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Introduction
Hi, e-commerce friends. Let me introduce you to Israa Alrawi, founder of The Winbox. She is sharing her remarkable journey of turning her online store into a thriving mid-6 figure business in just three months, primarily through the power of email marketing. Israa, welcome to the show.
If you want to connect with Israa, we have a Facebook group. Israa will be also part of that group. And this is only for e-commerce owners so feel free to join us.
Highlights
So I would say if you’re just looking into getting started into SMS, I would definitely focus on making sure you have a strong email list first. If you don’t have a strong email list and a strong email channel, then it doesn’t make sense to pick up another channel that requires more of your attention and more of your strategy. (8:25)
Best practices, number one, focus on growing the list. Because you’re only going to be as successful as you’re growing the list. So when I say build your email list first and then leverage the email list to try to get them into an even deeper form of your community. So if they’re already in your email list, try to get them on your SMS list as well. (13:30)
So how are you acquiring leads and customers? So acquisition is the first step in the journey. And then you have conversion, how are you converting those customers? And then you have retention, how are you retaining those customers? So you have these three buckets, and the thing is that all three buckets need to be strong. There are different channels that help with each bucket. (23:15)
The Beginnings
Yeah, so it was in 2016, and I was just pivoting into a different role. I had my first two kids and just left my government job. I used to work for the federal government for a while, and there was just a lot of travel, and I didn’t want to do it anymore.
I was really interested in the online world. So I kind of just dove into e-commerce. I had a mentor. It kind of just popped, actually it’s funny because it popped up on my Facebook as a Facebook ad. He knew somebody that I used to study under that was trustworthy so I was like, it has to be, you know, it can’t be a scam or like that.
So I actually went ahead and bought his course or bought the training, and he taught how to go from dropshipping to basically private labeling because branding is a whole other beast and you need a lot more to be a brand.
So, I wanted to enter the e-commerce world, learn about it, see where my strengths were. Can I run a store? It seemed very easy in 2017. It was kind of like the gold rush of drop shippers, you know, build a store, make millions overnight, and you can be on your way. And it was just intriguing to me.
So I started my own store in February of 2017. That’s when I launched it. And then I was able to build it, research by July I was getting the sales I wanted and through using ads we were able to scale it to mid-six figures within two to three months. Less than three months. So it was just very interesting.
I found my winning products, but that really wasn’t the reason we sold so well. We focused heavily on customer service, quality of products. All the things that e-commerce stores should focus on to really build a long-lasting, you know, company or business. And then Facebook ads start crashing in early February 2018, I believe. And that’s kind of when I turn to email marketing to kind of just sustain the business while things were looking really grim on Facebook. So that’s kind of where I went with that.
I started with email marketing and then I was introduced to a deliverability expert who works really with affiliate marketers because if you know about the affiliate scene, they have to work harder to be in the inbox. And so I kind of learned from her how to do, I learned the fundamentals of the deliverability. Like in order to get to the inbox, you need to know the tech aspect.
And then there’s the content aspect where, you know, most agencies focus on content and driving revenue, but they do not maintain the deliverability part. So that’s where I started.
I was following the big brands, trying to figure out how to be a big brand, even though I was running a small business. I soon realized that I was doing everything wrong. Big brands have big budgets and they can afford to do what they do. Small businesses don’t; you need to focus on a completely different type of approach to your email marketing as a small business, to communicate with your audience and drive revenue differently than the big brands do.
So, I just started using my store in mid-2018 to really experiment with email marketing. By the time quarter-four hit and by November, I was able to do 100K months with my store, just driving the regular traffic from Google ads and Facebook ads. Then email marketing came in and contributed about 25% of the revenue, helping recover lost earnings.
People began asking for referrals. Everybody wanted me to handle their emails, their email offices, and I just pivoted into that. I merged my store with another, gave them our lists, our top-selling products, and they just took it on and merged it with theirs. I went full-time into email marketing around Q4 2019 into January 2020.
