called Rewrapped. So it was a show at the time recreating recipes. You know you just showed up and you had to recreate a popular snack item or something from the grocery store. Right. Jillian: [00:15:48] OK. What did you recreate? Laura: [00:15:55] I recreated this old snack called cheese wise/wise cheese. I can't even remember the name of this thing. But it's like these cheesy waffle things. Laura: [00:16:05] And you know what's interesting about that is that it's not even winning or creative, I honestly learned that I could create on my feet and I was really good at it. Laura: [00:16:21] And then that I could do video and I had never been in front of a video camera in my life. I was never the person. I'm not like my kids who have grown up with like mom holding the phone. So it just taught me that I could do it. Laura: [00:16:34] And I was very raw, not very good. Some days I want to take down my old videos on YouTube but you know we all have to start somewhere and it just helps you polish your craft. Laura: [00:16:50] So I started doing video and now I create. I released one video a week sometimes two sometimes they're sponsored sometimes they are not sponsored. Most of the time they're not. Laura: [00:17:04] And I do anything from cooking to the lifestyle of living a fresh lifestyle. You know what that looks like. A lot of it is meal prep is really the things that interest my audience. Laura: [00:17:22] But I don't shoot every week. I do one video production day or two a month and we produce six to seven videos per day to be up to 10. But it's crazy. So 6 to 7 is like a good number. Jillian: [00:17:35] And how big is your team when they come in and work with you to create all these videos. Laura: [00:17:40] Yeah it really depends on the project. It used to be one video person. Sometimes two cameras. We now have technology that really has helped cut that down. So now it's one video guy and myself. So it's a two man team. Laura: [00:17:59] And then I have a part time assistant that will be here on video day just to you know swap the food, pick up, basically transition from one video to the next while I'm producing the video with the video guy. So extremely barebones. Jillian: [00:18:26] OK how long does it take to shoot one video? Laura: [00:18:29] On average about an hour ish. It really depends on the recipe. Sometimes we have like the banana bread it's like 50 minutes in the oven. So what I do is I just put that banana bread in the oven and move on to the next video and then I come back to it. Laura: [00:18:42] But I pre-produce everything, so the key is in the production part of it. In your organization. I don't just go like, "I think I'll shoot a video today." Laura: [00:18:52] We've really been planning, video day is an investment in my brand because it costs money, a lot. So I also have pre-production days so I outline a script, I read the piece through and through. I know exactly what we're doing. I measure some ingredients you know. Laura: [00:19:12] So a lot of this is really streamlined. Jillian: [00:19:16] Yes. And then who's editing the video? Laura: [00:19:19] The production company my production notes are basically, as my guys call it, like editing on paper. So I edit on paper and then they do all the editing on the computer. How to promote video to your audience Jillian: [00:19:35] And then this ultimately lives on YouTube? Is that right? Laura: [00:19:41] Yes, on YouTube. Jillian: [00:19:41] And then you will repurpose this on your blog and then send this content out in your newsletter? Laura: [00:19:47] Yes. So I create video, the long form, like that three to five minute videos or whatever they get embedded on a blog post and then the post gets promoted in my newsletter. Jillian: [00:20:03] Got it. Laura: [00:20:04] As well as on site online on social media. But my driver of traffic is my newsletter for sure. Jillian: [00:20:12] Wow. So you monetize working with brands, and selling meal plans, and cookbooks. Laura: [00:20:22] Yes although my cookbooks are published by a traditional publisher so if anybody knows, I mean, after the first 10,000 copies I probably make a dollar per book. Being a cookbook author Laura: [00:20:35] Cookbook authors, they really don't make a lot. But I like my cookbooks because they're all my favorite things in one place. And it's nice to have. Jillian: [00:20:44] And also they give you credibility. Laura: [00:20:46] Yes. So. Yes. Thank you. I'm I not a traditional chef or trained cook. I am self-taught in every aspect so I felt like a cookbook would provide me with credibility over an area like family food. Laura: [00:21:05] And now I'm releasing my fourth cookbook in August and it's called the Taco Tuesday Cookbook. Because I love tacos. And so again it's all my favorite things in one place. Jillian: [00:21:18] So you are, like what you've done so well is created a brand around a lifestyle, but you're also, I would say relatable that you recognize this isn't perfect. Jillian: [00:21:35] Like you can aspire to this perfect lifestyle but like you're not living it. You're trying to live it. Laura: [00:21:41] Oh no, it's so messy. I mean it's so messy. And that's one thing that you have to sort of accept. If you go on my Instagram feed. It's not planned. It's not all the same filter. How to find your own style Laura: [00:22:00] I don't do the things, maybe that's why I don't grow as fast? I don't know. But like I don't do those things. I do me, and I do me really well because no one else can do me. Laura: [00:22:14] And I think that's something that when people start out yes, you have to mimic what other people are doing. But you have to do you in all things of your own your life because it's the only way that you're going to be able to stick with it long enough to A. see success, whatever that may mean to you and B.actually monetize. Laura: [00:22:34] You know, you've got to be you. Jillian: [00:22:37] I agree. I absolutely agree. And I think that you are really good at that. I mean you just said it. But it's true. I feel like I know you based on your newsletters. Jillian: [00:22:49] I mean I know you in real life but you're not that different. Laura: [00:22:54] Yeah, I just I want people to read my newsletter and go, "Oh thank God she had a shitty week last week," or you know or she didn't keep it together. She went to Chick Fil A this week. Laura: [00:23:09] You know, I try to kind of talk about the "How does she do it" in my newsletters. Because people wonder, like how do you run a full time business? How did you get there? You know I'm going to be talking more about that. Laura: [00:23:23] But like how do you cook? I cook every night of the week unless we're up at my parents eating dinner or are my in-laws. We have family meal every night and that's a priority for me. How to relate to people in their struggles Laura: [00:23:37] So I also work really hard to relate to people who are who have struggles that I may not be struggling but I can acknowledge that they're struggling in that area. Laura: [00:23:49] So I'm 100 percent honest like, you know what, Jillian, I know what really helps is to pay attention to your life when you can make your life the best life for you, as opposed to live your life through what other people are doing online and try to mimic in their life. Laura: [00:24:08] Because I honestly don't have time to keep up with the Joneses. You know I don't really care what big bloggers doing and what this other blogger is doing. Laura: [00:24:16] You know a lot of times people come to me and they're like, "Did you see all the bloggers copying what you doing?" and I'm like you know what, good for them they're doing them. You know, they're doing their thing. Laura: [00:24:24] Like I know what I have is really special to me and to my community. And so I do me. Jillian: [00:24:33] I love that. Jillian: [00:24:35] That's the end of Part One. Isn't Laura great? In part two of the show we go into how she sells her meal plans using her email list. It's really good. Grow your Instagram followers, Pinterest followers, YouTube subscribers, Facebook followers and email list with the MiloTree pop-up Jillian: [00:24:46] Please come back and if you're trying to grow your social media followers and your email list definitely check out MiloTree.com. It's the app we built. Jillian: [00:24:59] It's growing our social media followers on Catch My Party like crazy. Definitely try it out. [00:25:03] You get 30 days free. You install it on your site. We have a WordPress plugin. We are GDP compliant. We are Google friendly. We are non-invasive but noticeable. [00:25:15] It will really work. So try it out. You have any questions. Just reach out to me and we'll be back next week with part 2. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today my guest is Cristina Auffant from the online party supply store, Via Blossom. In this episode we talk about how to grow a success ecommerce business, and all the ups and downs she's faced along the way. Resources: Via Blossom Catch My Party Shopify My Wife Quit Her Job Ecommerce Influence Simple Pin Media MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How To Grow a Successful Ecommerce Business with Cristina Auffant Host: [00:00:02] Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host,Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today I have as my guest, Cristina Auffant. Jillian: [00:00:20] Cristina and her sister Maggie own a online store called Via Blossom. They sell some of the most beautiful party supplies I've ever seen. So welcome to the show, Cristina. Cristina: [00:00:39] Thank you, Jillian! And what a beautiful intro. Jillian: [00:00:42] OK so a couple of things. We met by sharing a cab late at night. I was flying into a conference. I was in my sweat pants. I looked horrible. Jillian: [00:00:56] And I'm waiting on the taxi line. And all of a sudden you come up and say, "Are you Jillian?" And it turns out we were going to a party conference called Bash, which no longer exists. Jillian: [00:01:13] And you're like, I totally know who you are, in fact I advertise on your site. Cristina: [00:01:20] Exactly. Jillian: [00:01:19] And we became fast friends and now cut to probably five years later. Cristina: [00:01:27] I don't know if I think it was 2015 when we went to that conference. We were lucky to see each other again the next year, that we had time to become friends again. Cristina: [00:01:41] You were the Rock Star of the rock stars in the conference. You were one of the guest speakers. But it was like the best cab ride I could ever. You know it was incredible. Cristina: [00:01:52] I never remember people's faces and for some reason, I saw you in the line and I was like that has to be Jillian. I hope I'm not mistaken but if I am I don't care, because nobody knows me here in Phoenix, Arizona. Cristina: [00:02:08] And I said, "Jillian!" and then you kept on walking and then I said, "Jillian!" And then we ended up sharing the cab and it was like half an hour of you know entrepreneurial talk. So I loved it. Cristina: [00:02:22] And we hung out for the whole conference. Jillian: [00:02:27] And then you guys, you and your sister Maggie reached out to me because I started doing some business coaching. And you guys have been working with me for a year year and a half. Cristina: [00:02:41] Yes. I reached out to you because at the conference, like every piece of advice you gave me was on point. Cristina: [00:02:50] After coming back you know it's true that when you go to a conference, like a lot of things change in your life, and you feel like brand new, and you want to implementing everything you learn. Cristina: [00:03:00] But out of every single piece of advice I received during the conference, I think your advice was what I started implementing right away. And I have always trusted you. [00:03:18] You've always been such an inspiration to me and my sister, Maggie. And everything started working when we start implementing those strategies. Of course like the business coaching, yeah I was thinking, oh I have to call Jillian. Inspiration behind Via Blossom, your party supplies store Jillian: [00:03:41] So let's let's talk about Via Blossom and what inspired you and Maggie to start it. Cristina: [00:03:47] Well it was a very organic. We both had children. I have two, a boy and a girl, and Maggie has two girls. Cristina: [00:03:59] And it was more like when we were planning those birthday parties, especially the first birthday party, is always so important. You want everything to be perfect. It's your dream. Cristina: [00:04:08] You know it's something new. So I started looking for party supplies. And also I remember when Maggie was doing her birthday parties for young girls. She was so frustrated. Cristina: [00:04:20] And I then lived that myself. You know, I was so frustrated looking for everything. [00:04:27] I had to basically DIY a lot of things, took a lot of time late nights, and I was like, "This is not what I wanted." I wanted to find things that were ready to go and were absolutely beautiful for the theme that I was planning for my son in that case. Cristina: [00:04:43] And it took me like maybe five or seven trips to different stores, all kinds of stores not only party stores but all kinds of stores to find what I wanted. Cristina: [00:04:53] And in the end it turned out very beautiful but it was a lot of hard work. And as you know, Jillian, we don't have a lot of time. And our hands are full. Cristina: [00:05:02] We don't have a lot of time time you want something beautiful for your children, but at the same time you don't want to spend hours or trips and gather and like gas driving here and driving there. Cristina: [00:05:14] And I told Maggie. Maggie maybe we should start. And at the same time I saw a big trend in the world, as you know if you go to Catch My Party you're going to find huge inspiration when it comes to parties. Cristina: [00:05:27] The world was changing in terms of the party scene and moms were having more attention to detail when it came to celebrating their birthday parties. Cristina: [00:05:37] So we saw this new trend of like more curated parties, and Maggie and I would say like, OK we're jumping into that wagon and we're going to do a very curated store with like handpicked party supplies and offering amazing party themes. Jillian: [00:05:56] OK. And then you thought were going to start Shopify store? Starting a Shopify store Cristina: [00:06:01] No. Jillian: [00:06:02] OK. Tell us. Cristina: [01:58:08] Unfortunately, no, Jillian. We had every single bump in the road. You know when you hear stories you think that everything was perfect then they're so successful. And it's not the case. It was hard. Cristina: [00:06:16] Jillian, we were inexperienced when it came to ecommerce and platforms. So we we followed the advice of people that we hired and they put us in a very bad platform. Cristina: [00:06:31] Or maybe those were the times maybe Shopify was just starting. I don't know. And we were on a platform that was very limited. Cristina: [00:06:41] Everything was hard on that platform and we decided at some point maybe when we were like a year and a half in business even though we were selling parties pretty well. Cristina: [00:06:51] We were selling from the beginning. So that was a good thing, but the platform was very very outdated and even like printing shipping labels was a mess. Like everything was very hard. Cristina: [00:07:09] So we wanted something more you know up to date. And we hired a graphic designer and a new programmer and they migrated us to Shopify. Jillian: [00:07:18] And how like how was that? At first it was a disaster Cristina: [00:07:21] The migration was a true disaster. And we lost basically all the traffic that we had worked hard for. Cristina: [00:07:29] You know we were working really hard to build traffic and you know to work on our social media and everything and suddenly we had a store that was beautiful but it was in the middle of the desert. Nobody could see the store we were penalized by Google and other algorithms. Cristina: [00:07:51] That's exactly when I met you. Jillian: [00:07:53] Yes. Cristina: [00:07:54] And I told you the whole story and you took a lot of interest in us because we were a little down to be honest, because we were selling pretty well for the first year and then seeing our sales go down, our traffic go down. That was not fun. Jillian: [00:08:11] When you guys approached me you were even thinking of closing the shop. Cristina: [00:08:15] We were yes. We were not going to quit, somehow, but when we were down. You know when we met, when I saw you, when I saw you for the second time, I'm going to say yeah we're a little down. Cristina: [00:08:27] We're down because it was like, wow we have a nice store right. Beautiful graphic design, and a beautiful platform like Shopify which is like right now the Ferrari of the e-commerce platforms and yet what is going on? Jillian: [00:08:44] How did you start crawling your way out? How Pinterest starting bringing sales to their e-commerce site Cristina: [00:08:48] Well you were one of the ways. I'm going to give you credit for that, Jillian. And also I think Maggie and I were like quitting was never like an option for us. Cristina: [00:08:59] We were down but we were like, OK it's going to come up again and we improved the design of the website. And the one thing that we did from the advice that you gave me on the at the conference was like, "Christina, work on your Pinterest." Cristina: [00:09:18] You're going to see the fruit of your work. If you you really really put some time in that. And I only had probably like 600 followers on Pinterest when you gave me that advice. Cristina: [00:09:31] In a matter of a year. It grew to probably 3,000 followers. And not only that, it started producing sales like crazy. Jillian: [00:09:40] Right. Cristina: [00:09:40] And now we're almost reaching 6,000. And you know you don't grow Pinterest as fast as maybe in 2010. You know it's very different now. And still it's working very well, and it's not like we have a hundred thousand followers. We only have about 6000 and they produce sales every day. Using MiloTree to grow your Pinterest following Jillian: [00:10:04] And you have MiloTree on your site only growing Pinterest. Cristina: [00:10:08] Exactly we have it on the blog. And we have Pinterest now, maybe in the future we're going to switch it around and alternate between Instagram and Pinterest. For now, We really want to have it on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:10:23] And I think that the thing that when we started working together my my one piece of advice to you guys was to really figure out who your customer was and what they were coming to your site for. Jillian: [00:10:38] And what we decided was, you are not just a general party supply seller. Cristina: [00:10:45] Yes. And I think that was liberating because when you have a party supply store or any kind of store, you think you have to sell everything you know like everything there is in this specific market. Cristina: [00:10:58] And I think it was liberating to know that we don't need to sell ninja party supplies or we don't need to sell boy party supplies or even a holiday. Cristina: [00:11:10] Like, it was ok. And actually you know as you see our growth we've tripled sales selling girl party supplies and focusing on that beautiful market of very curated girly things and elegant things. Jillian: [00:11:28] Right, yes. And the thing that I kept saying to you guys is set yourselves up as tastemakers. Cristina: [00:11:35] Listening to our customers and what they want and what they like. We decided to sell tissue paper flowers in bundles. And it's been a total success so far. Cristina: [00:11:48] And the same thing with other collections for example are tea party collection. Now we offer a tea party in a box, and we also offer that in other other party themes, and it's become very successful. Jillian: [00:12:05] Right. Because again it's like in the world of e-commerce today, you've got this juggernaut like Amazon and you can find anything on Amazon. How to win in ecommerce against Amazon Jillian: [00:12:16] However why you come to your site to Via Blossom, is because you're going to tell me what I need. Cristina: [00:12:23] That's absolutely correct. Like if you land on our party themes you're going to see that they're very complete and you will find everything that you need. Cristina: [00:12:32] And on top of that we offer bundles which cuts the time to think and combine and coordinate this with that, like it's so simple and the party lines are so beautiful that it's hard to resist. Cristina: [00:12:49] Our customers when they buy. And this is something that makes me feel very proud. They truly put their trust in us. Cristina: [00:12:56] And when you see the average order has increased, the average order value has increased so much in the last year. Because people when they buy, it's over a hundred dollars sometimes and sometimes we've had orders are like ranging in the seven hundreds for parties where everything is from Via Blossom. [00:13:23] And that makes me very proud as a store owner to see like the average price order value going up like crazy because they're finding everything they need they don't have to drive to 700 places. They don't have time. Moms are busy. Cristina: [00:13:39] So you find the place where you can find what you need and see a selection that we're it's coordinated for you and curated for you. We're making their lives a little easier. Cristina: [00:13:53] And at the same time it's so cool to see that the birthday parties are going to be beautiful too. Jillian: [00:14:00] OK so if you were to be talking to somebody who says, "I want to start a Shopify store I want to sell stuff. "What would you say to them? Mistakes people making running an online store Cristina: [00:14:14] Our road has not been straight. And I think for most entrepreneurs that's the road you're going to have it's the hard road. It's not an easy path. You have to work very hard. Cristina: [00:14:25] But the one thing I'm going to tell them that they have to be strategic and they have to start step by step. They cannot do everything at the same time. Cristina: [00:14:35] I think when you start a store you are so overwhelmed and you're wearing every single hat, but you need to prioritize. Cristina: [00:14:42] Say OK if Pinterest is working, you know you need to focus on it. This is something that we've learned from you, from day one is to focus on what works. Cristina: [00:14:51] You know if Pinterest is giving you sales, so why are you wasting your time on Facebook. When that's not probably producing all the sales that Pinterest is producing. Cristina: [00:15:01] So focus on this and give all your efforts to this platform for some time. And then when you feel like you have mastered this platform then you can move on to implementing for example, email marketing. Cristina: [00:15:20] It takes a lot of time for you to become skilled in every single aspect of the business. So you know it takes a lot of thought to become an expert in email marketing. Cristina: [00:15:31] I'm not an expert yet, but we're working towards that goal. Same thing with social media. I'm not going to be the queen in Instagram for now. Cristina: [00:15:40] That doesn't mean that one day we're going to though. You know we're going to double, you know we have like 6000 followers. Maybe one day we'll have much more. Cristina: [00:15:49] But for now Pinterest in our case is the platform that works. Cristina: [00:15:54] People make the mistake when they start, they want to be in every single platform they want to do email marketing they want to do Facebook advertising. They want to do it all. Cristina: [00:16:03] They listened to podcasts, they Google things, they read, they take courses and it's overwhelming. How to work smarter in ecommerce Cristina: [00:16:11] And I think in the end that drains you emotionally, and in the end that you're not productive you're not doing what you're supposed to do you're not working smarter. You're working really hard. But that doesn't mean you're working smart. Jillian: [00:16:27] Yes. Could we talk about Instagram for a little bit and kind of initially how you were thinking about it and then how you think about it today. Cristina: [00:16:37] Yes in the beginning of course on your Instagram it's instant gratification. Like every time you post something a lot of people like it and it's amazing. But then if you look at your analytics that's where the truth comes out. Cristina: [00:16:52] And this is where you are going to realize, "OK, is this platform really working for me Now?" Cristina: [00:16:57] I look at my analytics and this was also advice from you, Jillian. And suddenly we realized that we're not getting the traffic that we were hoping for on Instagram. Cristina: [00:17:08] At the same time you see a lot of people on Instagram like rocking Instagram. They have Insta Stories. They have a lot of followers. They're like Instagram stars. Cristina: [00:17:17] And a lot of us entrepreneurs, we want to become that, but it's not so much the the amount of followers you have. It's if it's working, you know, and that's what we realized. Cristina: [00:17:34] Instagram is a platform that we of course we work on every week and we post frequently, but we're not concentrating our efforts 100 percent on this platform because it's not bringing the sales. Cristina: [00:17:48] So a lot of people want to be rockstars and they are not being business people you know. Like if you're not getting the sales I don't recommend putting a lot of time into, for example, Instagram. Cristina: [00:18:03] You need to work on what works you know you need to focus on what works. Jillian: [00:18:08] Yes. Cristina: [00:18:09] And I think Maggie and I have become very savvy about what works and what is doing well Cristina: [00:18:18] And also we have to recognize when something is not on trend anymore or not as desirable as it was in the past because of some of those collections were hits in the past but not now. Cristina: [00:18:30] So in terms of purchasing inventory we have to be very savvy about what we buy and how much to stock on the inventory you know. How to think about inventory with a Shopify store Jillian: [00:18:43] Right right. And there's always this uncertainty, Will this sell? I don't know. Cristina: [00:18:50] There is always an uncertainty correct. But as you go, I think that anxiety is lower now. I feel like when we buy we know what we're buying more and I think it's because time and experience. Cristina: [00:19:07] You know like you have to have collections that didn't do that well in order for you to learn what does well and what works, you know? Jillian: [00:19:17] Right. One thing I have to give you and Maggie props for and I say this to you guys. So this isn't necessarily new, but what I love about working with you both is that you will take something and you will run with it. Jillian: [00:19:34] I will work with clients and I'll say OK let's talk about your business. And then we come up with an action plan of like wow you could do this or you could do this. Jillian: [00:19:42] And I can feel them freezing, thinking that somehow I have that answer. Cristina: [00:19:49] Yes, resistant to change. Jillian: [00:19:51] Or is it, there's easy things you can do. And yes there are some easy things you can do. However most of it is hard work. Cristina: [00:20:04] Yes absolutely. And thank you for saying that. Jillian: [00:20:09] Because you guys, and this is the other thing. You're not technical. You and Maggie you've taught yourself stuff totally. Cristina: [00:20:16] Yes exactly I think if you don't fail a little, if you don't find bumps in the road you're never going to learn. Cristina: [00:20:25] I don't regret any of the little bumps even the migration, which was a disaster, because you learn and now like any time we were going to invest in something new, we know that we're going to encounter difficulties but we're going to know how to deal with them in a more mature way somehow. Jillian: [00:20:46] Right. Cristina: [00:20:48] Yes, And we're going to deal with them like with a calm mind and say OK let's just do it and fix it and do what we need to do to get it done. Jillian: [00:20:56] Yes. Absolutely. And I think the thing that I like what was really exciting was you guys had this idea, hey you know what we're going to do. We're trying to curate collections but here is like we're going to put together a party in a box. Why you need to run tests with your ecommerce store Jillian: [00:21:14] And we talk a lot about trying stuff, testing testing testing. And you put it together. You put it up and then that first