Ep 114 - The Best Email Service Provider for Life Coaches
Business Success + Life Coach, Debbie Shadid, is talking with you about how you can create high-end and effective emails for your life coaching business with the power of Flodesk.
If you’ve been around long you’ve heard me say “there’s money in your list” and it’s true. Email marketing has proven time and time again to be one of the most effective ways of growing your online business.
The real mastery is when you can pair your written emails with software that’s simple to use, delivers beautiful emails, and overall saves you a ton of time on creating your emails. Today we’re talking about Flodesk.
Join in on today’s episode to learn how Flodesk is the ultimate email service provider for life coaches.
Use my affiliate link to sign up for Flodesk (I’ll get a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
Transcript
00;00;06;04 - 00;00;24;04 | Debbie
Welcome to the Business Building Boutique podcast for New Life Coaches. If you are a newly certified coach who's trying to figure out how to grow your business, you're in the right spot. Join me each week to learn simple business growth strategies, along with step by step marketing tips to get you seen by clients in your niche. I'm going to be your guide,
00;00;24;04 - 00;00;51;00 | Debbie
I'll tell you what to do so you can feel confident in your business. And here's the truth, ladies. You can build your dream coaching business without paid ads and without a fancy sales funnel. So if that sounds interesting and you're ready to get more paid clients then let's get started. Hello. I hope you guys are doing great. Have you enjoyed the Canva training and did you get into Google this last week and kind of mess around and see what there was?
00;00;51;02 - 00;01;09;29 | Debbie
I would love to hear your feedback on what you thought of those. Oh, my gosh. And will you do me a favor? Would you actually leave me a review on the podcast if you find this podcast to be useful? Would you please leave me a review? I would love to give you a shout out on the podcast. I'll read your review and introduce everybody to your company.
00;01;09;29 - 00;01;33;27 | Debbie
And that would mean the world to me. All right. So today we're going to be talking about Flodesk. Flodesk is another one of the tools that I just love and that I teach all of my clients about. Flodesk is an email service provider. Now, I am not talking about like your Gmail account. I am talking about a way that you send bulk emails to an email list and your email list can be five people.
00;01;33;27 - 00;01;52;25 | Debbie
By the way, it could be 5000 people, but it doesn't have to be huge to use something like Flodesk. I also want to mention before we get started, that Flodesk has a coupon that's 50% off. It is an affiliate link. So I make $19. But you get to buy Flodesk month after month for half price.
00;01;52;26 - 00;02;11;24 | Debbie
So it's going to be $19 for you. That and Canva Pro are the only two tools that I recommend that you pay for until really you're at $100,000 in your business. You can operate your business off of those two things. All right. Let's talk about Flodesk. If you are familiar with Canva, Flodesk is really a lot like Canva.
00;02;11;25 - 00;02;28;03 | Debbie
You'll get into Flodesk and the first thing that you're going to do is you're going to set up your brand kit. You're going to go in there just like I talked to you about in Canva. You're going to add your brand colors, you're going to add your logos, you are going to get yourself set up on Flodesk.
00;02;28;03 - 00;02;57;28 | Debbie
There are some really, really good email templates in there so you can grab an email template of theirs. Some of you guys actually might go into Flodesk and think that the graphics in there or the templates are a little bit too modern for you. But let me just tell you, these guys are geniuses. I talked to you about opening things up on your phone when I talked about the Canva training, and this is why you actually want to do the graphics or the email templates that don't have very much on it.
00;02;57;28 - 00;03;19;29 | Debbie
They're a big picture with very few words. It's because you're looking at it on your phone. So I would recommend that you use the templates that they have if you want to create a plane template, that's like a standard template, you can do that too. I use actually a plain template that I've added my logo into that I have set up my fonts in and in Flodesk.
00;03;20;08 - 00;03;41;16 | Debbie
You will not be able to upload custom fonts, so you'll just have to find some fonts that are close to what you have. Once you get started in Flodesk and you write your first email, if you like, the way that it looks, you can duplicate that email. So the templates are already there. You don't have to redesign it every time you can duplicate that email and just type over it.