Business and Family And How To Manage Both
It was chaotic. I won’t lie. I don’t encourage it, but I was kind of thrown in because when I started my store, it was bootstrapped. I took whatever savings I had and tested it out. So I didn’t have any credit lines.
I didn’t take any loans. I didn’t do any of that stuff because I just didn’t want to start a store and then end up being in so much debt. So I had to think smart. Like it was all like, how do I turn a profit immediately or stay, at least sustain it month to month? Cash flow is big.
And I was able to do that, but I had to be very smart. Like I said, in focusing on the right metrics and that took a lot of work. Like the first six months, I would get on call with any, anytime somebody abandoned car, anytime somebody purchased, I would call those customers. I would get their feedback. I would literally build a very hard, like a tight friendship with them and they were comfortable to recommend me and they were comfortable to like go to my Facebook ads and say this is a legitimate business. You can buy from her, etc.
And that took six months of hard work. I was working almost 18 hours around the clock for a while. And that’s kind of why I kind of scaled back in 2018 as well because it was taking a toll on me. When I got pregnant with my third one, that’s when all the problems showed up. It was late 2018 and I ended up having a lot of complications and I had to scale back.
So 2019 was more helping out some businesses on the side running my store, but I ran it into maintenance because I just couldn’t do it and I couldn’t hire out. Again, I did not want to do like, because again, I took the store on to learn where can I really utilize my skills? Because I knew I didn’t want to run that store forever. It was kind of like a test store for me. We just proved the concept and I was able to find products people wanted.
So it is hard. You need help. You need a lot of help. But those six years that I’ve built have helped me now start make more sound decisions, make more smart decisions. But again, if you are building a family and you are trying to do this, it’s a lot of stress, ask for help, especially even on the world, ask for people’s help, find a community, it’s really important.
So it’s hard, but if you really want something, you kind of have to go after it and there’s short term pain, but long term gain from it. So that’s kind of what I did. And I don’t regret anything. It’s just now I’m focusing more on my family and my health and building more of a, I give, I’m trying to build a business where I give back and I teach what I’ve learned because I feel like a lot of businesses start and they’re kind of left in the dark. There’s no communities.
You know, you go online and you see all these social media and everybody’s putting up these numbers, but nobody talks about profit, nobody talks about cash flow. I mean, that’s what it is at the end, right? So that’s kind of where we’re going with my business. I’m trying to build more of a community membership to help small business owners to really build a sustainable business that supports their lifestyle.
Email Marketing And Deliverability
Yeah, so deliverability basically means your ability to land in your subscribers and customers inbox, whether it’s a promotional tab. A promo tab is not spam. Just put that out there because everybody’s like, you know, now there are businesses out there trying to promote that spam and you gotta be in the inbox to really make an impact with your email marketing. And it’s simply not true at all.
So deliverability means your email leaves your ESP, which is like your email service providers, such as MailChimp and Klaviyo. It leaves that ESP from there when you hit send, and then it goes out to the different ISPs, the inbox service providers or MSP, mail service providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL. And once they get there, they’re gonna go through a couple of filters.
You have to be able to pass those filters to land in the inbox. And so what deliverability is, is us working on the original content of your email to make sure it is clean and it gets through as quickly as possible. And you will build that trust with like the ISPs, the Gmails, and the Offices of the World. You build that trust and you land in the inbox 99% of the time. I mean, you don’t have control at the end. However, you do have a greater chance when you take control of your deliverability practices.
So I always say there’s best email practices which ESPs recommend and there are deliverability practices. Best email practices are suggestions. Deliverability practices are not just suggestions that you have to do, they are a requirement for you to actually be in the inbox.
So I focus on deliverability because at scale, people forget that the quality of their lists go down. The spam goes up. All of this stuff affects you. You have to be more strategic. And I focus heavily on it, especially with scaling. I work a lot with businesses that are in scaling stages. So they’re going from like 6 to 7 figures, 7 to 8, 8 to 9. Because our lists are growing so fast, we need to ensure that your deliverability stays clean.