day what happened? Cristina: [00:21:24] It sold out. Correct. It's incredible. Yes. Yes. Jillian: [00:21:30] So we all went, oh my god. Ding ding ding go toward this. Cristina: [00:21:36] Yes exactly and I think it's been the motto, focus on what works and we have been doing that since day one with you. Cristina: [00:21:43] You know since the first day we started working with you, I think that was the first day that you started coaching us you told us you, "You have to put your effort on the things that are working." Cristina: [00:21:58] And I think ever since we implemented this mindset and we changed our minds and we started not looking at what other people were doing. Cristina: [00:22:08] You know not being influenced by anything else or not being overwhelmed, trying to do everything at the same time and taking everything step by step. I think everything started producing you know the fruit that we invested in it everything started working out. Jillian: [00:22:28] Yes. And you guys have been less focused on your competition. Cristina: [00:22:33] And I don't think Maggie and I have been crazy focused on the competition because I think Via Blossom has always had some kind of identity you know. Cristina: [00:22:42] Our style has always been different and that's what we always wanted to do like we always wanted to have something different. Cristina: [00:22:54] My sister especially she never focuses on anybody she doesn't. She's not influenced by people. She's not that type of person and I like that a lot about her. And I'm a little like that too you know. [00:23:09] And so we tried to have a unique story from the beginning but now even more like your saying we try to hyper focus on what is working for us. Why you need to understand your customers and your brand Jillian: [00:23:21] Right. And really understanding your customers and your brand. Cristina: [00:23:24] Understanding the customer, correct. And talking to the customer a lot. Cristina: [00:23:27] I spend a lot of time talking to my customer and I love it. It's so rewarding to see happy customers and sometimes even when there's problems with the post office. We go out of our way to help our customers. Cristina: [00:23:45] And these are the best opportunities for you to become a hero and do everything for them. And they and also to get insight of their shopping experience of the products they are the ones that then send the photos and the happy comments and happy e-mails. So it's so rewarding. Jillian: [00:24:04] What is it like working with your sister and you guys are in different countries? What it's like to work with your sibling Cristina: [00:24:10] It works out very well. We've always been very close and we have always shared. When we were little I'm going to say we shared the same room. Cristina: [00:24:21] Then we went to the same university, to Boston College, and we both got business degrees. So we know each other very well and we are at the same time we're very different. Cristina: [00:24:35] Maggie is very organized very one thing at a time type of person. She is very technical more than me and she focuses on anything that has to do with photo editing, accounting anything that you can do through a computer because my sister is located overseas. Jillian: [00:25:02] She's in the Dominican Republic. Cristina: [00:25:03] Exactly and I am more of a creative. So I work on shooting products. Well the list of things that we have to do is huge. So I'm basically summarizing and you know it's it's just so much. But everything Maggie does she has to sit in a computer. Cristina: [00:25:26] I have I manage a warehouse. And on top of that I have to do you know we have to work with inventory. I take photos, I do photo shoots of products. I have more of a creative role and I'm more in social media than Maggie. Cristina: [00:25:47] But we work very well. Our personalities, they go very well because Maggie is a little bit more serious and I'm more creative crazy. Cristina: [00:25:59] Maggie tells me, "Hey Cristina, you're flying!" you know like put your feet on the ground. Because sometimes I want to do so much and sometimes I get too excited. Cristina: [00:26:09] Maggie tells me OK you know. Yes we're going to do it but you need to be calm and we're going to do it when it's time to do it. You know so it's a good balance. Jillian: [00:26:17] It is a good balance. Cristina: [00:26:19] I feel like sometimes I'm being more creative and I love to listen to podcasts, to know what's the next best thing. I love to inform myself about what people are doing. Cristina: [00:26:30] Not necessarily that we're going to do it all. Like I say like we were going to focus on what works and we are going to do everything step by step. Cristina: [00:26:38] But Maggie you know like she's more technical. Maggie is more type A person. You know she's very organized and she has her schedule you know perfectly designed and she knows exactly what she's doing every day. And I'm a little bit more a free spirit in that sense. Cristina: [00:26:59] It's hard for me to focus more like Maggie. But sometimes you need a person like me to be too. I'm like OK this is a new thing, let's do it! Cristina: [00:27:09] I'm more adventurous and a little more of a risk taker. Maggie is more conservative. Jillian: [00:27:15] Totally. But it's a it is a good balance for you guys. Cristina: [00:27:19] Yes it is. Jillian: [00:27:20] You're the one who dreams up the ideas and Maggie is the one to hold your feet down. Cristina: [00:27:24] Exactly. Yes. And she knows how to execute them a little. You know she can take my idea and say let me see how we can do this. It works very well. Right. Jillian: [00:27:39] And at the end of the day it was an accounting issue when you first started doing it. You had to figure out how to do it and how do you account for it. Cristina: [00:27:47] There's a lot of work. People think that having a store is simple and easy and it's just a lot of different ramifications. A lot of different things that you need to do every single day. Cristina: [00:28:01] You know and this is why you need to really make your time valuable every day. Because we don't have a lot of time. Cristina: [00:28:11] I feel like at this point with the business I feel like if I do one thing and I do it very well I feel good every day. Because before I wanted to do five things every day and then I was very frustrated, like I couldn't do any of them. Or, I did this one and it was I could barely make it. And it's not good. Cristina: [00:28:31] And now I'm different. I feel like OK if I do one thing and I do it very well and I know it's it's going to work for my business. I feel good. Recommended ecommerce podcasts Jillian: [00:28:39] What are some of these podcasts so let's say I am I want to start a store. What would you recommend I listen to? Cristina: [00:28:46] Well if you are going to be in ecommerce. I love My Wife Quit Her Job by Steve Chou and I absolutely love Ecommerce Influence. I think those two podcasts are a very good place to start. Cristina: [00:29:02] The first one with My Wife Quit Her Job he's going to tell you a lot of basic things about starting a business. So it's a lot of very valuable information and also more advanced techniques for business. Cristina: [00:29:17] But Ecommerce Influence. I love it. They focus a lot on email marketing which is one of the things that we're targeting, and that we're focusing on right now, and they focus a lot on Facebook advertising which is something that we're going to be doing in the near future. Cristina: [00:29:34] So those two podcasts are very valuable. Jillian: [00:29:37] That's terrific. Cristina: [00:29:40] And one more podast that I love because Pinterest is working very well for us as an ecommerce business. Simple Pin Media. Jillian: [00:29:50] Oh I love her. Cristina: [00:29:51] Wonderful if you are going to be serious about Pinterest. If you're going to get serious about Pinterest you need to listen to this podcast. Jillian: [00:29:59] I love it. OK. One piece of parting advice... Cristina: [00:30:02] And your podcast, Jillian! Of course, this one is wonderful. I have listened to every single episode and every single person that you bring gives me something new something new to learn. Cristina: [00:30:17] So yes this one of course! Jillian: [00:30:21] Aww. Thank you. OK I need one piece of parting advice and then let people know how they could reach out to you. Jillian: [00:30:27] One thing that you would say. Do this! Cristina: [00:30:35] Yes. You know it's impossible to do everything at the same time. So if you're starting a business you need to to focus on one thing and do it well and also be willing to learn every day. Cristina: [00:30:57] Maggie has become a Photoshop expert. She took a class. And from there she flew by herself and she is doing an amazing job. Cristina: [00:31:07] When it comes to photo editing and even even graphic design she is becoming self-taught graphic designer. Cristina: [00:31:15] I didn't know how to use a camera before starting a business, and now I know how to take photos. You need to learn step by step. You cannot do everything you cannot go on to take a Photoshop class and do Quickbooks in accounting. Cristina: [00:31:34] You need to allocate some time for everything, but you cannot become overwhelmed trying to do it all in one day. You know it's step by step and it's a very very long walk you walk and you need to be persistent. Cristina: [00:31:51] You can't give up but up but I feel like if there is something that is working for you you're getting sales from something, then try to elaborate and make it better and better every day. Cristina: [00:32:05] You know for us for example we have a collection that sells extremely well and it's our Tea Party collection so we every day we try to make that collection even stronger. Jillian: [00:32:16] I love it. All right. How can people reach out to you if they have questions or they want to see what you're doing? Cristina: [00:32:22] OK our web site is ViaBlossom.com and our e-mail is info@viablossom.com if you have any questions. Cristina: [00:32:35] Our Instagram is @viablossomshop and our Pinterest is ViaBlossom. Jillian: [00:32:41] Perfect. I love it. All right. Well you know how much I love you guys. I adore you. I love working with you guys. Cristina: [00:32:50] It's been a blessing working with you. I think we've learned so much. You know the proof is in the pudding, our sales are so high so incredible, we've triple sales in 2017 and we're doubling sales in 2018. Cristina: [00:33:05] So the future looks very bright and I want to thank you for everything you've done for us. Use MiloTree to grow your Pinterest and Instagram followers for free Jillian: [00:33:10] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and e-mail subscribers. Well if you've got two minutes, I've got a product for you. Jillian: [00:33:18] It's MiloTee. Milo tree is a smart pop up slider that you install on your site and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram Facebook YouTube Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:33:34] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code and it's Google friendly on mobile and desktop so we know where your traffic is coming from. Jillian: [00:33:47] We show a Google friendly pop up on desktop and a smaller Google friendly pop up on mobile. Check it out. Sign up today and get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!  

Today I’m back with Part 2 in my interview with email marketing strategist, Kate Doster. In this episode we delve deep into online sales. We discuss how to set up an easy and effective email sales funnel, how to focus on your product benefits, how to write your emails, and how to do an open-close cart launch. If you missed Part 1 of my interview with Kate where we go over why email marketing is exciting and easy, definitely check it out first. Now relax and enjoy how to sell anything through email! I think you’re going to really enjoy this. Resources: KateDoster.com Love Your List Inbox Besties Podcast Teachable Thinkific AccessAlly Marie Forleo Todd Herman MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How To Set Up An Easy and Effective Email Sales Funnel with Kate Doster Host: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hello and welcome back to Part 2 of my interview with Kate Doster, email marketing guru, were we get really deep into online sales. Here we go... Jillian: [00:00:20] Let's talk about sales emails. How to start setting up an email sales funnel Kate: [00:00:22] OK. So when we're actually selling selling stuff. OK. So we had our list of our 200 people we've been talking to, the people who would talk to us. Kate: [00:00:30] We have registered the fact that I use this checklist every time I have to organize my house, because that's what people were really intimidated by that, their whole house was full of clutter and they couldn't get rid of it all. Kate: [00:00:44] Some of it was some kind of mental, some of it is they start going and then they lose steam. So we listen to everyone's problems. We got all of our stuff and run. Kate: [00:00:51] You know what, I'm going to create just a room by room checklist. And it is going to say what to do and how often. So that someone can just say, oh it's Monday, like I need to do this, or I can do this once a week. Kate: [00:01:04] So that's what we're going to do. So we have throughout our email and on our social and on our blog we've been teasing it out, so we can just start with an email and really just explaining the problem. Kate: [00:01:17] And since you talk to your audience or even a friend that's not on your email list, about it. Kate: [00:01:22] "So I was talking to Cindy the other day and she was saying that one of the biggest things that is really dragging her down is that every single time she cleans her kitchen table, it just gets cluttered again, can you relate?" Start by telling the story of the problem you're solving Kate: [00:01:33] It's so frustrating. Like, I just cleaned that and now there's no space to do anything! Which means now they're eating in the living room. So you're literally just like telling a story, guys. Kate: [00:01:43] Which is why I've decided to create, and we can talk about naming things. But The Quick Clean Serenity House Checklist. And tomorrow I'm going to tell you how you can get it. Kate: [00:01:55] Now, this is if you have not been talking about it at all before you sell. I always like to send one of those like pre-sell emails to kind of get the juicing going. Kate: [00:02:04] You know, you've read this story. It was really really interesting. They definitely relate to the main character. You're not necessarily selling, you're selling the fact that you need open tomorrow's email. Kate: [00:02:14] So then tomorrow's emails come and again you shout back from yesterday because sadly not everyone reads all of our emails. We wish. Kate: [00:02:22] So yesterday I told you about Cindy and a kitchen table dilemma. Can you relate? Like a very short summary. Kate: [00:02:27] Well today, I'm going to introduce you to your new best friend, The Superclean House Checklist, which will give you day by day and person by person handouts, so that your house is always as clean as it can be, and you can stop yelling at your family to pick up their mess. Jillian: [00:02:43] Can we pause for just one second. I fall into this trap all the time, especially let's say with MiloTree. Jillian: [00:02:50] Which is, we've rolled out a new feature and I want to tell everybody about the feature, and where I am going wrong is I need to talk about the benefit, not the feature. How to sell the benefits of your product and not the features Kate: [00:03:05] And what's really nice, and we're going to use MiloTree because again, I'm a user and I love it. Kate: [00:03:09] So you know, what you can start with, and this is like in your pre-writing so if you do a Google doc. So say that you can name a new feature and we can actually role play this in real life if you want. So we have this ability where people can do... blank. Jillian: [00:03:27] So people get it, we'll do it in real life. People can pick pages on their site and either turn off their MiloTree pop-up, like let's say it's a sales page and you don't want this pop-up showing up. You can enter the URL and MiloTree won't show. Jillian: [00:03:42] Conversely, let's say you only want to show your pop-up on a certain page. You can have it not show on every page of your site except for the pages you want. OK so that is the feature. Kate: [00:03:56] I actually use this feature. OK. So guys, do this with your own stuff too, especially before you sell. Like OK so we can hide it from appearing on certain pages. Kate: [00:04:16] So that means if someone is on your sales page they don't get distracted. Yes so what. So that means that they stay focused. Yes, right. So that way they buy. OK. So if they buy now, you're going to make more sale. People want more sales and you can keep going and going. Kate: [00:04:33] It's like OK so they get more sales and again you can go like that they get more money and MiloTree is like, paying for itself, like it understands that you don't want someone to join your email list if they're on your sales page because we want to keep people directed right now. Kate: [00:04:50] So maybe, because I'm sure you've gotten this request or you yourself have noticed this as a blog owner and a business owner. Kate: [00:04:57] And why would people want to have it on certain pages. So maybe they have their MiloTree set to a certain freebie that they have to join their email list, and say it is for healthy eating. But they also blog about exercise or like mommy tips, so stuff that's not so relevant. Kate: [00:05:20] So this is really great for our lifestyle bloggers. It's like are they really going to want my healthy eating stuff when they're looking for the best deals on fashion? Probably not. Kate: [00:05:28] So this way you are not annoying the people on your site with things they don't need. Kate: [00:05:33] Now you're showing that you're caring so that you're actually getting targeted people on your list. So that when you have a product to sell, you will be able to sell more because you are actually serving the need they have. Kate: [00:05:45] So literally both times because we deal with usually people who are pro bloggers, and want to make money and not offend their audience. Both of those features now will help you sell more. Jillian: [00:05:56] By the way I love the way you're talking through this to the: "So then what. So then what. So then what." Jillian: [00:06:04] Because I will literally write something and then I'll go back and go. Oh my god, I didn't talk about the benefit at all. Jillian: [00:06:13] And I like that you're pushing me to go deeper, go deeper, go deeper. You know, "well, then what?" Jillian: [00:06:19] And then I do this with my daughter, like she'll have a fear and I'll go. "And then what would happen? And then what would happen?" to show that there aren't really monsters. If that makes sense? Jillian: [00:06:31] But it's that idea of like. "And then what?" And that I don't think I dig deep enough to the benefit. Kate: [00:06:37] Well, and a new way that you could do it. And this way I think would actually love is then like flip it. So in your email you would probably start off with: "New feature, You can now decide which pages MiloTree shows up on!" Kate: [00:06:52] So instead, you could literally be like,"We know how hard it is for you to get people on your sales page and you want them to stay focused, intent and ultimately slap your buy button, which is why now with MiloTree you can decide what pages it's showing up on so we can keep people on track. And you can better serve your pocketbook and your audience. Jillian: [00:07:11] Love it. I mean it by the way I'm going to go back and I will literally write that down. How to figure out the core benefit of your product Kate: [00:07:18] And it's the same with anything, guys, like why does it matter that you have a checklist? So that you don't forget anything. Well so that everything gets done so that you don't have that lingering feeling in her head. So that way you don't think you're done and then have to go back and actually start again. Jillian: [00:07:38] I find it can go even deeper so that I have more time so I have more time with my family so I have more time for myself so that I can be happier in the world. Kate: [00:07:49] That checklist is going to make it so you're not arguing with your kid constantly about picking up. Jillian: [00:07:52] Exactly and in fact at the core is love. Kate: [00:07:56] Exactly. Jillian: [00:07:56] So I can love my kid more. Kate: [00:07:58] Exactly. There's no tension and you can blame a checklist. They're like, "Mom I don't want to do it," then you can be like: "Well the checklist on the wall says you have to so sorry honey." Jillian: [00:08:06] Exactly so. So again it's like going back, going deep to those core things that we all want. We all want to love our families. We all want them to love us. Jillian: [00:08:17] We want to have enough money so that we can be loving our families and not worrying. You know, so it's like I feel like personally I need to push myself further and to really get at what is the benefit behind the benefit. Kate: [00:08:36] Exactly. Or again with the MiloTree feature, we're going to talk a lot about it because we both love it so much. Kate: [00:08:42] To the subscriber, like functionality you don't want it to show on your thank you page because it makes no sense. That you are asking them. To subscribe when they've already subscribed. Kate: [00:08:51] So that's their avoiding embarrassment by not being on the thank you pages. Jillian: [00:08:54] Yes. OK. I love that. This is terrific. Kate: [00:08:58] We can always come back for a whole copyrighting episode. Jillian: [00:09:06] But by the way you are also a coach. I feel like I'm getting free coaching right here. So thank you. Jillian: [00:09:14] OK. So let's go back though to our organizer were where you got into the second email where you're starting to talk. Your second email in your sales sequence Jillian: [00:09:21] You did a recap of the first email that you sent. This is the first time you're introducing your product and you're talking about the benefits. Kate: [00:09:30] Exactly. So again it doesn't have to be like a huge mile long email but you do want to highlight some features. Kate: [00:09:37] So what are they going to be able to avoid. What are they going to be able to gain. How is it actually delivered. That's actually usually like the end of the fact. So it's like you know this is an electronic download so it's instant you don't have to worry about anything on the mail. Kate: [00:09:50] You know you purposely made it printer friendly because while you love those pretty printables you do not love wasting money on ink. Kate: [00:09:59] So a couple of times throughout that email. Usually I'd like to link to the sales page probably about three times. Kate: [00:10:04] So usually when I am saying the product's name because it doesn't need a fancy schmancy name. I will have that just linked directly. Kate: [00:10:13] So like I have my course "Love Your List" so anytime I set an email it's linked. Jillian: [00:10:17] Okay got it. How to set up your call to action Kate: [00:10:18] I have what I call a blatant sort of call to action. So what do you want them to do next. Kate: [00:10:23] Where it's actually like the link and you're like, "Click here to snag your copy." Kate: [00:10:27] Now if this is the first time that you're releasing something. I always encourage people to start a little bit slower. Kate: [00:10:34] So I know everyone is like "Oh don't discount your stuff" but you want to give the people that have been around you the longest. The benefit of like you know guys in two weeks is going to be $19 but since you're already on my list you guys can get it for $10. As a nice reward. Kate: [00:14:00] So the first time you're rolling something out. I always say put it for a little less and then you can raise the price because then it also adds in that urgency. Kate: [00:10:59] So the next email that you send will go right into the series like you first introduce that, the next one maybe you want to answer some frequently asked questions. This can be like a couple of days apart guys. Kate: [00:11:09] I mean it's not because it's just a $19 ebook but you don't have to sell it as hard as you would for like a two thousand dollar program or my five thousand dollar coaching package. Kate: [00:11:18] So what you would then do after that is answer some frequently asked questions that people have. How to speak to someone's buying objections or yeah, but Kate: [00:11:25] It can be a little bit about the printer but it's more so you want to think about your frequently asked questions on how you can disrupt that, "Yeah, but" pattern. Kate: [00:11:35] Yeah but I'm a clutter bug. So you want to answer any frequently questions like. So guys I've been getting a lot of questions and you know your industry about our fancy cleaner set. Kate: [00:11:46] So question: "I'm a complete clutterbug and cannot stay organized to save my life, is this honestly going to help me?" and then you explain about how your system is specifically made for people who do not have the cleaning gene anywhere in their chromosomes. Kate: [00:12:01] Okay so what's another like "yeah, but" question you have? Yeah but, I can't get my family to cooperate which is why we do have as an extra bonus -- the colorful printer copies -- that you can put up in every section of your home to remind you and your children. Did you check off your item for the day? Kate: [00:12:17] And there's even spots for stickers because now we've added that, "my kids won't do this." So this is where you want to use as opposed to like "How much does it cost?" "How many pages is it?" Kate: [00:12:29] That stuff can be at the very bottom of your frequently asked questions. Do you have a return policy? You know, how do I actually get it? Kate: [00:12:36] So you know that's towards the bottom but we want to answer those like key "Yeah but" objections first. Kate: [00:12:46] And the next email after that again depending if you decided to do price increases or not. I always like to give people a free sample of what they'll get because in the online marketing space we like to call it, foreshadowing which is really they're going to see what it feels like to actually have the product. Kate: [00:13:02] So for you guys if it's an ebook maybe it's a couple of chapters, maybe it's one checklist if it happens to be different than your freebie. Kate: [00:13:09] Something, so they actually get ownership. And in that piece of paper that you're giving them that free chapter you're going to want to make sure at the bottom it tells people to go buy the book with a link to the sales page. That way they are not like "oh where did I get this from?" Kate: [00:13:26] So for bloggers, a lot of us now are doing a lot more video courses. That's my zone if you can't tell because I love talking so much, like I will actually let people in my class port platform have like one free lesson. Kate: [00:13:41] So they're literally in the environment they can see the quality of the video they can hear me talking they can download to PDF, but if they click to go anywhere else where are they going? Jillian: [00:13:51] To your sales page. Kate: [00:13:52] And I'm still helping them because I'm still giving them value that other people are paying for. But since it's such a little sliver nobody else who already bought is mad. Jillian: [00:14:01] OK got it. And then you are giving value. Kate: [00:14:07] And then the last one if you decide just to raise your price you can do it. "OK guys so tomorrow it's going to be $19.99, popping in to that, if you did want to save this money" because you've been talking about it for a while now, "it's here. Don't worry guys. I'm not going anywhere." Kate: [00:14:24] Like reassuring people that even if they don't buy you're still going to be popping in their inbox weekly, biweekly if you're really stretching it because I can't tell you how many times I've been on people's list where they'll put you through a sale series like that and then they'll just never talk to you again. Kate: [00:14:41] Or they'll only talk to you if they have like something else to sell and that's a problem. Kate: [00:14:46] Sell like money wise, guys, not like the fact that we're awesome. How to build momentum in your email sales funnel Kate: [00:14:50] So that's just something to think about and again you're not going to do those all the time, but that's just how you can