You’re on a good IP reputation. You have a good IP reputation. You’re on a good IP pool, all of that. So that when you scale, you are not breaking your system. That’s what you know. And again, like when you’re in that stage of scaling, one day of being in the spam can affect your revenue. So it is a very important aspect, not focused on.
I do see a lot more ESPs now take control and bringing it into their system. And having it on their platforms for businesses to use. However, people are not taught how to, you know, how do you tell when are you really in spam? Or are you just not using your segments correctly, and not sending the right emails to the right people? It’s all of that.
When someone comes to me, I can usually tell them right away whether or not they’re in spam. We then strip down their email and figure out what is causing them to end up there. This is important because if your emails aren’t landing in the inbox, you’re potentially losing about 20 to 30% of your monthly revenue. That’s significant.
Deliverability Best Practices
The first thing we focus on is authenticating your emails and your domain. We ask you to set up your SPF and DKIM, which allows Gmail and Yahoo to know that the emails are coming from your trusted domain. DMarc is an added layer. It’s not a DNS record you take from your ESP, you actually have to generate it. We use an MX toolbox to generate it and put that in our DNS records. It’s an added layer of protection for you so that nobody can spoof, even if they try to do any shady email practices.
Once you set those up, authenticating your domain and putting those records in greatly helps. Many people don’t do this. This also helps in setting up your dedicated domain and building your own reputation with Gmail and Yahoo. If an email is sent out from your authenticated and dedicated domain, it’s recognized as coming from you.
So it’s like @marco.com or @wunderads.com, right? So it shows that it’s you, it’s your domain that’s sending out the email on behalf of whatever ESP.
However, if you don’t set up your dedicated domain, you’re building your ESP’s domain reputation instead of your own. So, if you move from Klaviyo to MailChimp, and you’ve been building Klaviyo’s domain, you’re suddenly starting from scratch with MailChimp. It’s like you’re brand new to the ESPs again because you’re sending from your domain instead of on behalf of Klaviyo. So, setting up your dedicated domain, warming up your IP and your domain with the ESP’s and making sure that the ESP’s know that the emails are coming from helps you build a long-term reputation for you and solidifies it. So, once you do that, it’s the other stuff that’s kind of like the details that could trigger spam.
You can build a solid domain reputation and land in the inbox 99% of the time by authenticating your domain and cleaning your lists. Many businesses create a static list that collects emails over time, but what you need to do is create a dynamic segment off of your static list. So, say you started in 2016 and you’ve been collecting emails and it’s 2023 and you’re sending to that.. same static list, you are including everybody. And we know that your turn rate is around 30%. So, most people that sign up to your email list, they’re not going to be opening and engaging.
So what you need to do is you need to create a dynamic segment off of your static list.
For instance, they’re in this list, but they’ve also taken some action, like opening, clicking, buying, or viewing within a certain period of time. The way you determine that period depends on your aim. Are you trying to get them to buy again after 30 days?
Are you trying to get them to buy a second time? What is the life cycle of your product? Like how often do people buy it? So your segments are based on your business model and the life cycle of the product and your goal for that email.
So you have to be able to understand your list and how to manage it correctly. Otherwise, sending to a static list can, you know, people will unsubscribe and unsubscribe are great for you because then, they clean the list for you. However, you have a lot of people who are like dead weight, they don’t open, they don’t click, but they’re on your list. They’re affecting your deliverability, but they’re not taking any action or doing anything.
So that drives your open rates down, drives your click rates down, Gmail looks at engagement and they’re saying, hey, these people used to get 3% click rates. Now they’re getting 0.5 and it’s because you’re a list group but you didn’t remove the right people off. So your number is, you know, very. So they look at that and they base that your reputation based on your engagement there.
So cleaning your list to second and then targeting them with content that they are interested in. You have to be able to engage your audience. Those are the big ones. And then within your email, you need to make sure you have clean URLs. Your destinations would be clear, nothing shady, nothing out there.
Make sure that you’re not giving your URL to somebody else’s list. Don’t let other people send on your behalf even if it’s like a giveaway or something. Make sure you control your own list and your own content for yourself, basically. Your content inside the emails.
And, people say there’s spam words. There really isn’t a spam word. You know, ISPs look at your overall content and that’s how they determine if you are.
You can use “free”. Everybody says, oh, don’t use “free”. Stay away from, I use “free” all the time. I use it probably several times a week. “Free” is not a spam word. There are no spam words. It’s a holistic approach to your email, understanding your content, understanding how your customers are interacting with it. That’s very important.
Another thing to look at is you should have a reply to email that’s from @yourdomain.com. instead of like a private email that could be, you know, if flags spam quickly because most toolfers and spammers use a Gmail or Yahoo or some type of address or from. So those are the basics. There’s other ones that gets a little bit technical. Like if you hit like a block list, how do you get off a block list? I mean, we can go into detail with that.
But most e-commerce don’t get to that point unless you have really bad practices. And ESP is because you are sending on their platforms, they have deliverability like markers for you. So like if you reach a certain point where you’re doing pretty badly, they’re going to contact you before it gets too bad.
And if they don’t like the way you’re sending or doing stuff on their platform, they’re going to just kick you off. So I mean, it never really gets to that point. However, you need to take responsibility and ownership of figuring out how to best do the deliverability aspect of your emails because you are responsible ultimately at the end for it.
Deliverability And Revenue And How They Connect
Yeah, so like you just said, and I do have an article in my resources on the website about spam. Just like the big three metrics that you can look at outside of your ESP to figure out if you are doing okay. But like you said, the thing is with deliverability, it takes a while to warm up.
With my clients, I usually warm them up for three months, switch them to a dedicated domain, get them going, and another three months later, we’re solid at six months. However, when you hit a deliverability issue or you start hitting spam, it goes down quickly.
Like you said, if your emails for the past six days were at 60%, and then all of a sudden, your next three emails are at 10%, you have a deliverability problem. No question about it
What I do in this situation is actually go into the email and look at the separate ISPs, like who, which open rates are really significantly low? It will show you like Gmail has 5% open rate where AOL and Yahoo are still at 55%. Right away, I know it’s a Gmail issue, so we’re going to have to diagnose it, and figure out why is Gmail being spammed? Sometimes I will strip down an email to the core, just to make it like a text email, even with no links, nothing, and send it to my seed lists.
Seed lists are something I suggest every business to do manually first, to see and understand what’s happening. You can use platforms like Glock apps to check your deliverability against ISPs. But I prefer to do it manually first because it helps me understand what’s going on with the different ISPs.
I can separate them using my seed list. I have different, sock accounts, as they call them, for Gmail, Yahoo, AOL separated. So if I see that I’m spamming in Gmail, I’ll send my stripped down email to my seed list there and see what’s happening.
If three out of four emails I send are going to the inbox and one isn’t, it’s something going on with the email. It’s usually the header. I’ll try changing the ‘from’ email to see if that helps. But sometimes, you’re not going to get into every inbox with new subscribers. That’s because of the way they interact with you.
For instance, someone who opens the email but doesn’t click and someone who never opens and never clicks might behave differently. You might still end up in the inboxes of the open-clickers, but not the non-openers. It’s like dead weight that needs to be removed from your list. So, I would look at your list. Is it clean? That’s a big question because many people end up in spam because they didn’t clean their list and they sent out an email after a long time. The people that received the email don’t recognize the sender, can’t see the unsubscribe button, they hit spam, and you have a 4% spam rate. You’re in the spam box.
Seed lists can help you test and understand where the issue is. I will add a layer, like if the text email landed in the inbox, I will next add a URL and see if that’s what triggered the spam. Then I’ll add the image back in, your footers, headers, and try to figure out what is triggering the spam.
But yes, the fastest way to know if there’s an issue is to check your open rates. If they’re going from 60% to 10% or 50% to 10%, those are indicators of deliverability issues. And this can go down fairly quickly.