start building momentum and hype. Kate: [00:14:57] If other people had already purchased then take a little screenshots of people that bought, shout them out, just really make anyone who purchases feel really special and go ahead and use those into your emails as well. Jillian: [00:15:11] So a couple questions. So let's say I'm selling a ten dollar product. How many emails total would you put in this sequence? Kate: [00:15:22] OK. Are you doing it like live or are you going to have it like going constantly all the time as well? Jillian: [00:15:26] Well that is my next question, which is this idea of a cart and an open cart and a close cart. And what are your thoughts on that? How to set up an open-close cart email sequence Kate: [00:15:34] OK. So we can definitely talk about that. So something that's small like an ebook, usually I say definitely anything honestly under $100 probably just leave open. Kate: [00:16:19] With those, you do want to make sure that occasionally in your weekly newsletters, if you're sending them in real time, that you are mentioning you have this product because somebody might not have had your first sequence set up when someone subscribed and they might not even know your product exists. Jillian: [00:16:03] Right. Would you mention it in every email? Kate: [00:16:05] Not in every email. If I linked to a lot of like themed months so I won't necessarily come out and say to my list like, oh it's productivity month. I mean in February I did. But in my head I'll have set themes for the month of my email, which is the same as my blog, guys. Kate: [00:16:24] So if I do have a product that relates to that and one or two of the -mails I'll talk about it and throw it in sort of in the PS, like you know, PS if you're really struggling with organization don't forget to check this out. Jillian: [00:16:37] Got it. That's great. Kate: [00:16:38] And then you know, another email in that series if you really thought to yourself, "I  really would like to make more sales of this ten dollar ebook," then maybe you want to feature a student who bought it or someone who was happy or a tag on social media, something like that. Jillian: [00:16:53] So then OK. So if I'm selling a product. Hundred dollars or less. I should keep that open all the time. Jillian: [00:17:01] Now tell me then about open cart closed cart. Kate: [00:17:04] OK so open cart close cart. The reason why I say it needs to have a higher price tag is really if there is a live component. Kate: [00:17:15] So I know some huge bloggers I'm sure if I name their names you've got to follow them, where they have larger courses that are again, that three four five hundred dollar mark and beyond. Kate: [00:17:27] And they'll leave it open all the time but they have more advanced software to like take away the course. Because having just like something for 2000 dollars just like sitting on your site you have people know it's always there so no added urgency to you. Jillian: [00:17:44] Yes. So by the way that concept is called scarcity, and we respond to things when they are taken away from us. It makes us go. And again it's part of like FOMO. Kate: [00:17:56] Exactly, the fear of missing out. Kate: [00:17:58] So like my signature course it is open-close cart. So it is like absolutely everything I positively know about email marketing, writing, copywriting, creating easy yes offers, what I call little digital products, and to that I only open a couple of times a year because I really pour into those students. Jillian: [00:18:17] How much do you charge? Kate: [00:18:20] It's usually $197. But it's going to go up, because that's another thing, every time I launch it goes up. Kate: [00:18:27] Again, start lower. And then just sort of go from there. I'm going to skyrocket it. Jillian: [00:18:33] How many times a year do you open and close it? Kate: [00:18:36] So it is actually just opening in April for right now. Kate: [00:18:40] You guys see this in real time and this is actually its first launch and with nothing y'all. I sold 40 spots though. It can't happen, guys, and MiloTree is ginormous. Kate: [00:18:52] So it's having its official launch in April. Jillian: [00:18:56] Okay wait, I just have to stop. It's KateDoster.com. Kate: [00:19:00] Yep. Jillian: [00:23:40] Just putting a little plug in there. Kate: [00:19:05] Oh I thank you. Yes. So Love Your List and LoveYourList.co. That's the name of the course. So that's opening up in mid April and I think it'll open up again. Kate: [00:19:14] We may have like a pop up sale this summer, but it'll definitely be like closer to like September as well and we'll see how it goes. Kate: [00:19:20] But I have you know, other people call them passive income courses like ebooks I have a set of of email templates that's available all the time that we make sales on every single day. Kate: [00:19:31] My little mini course that took off and I never saw it coming was called Troubling for Traffic. That dude sells every day. Those are our lower priced items but I really poured myself into them, so that when my big things do come up people just buy it. Jillian: [00:19:45] Did you make this course on Teachable? Kate: [00:19:49] I am crazy y'all do not do this. I actually built my own course site using a plugin called Access Ally. Now it is expensive, it is cumbersome and if your'e not good at like web design and like tech or have team members to handle it then I wouldn't advise it. Teachable vs. Thinkific as a course platform Kate: [00:20:09] I did that because I personally like the back end of things but for like 98 percent of people, I will say either go with Teachable or Thinkific, is actually my favorite choice because they will house all your videos, your PDFs. Kate: [00:20:24] They're not as pretty as Teachable but they pay you more promptly, so that's fine. Kate: [00:20:29] I tell all of my students, "Don't do what I did, like it's a headache. It is a headache." Jillian: [00:20:33] Okay, that's good to know. Kate: [00:20:34] Just go to like, thinkific and thinkific you can sell and teachable, both of them, very respectable. You can sell your books through them if you're choosing to. Or you could do something like send owl is another one. Kate: [00:20:46] Get DDP or get digital products that will sell it. But if you're going for any videos that I would definitely go over thinkfic or teachable. Jillian: [00:20:55] Perfect. Great. OK so your cart opens. Could you just briefly go through your sequence for from cart open to cart closed and how long is that window. Kate: [00:21:09] Okay so. Always be testing. That's another fun thing that you guys will find. Kate: [00:21:15] So for this launch of Love Your List, its inaugural technical launch it is eight days. Kate: [00:21:22] I don't know if I'll do one that long as well. But I have been talking about this course and prepping for it for like over a month so I am very very different. Kate: [00:21:35] No offense to others other online marketers out there and that I am a straight shooter like you guys heard that disingenuous comment about "oh send the wrong link so you can get higher open rates" No. Kate: [00:21:44] So like I literally told my list like, this is what I'm doing here. Here are my launch dates. Here's my time. Here's what I'm doing and I'm using it just as a case study to show people and they really reacted to it. Kate: [00:21:56] Now your industries might be a little bit different so you might need to get them in the right frame of mind to be thinking about it. Kate: [00:22:03] So if you are a lifestyle blogger and you are going to sell product and organization for some strange reason there's that crossover then you want to launch the month before. Kate: [00:22:12] Like maybe 4 weeks leading into that, really start sharing content and concepts around what your bigger course is so that way people are in the frame of mind and you're not just slapping them with this offer from no time. Kate: [00:22:24] So that's a prelaunch. It doesn't have to be a lot of stuff, guys. I know a lot of us since we're bloggers we have huge archives so it can just be you revamping old pieces around that topic. Kate: [00:22:34] So like if you're going to sell a Pinterest course then all your Pinterest posts on your blog you are going to make them nice and shiny and you're going to hit that resend button to Google and just make them great. Kate: [00:22:46] And then that's what you can start talking about to your list and then you open your cart. So there's a lot of work if you're doing an open close and it's a higher priced item that goes in before. So that way when the cart actually open it's not as much work. Kate: [00:23:01] And so throughout that launch. Like when the cart is open it is about like building hype and really showing people that they're making a right decision and that they need to be decisive. Jillian: [00:23:12] And so are you sending emails every day? Kate: [00:23:17] Towards the end of cart open I am going to be, but I'm going to be sending at least every other day. Kate: [00:23:25] So like when the way that this particular launch is structured and this is again when you guys get to the stage, don't think you have to do this for a little book and not a little book. Kate: [00:23:35] Your first product, do not do this. OK. Don't be defiant. How to add extra urgency to your open cart sequence Kate: [00:23:39] So what I have in there to add extra urgency and scarcity as we talked about is I have different milestones in my cart open. Kate: [00:23:47] So for example my cart officially opens on a Thursday. Odd I know, but that's the day I picked. Kate: [00:23:50] On Saturday I have a bonus that's going away and I made sure it's really a great bonus that everyone would be like I need to have that. Kate: [00:24:01] So that gives me a reason to email on that Saturday and be like look like this master class that I'm running. It's going away. So if you want it you got to buy it now. Kate: [00:24:11] So that's going away for this particular launch, though not for every launch. I do have the price increase because I wanted to give early birds. Kate: [00:24:18] So there's another reason to email the prices going up and then mid cart on that next Wednesday because my cart closes on a Friday. I have one more disappearing bonus. Kate: [00:24:30] Because what ends up happening, especially if you guys do these live launches is you'll get a lot of sales at the beginning and a lot at the end, in those mid days you might get no sales whatsoever. Kate: [00:24:41] Don't be sad because that happens to everyone. Everyone will say that. And then those last couple of days that's when you're really sending those emails some people sent three times a day. Kate: [00:24:53] I wouldn't necessarily send three times a day to all of my list. I would definitely have like two scheduled and the third one would be to people who I can tell from my email service provider who have clicked on the link and gone to the sales page or whatever reason didn't buy. Kate: [00:25:10] And just like  talk about some things about the "yeah, but" questions like we've been talking about, reiterating them. Jillian: [00:25:17] And I like to call that like friction points. Points where there is friction and you want to smooth that out so that people will buy. Jillian: [00:25:26] Exactly. Because the worst thing that you can send guys is like say your cart is closing on a Friday. You don't want your e-mails on you know Wednesday Thursday and Friday to be like there's only 48 hours left. There's only 24 hours left. There's like 12 hours left. There's only two hours left. That's not a really good selling point. Jillian: [00:25:47] You need to think to yourself why wouldn't have someone bought at this point in time. What do I need to address? Kate: [00:25:53] And that's how you're always going to keep it interesting and fresh that you know one of those emails could be a case study of a student. Kate: [00:25:59] Oee of those could be like we talked about, our sneak peek of the course. One of them could you really be talking about like some other things going on and then you know a couple of them could be like, Oh yeah on the carts closing. Jillian: [00:26:10] What I really like about this is you've got your product. But then you are coming at it from all different angles with your email. Kate: [00:26:20] Yeah the way that I like to think about any product. I don't know how nerdy your audience is but if you guys played, and I got this thing from LifeHacker ages ago. Kate: [00:26:33] If you guys ever played Mario. You know how you get that little flower and it makes you look super big and you could shoot fireballs and it makes you amazing. Jillian: [00:26:41] Yes. Kate: [00:26:42] Your product is the flower but your Super Mario. Jillian: [00:26:46] OK explain that. Kate: [00:26:47] You want to show them how awesome they are going to be after they get your product. Presenting your product as a catalyst to a better life Kate: [00:26:55] You know, like your product is just a catalyst. You are not selling them on your stuff as much as that sounds. You're selling them on the relief and the after. Kate: [00:27:03] Your person is always the star. And yet again you always put your people first in your mind. You'll be able to address those things that you know 80 percent of people who sell the same thing you do don't. So you stand out because a lot of people only scratched the surface. Jillian: [00:27:20] I love that and again it goes back to the benefit behind the benefit behind the benefit. And at the core what you're saying is it's the purchaser feeling good about him or herself. Jillian: [00:27:34] And feeling like a star, feeling like their life is better. They are better their relationships are like everything is like bright and shiny. Kate: [00:27:44] Yeah I know a lot of people tend to come at marketing with like: "If you don't buy those you're like a stupid idiot face and you're gonna die alone and your cat is going to eat your face." That's not the way that I do my marketing at all at all and it doesn't need to be that way. Kate: [00:27:57] Guys it doesn't need to be that way. Jillian: [00:27:59] OK. Right. But it's the opposite. You buy my product. Your life is better you're better. Everything's shinier. You know. Kate: [00:28:08] Exactly. Here's one email that I think most people would never send because people don't typically tell you this sweet insider information for free. Kate: [00:28:17] But you guys all should know, is you need to be able to give your subscribers your audience some forgiveness. Kate: [00:28:26] Meaning not like forgiving them for not buying from you. Not that. For themselves. Because when you address the fact that, "look, I know that you're reading other organizational sites I know that you probably have a garage full of Container Store stuff. I know that I'm not the first person that you have come to to make this problem stick. That's exactly why I created this fabulous organization toolkit the way that I did." Kate: [00:28:53] And then they are like "my goodness she gets me!" Cause. Go figure. The person that gets them is the one that gets their money. Jillian: [00:28:58] Yes. Yes. Kate: [00:29:01] Show them that you get them. You know I always talk about a lot and in my course Love Your List, we talked about treating the symptoms in business you'll hear a lot about people like oh like spinning their wheels like what does that physically look like. Kate: [00:29:13] Well for us you know myself and Jillian, it is people like stalking their competitors websites in the middle of the night in the dark rather than working on their own product. Kate: [00:29:22] That's what spinning a wheel looks like. It is trolling and Facebook groups to answer questions when really they should be working on their own stuff. Kate: [00:29:28] You know what I mean like how does stuff actually show up and you'll just you'll write the best emails ever guys best emails ever. Talk about fallibility in your sales sequence Jillian: [00:29:35] OK so what you're saying is talking to all of our fallibility. From a real place like, I'm confessing in this in this conversation where I fail. Jillian: [00:29:49] So if you say to me I bet you you're not selling the benefits because we all fall in love with our features. I get it. And here here's why. Jillian: [00:29:59] So that all of a sudden I go, Oh she totally gets me. So I'm not a failure. I'm doing this thing and I'm trying but I might not be like hitting the mark. So you're going to help me get there right without being judge-y. Kate: [00:30:12] Yep. You just weren't given the right tools. You weren't given the right methods. But this is going to give them to you. Jillian: [00:30:18] Totally. And to be honest with you I always find like when I can confess my sins. I feel better. Jillian: [00:30:26] And the fact that you're not judging me or making me feel bad, like I should have known this makes me feel good. So oh my god. Kate: [00:30:36] And when you make people feel good. They'll give you their money. Jillian: [00:30:40] Absolutely. Kate: [00:30:42] That's what everyone always says: "You just make it seem so approachable and fun" and like well because it is fun. Jillian: [00:30:46] Right. Great. Kate: [00:30:47] It's just the mentality that you go in there with that brain. Jillian: [00:30:51] It is about if you can lift somebody up. Yeah. Then they will pay you to make you make them feel good. Kate: [00:30:58] And of course you know if you have 100 people on your list, like all of those you know I don't know 70 other people because they you had an amazing close right you know didn't buy like that's fine and guys it's OK, we will still help them. Kate: [00:31:11] We're still going to get more people like that's why I think some people forget like they'll launch one thing once in the like, oh my goodness I can never launch it again because only five people bought out of a thousand. Kate: [00:31:21] Well between now and then you're going to get more than a thousand new people. Jillian: [00:31:25] Right. Right. Right. How often to open and close your cart per year? Jillian: [00:31:27] So so how often do you recommend people open and close a cart. How many times a year? Kate: [00:31:34] I think that it depends really on you and your program. Obviously some people maybe they could tie their courses to different times of the year. Kate: [00:31:47] For example most people tend there's like I'm going to just name names so there's like Marie and she has B School and she just is February. Kate: [00:31:54] I think she's playing a little bit off the fact that like people have New Year's resolutions and January you know February the nice time to start with your business. Kate: [00:32:02] Then you've got some people like Todd Herman who does 90 Day Year and again these are very high priced courses and he does his twice a year, and he does it again like that December where everyone wants to be better. Kate: [00:32:15] And then he does it you know mid year in like June or July. So that way people are like first half of year didn't go that well that's why it's this. Kate: [00:32:26] One of my friends she does hers about three times a year so almost with the seasons kind of avoiding summer. Kate: [00:32:31] But this is where it comes to like knowing your people, like I don't think that I would do a full fledged launch of Love Your List at the very end of November beginning of December. Kate: [00:32:41] Because in my audience, even though my courses are substantially lower than most, people aren't ready to invest that much in themselves then. Kate: [00:32:50] But like October, September is a really great time. You know if you're helping you know PTA parents and back to school moms and that sort of thing, like know your personal cycle. Kate: [00:33:01] And again you make a big hurrah in your house. So how much can your family withstand. I would say do a giant launch you know every single month like that would be crazy. Kate: [00:33:14] You can do little promotions here and there obviously. But usually for big launches no more than once a quarter. So no more than once every three months. Jillian: [00:33:22] Great. Oh Kate, this has been so so rich, so deep. Jillian: [00:33:29] I feel like I have learned so much from you. Thank you. So thank you for the free consulting session. I'm going to literally go back and write all this stuff down. Jillian: [00:33:41] So please share how people can reach out to you how they can learn more about your course. Jillian: [00:33:49] Your blog is filled with really good information. Kate: [00:33:55] All right. So the very first way and the best way to get in contact with me of course you can go to my general website KateDoster.com. Kate: [00:34:03] But I want to make sure since you guys are podcast listeners that you were actually listening to my podcast. I have a weekly podcast called Inbox Besties. Go figure. Kate: [00:34:13] We talk all about email marketing all that goodness. Occasionally we have guest come on. So definitely, right now while you're in your podcast player search for Inbox Besties or just my name and it will show up. Kate: [00:34:24] And I'm sure we'll have a link in the show notes. So you definitely want to get in on that sweet action. Kate: [00:34:28] But if you're worried and you do not know what to send your email list. I have two years worth of e-mail ideas. They work for any industry. They are just prompts. Kate: [00:34:38] If you head on over to KateDoster.com/2years. So literally just the number two. And then right next to it the word years and that'll give you that so you don't have to worry about what to send your list until 2020 y'all. Kate: [00:34:51] Which is pretty exciting stuff to send and that's completely free. My course is called Love Your List. Kate: [00:34:58] And if it's not open right now guys which it might not be, you never know, you can hand over to LoveYourList.co and get on the VIP wait list. Kate: [00:35:07] So I have a couple of extra goodies for people to hold them over through launches. Kate: [00:35:11] Occasionally I will do like a little like pop up like, oh it's going to be coming out like you guys I'm going to one day sale as opposed to the rest of my list. Who wouldn't get that? Kate: [00:35:20] So those are probably the best places to get a hold of me. Kate: [00:35:24] KateDoster.com/2years. And then of course the Inbox Besties podcast. Jillian: [00:35:30] Wonderful. Kate it has been such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much. Kate: [00:35:37] And only scratched the surface like I said, I could literally talk about this all day. Jillian: [00:35:42] We'll do a part two. Kate: [00:35:44] All right. Sounds good to me. Grow your email list and social media follower with the MiloTree pop-up Jillian: [00:35:46] Hopefully this got you really excited about growing your email list. Jillian: [00:35:50] So sign up for MiloTree the MiloTree pop up because you can grow your email list. Jillian: [00:35:57] It's GDPR compliant. And from the same pop up you can also grow Instagram Facebook YouTube and Pinterest. Jillian: [00:36:06] So head on over to MiloTree.com and if you sign up now. You get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!  

Today I’m talking with Kate Doster, email marketing strategist and very fun guest. Kate is here to explain why email marketing is exciting and easy. And I promise that after you listen, you will think so too! The interview was so good, I've broken it into two parts so you don't miss anything Kate has to say.   In Part 1 we talk all about how and why to grow your list, and the best ways to create a real relationship with your subscribers. In Part 2, we'll get into actually creating a sales funnel with emails. I think you're going to really enjoy this! Resources: KateDoster.com MiloTree Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – Why Email Marketing is Exciting and Easy with Kate Doster Host [00:00:03] Welcome to The Blogger Genius podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:11] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today I'm swimming in boxes. We are moving from Northern California to Austin. Jillian: [00:00:21] If anybody is listening to this from Austin, please reach out. I would love to meet you in my new city. Jillian: [00:00:29] OK. For today's interview. It is terrific. It's with Kate Doster. It is all about email marketing. Jillian: [00:00:37] It went long so I'm splitting it in two. You will learn so much. So here is part 1 today. Jillian: [00:00:46] My guest is Kate Doster. Kate is an email marketing strategist and I'm excited to have her on the show because I want to talk all things email marketing, and when I mentioned that to Kate her eyes lit up and she's like, I could talk about it for days. Jillian: [00:01:05] So welcome to the show, Kate. Kate: [00:01:08] Hi. It's true. It's kind of a sickness, guys. It's kind of a sickness. How to make money in the early days of the internet Jillian: [00:01:11] So we have to get into how you started in this space and how you got into email marketing. Kate: [00:01:20] OK. So it's one of those much like yourselves. I had been actually making money online since like the Geocity and Live Journal days so like, we're talking like Netscape browser guys. Kate: [00:01:34] So like roughly forever. So back in that day it was more like a diary thing just kind of see what's going on. Kate: [00:01:41] Almost the way, like social sort of morphed now and primarily the way I was making income back then was I was doing a lot of what's called retail flipping. Kate: [00:01:48] So like I would buy things at discount department stores, usually more higher end, and then I would sell them on eBay. So that's where I first made money online. Jillian: [00:01:56] So what kinds of things were you doing that with? What what kinds of product? Kate: [00:02:02] For that, and I think you'll find this with most blogging in general, the riches are in the niches. So I actually did it with handbags. So it was purses. Kate: [00:02:11] It's really nice. You're not looking for a whole bunch of stuff, like you know the brands that sell really well, you know how much you're going to sell for it. Kate: [00:02:17] So that way when you do see them, and discounts you know at different stores like you know, a T.J. Maxx or Marshalls. Like, is this a good buy to then go and flip. Jillian: [00:02:26] So like a Kate Spade bag? Kate: [00:02:28] Exactly. Jillian: [00:02:29] OK. And was that lucrative? Kate: [00:02:34] It was. I was in college at the time. So for me that it was OK. And I was doing it part time and I made more there than I did at my actual part time jobs so, yes. Kate: [00:02:44] I sourced most of my purses from my part time job. So that is fun. Kate: [00:02:50] And then I was in college and my parents were not very entrepreneurial at the time, and like very like anti-sales and all of that. So they're like you know, go to college. Kate: [00:02:59] They wanted you to get like a 9 to 5 job, like to be a teacher or something of that nature. Kate: [00:03:03] So I went and I got my degree in communication. But like I was the kid that had like 80 million majors and I was in social services for a while, and then I ended up in the banking industry. Kate: [00:03:15] And so along that sort of path, it would just sort of became more like sporadic. And it wasn't my main source. Kate: [00:03:22] So what had happened is back in 2012, when I was at my banking job I became pregnant with my first daughter. And at the time in the United States they could fire you for going on maternity leave. Jillian: [00:03:36] What?!? Kate: [00:03:36] And they did, because it wasn't considered full time and I wasn't there for a year. So like I had been there something like 11 months. Which is why I'll never work for anybody else ever again. Kate: [00:03:49] They would have you work just enough hours where you weren't considered full time, but you were maxed out in your part time hours. Kate: [00:03:57] I believe it's changed in the United States since then, that pregnancy was considered an illness or an injury. And they're like you have three days to come back to work or you're fired. Becoming a stay-at-home mom not by choice Kate: [00:04:10] And I'm like not like laid off, oh no no. It will go down as a termination. So we worked out an agreement, that's why I'm not going to stay the company. So it worked out that way. Kate: [00:04:21] So I was kind of forced into being an at home mom, which was kind of nice but it wasn't what I had expected. Kate: [00:04:28] And then we had our other kid, and you know, life sort of happens and I'm like, I need to use my brain again. Kate: [00:04:34] So I got back online, I started blogging, we started flipping. At that time I had done like a minimalist living blog about how I started to dip my toes back in there. Kate: [00:04:45] My heart really wasn't in that. Jillian: [00:04:49] What is a Minimalist Living Blog? Kate: [00:04:50] So it was a lot of, mindfulness get rid of a lot of your clutter. This is actually pre The Magical Art of Tidying Up. Kate: [00:05:00] You got a little bit before then. And then her book came out and it blew up huge. But, and I'm sure you guys know this, with bloggers, it is one of the topics that my audience wanted me to talk about that I didn't like. Kate: [00:05:13] It's like they all want to talk about like organization and things like that. Kate: [00:05:17] I'm like "the whole reason why I got rid of all my stuff was so that I wouldn't have to do all this." How to become an online copywriter Kate: [00:05:22] And something that I had always really loved and you can just tell from me, I've always been a talker, a communicator. I loved it and I'd stumbled upon a different blog when I was trying to sharpen my writing skills. Kate: [00:05:33] And I found this thing called copywriting, and if you guys had ever watched Mad Men. That's what they did, like back in the ad agency days and I fell in love. Kate: [00:05:41] So I found a really prestigious copywriter and I apprenticed under her, and then my business just like blew up. Kate: [00:05:48] So I took freelance copywriting clients forever, and that's how I made my money and then now I transitioned more into the coaching. Jillian: [00:05:55] By teaching people. Kate: [00:05:57] Exactly. Particularly email marketing because I just I couldn't write another "about" page ever, that just didn't light me up. Kate: [00:06:03] But anytime I had to write an email series for somebody, whether it was selling or just in general, I'm sure we'll talk about that just like that was my medium, and like oh my goodness, I love this. Jillian: [00:06:14] Why? Why do you think it lit you up? Kate: [00:06:17] I think it was because it's a lot of storytelling. Even though you can have long emails and I'm sure we'll talk about the length a little later. Kate: [00:06:25] It was just sort of shorter, and honestly it was more personal to me than even like a general blog would be. Kate: [00:06:32] You could actually let your client's voice show through and tell a story you even have pictures. And I just really loved like the friendly intimate atmosphere of it. Jillian: [00:06:44] Got it. So Ok, then let's now dive into email and what you think. Like if I'm I'm a blogger and I want to sell a product. Jillian: [00:07:02] Let's say I'm collecting a list and by the way, when I ask other bloggers on this podcast what is the one thing that you wish you knew back then, what is it. And I can't tell you how many say start collecting emails start creating a list. Why you want to create a email list as a blogger Jillian: [00:07:21] But a lot of people go, "Well, I'm creating a list but I'm not exactly sure why." Kate: [00:07:27] Exactly. And the way that I like to think of it again copywriter background, is there's a very famous copywriter and he asked all of his students; "If you going to start a hamburger stand what would you want?" Kate: [00:07:40] So everyone's like all the best location, Kobe beef, you know artisanal buns, a sponsor that would shout us out. Now the only thing you need is a hungry crowd of people. Kate: [00:07:53] And that is what your email list is, it's a hungry crowd of people. Kate: [00:07:57] And primarily especially for us bloggers, that is what I consider myself now. I will be pumping out all these blog posts. But so is everyone else out in the world. Kate: [00:08:05] And so what have happening is somebody could end up binge reading like 5 articles on how to plan the perfect party for their five year old. and they might not remember which one was even you. Kate: [00:08:17] But when you get them on an email list. You give them more party advice and we'll talk more about what to send people later. Kate: [00:08:22] You're going to be able to stick in their minds so they remember who you are and they keep on coming back. That's why it's so important. Kate: [00:08:29] And this is why most bloggers end up struggling, because people will land on their site if they're lucky, maybe they'll read one other article. But there's no staying power. Kate: [00:08:38] There's no way to be remembered. Your email list helps you be remembered Jillian: [00:08:40] And one thing that has really changed back from when when I started, which is like 2009, I would go to blogs and I would read them. Jillian: [00:08:49] I'd read them every day or at least once a week and I'd leave comments on the blog. Jillian: [00:08:54] And then with social media and especially something like Pinterest, people are popping into your site and then popping out of your site. Jillian: [00:09:02] I'm looking for a recipe and I end up on a random blog and I like the recipe, but I don't have a relationship with that blogger and chances are I'm going to pop off and maybe pop on to somebody else's. Kate: [00:09:19] Exactly. And you might have really liked say her blueberry muffin recipe, but you might not be able to find that later even in your browser history to see what else she can offer you because you want her recipes so easy and delicious. From MiloTree you can collect email address and social media followers Jillian: [00:09:31] And one thing I just have to say about MiloTree, for example, is you can collect email addresses from it, but one thought is that giving up your email address today is a big ask, so you can start with MiloTree by connecting with people on say, Instagram. Jillian: [00:09:50] But then, if you can get them to follow you on Instagram, you know, that's like a small ask, then ultimately if they come back to your site chances are you can then ask for their email address, and you know build the relationship that way. Kate: [00:10:06] I completely agree. I think first of all, I love MiloTree. That's how we connected guys. I'm a fangirl of MiloTree. What it has done for my Pinterest account, that's primarily how I use it, has been just bonkers. Kate: [00:10:18] I'm sure we'll talk about later. I love MiloTree. Jillian: [00:10:24] But, do you agree that asking for an email address can be a big ask? Kate: [00:10:31] See part of me is torn. If you're just offering updates and a newsletter. Yeah that's a huge ask because nobody wants more I even call it junk mail now. People don't want that. Kate: [00:10:53] But, they might follow you on Instagram because they've got some scrolling to do. Kate: [00:10:48] However, if you are actually offering them a piece of valuable content, something that is a problem solver, we call those either an opt-in gift or lead magnet, that actually solves an immediate problem they have. Kate: [00:11:02] It's not a big ask at all, they are literally so excited to give you their email address because you're solving some type of pain that they have. Jillian: [00:11:09] I love that. Yep yep. So. Okay so I'm a blogger I'm collecting emails. What do I do? Jillian: [00:11:19] And I don't yet know what product I'm selling. But let's say I am let's pick a niche. I am a organizer. Organizing blog like your favorite right. I teach people how to organize. Kate: [00:11:41] Ok, so the very first thing that you would need to do, I think people get very almost obsessed with their list number, but what they don't realize is that just your email list is only one part of like a six part ecosystem that is email marketing. Kate: [00:11:57] And I think that's where a lot of disconnect tends to be. So I just want to make that clear. How to figure out your opt-in bribe or lead magnet Kate: [00:12:02] So once we have decided on a free gift, so say probably some type of printable, so maybe like organizational labels or even like a game plan for people to tackle clutter in their kitchen, like a nice checklist that would be really great. Kate: [00:12:17] So what you would want to do is of course, you can go and look on your blog and see where are people landing on there the most. So what types of post are really popular, that sort of the first set to go. Kate: [00:12:30] Then you'll sort of have an idea in the back of your head, like you know what I'd really like to create something actually around like conquering kids clutter. Kate: [00:12:37] Because all of the posts that are really popular, and where I'm getting all my sign ups tend to be on these posts. Kate: [00:12:44] So what you can do in your emails is just ask people like you know, "What rooms are you really struggling with?" Ask them questions to start feeling some answers. How to presell a product on your blog Kate: [00:12:53] So then, before you actually spend time and sometimes money to create your paid offer, you can do what I call pre-selling. Kate: [00:13:02] Now some people it gets them little nervous. If you're like me, where you're like queen of the procrastinators you kind of need to. Kate: [00:13:10] So what you do is you've been interacting with your email list, you've been checking your analytics. Then, send a message like, "Hey guys. So I'm thinking of creating this ultimate tool kit all about conquering kids clutter so that way we don't have to yell at them constantly picking up their toys and things are nice." Now as you noticed, right there. So we don't have to yell at them and things are nice. That's a benefit of having a clean room. Kate: [00:13:35] Why do people want a clean room? For me, as a mom so I don't have to tell my kids and work out a deal with the hassle. Kate: [00:13:41] You know, "Is that something that you guys would be interested in?" and then if you just got a little bit of a yes back, usually just like you know, "Hit reply and let me know." Jillian: [00:13:53] Ok, I will say this which is I try this. And it is true that my audience does talk to me, but not as much as I would like. Kate: [00:14:01] Then find the diehard fan and go with them. That's usually what I like to say. Kate: [00:14:08] Find those people that are diehard that are interacting with you whether they're interacting with you in social media, whether they're interacting with you in your list, and really dive in and start almost a personal conversation with them via your email not your whole email list when they reply back to you. Kate: [00:14:24] To really get it, because chances are, if they were attracted to you and they're having these feelings and these problems or these issues or even just interests a whole bunch of other people who are being quiet have those same things. Jillian: [00:14:36] OK because I want you to know that that that calms me down, because people always say, "Talk to your list and they'll tell you what they want." And and I will do that and then I get crickets or I get a couple of responses. Jillian: [00:14:51] But you're saying take those responses and dig deeper and set up a call with that person. Kate: [00:14:57] Exactly. That is worth like a gajillion dollars. If that is a monetary amount is just either get somebody on the phone or just really keeping up that open line of communication with them. Kate: [00:15:09] Because, we might think that they want something, but we don't know it until we can kind of get to the reasons underneath it. Kate: [00:15:16] And the other thing that I have to say, particularly with us bloggers, when it comes to creating products, the easiest one that you want to start talking about is something that you can use yourself, or something that you've already accomplished. Kate: [00:15:35] Because, where I find a big disconnect when it comes to selling, especially via email is a lot of people have that, "Who am I to talk about this" mentality. Kate: [00:15:43] We're like, "Oh you know, I don't know enough about knitting or writing." Kate: [00:15:48] I'm not a professional organizer. Like I'm just a mom who hates tripping over stuff. Kate: [00:15:54] So when you go into that mindset with even if it's a, I call it a tiny victory, and you sort of base your product around that, the enthusiasm that you will have, the amount of times that you will tell people about it, because spoiler alert guys if you're just emailing your list once about your paid offer it's not going to work. Kate: [00:16:49] The root cause of when you're deciding to do a product, and after you see what everyone likes that's on your list, you want to ask yourself, like "what results do I have?" Because that's what you can talk about. Jillian: [00:16:25] Got it. OK. Jillian: [00:16:26] So let's keep going. OK. So I'm an organizer blogger. I've come up with a an opt-in which is I'm going to do a checklist for how to clean up your kitchen. Jillian: [00:16:38] And by the way, I've heard this and you can tell me if you agree, your opt-in should be one page like it is not an e-book. It is not something where the person who gets it goes, "Oh my god, I have to now read this whole thing." Jillian: [00:16:52] It should be like quick and easy. Kate: [00:16:55] Yes. You want to do it as digestible as possible. Jillian: [00:16:59] OK. I give away this opt-in and it's working and I'm getting people on my list and I now have big a list. How to start your email sequence as a blogger Jillian: [00:17:09] Would you say I need to actually kind of go, "Yeah, I'm here." What would you say that that should be. Kate: [00:17:15] "Yeah I'm here" as in regularly sending e-mails? Or "yeah I'm thinking of a product"? Jillian: [00:17:19] Let's start with, "Yeah I'm here, I'm going to start regularly sending e-mails," and then "I'm now ready to sell a product." Jillian: [00:17:26] What would you say those should be about? Kate: [00:17:29] One literally number one. If there's one person on your list and it's yourself you need to start emailing weekly. Jillian: [00:17:35] OK. Even if it's just your mom. Kate: [00:17:36] Even if it is just your mom because, think about this. If you're a giant introvert or even if you're not. Do you want to learn how to do public speaking in front of thousands of people or would you much rather it just be your best friend and your mom in the room? Jillian: [00:17:51] Great. Kate: [00:17:52] That's the same way with email marketing. Email a lot while you're small. So that way, by the time you are "bigger," I'm using air quotes and the time you have more of a crowd, you're comfortable in your writing style. Kate: [00:18:05] You're comfortable hitting send, because so many people are so afraid of hitting the send button and getting unsubscribes, it will stop them from even sending emails. Kate: [00:18:13] And people want to read your emails. That's what they signed up for your list starting when you have a one person is the best bet. Kate: [00:18:25] When it comes to selling particularly for us bloggers, I say honestly 100 people. I know as everyone says a thousand. That's not true at all. Kate: [00:18:31] I feel like when you have a thousand when you have 100 people you can start talking to them at that point if you are on any of the email service providers you can have them send you an alert when someone signs up for your list so you can reach out and send them a personal message. Kate: [00:18:47] "Hey Jillian, thank you so much for hopping on the list. You know, don't you just hate kitchen clutter" and just open up a conversation. Kate: [00:18:53] Now, not everyone is going to reply back to that right. But the more that you can talk to people right the more they will feel special, because you have time to give them to feel special and they'll be brand advocates. Kate: [00:19:05] They'll help you make your program and then they're going to tell everyone for you. And you're like "Oh yeah! pre-sales and referrals! Jillian: [00:19:12] What I really like about that what you're saying is do things in the beginning when you're building that are not scalable. Kate: [00:19:20] Exactly. Jillian: [00:19:21] And what I mean by that, if that doesn't make sense, is you're just starting your list you got five people on your list you've got enough time. You can send each one of those five people a personal email. Start sending emails even with a small list Jillian: [00:19:33] Now when 500 people join your list chances are you can't do that when you reach out to each one individually. So take advantage of the fact that you're small and that you can start building these relationships. Kate: [00:19:47] Exactly! And the other thing that I have to say especially about selling products is you need to set some realistic expectations. Kate: [00:19:59] If you're going to be selling a 15 dollar ebook that's a bunch of printables or checklist or organizational kit and you only have 100 people on your list. You're not going to make a hundred thousand dollars. Kate: [00:20:11] Unless you are planning to charge like five hundred thousand dollars. Kate: [00:20:15] But if you're planning to charge something like ten dollars. You know you can kind of figure, even if I make 50 dollars that's still huge at the beginning because then again you're small. Kate: [00:20:26] Reach out to those five people. Thank them so much for buying. Send them a little personalized video. Ask them what they want and then you can add to it which means you can raise your prices which means you have testimonials which means you have more people which means you have more advocates. Kate: [00:20:40] And I wish you could see my hand. It's like this upside down pyramid. You just get bigger and bigger and bigger because of that. Jillian: [00:20:45] Yeah I agree. So yes so here are the advantages to being small and just starting. Jillian: [00:20:52] You know, I am a big believer in like pushing myself off the cliff. I don't want to send. I don't want to press send and I will push myself to do it even. Jillian: [00:21:06] If you get my emails. I wrote about how I've come to embrace typos in my newsletters because it's kind of the cost of doing business. And by the way when I find one, I do, I cringe. Oh my God do I cringe. Jillian: [00:21:23] But I've come to kind of be kinder to myself and say well this is the cost of doing business. Jillian: [00:21:28] You want to be communicating with your list. If I had to wait until every typo was gone I'd send one newsletter a year. Kate: [00:21:39] I am laughing because I honestly made it a game with my subscribers. And like, again I got paid a lot of dollars to write things for people and I still have typos and I still make hundreds of dollars every single day. Kate: [00:21:51] Even if an email has a typo just send it because you seem normal. Jillian: [00:21:56] Totally. And you know it's weird. I read this. You could tell me what you think about this when you write a newsletter and you mess up like the link doesn't work, or you forgot the link or whatever it is you know then you get that second newsletter from that person going like oops sorry. You know that kind of thing. Jillian: [00:22:21] The open rate of those e-mails is higher than the original e-mail because people want to know what happened. Jillian: [00:22:31] They want to know how you messed up. There's you know it's a little bit like, ooh I like that. Oops. Jillian: [00:22:38] You know and so I had read even that it's not a bad idea. Every so often to send that email to mess up on purpose. To send that email apologizing because you get more interaction. Kate: [00:22:51] I personally wouldn't do that because I feel like it's being disingenuous. Jillian: [00:22:56] Yes, I agree. Kate: [00:22:57] Because you're doing something on purpose. But if it happens definitely send that email. Jillian: [00:23:03] Like, embrace it! Kate: [00:23:03] Go ahead. Yeah exactly. Don't feel bad don't try to cover it up don't be embarrassed like just be like "Oh my goodness guys this is what happened" and you'll seem more normal. Kate: [00:23:12] But yeah if that ends up happening where you send them to the wrong blog or the sales page doesn't work or something isn't working. Owning up to it is huge. Jillian: [00:23:22] Yes. And you weirdly might be rewarded for it because you're human. Kate: [00:23:26] Exactly. People buy from people. People like that. Jillian: [00:23:30] I like that. OK so I've got my list and I'm growing it and I'm up to 200 people on my list. What should I be doing? Jillian: [00:23:39] How often should I be sending them emails.? How do I start my sales process? Kate: [00:23:47] OK. So we talked a little bit about that about how you want to be asking your e-mails questions. Kate: [00:23:52] And again even if three or four people are applying that's really good because we want to make sure that we're not creating in a bubble. Kate: [00:23:59] We want to make sure that we're actually making something that not only people want, but that people want from us. Jillian: [00:24:06] And to pay for. Kate: [00:24:07] Exactly. And there's always going to be people on your list that are never going to pay you a dime in your life. Kate: [00:24:14] And I don't want to kick them off or get mad at them because they might be referring you to other people that to pay you. So that's just kind of a way to thank those non buyers on your list. Kate: [00:24:23] They could be spreading the word about you to actual buyers. Jillian: [00:24:26] Could we talk about like what percent you can assume will buy. Isn't it, if you can get two percent of your list to buy your product. You are doing well? Kate: [00:24:39] Yes and is that kind of the rule of thumb. Yes. The reason mine is a lot higher like this is what I do for a living. Kate: [00:24:51] But yes if you're going to anywhere honestly from one to two percent of people usually one, honestly. Kate: [00:24:57] Sometimes a little bit lower depending on the offer and the industry is actually really good. Kate: [00:25:03] It's really good guys. Do not feel discouraged at all. Be happy that you made the sale. Jillian: [00:25:08] So that means, by the way, if you have a hundred people on your list and you're selling a 10 dollar product you might make somewhere between 10 to 20 dollars. Kate: [00:25:21] But you never know because you reached out to 10 people who actually replied back to you and they feel like they've had some part in it like you could do really well. Kate: [00:25:30] But again just don't think you are going to make ten thousand dollars off a five dollar ebook. Jillian: [00:25:35] OK great. What happens when your product launch doesn't work? Kate: [00:25:36] Just to have expectations. So we have all guys it is a rite of passage if you have tried to sell something in our industry they call it launching, but you try to like actually put something out in the world and nobody buys. Everybody has that. Kate: [00:25:53] So I want you not to be sad or disappointed. I mean obviously you can crawl in your bed and watch Gilmore Girls that day if you feel bad when your cart closes. Kate: [00:26:02] But know, that means that you were doing something that 99 percent of the population will never do because they're too scared to take that chance. Kate: [00:26:11] And did it! Give yourself a round of applause. Jillian: [00:26:14] And then yes you can lick your wounds. I do that and then you could say OK what can I learn from this. Kate: [00:26:24] Exactly. And there's always something. You know, Was I emailing at the right times? Was I actually not only just addressing people it really go for like logistical things like price but like, did I address them of the psychological factors and triggers behind that? Kate: [00:26:39] You know, did I paint the picture of how much better life is going to be after this? Kate: [00:26:44] I mean, you're not going to talk like you know the life changing art of a clean living room per se. Kate: [00:26:48] Like did I actually address those things? You know, did I talk about it enough on social media? Did enough people actually know about this like we were just talking? Kate: [00:26:57] If only 20 people saw your offer and you only emailed about it once, well then OK now you know next time you know email than once. Jillian: [00:27:06] Got it. Yep. All right so now I've got my list. I've got 200 people on my list. How often should I be sending emails to my list? Jillian: [00:27:12] How often just in general how often should I be sending e-mail newsletters? Kate: [00:27:19] I say once a week I think I heard an audible gasp. That's only four. Jillian: [00:27:27] Four a month, okay. Kate: [00:27:27] Y'all can handle it, just four. Jillian: [00:27:30] OK, so again I'm an organizer. What are my e-mails about? Kate: [00:27:35] Oh my goodness there's so many buckets that you can use like it's it's unbelievable. This is why I get so excited. Kate: [00:27:41] So of course there's the standard where you could tease out a little bit about what you wrote on the blog this week and send them a blog link, but you don't want to necessarily do that in all four because why would somebody bother. Kate: [00:27:53] So you could again send out just a plain old question to people, like what's the one room in your house that if you woke up to tomorrow and it was crystal clean you'd fall over in disbelief? That's literally your email. Jillian: [00:28:07] Literally that's all I'm writing? Kate: [00:28:09] That's it. That is it. And you can have a PS like at the bottom. "Next week I'll share mine" or "when you reply back then I'll tell you mine." Kate: [00:28:17] So that way you're starting to open lines of communication. It's more friendly. It's going on. Kate: [00:28:22] Maybe then the next week you are going to do some fun finds. So you could do your five favorite organizational tools for garages. Kate: [00:28:31] I don't know. If it's summertime because that will make sense, because it's seasonal so that's it is just five fun finds. Kate: [00:28:38] If you happen to have affiliate relationships check to see if you're allowed to put affiliate links in your emails. Some places you can't. Kate: [00:28:46] I think Amazon you might not be able to. But, you know, obviously double check those as well. Kate: [00:28:51] Maybe you go into a program that's free like Canva and you just create a little tool guide really quick because then you could have your affiliate links in that. Kate: [00:29:01] And you're like, "Hey guys, I know that summer is coming and garages are stuffed full of all that stuff from spring and winter. Here are my top five tools for keeping everything organized especially all that soccer equipment." Kate: [00:29:14] And then you just give them a little link to your PDF that you made and then they're off on their way. And they're like, "Oh this is so nice." Jillian: [00:29:20] Here's the question. Do you recommend shorter emails or longer emails? Kate: [00:29:26] I say, this is a term I got from Ryan Schwartz. Always call your people here. If it's going to be long, which is fine because people read it, don't throw bricks at people. Kate: [00:29:38] Meaning your email could be like a gajillion words but if it's like every couple of sentences you have different paragraphs just like you do with blogging, guys. Kate: [00:29:48] And you have got some bold and italicizing and there's an interesting story that people will keep reading while they're scrolling. So I don't want you to ever be like, "Oh, well I talk too much for email." That's fine. Kate: [00:30:01] People will read it if it's interesting and it's formatted well. Jillian: [00:30:03] Wait. So I'm now just understanding what you mean by don't throw bricks at people. Don't throw big long paragraphs. Kate: [00:30:11] Exactly. Because people are still skimmers and you know think about yourself when you're reading your email on your cell phone like your thumb is sort of constantly going. Kate: [00:30:19] So that's why, if you do have an email that you consider a little bit on the longer side make sure, just like we do in our blogs, that you are using those boldface like so that way people can see the more important points of your email. Jillian: [00:30:30] Got it. So break it up like, use space. Kate: [00:30:34] Exactly. Use space. You don't need to be like having a word count. Kate: [00:30:39] I know some people think oh my goodness "should it be like under 200 words?" Well if you only need 200 words, then awesomesauce. Jillian: [00:30:46] I do this and since you are a copywriter you could tell me what you think. Jillian: [00:30:50] I tend to like to write with a lot of words like "just" and those kinds of filler words. And so I will go back to my email and I will cut all of those words out because I want it to be as concise as possible Kate: [00:31:08] And that is perfect. "Just" is a really good one. If you're using "and" a lot that's something to look at can you make them two sentences. Kate: [00:31:16] The word "that" is actually the biggest culprit of filler language that there is out there. The word "that.. Kate: [00:31:22] Usually you can slice them right down things will flow easier and it will read easier. So that's a great tip. Jillian: [00:31:28] Great. OK. So I do that. I've just started where I go "I don't need all these words" and in a weird way, psychologically I think I use them to soften my power. Kate: [00:31:45] Oooh. How so? I'm intrigued. Jillian: [00:31:47] Just to...Like there! Instead of just saying it, I qualify it. By these softening words. Kate: [00:31:58] You're normal! Congrats! Jillian: [00:32:00] Yes. So I've decided that because in general I want to not be softening what I'm saying. It's also a good exercise for me to fully put my voice out there without qualifying it. Kate: [00:32:14] Never apologize for emailing people unless you sent them the wrong link and you're not apologizing for sending them that second email, you're apologizing for the wrong link. Jillian: [00:32:24] Yes. I like it. Kate: [00:32:25] Like "I know you're busy, but I just want to let you know..." No. Jillian: [00:32:27] Yes. Yes. Kate: [00:32:29] Like you wouldn't say, "Oh I know you're busy but since you have a headache here's the aspirin." Kate: [00:32:32] No they're happy the aspirin is there. Just give them the aspirin people, just give them the aspirin. Jillian: [00:32:36] I like that. I really like that.You don't want to be apologizing for showing up in somebodies email inbox. Kate: [00:32:47] No you do not. Jillian: [00:32:49] Because you don't even want to put the reader in the mind space of like, "Yeah I am really busy and you really are bothering me." Kate: [00:32:57] Like "Oh you again!" Jillian: [00:32:58] Like oh because you told me I should feel offended. I will feel offended. Kate: [00:33:03] Exactly. And when we talk a little bit about actually like sales emails which spoiler alert y'all, every email you send is a sales email. Kate: [00:33:12] Ah shocking I know! Jillian: [00:33:16] So let's talk about it. Kate: [00:33:18] The big things that I preach to everyone who listen to me which is you guys, because I'm in your ear holes. Kate: [00:33:24] You need to sell the fact that even in a content rich email, so that's like one we're sharing a quick tip or even a link to your blog post. Kate: [00:33:33] You are selling the fact that you're an authority in your topic, that you are trustworthy that you are likable, that you are someone that I should be paying attention to. Kate: [00:33:42] You are selling the fact that your stuff deserves a spot in someone's inbox. You're selling the fact and this is like the hugest thing which will just make you love email so much you're selling the fact that you care. Kate: [00:33:55] Because every single blogger I have ever met. And this is why, no offence to every one else. We're the best. We care about our readers so much. It's almost sickening. Kate: [00:34:05] We're obsessed with making their lives better. Whether it's a healthy meal, whether it's having fun painting, whether it's having your party be the best party ever. Kate: [00:34:14] And when you go in with that mindset and you're selling to them the fact that you care they'll feel it guys. Kate: [00:34:19] They will feel it. Jillian: [00:34:21] So that's it. That is the end of Part 1 comeback next week where Kate and I go so deep into how to build a sales marketing funnel. Grow your email list with the MiloTree pop-up Jillian: [00:34:32] And if you want to grow your e-mail list sign up for MiloTree. Jillian: [00:34:37] You can also grow Instagram Facebook YouTube Pinterest all from the same pop up. If you sign up now go to MiloTree.com and you will get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!  