Most of the people I end up working with are those who’ve used agencies or freelancers that haven’t focused on deliverability. They just send emails and generate revenue, but then the revenue starts drying up. Some people think that if your revenue dries up, it means you’re in the spam box. It’s because you’re just sending irrelevant information and nobody’s, you know, nobody wants that.
So it’s kind of more of a strategy there. But sometimes it can be like, like I said, if you’re a big brand and you rely heavily on revenue per day about 30% of your revenue and you hit spam, that revenue’s gonna get impacted the next day.
So for bigger businesses that are driving heavy traffic, it can’t, revenue could be an indicator, but again, we start with open rates. Let’s look at your open rates, let’s look at your list, let’s look at your content.
And then again, I said have an article on my website that goes into your sender score, your feedback loop, which is showing your spam rates and your complaints, delivery errors and then you have the IP block list as well.
There’s a URL that you could actually put in your domain and check if you are on any block list. The big ones are Spamhaus. If you’re on those, you need to be able to contact them and get your domain off of that list and IP.
Automations And How They Affect Deliverability
Yeah, so I’m a huge advocate for automations. Automations are your, this is my phrase, “it’s the gatekeepers of deliverability for your email marketing.” And the reason is because you can create a strategy to establish a high domain reputation through automations.
Every time somebody signs up to your list or anytime somebody purchases from you, on that thank you have an opportunity on the thank you page to send them to your email and look for that email and get those high opens and high clicks. I try to aim between 70 and 100% open rates on those first emails because they are so important to your domain reputation.
So anytime I put automation in place, like your pop up, a lot of people, this is a big mistake I see in the e-commerce world, because they want them to stay on the website, they want them to purchase right away. So what they do is, they have a pop up, they type in their email, they hit submit and then they get their code right away on the next page of the pop up, right?
And that’s a big mistake for me. I used to do it myself on my e-commerce because I was like, “oh, this is great, they get their thing, they’re on my website, they’re purchasing,” but then I realized my list quality was so low, it was low, my open rates were terrible and click rates weren’t that great and I wasn’t really doing that well at revenue wise.
And I mean, revenue again, the attribution thing is not a big deal to me. Impact is at the end of the day, like how did this impact your entire business at the end of the month revenue wise. So it really doesn’t matter where it comes from, it matters where the touch point is.
So the reason it’s a mistake is because anybody can put in any email and click submit and get a code, right? So what I’ve noticed is a lot of people start putting in fake emails and then come back and do it again and again and then I’m collecting all these fake emails.
I mean, even if they are not fake, they’re like, they’re dead emails, they don’t even open or engage in. I do not give, I do not recommend and I do not give any codes on the website. You want your code, you can offer, go to the email, find it and that gives you the opportunity, because they have to go look for something, right?
So they’re gonna open that email. It gives you the opportunity to ask them to put you on a safe sender list or to drag your email from a promo tab to inbox if that bothers you. All of that.
So, like, you have that first email, it’s a big opportunity for you to highly engage with your audience. When Gmail sees that there’s 100% of people receiving this and clicking on it, that means you are a legitimate business, you are a legitimate sender who they are going to keep in the inbox.
It’s very important, automations are so important because they help you. I also like when you create automations, you’re going to create a nurture list. As people go through your emails with the automations, you’re going to know who’s opened every single email. Instead of just one email at the beginning, right? So you can build better quality lists and more targeted lists that will drive your open clicks and your revenue on the campaign side, the weekly sends by doing that.
So, automations are really important for deliverability. You should not skip them. I start there with any client. If I see they don’t have automations, I’m not sending any campaigns. We’re going to start this first because they’re going to bring you revenue. They’re going to bring you revenue anyway and they make you revenue like while you sleep. So why not have it? We start there and then we build on the campaign.
Because again, automations first, your weekly sends are like the maintenance phase of your email marketing strategy over time.
How To Categorize Automations
Yeah, we have the money-makers. Of course, those are set up quickly and fast because they make the money. You have your welcome series.