Today I’m talking with Alisa Meredith, Content Marketing Manager at Tailwind, and owner of Alisa Meredith Marketing. If you were wondering how to get started with Promoted Pins on Pinterest, this is the episode for you! We go deep and explain everything! You will learn exactly how to set up your first promoted pin campaign on Pinterest and why it's such a powerful platform to drive sales. Resources: Tailwind Alisa Meredith Marketing DevaCurl MiloTree Some links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How to Get Started with Promoted Pins on Pinterest with Alisa Meredith Jillian: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast by Milo Tree. Here is your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey, Everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, my guest is Alisa Meredith. Jillian: [00:00:16] Alisa is the content marketing manager at Tailwind, which is a company we've talked a lot about on the show. She also has her own marketing agency where she focuses on promoted pins that is called Alisa Meredith Marketing. So Alisa, welcome to the show. Alisa: [00:00:35] Hey, Jillian. Thank you so much. So happy to be here. It was so great to meet you in person finally. Jillian: [00:00:41] I know. We were friends online and then obviously, we meet people in real life. Jillian: [00:00:45] I Remember we talked about hair because your curly hair looks so good. You gave me all your tips, you showed me all your products and we bonded over that from the beginning. Alisa: [00:01:00] We did. But I have been neglectful in following up on this. Jillian: [00:01:03] In terms of how my hair is going? Alisa: [00:01:06] Yeah. Jillian: [00:01:07] Well, I'm getting my hair cut and then, I'm going to launch into the products. I'll send you a photo after. Alisa: [00:01:15] I thought your hair was fabulous anyway. I think that's how the whole conversation started, but I'm anxious to see what you think if you try this method. Jillian: [00:01:22] Yes. Yes. But if anybody wants to know the special curly hair method, just email me and I will share it. I'll share what Alisa shared with me and the special products. Alisa: [00:01:33] Now, what are we talking about again? Jillian: [00:01:35] I know. I know. So let's talk about Pinterest. Pinterest comes up a lot on this show, and you were saying that you discovered it back how long ago? Starting to use Pinterest in the early days Alisa: [00:01:48] It was 2012 or 2013. Jillian: [00:01:50] Okay, and you, like me, loved it from the beginning. Alisa: [00:01:53] Oh, my goodness. Yes. I used to be a terrible bookmark hoarder in my browser. I just found that I never knew where anything was and of course, you never name them properly. Alisa: [00:02:08] Having this visual system to keep all these articles I want them to refer back to or wanted to read when I had time later, I loved it from the second I found it. Jillian: [00:02:18] Totally, for us, my husband is my partner, he's a technologist, I kept saying to him for Catch My Party, please build me something where I can bookmark stuff because then, I would use the content from our own site and blog posts. Jillian: [00:02:32] I never had a place to save stuff. All of a sudden, Pinterest showed up, and I was able to bookmark all of our own content for myself. Jillian: [00:02:39] And then what I realized was it was driving us traffic and then we were like "Whoa, this is weird. This is awesome." Jillian: [00:02:48] That's also why we then built Milo tree because we need to double down on Pinterest. We need to grow our following. We need to grow this because this is a juggernaut for us. Alisa: [00:03:00] Yes, indeed. And you must be really excited by some of the new stuff that came out from Pinterest recently. Jillian: [00:03:06] Like? Alisa: [00:03:07] Like the following tab that's rolling out to everybody. Jillian: [00:03:10] Yes. Can you explain what that is? Alisa: [00:03:13] Yeah, sure. A couple of years ago, if you went to your Pinterest home feed, you would see the pins from just the people you follow in the order like in reverse chronological order so the newest stuff first. Alisa: [00:03:25] Then when smart feed came in, they added all these filters because there was just too much content coming out, and Pinterest wanted to make it a great user experience.They kind of tried to prioritize what they show, when and to whom so the feed changed up a lot. Alisa: [00:03:39] A lot of people love it because you can discover new stuff but on the other hand, some people really miss the option to have that curated follower feed where you could decide what people and which boards to follow so you could really choose for yourself what you want to see. And now, we can do both. Following tab on Pinterest Jillian: [00:03:58] Yes, yes and there's a little tab on mobile. I haven't explored it on desktop but there's a little tab on mobile that says "following," I think, and if you click it, you will see the pins from only the people you follow. Alisa: [00:04:12] Yeah, I don't even have it on mobile yet. I have it on desktop. Jillian: [00:04:15] Oh, interesting. So weird how they roll stuff out. Alisa: [00:04:19] Yeah. And then there's a page on the Pinterest site that I have bookmarked, and I check all the time because they're always changing it. Alisa: [00:04:26] It's Setting Yourself up for Success on Pinterest page, and they've just changed it to let us know that they are sending out our content to our followers first and then based on the reaction of our followers, that's how they decide what should be seen more. Jillian: [00:04:41] Yes. In fact, I was just at a conference and a woman from Pinterest was there, sharing best practices. She said this interesting piece which is Pinterest tests your content. Jillian: [00:04:51] What they do is they show it initially to your followers to see what kind of response it gets. And if it gets a good response, that's content then that they will show to other people. First five pins of the day on Pinterest get priority Jillian: [00:05:04] The other piece of information this community manager from Pinterest shared is your first five pins of the day are prioritized and show to more of your followers. So if you're going to be optimizing your pins, focus on those five pins of the day. I would recommend that that be all of your content rather than pins from other people. Alisa: [00:05:31] Yes, that's a great idea. There are a lot of questions that came up after that was shared. I love that they're sharing more of that kind of deep dive tactical information. Alisa: [00:05:40] But of course, everyone wanted to know what are the first five? What time zone? So I did contact them, and I got a message back from support that it is midnight UTC. Jillian: [00:05:51] And what is UTC? Alisa: [00:05:52] GMT. Jillian: [00:05:52] It's Greenwich Mean Time. Alisa: [00:05:58] Yeah. It's the same thing. Here on the East Coast, we're on Daylight Saving Time. So I think now, we're four hours behind that. So for me, my first pins of the day start at 8 p.m. Jillian: [00:06:11] Got it. OK. So here in California then, it would be 5:00 p.m. Look, I could do that math really quick. Alisa: [00:06:18] Yeah, I did. I'm impressed. Jillian: [00:06:18] So one thing that you focus on is promoted pins. I feel like promoted pins do not get the same kind of attention that ads on Facebook do, and that people don't quite know how to start with promoted pins or what promoted pins will get them. How to get started with Promoted Pins on Pinterest Jillian: [00:06:39] Can you, in a nutshell, explain what promoted pins are, and what the value is behind them? Alisa: [00:06:49] Sure. I think that there's a good reason for that. On Facebook, if you don't pay, you don't get reached. On Pinterest, that's not the case. Alisa: [00:06:55] Pinterest is very generous in giving us exposure for our content. So I think a lot of people can get really great results on Pinterest without promoting. Alisa: [00:07:04] But If you're on a time crunch or you just want more, promoted pins are the way to go because all it is is just an ad but it is a pin that you've already pinned. Jillian: [00:07:16] So it's taking your clientele and kind of accelerating it. Alisa: [00:07:21] Exactly. It has fewer options in Facebook which, to me, is a good thing because it's not so overwhelming. But it does have one really cool feature which we can talk about in a bit but I don't think any other ad platform has. Alisa: [00:07:38] It is absolutely worth a look especially as you know prices start to rise on other networks as it gets more crowded. Fewer people are using promoted pins so there is room to get started. Alisa: [00:07:49] It Is the way it converts too. We know that 97 percent of the searches on Pinterest are non branded which means that people don't come into Pinterest with a preconceived idea of exactly what they want to buy and from whom. Alisa: [00:08:03] You have the opportunity to get into their minds at a much earlier stage in their decision making process which does mean that you have to be a little bit more patient with your ads on Pinterest, but it also means that you have a better shot against the people with the big ad budgets on Pinterest than you may somewhere else. On Pinterest you can get into the mind of the shopper earlier Jillian: [00:08:21] And what do you mean by that, that you can get into their minds earlier? Alisa: [00:08:25] So, when you're on Google or Amazon, you pretty much know exactly what you want. If you're on Pinterest, you're probably a lot of times in the beginning stages of planning for something. You may be planning a house remodel, and you might be looking for ideas on refreshing mid-century modern bathroom. Alisa: [00:08:46] You're not necessarily searching for a Moen faucet. You are searching for those bigger ideas. You can start to get people into your site, learning about your content, get them on your email list long before they're ready to pull the trigger. Alisa: [00:09:01] I mean people do buy from Pinterest promoted pins quite a bit. 1 in 2 have said they've purchased from a promoted pin but you can get in much earlier which is a huge benefit for smaller business. Jillian: [00:09:14] Got it. Let's walk through. Let's say I have an Etsy shop and I sell jewelry. Talk to me about how you would recommend, I used promoted pins. Jillian: [00:09:24] Let's say I'd take a bunch of photos of my bracelets and rings, and I'm pinning them to Pinterest. What would you say to me? How can I increase sales using Pinterest? Alisa: [00:09:40] The first thing to know is that lifestyle images convert at a much higher rate than do straight product shots. Jillian: [00:09:46] Right, so you don't want just that white background. Alisa: [00:09:48] If you look at the fashion pins on Pinterest and especially take note of the ones that are promoted because people are probably spending more time on those, you'll see very few faces. Alisa: [00:09:57] If it is a product like that, you do want to zoom in on it so people can see exactly what it is. You don't have to put the text on the image. Should you add text on your Promoted Pins on Pinterest? Jillian: [00:10:06] Got it. Would you recommend text on the image? Alisa: [00:10:09] It depends on what it is. In this example, we're talking about a piece of jewelry. If it's obvious what it is, no, you don't need that. I think it could be distracting and take away from it. Alisa: [00:10:19] If it's a service offering or something, absolutely, texts on images are really important. For products, not necessarily. Jillian: [00:10:27] Okay, so I've got this photo or this pin of a bracelet that I made, and it's doing well. It's got a bunch of free pins. And people seem to like it so I'm going to say, "That would be probably a good pin to promote." Jillian: [00:10:44] Would you agree with that as a strategy like put it out there first, see if it gets any kind of organic traction and then, choose that as a pin to promote or do you recommend "I'm going to start fresh, new pin and promote it then"? Alisa: [00:11:00] You can do either but I would say that we're probably not looking at the right thing. I would back up a little bit and see which products are converting from Pinterest. Alisa: [00:11:10] I'm not really familiar with the backend of Etsy. I've done quite a bit in Teachers Pay Teachers so I would want to know which products convert well when people come from Pinterest. Jillian: [00:11:21] Like let's say your Teachers Pay Teachers Page. Alisa: [00:11:25] Yeah. And that you can tell pretty well. But if we're talking about Etsy, hopefully, there's a way to do that. Is there? Jillian  [00:11:35] I think there is, that you can see which products of yours are selling. Alisa: [00:11:38] Yeah. Okay. And hopefully, you can tell what source they come in from. If not, you kind of probably have to give your best guess. Alisa: [00:11:47] Generally speaking, I think the lower priced items do better on Pinterest promoted pins if you're looking to get sales immediately. Of course, little impulse buy. Alisa: [00:11:58] But instead of starting from the pin, I will start with the product. Think about what's going to convert. If you then can look at your pins, you have one that leads to that, it gets great engagement, it gets a lot of re-pins, then that's the one I would do. The real value of Promoted Pins on Pinterest Alisa: [00:12:13] The great thing about promoted pins of course is that it's already an existing pin. You promote it. You show it to tons of people. It gets a ton of re-pins. Anyone who clicks on any of those re-pins, you don't pay for the traffic to your site. Jillian: [00:12:27] Wait. Say that again. So explain that. This is where I think the value of promoted pins is really obvious. So explain. Alisa: [00:12:38] If you like a bargain, you want to hear this. When you promote a pin, you are paying to have it shown to many, many, more people. As many, many, more people see it and those many people re-pin your pin, if others then see those repackaged versions of your promoted pin and they click on it, you don't pay for those clicks. Jillian: [00:12:59] Great. So I've got this pin of my bracelet. You like it. You pin it. So it shows to you. I pay for it to show to you. Then you re-pin it. Jillian: [00:13:12] It's now in your Fabulous Jewelry board. And then somebody, your friend or whomever is following you, sees it there and they click on it. And they even end up on my shop. I'm not paying for that. Best bargain on Pinterest is Traffic Campaigns Alisa: [00:13:26] If you're using a traffic campaign, though that's where you get your best bargain that way, yeah. Jillian: [00:13:35] Okay, so versus what is it like, conversion, like where there's actually a purchase. Alisa: [00:13:40] No. The other options are you can pay for awareness. That one, it can generate re-pins but I find the best bargain overall is with traffic campaigns. Jillian: [00:13:52] Got it. Alisa: [00:13:53] Yes. Awareness really is just to get it in front of people. You're not paying for any action on it. You're just paying per impression. Alisa: [00:13:59] You c an pay for an engagement ad which I thought this will be good because I thought maybe I can increase the number re-pins for very little money and then, get clicks from that. . Alisa: [00:14:11] In My experience, and please try everything because it might be different for you, but in my experience, what I ended up paying for were close ups where people click on the pin and look at it enlarged, and then nothing else happened. Jillian: [00:14:24] That was when you were paying for that with engagement. Yeah. So engagement, you're paying any time somebody clicks on the pin but doesn't necessarily go to your site. They're just looking at it. Alisa: [00:14:33] Yes, so I always stick with traffic campaigns. Now, I tried to make that work for me but it just didn't. Jillian: [00:14:41] That's interesting. So I am going to promote this pin, my bracelet pin, and I'm going to do a traffic campaign so it just gets shown to more people. Alisa: [00:14:52] And you're paying for the clicks only. Jillian: [00:14:54] I'm paying for the clicks only so it's being shown to many more people than the number of people clicking. Alisa: [00:15:02] That's right. And so in effect, you're getting awareness on top of it. Jillian: [00:15:06] That's terrific. And then what do you recommend? Do you recommend a follow up pin? What else would you put in that stew? Alisa: [00:15:18] Okay, so what you could do with that, let's see, you have just the bracelet. I think for a product like that, a standalone promoted pin campaign can work really well. You don't necessarily have to get into a funnel if you're selling a piece of jewelry. Alisa: [00:15:35] What you could do then on top of that is you could build another traffic campaign where you're targeting people who engage with that pin. How to target people on Pinterest Alisa: [00:15:47] And here's why that might be cool: if you target your promoted pin by people who have engaged with it, and bear with me because I may have to say this twice, you could say "I want to target people who have not clicked on this pin. They've done something else with it but they haven't clicked on it." Jillian: [00:16:09] Clicked on it, meaning to see a big version of it or to actually go to my site? Alisa: [00:16:16] Close up. Click would be going to your site. I can then target anybody who has engaged with any version of that pin. Alisa: [00:16:27] So if I take, I have the bracelet product page URL and I'm going to say, "Okay, Pinterest, I want to target anybody who has engaged with my pin but has not clicked yet. This is the pin, whatever pin it is, has to lead to this page." Alisa: [00:16:42] So Pinterest will go out and find every version of every pin of the links to my page. It doesn't have to be something I pinned. It could be something you pinned or somebody down the street or somebody across the world. Alisa: [00:16:56] I can now target people who have engaged with my content even if they don't follow me or they didn't click on my particular instance of that pin. That's the one that I don't think is available on any other network. Jillian: [00:17:12] Wow. Okay, so back to that bracelet pin, if you pinned it, somebody sees your pin, had enlarged it, done a closeup of it, I can then target that person who doesn't follow me, who's never seen my account on Pinterest but I can then target that person? Alisa: [00:17:32] Right, because basically, what you're doing is saying, "I know this person showed some interest in this pin or one of the pins that goes to this page at some point but they didn't click on it to go to my website." Alisa: [00:17:43] So now, I want to hit them with a pin that takes them to my website. Jillian: [00:17:47] Wow. That's terrific. And how much are we talking about in terms of paying for promoted pins? Alisa: [00:17:56] Right. It's an auction like Facebook is. So it depends on your targeting and the competition of your targeting. You don't have to spend a ton of money. How to set up an ad group on Pinterest Alisa: [00:18:09] When I set up a campaign, I will typically set up multiple ad groups inside of it. Those ad groups will be separated by what kind of targeting I'm using. Jillian: [00:18:19] Is that the same? Explain what that means. Are you using the same pin but targeting different groups with it? Alisa: [00:18:25] Yes. So typically the way that I organize a campaign is the campaign will be for one product or one article. Underneath that campaign will be the different ad groups which are divided by targeting types. Alisa: [00:18:39] I might have one that's targeting by search keywords. I might have another one that's targeting by visitors to my site. I might have another one that's an act like audience of some audience that does really well for each of those ad groups. Alisa: [00:18:56] I would never want to try to make it work with less than five dollars a day. Because it will take forever to figure out if it's working. Jillian: [00:19:07] Exactly. And I just wanted to go over that again which is so we've done some for MiloTree. We've done some paid promotion on Facebook and Pinterest. Jillian: [00:19:17] And it's this weird thing which is you just put five dollars in per day. What you're really trying to do is learn. Jillian: [00:19:25] At five dollars a day or less than that, it's really hard. Your stuff is not going to be shown very much. What you're trying to do is get data. So in a weird way, you do want to spend upfront so that you can learn quickly. Alisa: [00:19:41] That's right. You have to consider too that even if it doesn't convert really well right away, you are building a re-targeting audience so that you can later on target people to that page because they saw your pin or you can use re-targeting on Facebook because now, they've been to your site. It's a little bit of an investment upfront. Jillian: [00:20:02] Yes. Let's say, you create a campaign and in it, you've got the same pin but you're targeting different audiences. You would put at least five dollars toward each of those pins, each of those audiences? Alisa: [00:20:23] Yes, absolutely. I typically will have a lot more than that. Usually, you have 12 to 14 because I also separate it out by mobile and on desktop. Because your cost per conversion can be so incredibly different. Jillian: [00:20:45] Interesting. What do you find because, do people buy on mobile? Alisa: [00:20:48] Yes, they do but it depends on your product. If you have a SaaS product or if you have a software product, people are probably going to find it on desktop. Jillian: [00:20:59] MiloTree, for example. We get very few conversions on mobile. You're not going to sit there on your phone and be optimizing your pop up. Almost all of our conversions are desktops so when we have run ads, we only target desktop. Can you get sales on mobile on Pinterest with Promoted Pins? Jillian: [00:21:17] If I'm a jewelry designer, could I get sales on mobile? Alisa: [00:21:21] Oh, totally and just talking to my ad rep at Pinterest, she shared with me that it doesn't matter what industry you're in, the vast majority of the conversions, the sales are happening on Apple products like your iPhone and your iPad. Jillian: [00:21:39] How about like Apple computer or does she mean more mobile? Alisa: [00:21:43] She's talking more mobile because Pinterest is so mobile. What we promote a lot of times is somewhat unique. We're not selling a physical product. Alisa: [00:21:52] For physical product, you're going to probably get a lot more on mobile but you might find it super expensive, and you still get a few on desktop, I would try it anyway. Jillian: [00:22:04] So you are now promoting to 12 to 14 different audiences at five dollars a day. Alisa: [00:22:10] Yeah. Jillian: [00:22:13] That is an investment. Alisa: [00:22:14] It is but you know what? I'm a bargain hunter. No one knew this about me. Jillian: [00:22:20] I like that. Alisa: [00:22:21] Because I told you to find some products on Groupon. Jillian: [00:22:25] Groupon. Totally. You just have to say the name of the hair products just so in case anybody sees. Alisa: [00:22:29] Yeah, Diva Curl. Jillian: [00:22:31] Diva Curl. Alisa: [00:22:36] So if I had an Etsy shop and I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, "No way", can I do 12 ad groups at five dollars a day for a month to figure this out? Alisa: [00:22:46] I totally understand that especially if you had 10 products you wanted to promote. It's just impossible. Alisa: [00:22:53] So there are two different ways you could do this. One way is you could create a promoted pin that had a whole collection of items that you wanted to promote. Jillian: [00:23:03] Within the pin? Alisa: [00:23:05] Yes, like a collage. That can work really well. Pinterest even recommends a strategy having multiple items in an image because it appeals to a much wider range of people when they see it. Jillian: [00:23:17] That makes a lot of sense. Alisa: [00:23:19] Yeah. And then, that's a way to really figure out what kind of audience is going to work for you without having to manage and pay for 10 different campaigns. Alisa: [00:23:29] You just have one and then, the pin would lead to a page where you would have all those items very easily purchased. Alisa: [00:23:38] Target does this really well. In my presentation for Social Media Marketing World, I showed a pin that they had of two different dining room setups and then if you click on that pin, it takes you to all their dining room setups. Alisa: [00:23:52] So you could do that in the pages. It's basically a catalog page with just all items that's easy to buy, easy to put in your cart. Jillian: [00:24:01] So I make bracelets. I have a variety of bracelets in a collage. I put, let's say, three bracelets and I link it to my bracelet page. So instead of just those specific products, I could link it to some sort of catalog of all of my 20 bracelets. Alisa: [00:24:21] That's right. You could do that. So that's one way to kind of keep the cost down when you're just starting. Alisa: [00:24:28] The other way is to try to prioritize your ad