The welcome series isn’t just about the pop up on your website. You can have a lot of variations of a welcome series. For instance, if you have a social following on TikTok, Instagram, or if you drive organic traffic from Twitter or LinkedIn, you can have signups there too.
I always recommend anywhere that you’re driving any type of organic traffic, even from YouTube. One of my clients, for example, couldn’t run ads due to the nature of their product. We used YouTube to drive their lists. They went from doing 2 million in revenue a year to 15 million in email revenue because of that pop-up that drove back people into their automation. That’s where we converted them.
So, anytime you have any organic base on the front end, you should have somewhere where they can sign up for email and then you should send them to an automation nurture sequence. Introduce yourself, introduce who you are, introduce your brand and the product, and give them an offer at the end if you want.
It helps because you can’t measure anything on organic anyway. If you put something on Instagram, you have no idea who looked at it. Most people don’t like, comment, or share. Having that list where they can submit their email helps you gather that lost traffic.
So, the welcome series is big for organic traffic. Browser abandonment for viewed people is another strategy. For example, people come to your product, you have their email already, but they viewed your products and haven’t bought from you yet. You can leverage this for conversions; it’s a big moneymaker as well.
And then, of course, there’s cart checkout abandonment, which is huge. So those are the three big ones.
I have a fourth strategy. Some people have different opinions on this, but I found it useful because I was bootstrapped and I needed the AOV, the average order value, to be high on the product. I did use a post-purchase upsell in the first email right away.
What I did was, I suggested the customer come back and add another product because we always had a threshold for free shipping. I said, “Hey, if you forgot to pick up another product, here’s free shipping for another 24 hours. Go add it to your cart and we will ship it out with your first order.” And that worked phenomenally well for me. People loved that and many purchased again right after because they were still in that shopping mode.
As a result, our average order value went from $50 to around $85. So post-purchase, you can use it as an upsell, but I also use it as a nurture. Once somebody purchases from you, post-purchase is where we re-nurture them, get them excited about what they’re getting, give them instructions, let them know where they can find us if they need help.
Feedback is important, too. It’s like a re-engagement strategy if somebody hasn’t bought from you in a while. I don’t like to just give them offers. A lot of people just give a 30% off or a steeper discount hoping it will make them buy again. But I like to use it as a communication and automation with them. I ask, “Hey, why haven’t you bought in a while?” and we kind of just give a very quick survey, or ask them to tell us why they haven’t come back.
If they just forgot, here’s a link to check out our latest releases, or our clearance rack if they’re looking for a deal. So that’s another one for nurturing and just bringing back and reminding.
So those are the big five strategies that make you money. But there are many more.
There’s also notification, order notification. You can set up delivery notifications which are really great because you can tell them that their product arrived and then a couple of days later you can offer them a cross-sell opportunity since they’ve already tried your products. So that one’s great too.
Another one that people often forget about is if you have a blog on your website and you’re driving SEO traffic to your blog, it’s a great time to embed a signup prompt. For instance, if you enjoyed this article, sign up here and we will send you more articles related to it. Then at the end, you can also point out, “Hey, did you know we also sell these products that solve your problem?” Because most of the time, it’s a problem-solution context, and then we give them an offer. That converts well too.
Around Q4, we do a whole different thing, like it’s seasonal automation where collecting emails and converting is completely different.
Offers and Lead Magnets That Work
Absolutely, for YouTube, a monthly giveaway works really well. So, with the client that I just mentioned, what we actually ended up doing was giving away a higher-end product. He suggested, “Hey, why don’t we just give one of these away?” and it was a $250 product.
I suggested just giving away one each month. Because they ran lives regularly each week, I suggested that during the live event, they mention the giveaway. Their content was often tutorial videos on how to use the product and they had a very passionate customer base.
They were already buying without us doing anything, but with our help, we took their brand from making around 5 million a year to reaching 60 million just by putting in these automations. The automations were driving 30% of the sales alone without campaigns because they couldn’t run ads. So, email was their only way to really bring people into their ecosystem, convert them, nurture them, and keep them for a longer time. So, retention was a big focus there.