groups, prioritize what kind of targeting you're going to try. Different way to use Pinterest targeting Alisa: [00:24:37] There are a bunch of different ways you could target. You could target by broad match keywords which is basically Pinterest looks at your keywords, matches them to a prescribed interest and serves them up in the home for people they think might be interested in it. Alisa: [00:24:53] That's one way to reach strangers. You can also use phrase in exact match keywords which only will show your pin when somebody searches those terms. Broad match vs. exact match on Pinterest Jillian: [00:25:04] So broad matches exactly what it says which is if it's an exact match, you would have to say pearl bracelet. Somebody has to be searching for pearl bracelet but if it's a broad match, it could be some other type of bracelet or just the word "bracelet" like some sort that Pinterest knows. Alisa: [00:25:26] No. Jillian: [00:25:26] Okay, tell me. Alisa: [00:25:27] What you just described is exactly what you would think. And that's what I thought too. But then I exported some of my promoted pin campaigns that were just using broad match keywords, and I found that they were showing up in the home feed. Alisa: [00:25:43] And I said to Pinterest "What's this about?" Because I thought it would be people searching these broad topics. They said "No, it has nothing to do with search." Jillian: [00:25:53] Wow. That is different than Google ads, just so you know. Alisa: [00:25:57] I think it's different than everything. Jillian: [00:26:01] Definitely look into that. Broad match is not what I think it is. Alisa: [00:26:04] It is not. Jillian: [00:26:05] So broad match means it's going to show up in somebody's feed that they're not searching for bracelets. Pinterest thinks you might like bracelets so my pin's going to show up in your feed. Alisa: [00:26:16] Yeah, and they do have good reasons to think that. So they can look at the boards that I create the pins, that I engage with and think that person might be interested. Alisa: [00:26:23] But I ran an experiment, and the results will not surprise you. So I did two sets of 74 identical ad groups, same pin, same descriptions, same everything. Alisa: [00:26:34] The only difference in the two sets is that one, I used broad match keywords; the other one, I use the phrase in exact match type keywords. The phrase in exact match converted at 60 percent higher into sales. Jillian: [00:26:51] Interesting. Alisa: [00:26:53] The broad actually gave me, I think, it was two thirds more re-pins which makes a lot of sense because it's searching what you are going to buy. People who are just interested are probably going to save it for later. Jillian: [00:27:07] Exactly. They are higher up in the funnel. Alisa: [00:27:12] Yeah, which is fine. There's value in that as well. Jillian: [00:27:16] That's interesting. Alright. So sorry. I had taken you off the path. Alisa: [00:27:20] I know. We kind of had to go there because it was confusing to me as well. So we have our broad match, our phrase and the exact match. So those are how we can target strangers really easily. Alisa: [00:27:38] If I were going to do like three ad groups to start, I would probably do one that's phrase and exact match. Then I would do a visit or audience. Alisa: [00:27:47] So, depending on how big your email list is, you can just target people who went to any page on your site or you can really break it down. Alisa: [00:27:55] On Etsy, I don't think you can do this unfortunately because you can't put the pixel. If you think you're ever going to want to run a promoted pin ad, do this now. Alisa: [00:28:07] So go to your conversion tracking in Pinterest ads, grab the pixel, put it on the header of every page of your site. What that does is allows Pinterest to collect information on people coming to your site. Alisa: [00:28:21] You can even break it down by "I want to target someone who went to this page" or this list of pages but didn't go to this page, and that's how you can create a funnel once you get enough information. Alisa: [00:28:33] The tricky thing about Pinterest, of course, is it's not as big as Facebook or Google. So audiences that are below 100,000 in size, it can be difficult to scale. Alisa: [00:28:45] So for an Etsy seller , it's probably going to be tough to scale that kind of audience. Jillian: [00:28:52] So what you're saying is that you need at least a hundred thousand visitors? Alisa: [00:28:57] Yeah. Jillian: [00:28:57] To your site. Alisa: [00:28:59] Yes. Jillian: [00:29:00] Is that per month or there's a total? Alisa: [00:29:02] No, you can set the time frame. So when you create your audience, you can put in - I want to target people who've been to my site in the last, and it goes up to almost two years, I think. Jillian: [00:29:12] Wow. But remember, those people who came to your site two years ago are much less valuable to you than the people who came yesterday. Alisa: [00:29:19] That's right. Jillian: [00:29:22] So this might not work as well if you are a small shop, a small Shopify store, let's say. Alisa: [00:29:33] Getting into Etsy mode, I'm still going to stick with the phrase in exact match keywords. That's going to help us reach a new audience and then, it might make more sense to try to do an engagement audience. Alisa: [00:29:47] So, people who have engaged with pins that go to your site. Particularly if you have a lot of re-pins out there. You're probably going to get a bigger number that way and then, what else would I want to do? Alisa: [00:30:01] I think in that case where you don't have a lot, like you don't maybe have an email list, we'll say you don't have an email list, you don't have much of a visitor list. Alisa: [00:30:12] Phrase and engagement, and maybe try the broad match keywords. So that would be my three I would start with. Targeting your email list on Pinterest Jillian: [00:30:29] Okay. Now, if I do have, let's say, I happen to have a big email list, tell me what I could do with that. Alisa: [00:30:36] You could upload it and target those people who ever Pinterest could find. Jillian: [00:30:42] That's pretty interesting. I'm collecting emails on my site, let's say. So if I've been an Etsy shop member, I can't collect them on Etsy but let's say, I have a blog, which I highly recommend you do, that links to my Etsy shop. Jillian: [00:30:54] On my blog, I can collect email addresses. Again, you can do it with MiloTree. You can do it with a whole host of tools. You can give content away in exchange for their email address, whatever. Jillian: [00:31:06] Let's say I've got 40,000 email addresses. Alisa: [00:31:12] Awesome. My first question would be is it segmented at all? Jillian: [00:31:16] Let's say, and what that means is like I've tagged certain groups like maybe I collected a group of e-mails who loved my How to Clean Jewelry free content or something, like I know these people are interested in jewelry. Jillian: [00:31:33] I know this group is interested in scarves, let's say. Maybe I have added tags to those different emails, email addresses based on where they came from, how they got on my list. Alisa: [00:31:46] Yes, you can upload each of those separately. That's a different audience so then, you target smarter. Jillian: [00:31:52] So I've got my jewelry list, I've got my scarves list. Alisa: [00:31:55] You probably have a customer list too. Jillian: [00:31:58] Yes, definitely, who have actually made purchases. Alisa: [00:32:01] Every time you come out with a new item, you can promote that to them. Jillian: [00:32:05] So then I am going to upload these email address lists and then Pinterest is going to say "I know people's email addresses who are on Pinterest." Jillian: [00:32:15] If there's a match, if somebody is searching on Pinterest with the same email address that I have, I'm going to show them that promoted pin. Alisa: [00:32:25] That's right. Jillian: [00:32:27] And if they've purchased from me in the past, then chances are they might purchase from me again. And so I will put that in my, let's say, purchase email list, target and those people are probably the most valuable to me. Jillian: [00:32:42] That is incredibly cool. How have you found that working? Alisa: [00:32:47] It depends on the quality of the email list and what you're promoting. I always try everything. That's where I would start with the three. Alisa: [00:33:00] I would start with just a few to keep your budget down and then after a month or so, look at whichever one is not working as well as the other two. You can turn that one off and try something else. How long should you run ads on Pinterest? Jillian: [00:33:09] Okay. That's my question. How long does it take to learn? Alisa: [00:33:39] Count on about twice as long as other platforms. Jillian: [00:33:18] Because like Facebook, I've heard at least run them a week. Alisa: [00:33:20] Yes. I would go more than that for Pinterest. Jillian: [00:33:25] So you would go up to four weeks? Alisa: [00:33:28] You can tell in a couple days if it's just not going to get any impressions and then, you try something else. But as far as waiting to see about sales, yeah. Jillian: [00:33:37] And the one thing that I struggle with, I see my results, my early results, I want to get in there and I want to start mucking around. I want to start. It is hard. Jillian: [00:33:49] I want to let you know it is hard to watch that money going like you are spending. Every day seeing your bank account go down, and you're going, "Oh my God. It's just not working." Jillian: [00:34:02] I want to get in there too early and start turning ads off, turning ads on. And I kick myself. I really have to not look, force myself not to look at my results because my human nature is like I could figure this out. Bleeding money, how do you deal with that? Alisa: [00:34:24] I have the same issue. I mean if you're on Etsy, too, it's really hard because you're not seeing the conversion data. Alisa: [00:34:32] So on a site that you own, you can install pixels that will allow you to tell which promoted pins and which targeting is actually resulting in sign ups, resulting in purchases, resulting in add to cart, all these cool things. Jillian: [00:34:48] Can you explain what that means? Alisa: [00:34:50] Yeah. So when you install that conversion pixel on your site, all you're able to do at that point is basically track clicks and also keep track of the people who go to your website. Alisa: [00:35:05] So in your Pinterest ad dashboard, you're going to see conversions but you don't really know what that means. Was it converted to a click through to your website? Was it a sale? What was it? Alisa: [00:35:17] But if you do a little more advanced tracking, which I highly recommend for people who are going to spend a lot of money on promoted pins and/or who have a lot of products to sell and you really can't do it on a site like Etsy or Teachers Pay Teachers. Jillian: [00:35:32] Right, because you don't own that. Alisa: [00:35:35] So you'd want to do it on a store that you own. Unfortunately, I know that's not one of the options for everyone but if you can do that, then when you go to your ads dashboard, you're able to see over time what targeting does to impact your sales. Jillian: [00:35:51] Right. So when there is a sale, Pinterest can determine whether that sale came from that promoted pin so you're going to actually see, "Oh my God. I spent $20 on an ad but it drove $50 in sales." Alisa: [00:36:12] That's right. Jillian: [00:36:13] And that was good. That's worth investing more money in. Alisa: [00:36:18] Right. You can also do it with UTM codes. In Teachers Pay Teachers, they have a dashboard where you can see where the sales come in and you can see if there's a UTM code used. Alisa: [00:36:29] We can kind of figure it out that way but ideally, you want to be able to see it in the Pinterest ads dashboard if you can. I'll tell you what happens to me when I go in there, I had to do a little test to calm myself down. Alisa: [00:36:44] But when you go in and look, it'll be like a month ago, things were going along pretty good. And then, the last two weeks or so, it just tanks. It looks like you got no sales at all. Alisa: [00:36:56] But if you're patient and you wait a week or two and then you go back and screenshot that exact same time frame, you'll see the conversions were good all along in the past because of the way Pinterest tracks the conversion. Alisa: [00:37:12] If you saw the bracelet pin on April 1st and maybe you re-pinned it, then on, let's say, April 15th, you did a Google search and you ended up on that same bracelet page, then you bought it, Pinterest looks at that sale and says, "That was because of the promoted pin." Alisa: [00:37:35] It attributes that to April 1st, that day you acted on the pin. Not to April 15th." So on April 15th, you're looking at your ads dashboard and thinking nobody bought anything that day, but they did. It was just on April 1st to get credit. Understanding sales on Pinterest using Promoted Pins Alisa: [00:37:50] Got it. Jillian: [00:37:50] It's crazy but that plays into our little panic. Alisa: [00:37:55] Is this really working? Should I change it? Do I need to turn it off? Try to give it time. Go into it. I like how you said it's about learning so make a commitment that you're going to stick it out until you learn something. Jillian: [00:38:09] Yes. And a couple of other things: one, UTM parameters. I just want to say what they are. It's a unique URL. So I've got my URL to my bracelet. And then what I can do is I can add some code beyond just the regular Etsy URL that makes it a very specific URL. Jillian: [00:38:30] If somebody buys from that URL or comes to my site via that URL, I can get data on that specific URL which is going to land me on the same page, the same bracelet page but it's going to look different. Jillian: [00:38:44] I can tell where my traffic is coming from which is how you would describe it. If you don't know how to set up, Google it. Alisa: [00:38:52] It's really easy. You're right, and that's how we use it for Teachers Pay Teachers. But the limitation on that is if they don't purchase in that moment when they're using that UTM code, we aren't able to capture the sale. Alisa: [00:39:07] So if there's any way you can put that conversion tracking in that event tracking pixel on a website you own, that's what you want to do. Jillian: [00:39:16] Okay. Here's the other thing: Tell me if you think this is true which is you want your data to direct you to what is working. Jillian: [00:39:26] However, there are other times where, for example, we were running Facebook ads for MiloTree. We could not connect exactly how that sale came to our site but when we were running ads, our sales went up. Alisa: [00:39:44] Yeah, and I think a lot of people do it that way. Jillian: [00:39:46] So it's like it wasn't this direct. You want to be able to say ,"Wow, I read this ad. This ad led to this many sales. I can see that direct line. I could see the conversion pixel." But sometimes, the story is murkier. Alisa: [00:40:05] That is so true. Jillian: [00:40:07] So this is where by getting in there, experimenting and trying, you start to get a sixth sense. Do you agree? Alisa: [00:40:15] Yeah, I do. Jillian: [00:40:17] And so when you can't fully determine it, you have to look at it and say "Wow, I started ads on April 1st. My sales went up." I don't know. I can't tell you why or how that happened but they did so I'm going to keep running those ads or you can then do an experiment, turn off the ads and see if your sales drop. Alisa: [00:40:41] Yeah. And I think that's why it's important to not change anything else. If that's what you're relying on, then don't turn off your Facebook ads. Leave it all running to leave everything the same so you only change one item, and that's how you know it's working. Jillian: [00:40:57] And this is another piece of human nature that I fail this test and I have to like literally tie my hands. Jillian: [00:41:08] I wanna start changing more variables and then gets me in trouble because you want to only test one change at a time so that you can identify, "It was this, and I want to get in there and start changing audiences, whatever." And I then learned nothing. Jillian: [00:41:29] So I've spent a ton of money. Maybe I've gotten sales. Maybe I haven't. But at the end of the day, I know nothing. Alisa: [00:41:34] I know, like easier said than done. I totally understand. Jillian: [00:41:38] So if in fact, you're in this situation and you're like me in that you want to know immediately, you don't want to be kind of bleeding money, just know that your instincts are probably not going to help you. They might hurt you. Alisa: [00:41:53] Right. But over time, like you said, you will start to intuit it what's going to work, what is working and you'll be able to trust that a bit more. Jillian: [00:42:02] Exactly. Again, we talked and you were talking about promoted pins, do you recommend them? I am a small Etsy shop, and I sell bracelets, should I dig in, spend the time learn how to do this? Is it worth it? Alisa: [00:42:18] Yes, you should. Particularly, if you have tried advertising elsewhere and in it, the price has gone up. Alisa: [00:42:29] I wouldn't say if you've tried elsewhere and nothing works and you don't get any sales, then maybe there's a problem with the pricing, the presentation or something but if you're feeling priced out of other options for sure or if other things are working, you just want to try a new audience, yeah. Alisa: [00:42:46] You know your people are on Pinterest. You know you're getting sales from Pinterest. Yeah. Jillian: [00:42:52] And that is a really good point. I mean Pinterest's audience keeps growing, keeps evolving but if you are in that sweet spot of women who love beautiful things, who want to remodel their house. Isn't food like the number one category on Pinterest? Alisa: [00:43:11] I think so. Jillian: [00:43:15] Go where your people are. If they're not on Pinterest, don't advertise on Pinterest. But if on Facebook, there probably is that audience on Facebook Alisa: [00:43:26] Yeah. So if you know where your traffic comes from, if you know where your sales come from and you're seeing it's coming from Pinterest, obviously it's a good bet for you. Jillian: [00:43:36] Wow. I have learned so much. Jillian: [00:43:38] Dissect this with me: We ran two ads on Pinterest for MiloTree. They were traffic campaign ads which is what you recommend. One led to a blog post, and one led to our sign up page in our homepage. Jillian: [00:44:03] Our pin that led to a blog post, it was something like 10 Ways to Grow your Instagram Followers. It performed so much better than our pin and I think it was the same pin. Would that make sense? Alisa: [00:44:25] No. Jillian: [00:44:25] I know, then it was different pins. That's where, again, I have too many variables. The one that was like grow your social media followers, an email list or something that was more general that led directly to our home page did not perform anywhere near as well as our 10 Tips to Grow Instagram. Alisa: [00:44:42] Well, that didn't surprised me but let me ask you another question first. Jillian: [00:44:45] Go. Alisa: [00:44:46] When you say it didn't perform as well, what do you mean? Jillian: [00:44:49] Clicks. Alisa: [00:44:50] Okay, so what you really want to look at is conversions because if you think about it, people are going to click because they want to learn about 10 ways to make their Instagram better. But, does that mean that they're necessarily going to sign up your email list or sign up for your products? Not necessarily. Alisa: [00:45:06] You have two steps when you're doing that. They have to click on the pin. They have to go to the blog post, and they have to convert whereas if you're promoting a landing page with a sale sign up, definitely put a pin, they have to sign up. Alisa: [00:45:18] You have removed a step in between. I would guess that even if you got far fewer clicks to the landing page, you're probably still overall converted better than the blog post. Jillian: [00:45:29] Interesting because I think you're right. This is back, I don't know, maybe a year ago where I wasn't sophisticated to know this, and I was just looking at clicks. I have to check to make sure we have our conversion pixel on. I think we do. Alisa: [00:45:46] Okay, but remember, you can have your conversion pixel in there. It's tracking clicks. It's tracking traffic but you need to set up your event tracking in order to figure out what's really converting. Alisa: [00:46:00] It's going to depend so maybe your blog post converts amazingly well, the sign ups and then, that would be great. You should promote that. Alisa: [00:46:10] Maybe you could have a slide in for converting to sales. If your landing page converts ten times better than your blog post, then send them there. Jillian: [00:46:20] That's where I want to send them. I was just actually talking about Facebook funnels. What is your thought about setting up Pinterest funnels versus, I'm just going to advertise my bracelet? Are there Pinterest funnels like is that a thing? Sales funnels on Pinterest Alisa: [00:46:39] Yes, absolutely. So if you had a huge amount of traffic, you got a huge amount of engagement, you had just massive numbers going on, you could create a funnel exclusively in Pinterest. Alisa: [00:46:52] You could target a person who went to this blog post and then, target them with an ad that goes to the next blog post which is bringing them further down in the funnel. Alisa: [00:47:04] And then you could target the people who clicked on that pin with another ad that brings them to a landing page. So you could do that kind of all on Pinterest funnel if you had a huge audience. Alisa: [00:47:18] But, for most of us, what we're going to do for a funnel instead is to get them from Pinterest to our website to our e-mail list and then, we can work from there. Jillian: [00:47:28] So it's a way to drive email sign ups. Alisa: [00:47:32] Yeah. Jillian: [00:47:33] I'm just taking notes because this is so good. Jillian: [00:47:37] Okay. And then therefore sell them. The relationship that I can build once they've signed up for my list. Alisa: [00:47:43] That's right. Yes. Jillian: [00:47:44] So the final conversion probably then wouldn't happen on Pinterest. It would happen via the connection that we built. Alisa: [00:47:51] That's right. But if you had your event tracking set up on Pinterest and the conversion happened within a set period of time, you would be able to see that in your dashboard. Jillian: [00:48:00] Can you explain? So that means that Pinterest is watching, listening or tracking is a better word so that if in fact you've clicked on my pin, you've gone to my site and then ultimately, let's say, I put it for 30 days. 30 days later, you make a sale. Jillian: [00:48:17] I make a sale. You buy my product. Now, it might be that you're getting emails in the short term because I'm reaching out to you and telling you about my product. You make a purchase. Pinterest will say "Aha, that sale came from that pin." Alisa: [00:48:35] Yeah, that's right. I love the way that the Pinterest does that. It's not always that last touch attribute so it doesn't have to be that the last time before they bought was that they were on Pinterest. Alisa: [00:48:46] It's them kind of helping you see how it fits into your larger sales cycle. Jillian: [00:48:53] I love that. Alisa: [00:48:54] Yeah, me too. There are limitations though. Certain browsers will remove that tracking information, and certain ad blockers will remove it. Alisa: [00:49:01] You have to figure it's under reporting a little bit only because there's no way to get that information. Jillian: [00:49:08] And this is again where you get that sixth sense, and you start to like go ,"Well, I am getting sales even though it's not exactly showing me the direct path but there's something working there." Alisa: [00:49:25] That's right. Jillian: [00:49:26] Oh, gosh. We are going to have to do a part two to this because what I'm going to do is I'm going to use this information, and I am going to run some more ads, some more promoted pins and then I would love to check back in with you. Go over how that worked. Alisa: [00:49:46] It's a date. Jillian: [00:49:47] Is that a date? Alisa: [00:49:48] Yeah. Jillian: [00:49:48] And anybody else who wants to try, start with the first, the basic stuff that Alisa has talked about. Jillian: [00:49:56] Add a very simple campaign where you are doing a traffic campaign, you're targeting very few audiences, you're going to do five dollars a day and you're going to start collecting information. Jillian: [00:50:14] Start at your site, start at what is already selling and start promoting that. And in terms of imagery, do you then try different images and see which one of those is the best? Alisa: [00:50:31] Yes, you do. There are some suggestions for promoted pins like you should use a little bit of subtle branding so either your logo or your website. Then, you want to put it at the top, the bottom, in the middle so it doesn't get covered up by all the buttons. Text on image if it's not clear what it is. Alisa: [00:50:52] If you want to test images, you can put more than one image inside an ad group just like you do on Facebook. Alisa: [00:50:58] However, it does not test for you. On Facebook, if you have two ads in an ad group, it will figure out which one works best and show that one more. Pinterest, unfortunately, that does not work at this time so you could find that your pin that isn't doing very well is getting all the impressions and not converting; and the other one that maybe could do really well isn't. You have to break it out. You have to do two different ad groups. Jillian: [00:51:27] Got it. There is a lot of branching. I'm willing to dig in. Alisa: [00:51:35] Yeah, which is probably why you start with one or two products. Otherwise, it becomes unwieldy. Where are Promoted Pins on Pinterest heading? Jillian: [00:51:42] Totally. Where do you see promoted pins going? Alisa: [00:51:45] I love where they're going. They just released a brand new reporting dashboard which I adore. Alisa: [00:51:52] Because, the way that I run pins, I might have, like I said, 14 different ad groups. If I want to see what's working with this one piece of content, now, I can just search for that one piece of content. It will pull everything out of all the groups. Alisa: [00:52:05] It shows me everything I need. Love it. So their reporting is top notch, and they've put a lot into that. I appreciate that. Alisa: [00:52:14] The other thing that I can see coming is more targeting. We have some really great targeting options now but I think they're going to give us more because they learn so much about us. Alisa: [00:52:28] They learn so much about us that they could do more. Alisa: [00:52:31] They've been talking about doing like column personas so targeting like new parents, people getting ready to move or people in certain life stages. I'm anxious for that. They've been talking about that for a while. Jillian: [00:52:45] And are they look alike audiences? Act alike audiences on Pinterest Alisa: [00:52:47] Yeah, they call them "act alike." So, if you start running an audience ad like to your email list, and it's doing really well but you're just not getting enough impressions, definitely try an "act alike" on whatever audience works. Jillian: [00:53:00] And again, the beauty of that is that Pinterest understands your email list and then can create an audience that looks like your email list but isn't your email list and usually, that audience is bigger. Alisa: [00:53:14] Yes, it's always bigger even if you choose the one percent similarity. Jillian: [00:53:18] It's so true. Alisa: [00:53:19] 720,000 people or something big. Jillian: [00:53:23] Exactly, and like for me, I have found that's the power. That was the power of Facebook for us. It's the look alike audience . I haven't tried that yet on Pinterest. Alisa: [00:53:31] Yeah. I think that the challenge there, that what I have seen, is if you have a really tiny source audience. Alisa: [00:53:37] Let's say, your email list converts or works really well as an ad but it's only 3,000 people. So then if you're asking Pinterest to match your 3,000 with 720 million on their platform, that's a lot to ask. It may not be completely relevant. Alisa: [00:53:59] What I would do if that was the case, if I had a small audience source audience, I would add on top of that a couple of keywords. I try to make it a little bit more relevant for people. Jillian: [00:54:10] So you're kind of telling Pinterest here's my email list, and Pinterest is inferring stuff from these people. Jillian: [00:54:19] Let's say