With YouTube, it’s great to do giveaways and motivate people because a lot of times you are showcasing something. Although I haven’t done this for TikTok, I think a monthly giveaway would work well there too because there’s a lot of video aspect to it.
As for Instagram, we’ve done a lot of “how-to” lead magnets that people love and will come in for. Things like giving away a recipe or how to use a particular product, or even joining us in a private Zoom tutorial. So that works really well for Instagram.
It really depends on your content and your audience what they want. And a lot of people forget that your Email Service Provider, like Klaviyo and Mailchimp, already houses a lot of information about your audience. You can open a profile and see everything you want.
What did they click on? What did they view on your store? What they bought? All of this information is there for you and data is your friend. So use data to really figure out what your audience wants. In the end, if you don’t know what your audience wants, just ask them.
If you’re unsure of what they want, just ask them. Send out an email and ask them, “What do you guys want to see?” It’s free to do this. This is a strategy we often employ for newer businesses in the fourth quarter. If you’re uncertain about your audience and it’s small, simply ask them what they want and then deliver it to them on Black Friday.
For instance, one store in 2019 made 20,000 in sales on Black Friday. By 2020, with our strategy, we made 150,000 on Black Friday for them. All we did was ask their audience what they wanted and then we served it to them.
Resources To Recommend
Personally, I’ve learned a lot from the industry. I enjoy testing and analyzing data. I like to figure out where the money is. At the end of the day, for me, the whole point of doing email marketing and making an impact on revenue is to ensure my clients are profitable and can scale their businesses.
For me, it involves a lot of testing. Don’t be afraid to do so. Some people think they need mentors, but if you have a business, you have the platform to test and figure out what works for you. Take what you see online with a grain of salt because it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Many people speak in absolutes and I don’t like that because what works for one business is not going to work for another.
Make sure you understand your business. Copywriting is big for me and I focus heavily on it. The AI trend is going on right now, but I love using the Hemingway app to bring the writing down to a more conversational level. A lot of people write very formally.
I’d love to give you resources, but I’m actually launching a form on my Instagram @The_Winbox where you can ask me anything. Submit your question and I’ll create video tutorials. This is for anyone who wants more information on a topic they can’t find online.
Your email service providers also have a wealth of knowledge, but they often don’t display it. So, google based on your ESP and how you can utilize some of their functions to truly leverage your email marketing and increase revenue.
Other than that, I don’t have any immediate suggestions. I am part of the Email Geek’s channel and I love it because it delves more into the tech aspect and deliverability. There’s a lack of awareness on that part and I want my audience and all business owners to be aware because I know what it feels like to struggle.
It’s crucial to understand and be aware of how to hire smarter for your businesses. If you’re handing over your email marketing to an agency or a freelancer, you should have the knowledge to know if they are doing a good job or if their service isn’t fit for your business. Many people delegate their responsibilities without ensuring that things are being handled appropriately.
At the end of the day, marketing is a big experiment from start to finish. Looking at the data, making tweaks, all of it makes sense.
Get In Touch
You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram, or on my website, thewinbox.com. Those are the best channels to contact me.
On thewinbox.com, we have services you can avail of, and you can submit a form there as well. If you need help with an audit or automation setup, we do have a course, a complete automation course that covers everything, no stone left unturned. This should be available by June and is suitable for new businesses, scaling businesses, or someone who wants to optimize their automations.
It comes with an attached membership as well where we help you set it up in a timely manner and actually utilize the course. I believe nobody should just buy a course and forget about it. So, we’ll provide a full support system for small businesses. I understand the struggle and the sleepless nights, so it’s all about working smarter for your business.
I’m hopeful that this course will help a lot of businesses get started and moving forward.
This conversation was really mind-boggling. I appreciate you letting me share my knowledge on this show, and I’m happy to share this knowledge with your audience.
Thank you.