they're all married. Pinterest now knows that they're all married but if you say crafts or jewelry, then you go "Pinterest now has two pieces of data." Jillian: [00:54:32] They know that audience is all married, and they like jewelry so when they're building their audience for you, they can at least have more information. Alisa: [00:54:42] Yes, I like to give them help because that's a lot to ask. Jillian: [00:54:45] It is a lot to ask. That's terrific. And then explain how people can reach out to you like via Tailwind. Jillian: [00:54:52] Remember, Tailwind, again, we'd be lost without it. It's our scheduling service. We use it for Pinterest. We use it every single day. It's terrific. Definitely check it out. Jillian: [00:55:06] So how can people reach out to you via Tailwind or via Alisa Meredith Marketing? Alisa: [00:55:12] Yes, you can reach me on Twitter. It's a great place to find me. It's just @AlisaMMeredith. That's the same on Pinterest, Instagram. Tailwind, you can reach me at alisa@tailwindapp.com. Jillian: [00:55:29] Awesome. Well, Alisa, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm taking notes. I've got like two pages of notes just talking to you. Alisa: [00:55:38] I'm so excited to see what you do. Jillian: [00:55:41] Yes, I will be reporting back to you. Alisa: [00:55:42] Thank you. Jillian: [00:55:43] Alright. Thank you again. Alisa: [00:55:45] Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you. How to get free followers on Instagram fast Jillian: [00:54:55] Well, if you’ve got two minutes, I’ve got a product for you. It’s MiloTree. Jillian: [00:54:59] MiloTree is a smart popup slider that you install on your site, and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:55:14] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code, and it’s Google friendly on mobile and desktop. Jillian: [00:55:27] We show a Google friendly popup on desktop and a smaller Google friendly popup on mobile. Check it out. Sign up today and get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today I’m talking with Maggy Woodley, founder of the blog, Red Ted Art.This is a fascinating conversation where Maggy shares how to be successful on social media. Maggy has built an enormous presence with over over 2.2 million Facebook followers, 406k YouTube subscribers, and 376k Pinterest followers. She also shares the pros and cons of each platform, and why even with such large followings she still cares a lot about (search engine optimization) for traffic. Resources: Red Ted Art AdThrive Kid Blogger Network Group Bloggy Buddies MiloTree Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How To Be Successful On Social Media With Maggy Woodley Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast brought to you by Milo Tree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey guys. Welcome back to the show. Today, I'm excited. My guest is Maggy Woodley from the blog Red Ted Art. Now, she's been blogging since 2010. She is also an arts educator. Welcome to the show, Maggy. Maggy: [00:00:28] Thank you so much for having me. I love your podcast. I've been listening to it recently. It's really, really informative. Thank you. Jillian: [00:00:35] Oh, thank you. So we've met about a month ago. We've known each other online. I was just looking through one of my Pinterest boards, my group boards and we're on group boards together. Jillian: [00:00:50] We just met in person at the AdThrive conference. I got to sit next to you. You were so lovely. Maggy: [00:00:57] Thank you. It's so nice to have a long chat to you. I love the conference. It was great, and it was so lovely to meet people in person and connect. That's brilliant. Jillian: [00:01:07] Yes. You flew all the way out from the UK to Austin, Texas. Maggy: [00:01:13] Yes. It was so worth it. Nothing beats face to face contact and kind of, like you say, we've known each other for a while online and then suddenly, the penny drops like "Oh, yes. Of course.". Jillian: [00:01:24] Right. Maggy: [00:01:24] Yeah. That's brilliant. Jillian: [00:01:25] Thank you for being on the show. And I want to hear about your story because I'm going to say it, you are a big blogger. You have a big successful blog. Jillian: [00:01:38] To start off, I want to hear your story. How did you get into this? How to accidentally fall into blogging Maggy: [00:01:43] I guess like many bloggers, eight years ago, I was home with a toddler and a baby. I kind of knew that I didn't want to go back to my day job but I knew that I needed to do something to keep myself busy and keep my mind stimulated. Maggy: [00:02:07] I needed something that belonged to me and also something that brought in a little bit of money, not lots of it, so I could contribute to the household and feel like I didn't have to go back to work. Maggy: [00:02:16] I would not have that pressure to go back to work. I actually started off with selling kids' pop art. That's actually where the name Red Ted Art comes from. The blog actually came second. Maggy: [00:02:27] It was this pop art I was selling first. One of these pop art pictures is actually a red teddy . That's where the Red Ted Art comes from. The art was tacked on because redted.com was already taken. That's how the name came about. Jillian: [00:02:48] And were you selling these things on Etsy? What were you doing? Maggy: [00:02:53] It was mainly through word of mouth or going to local craft fairs, that kind of thing. To be honest, I was competing with things like Ikea. It's wonderful, but there's something handmade vs Ikea selling it for five pounds, $10 or whatever it is. Maggy: [00:03:11] It's quite a lot of pressure if you're kind of trying to sell something handmade because you wanted to be really good but by definition, handmade is never going to be what you think is perfect. For other people, it might be. Maggy: [00:03:24] I set up the blog because I was told at the time that if you wanted to sell anything, you needed an online presence. I was building a website. That actually never went live but I was putting a website. Maggy: [00:03:37] Whilst I was building the website, I decided to do the blog. It was quick and easy. It was a really quick way to go online. I thought "Wow. I can't just talk about here's another painting, here's another picture, here's another drawing." It's really boring. Maggy: [00:03:51] There's a sales mantra that I'm sure everyone's familiar with which is in order to sell something, you have to give something away for free. Give them something for free and then, in return, try and sell to them. Maggy: [00:04:02] I was just doing  little craft posts because that's fun, it gives me something to do with the children, it's easy, I enjoy it and I've always love crafts. I kind of created my first two, three craft posts. Maggy: [00:04:18] This is much more fun than doing pop art paintings where it's stressful, and you're trying to sell, I need to get it perfect, that kind of thing. I kind of quite quickly saw that actually, the blog was more fun and less pressure. Maggy: [00:04:33] It involved my children because I was working with them at the time. When I was a child, I used to love crafting. As a young person, I was a crafter and as a young adult, I crafted as well. Maggy: [00:04:47] I kind of found my way back to a passion of mine without even realizing that that's where I was going to go with it. Also, very quickly, my hits are slowly going up. This could be something. Maggy: [00:05:02] That's basically how the concept of the blog was born. It was probably a good six months or maybe three months into blogging that I realized I like blogging. I didn't go into blogging thinking I want to blog to make money. Maggy: [00:05:17] I kind of went into blogging as a sort of a bridge to a website. I never launched the website because it is rubbish, and I didn't want to sell the pop art anymore. I just stuck with the blog and haven't looked back since. Jillian: [00:05:30] Wow, I love how, again, you went in one direction and discovered a whole passion that was kind of sleeping. Blogging advice: Just start! Maggy: [00:05:40] Yes, for me, I mean it was just amazing and perfect. Whenever people ask me now, "How do I start off? How to do this? How to do that?" I always say "You know what? Just start. Just go to where life's going to take you." Maggy: [00:05:52] And in the early days of blogging, I did do like a lot of other parenting bloggers, I did have some book reviews and some days out. It was always many crafts. Maggy: [00:06:00] I've kind of experimented with other things but I always came back to crafts. That was very clearly my strength and my passion. Maggy: [00:06:09] I think those people who are trying to start out, just start because you'll quickly find what you like and you'll quickly enjoy that you do this. Does that make sense? Without trying, you're not going to find that part. Jillian: [00:06:23] Absolutely. Maggy: [00:06:23] And I'm so grateful that I tried, and I found this. Jillian: [00:06:27] Yeah. I mean I think it is all about discovery. It is all about putting it out there and then seeing how you respond to it and how other people respond to it. Maggy: [00:06:40] Exactly. There's no shame in starting something and changing direction. It's just I think especially in the early days, you have to give yourself some time to experiment, maybe for six months to experiment. Maggy: [00:06:50] After that, I do think you have to start knocking down though, and going for it because I've seen some very talented people over the years, starting blogs and then rebranding two years later, rebranding two years later. Maggy: [00:07:02] That's quite difficult because you're always starting afresh. I do think once you get going, it's good to stick with it. Jillian: [00:07:09] Okay, so now that you have been at it and you've grown this big business, how similar is it today? How often are you creating crafts, and how do you stay motivated? Maggy: [00:07:21] Yeah, it has changed significantly. In the early days, it was about my children and it was about me and obviously my children featured it in a lot. Maggy: [00:07:33] Then they started school. They came home from school, they were tired , they didn't want to craft and I didn't want to make them. Maggy: [00:07:40] So I'd wait for them and then, I'd wait for the weekend. They still didn't feel like it and then something like, "Oh no. I need that next blog post. What's going on?" Maggy: [00:07:49] For me, it was a transition period from having always had my kids in it and it being about us. And in that sense, being a personal blog about crafts. Transitioning into a craft blog Maggy: [00:07:56] I did make that transition into being a blog about crafts but not always child-made. That was difficult because up until then, I always felt that children should be driving it and then suddenly, it became this whole adult-made versus child-made. Maggy: [00:08:16] I don't know if you're aware of the debate but people often debate "is it alright for an adult to share a child's craft that no child has ever made before?" Once you kind of rap your head around that, then it just kind of took off from there if that makes sense. Maggy: [00:08:30] So it has changed but just because my family life has changed. I think this is what a lot of blogs do because we changed and our children change. Maggy: [00:08:38] Our home changes and in some ways, our story is still wrapped up in that even though it's much more about me now than it is about the kids. I don't think that's a bad thing. I just think it's different. Jillian: [00:08:51] Right. Again, I think that when you are a blogger, your blog is part of your life. I always say, "I'm so curious. In five years, what our businesses will look like?" Maggy: [00:09:05] I have no idea. No idea. Things changed so quickly on the Internet as well, don't they? Jillian: [00:09:13] You discovered social media pretty early so you are very big, for example, on Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest, I'm assuming. So how did you then get onto social media early? Maggy: [00:09:30] Okay, I'm glad you think I got on early because I remember when Facebook first came about, I was a bit baffled by it. I confess. I didn't understand why you would have a page on Facebook. In some ways, I was slow to make that switch. Maggy: [00:09:47] And then when suddenly, again, the penny dropped about how you use social media, then when other things come along like Pinterest and Instagram, I was like, "Oh, actually, you just need to go and run with it." Maggy: [00:09:59] And then also when you then start seeing the traffic coming from the social media platforms, you suddenly saw why somebody saw the value of social media. Maggy: [00:10:08] Now, mostly, I am a massive social media convert. I totally get it. I totally get that you need to do it. That's such a huge traffic driver. But if I'm being really honest, in the very, very early days, it took me a little while to kind of get it. Maggy: [00:10:24] I was lucky enough that that was a long time ago. I mean, it was 8 years ago. How to grow a followings on social media as a blogger Maggy: [00:10:29] I do agree that in some ways, it's much harder now to grow your presence on, say, Facebook but otherwise, it's easier because there's more information out there, and people understand sort of the tricks of the trade a bit better. So I guess, again, it's just different. Maggy: [00:10:45] But to anyone starting out, my tip would be to focus on one platform and really work that platform and not neglect the others completely. I think you need to kind of dabble in all of them but you can transfer a lot of it. Maggy: [00:11:00] So let's say, Facebook's the main one. Do all your work for Facebook whether its video or crafts. And then you just quickly edit it for Instagram or Pinterest. Maggy: [00:11:11] I do think it's important not to neglect any platform completely. You want your eggs in more than one basket. Maggy: [00:11:19] For example, I've had a problem with my Facebook page this week. People might be aware of Facebook just randomly kind of dinging pages and there's no reach. Maggy: [00:11:27] For a week, I couldn't basically use it and then luckily, because my Pinterest is in place, my SEO's in place and YouTube is in place, it was annoying but it wasn't a disaster. Maggy: [00:11:39] Social media is so powerful, it is amazing and I love it but at the same time, we don't own it. We have no control over it. You have to have not all the eggs in one basket. I think this is the sort of the bottom line. Jillian: [00:11:58] What is your biggest traffic driver right now? Maggy: [00:12:02] Right now, it's Google and SEO. That's because I put in a lot of effort in the last year to tidy up my SEO strategy, so to speak. Maggy: [00:12:16] I think it's really important to never forget Google because again, this thing about using Facebook as an example, I had a week where I can't use it, and that's my traffic down. At least I had Google taking over and Pinterest. Jillian: [00:12:30] Could you just say how many followers do you have on Facebook? Maggy: [00:12:34] Just short of 2.4 million. Jillian: [00:12:37] Wow. Wow. Maggy: [00:12:39] And yeah it's crazy now because two years ago, when I had 400,000, you'd get the same sort of traffic. It's a great number but you have to take with a pinch of salt and kind of remember how Facebook behaves unfortunately. Why Facebook is like a bad boyfriend Jillian: [00:12:54] Right. Facebook is like a fickle boyfriend but I feel like Facebook is becoming a worse and worse boyfriend. Maggy: [00:13:03] And unfortunately, we can't get rid of that boyfriend just yet. Jillian: [00:13:08] We're in bad relationships. Facebook never, and I have said this on my podcast, Facebook isn't our sweet spot for Catch My Party. Pinterest is. Jillian: [00:13:20] And so I would meet bloggers like you who are getting enormous amounts of traffic from Facebook. We tried everything and yet, it's just there are certain blogs where it just is a perfect fit. Maggy: [00:13:36] Yeah, I agree. I definitely can't knock anything else. I agree with you. Pinterest is so important, is such a valuable platform and put it into context. Maggy: [00:13:47] I mean my Pinterest following is much smaller. I think it's about 360,000 . I spend a lot less time on Pinterest, and it's driving the same amount of traffic. If not, even a little bit more. Maggy: [00:13:58] But I find Facebook quite useful that I can get something going on Facebook and then, it gets pinned a lot and then, it just becomes stronger. So Pinterest has got that long midterm game, isn't it? Maggy: [00:14:12] If you got a new blog post out, Pinterest won't really pick it up for about three or four weeks. I mean it will but you won't necessarily see a huge difference in that particular blog post whilst Facebook is kind of now. Maggy: [00:14:24] I think that's sort of quite the difference between the two for me. Maggy: [00:14:26] You kind of start off with Facebook now, it kind of gets things going, it goes on to Pinterest, it slowly kind of dispersed amongst Pinterest and then further down the line, it's Pinterest that's giving you the traffic and not Facebook. Maggy: [00:14:39] It's kind of like a little lifecycle of your blog post. I think Pinterest is a really important part of that. Jillian: [00:14:47] Now, where do Instagram and YouTube fit into that cycle? Maggy: [00:14:53] Okay, so Instagram is one of those social media platforms that I'm kind of doing on the side. I kind of spend a bit more time on it now and again and then I forget again a little bit about it. Maggy: [00:15:03] So at the moment, for me, Instagram isn't massive. I know some people who would really excel at it but I feel the sort of return on time investment isn't good enough but then maybe, I haven't spent enough time. Maggy: [00:15:16] It's chicken and egg. If not spending the time, you're not going to see the returns. Maggy: [00:15:20] I can't see it for me at the moment, Instagram, being a massive traffic driver. It's good for community. It's good for like I'm starting to use it to share, to my readers', crafts. Maggy: [00:15:31] When they make mine and they send me photos, I quite enjoy that. That's a nice way to kind of give back but that's sort of something I'm dabbling in. Maggy: [00:15:41] So Instagram to me is "I'm doing it but it's not my main focus." Maggy: [00:15:45] It does help with when you do sponsored work but again, that's not my main focus so it's not so important. Maggy: [00:15:51] YouTube is an interesting one for me . I started it properly about three years ago because I wanted to diversify. I could see that I kind of plateaued a little bit in my blog, and I wanted to get to a new audience. Maggy: [00:16:06] Huge deal for me is about talking to the children directly. How to create a YouTube strategy as a blogger Maggy: [00:16:11] In YouTube, my main audience is sort of eight to 12 year olds whilst Facebook is their parents. Maggy: [00:16:17] For me, that's a really valuable tool because you're kind of getting different sort of feedback. You get feedback from the kids as to what they find easy, what to find difficult. Maggy: [00:16:26] I get really good feedback from that, what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy. Maggy: [00:16:30] For example, five years ago, I wasn't doing any emoji crafts. Now, I am. That's what 10 year old's like, and that's great as long as there's a balance. Maggy: [00:16:40] What I love about YouTube as well is on YouTube, I want to be the crafty auntie with 70 kids who love crafting but they don't have time at it for school. The parents don't like doing it. They have no one at home who does it with them but they love it. Maggy: [00:17:00] And I kind of want to be their crafty auntie that they kind of go to for some ideas and then, they can kind of teach themselves a bit with my help. I can see that my kind of YouTube persona. Jillian: [00:17:11] That's terrific. Now, does YouTube then drive traffic for you? Does it drive brand work or is it just that it is you are the crafty auntie and you feel like these are your children? Maggy: [00:17:26] It is the crafty auntie that's a really big part of it and then getting feedback and ideas, I guess. You could argue. But also it informs my content for my blog. Maggy: [00:17:40] My blog and YouTube are totally interwoven so I'll put a video on YouTube, and I'll do a blog post on it from my blog as well. Maggy: [00:17:50] I guess it is just a different way of driving, not just driving traffic but generating content. Maggy: [00:17:55] You asked earlier on, about how do you keep motivated or interested or how to keep coming up with ideas. I think YouTube was just a fresh way of looking at content, craft ideas and that kind of thing. Can you make money on YouTube? Maggy: [00:18:08] I do a little bit of ad revenue. I would say per thousand views it's significantly less than the blog. I mean I'm earning, and what I get from YouTube is still worth it. But it has takes ages just to get to that level if that makes sense. Jillian: [00:18:25] So yeah, absolutely. Maggy: [00:18:27] It gets frustrating, and that can be very difficult for people just starting out from YouTube, that the monetary gain can be delayed. Maggy: [00:18:39] For me, what I liked about YouTube, thinking about it outloud now, is, for example, origami, which I love, I didn't do a lot of origami on my blog previously because taking photos of 50 steps and editing them, so boring. Maggy: [00:18:54] A nice little video, it's really quick, really easy and you explain it. It changed my content on my blog purely because I had a different way of sharing how to make something. Maggy: [00:19:07] That's being quite fun because it's opened up kind of a new area of crafting because some things are difficult to explain just using words and three pictures. Jillian: [00:19:20] Totally. Maggy: [00:19:21] And the video is a really nice way of being able to go "actually just take a look, it's really easy." Jillian: [00:19:27] You are on a variety of platforms. You're making video. What does your schedule look like, and do you have a studio setup in your house? How to set your schedule up to be a full time blogger Maggy: [00:19:37] So in terms of schedule, I do consider myself a full time blogger. This is my job and I do roughly work, let's see, from 8:20 when the kids go to school from 8 to about 3 or 3:30. Maggy: [00:19:52] I do have an hour's lunch break, whether for walk, for exercise, Pilates or whatever but on the whole, I do have sort of regular working hours everyday and in those regular working hours, for example, I would not do housework because I need to do my work if that makes sense. Maggy: [00:20:07] It's like a little rule. I don't go near the washing machine or anything like that. I do that when the kids are home because a) they need to see that that kind of stuff happens and b) because these are my working hours. Maggy: [00:20:18] I take my working hours quite seriously in that sense and then, outside of that I'll probably still ad another hour here or there where I do a bit extra. Maggy: [00:20:28] I think if you add that up, it is pretty much a full time job but it's a full time job that really flexible. Maggy: [00:20:34] For example, I can't take holidays and obviously manage my time around that and things like that so I find it really hard saying exactly how many hours a week I do but it's not insignificant. Maggy: [00:20:46] In terms of setup, I have a little office which is great. I have like a mini video set up which is actually in my bedroom because that's got a really big window, and it's got a desk. Maggy: [00:21:00] Although, I have some lights as well, I kind of can leave out, and it's the only place in the house where I've got the space, and I can leave things out. Maggy: [00:21:09] I think, again, that being able to leave things out is quite key in terms of things like video production, probably photo production too because you ' re not having to clear this space each time. You're not having to -- Jillian: [00:21:21] Pull out the equipment. How to Create Video for YouTube as a Blogger Maggy: [00:21:23] Exactly. And it makes a huge difference. I can go where I'm just going to do a quick video, and I'll go over, and I'll just do a quick video and then I'll just come back and carry on, writing. Because you can. Maggy: [00:21:33] Whereas before, I used to have some of that kind of wait and get things out. So I'm very lucky that my husband's very tolerant of the fact that our bedroom is also a mini studio. Jillian: [00:21:44] That's great. So what do you say to yourself, "this week, I am going to create three posts, two videos." How does that come to you? Maggy: [00:21:57] Yes, I do have a schedule, and I think it's simply because YouTube is like any social media. You're kind of rewarded for consistency so I do have in my head, "I need to do two videos a week." Maggy: [00:22:10] For a year, I did three a week and then, I cut back to two, and that's been fine. Maggy: [00:22:17] Those two slots so to speak, drive my production or productivity and interestingly enough, I used to have two blog posts a week with Red Ted Art so when I built up the blog, I always had this goal of two a week or more, obviously. But it had to be a minimum of two a week. Maggy: [00:22:35] The same with YouTube, it has to be a minimum of two a week. And it doesn't mean that some weeks, I'll do something that isn't that good. Maggy: [00:22:43] And some people could argue, "Well, maybe it's better for you. You only put good content out."  The other side, I'll argue that sometimes, I'll put something out that I think is not good and then it just takes off. Jillian: [00:22:56] I know. That's the most fascinating part of the Internet. Maggy: [00:23:01] So you know what? My two a week is really powerful because I'll sit down and go, "I haven't got a video and I really need a video week. I haven't got today's video yet," and I'll go "I just got to do something" and then I'll just do something, and I'll do my best video and then, that will inform, I don't know, some other ideas, spin off ideas of the back. Jillian: [00:23:20] So are the videos and the blog post related or is this two separate crafts that are blog post, two separate crafts that are videos? Maggy: [00:23:28] They will always be related. The blog actually now has about four posts a week because I have my two on YouTube and I'll put most of my YouTube videos on the blog. Not all of them but most of them. Maggy: [00:23:41] And then on top of that, I'm continuously working on SEO for Red Ted Art. For example, I'll have those two YouTube videos and then a blog post to go with them. Maggy: [00:23:52] I did a mermaid craft. They'll be on the YouTube channel and on my blog but then, I'll also need work on a round up, kind of rehashing old content in new ways or might republish an old blog post or I might have somebody who really wants to do me a guest post. Maggy: [00:24:10] "Yeah, great. I love a guest post. Brilliant. I'll have that up." Sometimes, I'll even have five posts go out on Red Ted Art in a week which I personally find I'm quite overwhelmed by it because I need to do two. Maggy: [00:24:22] It's so much content, I can't keep up. There's always so much to do. There's always so much that you kind of want to grab and go for and do the next thing. How to Jillian: [00:24:35] How do you then like edit the video and then repurpose all this content for social? What's your process? Maggy: [00:24:43] So with the video, I film it. I film the make and then, I go back and do a little introduction with the finished product and then, I'll take the camera stand down and then I'll do photos for both the YouTube thumbnail but also with Pinterest and the blog in mind. Maggy: [00:25:04] So the process involves both at the end. It starts off with a video but the photos that also need to be done for Pinterest and for the blog. And then, also I've recently had an app, I can't tell you the name right now because I hid my phone so that doesn't ring during the podcast. Maggy: [00:25:22] But I got an app where you can then do screen shots of the video quite quickly. I'll use the screen shots just to add a couple of steps into the blog post but the video is still a key way to explain and make on the blog . Maggy: [00:25:38] But I'll also have a written description plus some steps so it's always interwoven. The blog posts could mostly be standalone without videos as well now. Maggy: [00:25:50] For a while, we really needed the video to be able to do the craft whilst now, I'm trying to kind of come up with an in-between group because some people are offline, and they want to make something. Maggy:[00:26:03] I do create a craft now with both in mind, what YouTube needs and what Pinterest and the blog needs. It took me a while to kind of come to that to think I was YouTube-ing for good year and totally neglecting Pinterest. That wasn't good. Maggy:[00:26:21] And then, when I'm working with my SEO, I'll suddenly get "Oh, I have a gap. Toilet rolls are really important from my blog. I need to create some toilet roll crafts and then, I'll try and come up with something that's suitable for my YouTube viewers and my blog." Maggy:[00:26:34] So they do definitely work together now which they didn't before. They were a bit more separate but SEO will drive YouTube, YouTube will drive the blog because I need a blog post. Maggy:[00:26:46] And then as long as I'll remember to then have some photos for Pinterest, I'll occasionally take some square ones for Instagram but it's not as important. Maggy:[00:26:52] I can just crop the other ones. But yeah, that's how I'm working at the moment. I'm thinking I should do in a square video and stick on Instagram. Jillian: [00:27:03] Your process is amazing. And do you have help? Do you have people who work with you who are editing your videos or doing social media for you? How to run a successful Facebook page with over 2 million followers Maggy: [00:27:16] I have. I have help. And as far as that, I have fellow bloggers help me with my Facebook page in that. I've given them like 5:00 timeslot or the 6:00 timeslot and they'll fill that for me everyday. Maggy: [00:27:29] But I would say, I'm still doing half of Facebook and they're kind of doing the other half for me. Because on Facebook, I'm posting 12 to 20 posts a day. I kind of need that help so I'm doing 8 to 12 myself. Maggy: [00:27:44] To be honest, at the moment, I'm still doing it myself. I'm trying to be clever and work smarter, not harder. That's my big downfall right now which I think a lot of us might be able to relate to. Maggy: [00:27:59] I do deal with it myself, and I know I shouldn't. But I'm very particular about my Pinterest images. I'm very particular. It's really hard to let go. Jillian: [00:28:08] It is really hard to let go. But I have to tell you, in my own experience, I've had to start letting go, I had to start hiring people, and it is ultimately a positive thing. How to hire good people to help you with your blog Maggy: [00:28:24] Yes. Yes. I think the problem is I feel that I'm coping. Because I feel that I'm coping, I find it hard to let go. I think if I felt overwhelmed but then when you're overwhelmed, you don't have time to hire someone. Maggy: [00:28:36] I mean I think what I need to do is hire somebody young and train them up and have here every day. Maggy: [00:28:45] I think that's my problem is that I've dabbled in. I've dabbled in VAs and I've dabbled in people writing. They did a round up for me, and it will be really good. It's not that they haven't been effective or anything. Maggy: [00:28:57] It's just more case of I think by giving them just a little bit here and there, they can never really work themselves into my way of thinking. And I do think if you're going to outsource, you are going to have to really be committed to it so the dabbling hasn't helped me. Maggy: [00:29:11] It's kind of put me off rather than just going actually "You know what? I need to put an ad in the paper and go for hire, and I'll get somebody aboard probably." right. Jillian: [00:29:19] Well, in the training, training somebody to think like you takes a while. Maggy: [00:29:24] Yes. Yes. And then, it has that nervousness that you spend six months training them up and then, they leave. Jillian: [00:29:29] Yes. Yes. I have an assistant, for example, and we actually now can kind of finish each other's sentences. Maggy: [00:29:42] Wow, that's amazing. Jillian: [00:29:43] And by the way, she lives in Portugal, and we are just on Slack all day. Maggy: [00:29:49] Okay, so you work remotely. That's amazing. I love that. Jillian: [00:29:50] Yeah. And then like because on Slack, for example, we can call each other so when we talk, we're like "I can't believe you're not down the block.". Maggy: [00:30:02] Wow, okay. Jillian: [00:30:02] "I can't believe you're halfway around the world." Maggy: [00:30:06] How did you find her? Jillian: [00:30:08] We had done work. She had done work for Catch my Party, and we became friends. She was pregnant, and she was having a baby and so we just stayed. Now, that baby is I think five. And so we just stayed in touch. Jillian: [00:30:24] She's a designer. She'd created some printables for us. And I just loved working with her. So one day, she said she was looking for to do more. I said "Do you want to work with me?" Maggy: [00:30:38] Brilliant. Brilliant. I love it. Jillian: [00:30:40] Again, it was organic and it's like she is like half my brain. Maggy: [00:30:46] Brilliant. My problem is I know some really good bloggers I would love to work with more but they've got their own blogs. They are so busy, and that's my problem. I know some amazing people I'd love to hand over some work to. Maggy: [00:30:58] I know it would take some of it off me but at the end of the day, they've got their own websites and their own projects. Maggy: [00:31:06] That's the thing, it's finding that sort of external person to it, who doesn't necessarily want to do their own but just love being involved. That's given me an idea so I'm glad we've had this conversation. Jillian: [00:31:21] I have to say, the letting go is difficult at first but then, when you see how much more you can do. Or here's the other piece, you've got a thought partner. So when she comes to me, it goes "I think we need a blog post about this" and I'm like "Oh my god. That's brilliant." Maggy: [00:31:43] Yeah, that's a very, very valid point. That's why I agree. It's amazing. Jillian: [00:31:46] So you're not just up in your own head. Maggy: [00:31:49] Yeah. And you do have somebody to discuss latest issues and kind of bloggy-ish problems because it's always the little things going on that the kind of the real life people don't necessarily get. Jillian: [00:32:02] Exactly. And also, for example, when we came back from our conference, you and me, and we learned new techniques for Pinterest immediately. I'm like talking to her and going "Here's what I've learned", it gives me all these ideas but like it's hard for me to execute. Jillian: [00:32:20] To say "let's go this way" and she'll be like "great" and then add her spin to it. If you find the right person, that one plus one is more than two. Maggy: [00:32:32] Yes, I agree. Jillian: [00:32:33] Now, it can be that one plus one is like one and a half. Maggy: [00:32:37] Yeah. Yeah, but then it has to be with the right person, I guess, right? Jillian: [00:32:41] Exactly. Exactly, so it is all about finding the right person. Maggy: [00:32:47] Yeah, I agree. Traffic sources as a blogger Jillian: [00:32:48] Okay, so when we were talking about kind of all these social networks that you're on and stuff, we were going through your traffic sources and you were saying that SEO is first. And you said Facebook and Pinterest are somewhat even, although Pinterest might be a little bit higher. Maggy: [00:33:09] Yes, they kind of level each other and then I think overall, Pinterest, I mean I haven't looked at it recently and I don't look at the full year but Pinterest probably will do better over time. Maggy: [00:33:20] If you have a Pinterest viral, as you know, that's just amazing whilst if you have a Facebook viral, you'll get most traffic from it but not in the same way as a Pinterest viral. Jillian: [00:33:29] Okay. What do you mean by that? Maggy: [00:33:31] So if I have a post that say has been reshared 40,000 times on Facebook, which I hasten to add is not often. I'll get some lovely traffic from it because people on Facebook like to consume on Facebook. Maggy: [00:33:46] It's quite hard for it to get them to click through. I mean they do click through, statistically speaking, but I suspect, I'm just making this up, that only 30 percent of Facebook users click through whilst probably 90 percent of Pinterest, users click through. Maggy: [00:34:01] Pinterest users are there. I mean yes, they're browsing a lot and getting visual ideas, visual inspiration. Obviously, that's what Pinterest is. Maggy: [00:34:09] But I think Pinterest people do want to click through and get the full information while as from Facebook, it's almost like the more they can consume on Facebook itself. So 40,000 pins would get me much more traffic than 40,000 shares on Facebook. Jillian: [00:34:27] Yes. Now, does YouTube drive traffic? Maggy: [00:34:30] A little bit. Not hugely. Mainly, the main traffic I get from YouTube is if I have a printable to go with a certain craft. Maggy: [00:34:40] Because YouTube, because it's my kids there, I do put printables on there but, I don't put too many because I feel it's a little bit unfair because they didn't all have access to printers. Maggy: [00:34:52] I try not to overload my YouTube channel with the printables as such. I do try and do a lot of stuff where they can learn how to make it literally from scratch. Maggy: [00:35:02] Sometimes, I'll go "Here's how you make it from scratch. If you find it easier, here's it printable" so you could argue there's choice. But yeah, I get a little bit of traffic from YouTube but not tons. Jillian: [00:35:14] So then my next question is how do you monetize? Maggy: [00:35:22] For both the blog and YouTube it is mainly ad revenue, and I have to say, I love ad revenue. I think it's brilliant because it feels like this passive income. Maggy: [00:35:32] I have no guilt about ads because I feel I'm offering a lot, everything for free. And if you just have to look at an ad whilst you're kind of [00:35:38] passing, [0.0] that's fine as far as I'm concerned. Maggy: [00:35:42] I don't want to be ads to be intrusive obviously but equally, I think if they're fine. Ad revenue is a big thing. Maggy: [00:35:49] We talk about [00:35:51] AdThrive earlier  on. I mean, that, for me, was a game changer. Google AdSense doesn't even compare. AdThrive transformed my income. It's amazing. Thank you, AdThrive. Maggy: [00:36:11] YouTube is similar in that sense that it's actually Google Adsense on YouTube but the revenue is much lower. I have a lot of Indian viewers on YouTube and again, as with AdThrive, I'm sure certain countries are more profitable than others. Maggy: [00:36:28] In India, for example, it's less profitable but I still like it as a place. I mean, I enjoy those viewers so there's nothing wrong with that but it just means that the revenue is lower. Maggy: [00:36:39] I do a little bit of sponsored work so working with brands and stuff but it was not my main driver. I do a little bit of affiliate marketing but again, I'm not really good on sales. I'm not a big salesperson. Maggy: [00:36:53] I do feel I need to change up a bit because I do have a great, great, really strong audience. There's some really great products out there, and I probably should make more about bringing those two together. But at the moment, it's ad revenue and that basically means I just totally focused on sort of page user statistically. Jillian: [00:37:11] Got it. What do you do then? How do you deal when you wake up in the morning and Facebook has somehow changed its algorithm, and thank goodness, this most recent one was only like it affected your traffic for about a week, but how do you not internalize that and go "oh" or "yay" because I struggle with that? Maggy: [00:37:33] Yeah, it is really hard. I'm "lucky" that Facebook has been tinkering with the algorithms, I think, since 2014 or something. The heyday of Facebook has long been over, and they've been making it, as far as I'm concerned, more and more difficult for years now. Maggy: [00:37:58] So I think if I'd gone for my heyday of 2014 to a week of no traffic, it would have been devastating but because Facebook has been turning off the tap bit by bit. It was obviously disappointing but I've heard about this. Maggy: [00:38:16] Literally, it's a seven day problem. It was literally to the minute. Once the seven days were over, the page was back and because I knew about other pages that this has happened to. Maggy: [00:38:34] When it came to me, I was just like "You know what? It was bound to happen at some point. It's happened now. Let's pray, it's a seven day bug. Just move on." Maggy: [00:38:47] I was lucky, touchwood. I mean it only got lifted this morning so we're still early days. I think because Facebook's been a difficult platform to work on for a while. You just have to let go. How to deal with traffic swings as a blogger Maggy: [00:39:01] Yeah, that's the only way I can describe it. It's a love-hate relationship, Facebook. Quite honestly, it's very frustrating platform. But what can you do? We don't pay for it. We don't own it. They do. Jillian: [00:39:16] Right. Yes, it's a good lesson. I think that traffic in general or like I will go for weeks and not check our Google Analytics because I find it's really hard for me to separate my emotions or my fears from my Google Analytics. Maggy: [00:39:40] You're quite right. Especially in the summer months, I'll avoid looking at it because in the summer months, which is my quiet period, I don't know if it's the same for you, it can be can be depressing. Maggy: [00:39:50] But I think also with having been blogging for about eight or nine years I've also learned that it is seasonal. The highs of Christmas is not the norm. They are generally a high and if I assume that my summer traffic is normal and everything else is a bonus, it's much easier to deal with. Jillian: [00:40:11] Yeah. So in fact, for us, weirdly, our traffic is like the highest for Halloween. It dies for us between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Maggy: [00:40:26] Wow. Really? Jillian: [00:40:27] It's just super weird but it happens every year. Every year, I fear that we're going out of business. Maggy: [00:40:35] I know what you mean . When you see that drop, you're like "Haa!" and then, somehow, kind of the following year, it comes again. Jillian: [00:40:41] It comes back. Yes. Maggy: [00:40:43] Like I remember this September, thinking "in September, everything's good again" and then the first week in September, it was still a bit low. Maggy: [00:40:51] And then in the second week, panic, panic and then by the end of September, we were off again. But I know what you mean. During my peak seasons, I find that probably more stressful than the low seasons now because I've kind of made my peace with the low season. Maggy: [00:41:10] The peak season is when I'm like "I need to make more money now." Jillian: [00:41:15] Yes, but there is something about letting go. There is something about trusting like "Okay, maybe our business is over but we're smart. We could come up with something else.". Maggy: [00:41:29] Yes, I think you're right. Again, I'm not sure how it works with Catch my Party but I know, for example, with Red Ted Art, certainly for the next year or two, unless something really awful happens, I will have a base income. Maggy: [00:41:44] I know I'll get at least, let's say, a third of what I'm earning right now. And if I look at that as a number, I'm like " You know what?" The blog is at the size now where that is still a good number. Maggy: [00:41:57] I think you just have to, and I do say to my husband constantly, we just need to make hay while the sun shines, save as much as possible, put as much as possible aside and then, what will be will be. And I'd like to keep it going for as long as possible but who knows? Jillian: [00:42:20] Yeah. Well, it's one of those things about being an entrepreneur is you don't know. Maggy: [00:42:26] And I do think it's important to constantly add strings to your bow so YouTube was an example with three years ago, I wasn't really doing it and now, I am. Maggy: [00:42:35] In terms of looking forward, I'm considering. I haven't got any concrete plans but you're looking at what products you could have, maybe physical ones, apps or there's a lot of ebooks around. Maggy: [00:42:50] You do have to kind of just keep adding strings to your bow and then as one drops off, the next one hopefully takes its place and you move on. Jillian: [00:42:58] And that was our story with MiloTree. We built MiloTree for ourselves. We didn't think this would be a business. Then all of a sudden, it really worked and we thought "Wow". Jillian: [00:43:08] We had that moment of like "Can we be in the app business?" This is a whole different market. We're selling to bloggers and entrepreneurs whereas Catch my Party is all about moms throwing parties. How do we make sense of that? And then we're like, "Well, why not?" Maggy: [00:43:28] I mean, it's genius. I love MiloTree as an example. I think it's a really good example where like you say, created it for need you had yourself and then, it created a new income stream or business for you. Maggy: [00:43:43] It's looking at things like that. I'm always keeping my ear open for blogger problems and blogger issues. I've got a friend who's an amazing developer, and I know he's interested in developing something. It's just figuring out what that something is. Jillian: [00:43:56] Exactly. And it's just kind of like tapping into yourself, for me, it is about questioning your assumptions and saying "Could I do this? Maybe I could. Maybe I should try that" and kind of going, following a couple of your almost crazy ideas and seeing like "Could that pay off? Could this be something? I don't know." Maggy: [00:44:22] Yeah, and I think if you don't try, you'll never know. And I think that's the main thing. For example, it's funny, I just mentioned about the developer. I said to him "Look, can we create a rival newsletter platform?" Maggy: [00:44:36] We had a big chat about it, and we decided we wouldn't though because ConvertKit is just amazing and competing purely on price isn't worth it but then, "Yeah, but what else is there?" Maggy: [00:44:44] It opens up conversation so even though, maybe it's a bad example because I said I haven't actually tried a newsletter platform because that's a huge project but I initiated the background conversation and talked to an expert. It's exploring different options. Maggy: [00:45:02] Again, it might lead you to something else and I think it will because he said "But you know what, Maggy? I don't think the newsletter is a brilliant idea just because competing on price isn't a good enough reason. I think there's something we can do together. I know there is. Maggy: [00:45:16] We just have to come up with ideas." So now, I've got that sort of strength that there's someone there who believes in everything I'm doing and really wants to work with me. Maggy: [00:45:25] He said that. He said "I really wanted to do a project with you. We just need to figure out what that project is." It was a month ago . Two weeks ago, we spoke so this sort of thing, you just kind of get it. If you have any problems, please tell me. Jillian: [00:45:37] Exactly. Email Maggy. Definitely. So Maggy, what are you most excited about that you're working on or that you're planning to work on? Maggy: [00:45:48] Well, it's a tricky one for me because [00:45:52] back to this thing [0.0] about having an assistant or somebody to work with is I'm so lost in the day job. Maggy: [00:45:59] I don't often take enough time back, step back to go "Okay, what's the bigger picture?" And I think I sometimes use that as an excuse. What is constructive procrastination? Maggy: [00:46:08] I love the term "constructive procrastination." Jillian: [00:46:13] I've never heard that. I love it. Maggy: [00:46:15] Yeah, you're basically very, very, very productive. You're not doing the things you should be doing. So back to me, turning out five blog posts a week. That's really productive but I'm still procrastinating on the bigger picture. That's my challenge. Maggy: [00:46:34] One thing I'm looking at is obviously making more of my newsletter again. This is from the AdThrive conference. And again Facebook having just given me that week off, so to speak, kind of forces that. Maggy: [00:46:46] I'm much more positive about my newsletter, for example, and making more of it and using it as more of a tool to connect with people and encouraging them to do things like send me their photos or stuff they've made themselves. Maggy: [00:47:00] I have to confess. Beyond that, it's kind of carrying on what I'm doing and maybe coming up with a killer idea that my [00:47:10] developer friend [0.0] and I can work on. I'm quite confident we will think of something. The question is just when. Jillian: [00:47:17] Right. Now, given that you've been at this for a while, What advice would you have for somebody who is just starting out where today, it's not as easy to grow your Facebook followers or something like that but you should use Milo Tree because it will help. Jillian: [00:47:37] What would you say to somebody who comes to you and says "I want to do what you do. I want to start something on my own"? Advice: Believe in yourself as an entrepreneur Maggy: [00:47:47] Yes. I think there are a few things. Not sure how many points I want to make. Let's see, the first one is just believe in yourself. I know it's such a cheesy thing to say. It's such a cliche thing to say but it's so important. Maggy: [00:48:00] I mean I have a lot of teachers who read my blog. I know they love it. In fact, I got an e-mail today from a teacher at school, asking me to come in and make her wedding bouquet with her class. That is such a sweet thing I know. Maggy: [00:48:15] And then coincidentally, the deputy head, also from the same school, emailed me today saying, "Can you come in for our Health and Wellbeing day and run some craft sessions?" Maggy: [00:48:24] I know I've got teachers you've totally got my back. But also, in my early days of blogging, I had teachers or teacher friends who've kind of questioned my ability to teach and that made me unconfident about certain things I was doing at the time. Maggy: [00:48:38] I think I was really enjoying doing so I had like a Kids Get Arty series, looking at Goldsworthy or Andy Warhol or whatever. Maggy: [00:48:48] I think if you're passionate about what you're doing and you believe in yourself, what you produce will be amazing. Maggy: [00:48:56] I think that's one big thing is this: Don't let other people make you feel that you can't for whatever reason, whether you're in a cooking blog and you're like "I'm not a chef. I've never trained." It doesn't matter because if you're passionate about it, you'll be doing a good job whatever you're doing. Maggy: [00:49:10] That's the first thing is to really not let other people question you in that sense and then other things are more pragmatic. Advice: Understand SEO as a blogger Maggy: [00:49:19] I think my blog, right from the word go SEO, I didn't understand it early on. I had some really weird blog titles like "Red Ted get stuck in" instead of describing what the craft's about. Maggy: [00:49:33] You can make really nice art titles. Have fun with titles but they mean nothing in SEO terms. I do think paying attention to SEO from as early on as possible is important. Maggy: [00:49:44] You don't have to necessary get bogged down in the detail of SEO. You can learn about SEO as yo go along but if you have basic structures in place like a good blog post title - Jillian: [00:49:57] I just want to stop for one second. I think what you're saying is to not have some like "This is awesome" post-title but to say "How to make a wedding bouquet with tissue paper flowers?" Maggy: [00:50:13] Exactly. Yes, not go for the sort of nice, journalistic titles but go for informative titles. So whether it's SEO, Pinterest or Facebook, if it's informative, people know what it's about. Maggy: [00:50:26] You've got to remember that your blog is a bit like a magazine and yet you're kind of on a shelf in a news agency and you're fighting for people to pick up your magazine, look inside your magazine and find out more. Maggy: [00:50:37] If the cover image is confusing and the title is confusing, they won't necessarily pick it up. Not because it's not nice, just because they won't. Maggy: [00:50:47] I think it really tricky to a newer blogger to say "You need to do this, this and this" because it can be really overwhelming. So I do think, just get started. Maggy: [00:50:56] Generally, my advice to people is consider the basics of SEO which are things like a good title. Consider your images. Don't put things on your blog that are two megabytes in size, try and keep them small. Jillian: [00:51:11] And that's so that your blog loads quickly because speed matters. People will click away if they're waiting for your images to load. Maggy: [00:51:24] Exactly, so this is a quick loading but also, you're then carrying around round a lot of weight that you're paying for because it has more bandwidth being eaten up by that visitor because it's taken that long for that image to load. Maggy: [00:51:36] The images don't have to be physically smaller but the file sizes need to be smaller without going into too much techno-speak. Maggy: [00:51:42] There's a whole thing about being conscious that there is social media out there and that Pinterest, for example, does prefer portrait and that Instagram, for example, does prefer a square and that Facebook is somewhere in between. Maggy: [00:51:54] I prefer landscape from editing visual point of view because I find that it doesn't take up your whole page in terms of image. You kind of need to have a mix of images to kind of address different needs of the audience, finding in different ways. Maggy: [00:52:11] You can take the same picture but have it landscape and portrait. That usually will do the trick to begin with and then as your blog grows and you learn, you get better photography and you get better at your printable images and you get better. Maggy: [00:52:25] But I think to avoid overwhelming people with information, just have one of each, a landscape one, a portrait one. Watermark everything. Things get lost on the Internet. Jillian: [00:52:39] Wait, can you explain what a watermark is? Maggy: [00:52:45] On my images, I have very lightly written Red Ted Art in the corner so that places like Pinterest, often, images will get mispinned so to speak and the link will get broken so there's a lovely image of your craft and when people click on it, it just doesn't come through to you. Maggy: [00:53:05] If you have a watermark on it, at least they can type into Google. "Okay, so it's Red Ted Art." There's a giraffe so I'll just put "Red Ted Art giraffe" and then with a bit of luck, they'll find that craft again. Maggy: [00:53:16] Obviously, there's also a little bit about [00:53:17] online theft [0.2] but that's another issue. But just from a simplistic point of view, I always like to call it "the images get lost". If you watermark, you provide a trail back to your website, and people are more likely to come back to you. Jillian: [00:53:33] Oh, well, Maggy, this has been so delightful. I so enjoy it when we chat. I just learn from you. I love your honesty, so how can people reach out to you? Maggy: [00:53:49] Anywhere. They can email me info@redtedart.com or they'll find me on social media, Facebook but in groups usually, I think, were more active. I didn't know people are aware of things like The Kid Blogger Network or Bloggy Buddies. Maggy: [00:54:05] I think, again, new bloggers should try and join blogging groups. Advice: Join blogging groups Jillian: [00:54:09] And these are on Facebook? Maggy: [00:54:10] On Facebook. There are some really good blogging groups or if you've got a friend that blogs, ask them about what groups they're in. I think it's a really good, helpful. Maggy: [00:54:21] But if you're trying to get to me personally info@redtedart.com or leaving me a comment on Instagram oddly, considering I've said it's not that important of a platform. Maggy: [00:54:31] I usually see all the comments in Instagram whilst I don't see any comments on Facebook because it's so busy on Facebook. Jillian: [00:54:38] Awesome. Maggy: [00:54:42] Thank you so much for having me. It's been really nice to chat with you. I feel like you might be so far away from me but we're friends, and it's lovely. Jillian: [00:54:50] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and email subscribers? How to get free followers on Instagram fast Jillian: [00:54:55] Well, if you've got two minutes, I've got a product for you. It's MiloTree. Jillian: [00:54:59] MiloTree is a smart popup slider that you install on your site, and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:55:14] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code, and it's Google friendly on mobile and desktop. 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