00;03;41;28 - 00;04;04;03 | Debbie
That's a way to be able to really get things done fast in Flodesk. There's also a way for you to have your audience segmented. So when I talk about your audience, I'm talking about your email list. So let's say you have a thousand email addresses that you have collected through your email, opt in on your website, or maybe their personal contacts that you've added.
00;04;04;05 - 00;04;28;05 | Debbie
And you have a thousand email addresses you can segment things on that list. So I can have down like the people who are in my business building boutique, they're in one segment. So when I want to send them an email, I can say, just send the email to this little group of people within my full email audience. So that segment, the Business Building Boutique, they get the specific email.
00;04;28;19 - 00;04;50;05 | Debbie
You could do that like private clients, or you could do that with leads like people maybe that you've talked to, that you're nurturing. You could have a segment within that big audience where you just pick out a particular group of people to send an email to. Let me tell you how I make the best use of that. I have my audience segmented by the workshops that I do.
00;04;50;05 - 00;05;16;20 | Debbie
So you guys know I do lots of free workshops and so I have like a Canva workshop segment, I have a Flodesk Workshop segment, I have a pricing workshop segment and so on. So all of the workshops that I do, those are divided up by segments. And so I can see the people who came just to that workshop and I can go back and send another email to just those people.
00;05;16;20 - 00;05;32;23 | Debbie
So I want to have you guys be thinking about a situation where that would be the case for you. Maybe you've done a women's speaking event. I have a client that just did that and I said, make sure you get all their email addresses. And after the event, let's send them a follow up email introducing more about your coaching business.
00;05;33;00 - 00;06;02;18 | Debbie
And so you want to just send that list because the email would be very specific to these women who came to that event. Okay. The next thing I want to talk to you about on Flodesk is forms. So when you guys are going to do a free training or when you're going to do a freebie from your website, or when you don't have a website and you still want to give something away, you still want to have an opt-in or a little checklist that they get something, you want to start collecting email addresses.
00;06;03;04 - 00;06;37;05 | Debbie
You do that with a form. And in Flodesk, the forms are very simple to use. On all of the things that you do in Flodesk, you just click and change the color, click and change the fonts, click and add your photo. Honestly, give yourself a chance, it's much easier than you think. So you will set up the forms and even without a website you'll get a link to that form that you can share and say on your Facebook page, your personal Facebook page, you could say, Hey, I'm having a workshop this Saturday on weight loss and I want you to attend.
00;06;37;05 - 00;06;58;22 | Debbie
And they can sign up through the form link that you have that's from Flodesk. That will capture their email address and their name, and those people then will go into an audience. They'll go into a segment within your audience so that then you can follow up with people after that. The next thing I want to talk to you about is workflows.
00;06;59;08 - 00;07;28;03 | Debbie
Now, a workflow is a step by step process that is already set up. So let me go back to the example of the lady who was doing the speaking event, and she's going to send a follow up email to those women like, thanks for coming. I loved speaking to you. Here's a little bit more about me. She can actually create a series of emails that's called a workflow that are follow up emails that will go to the women in that group.
00;07;28;03 - 00;07;49;23 | Debbie
So this is when it's like you think about what you want to do, you do it in advance and it's set up. And then you don't have to worry about it. So you could say, I'm going to send the email in two days and I'm going to send the next email in two more days. There's also conditions within the workflow where you can say, if somebody clicked on this, then I'm going to send them this email.
00;07;50;05 - 00;08;12;18 | Debbie
And you guys, if you think about it, you've had emails like this. If you were like shopping for something online and you clicked on it and you did not take the next step and make a purchase, you actually might get an email that said, Hey, there's something left in your cart. That's an example of how you could also set up a workflow with various triggers.
00;08;12;21 - 00;08;44;29 | Debbie
If they don't open the email, then maybe there's another step that happens. So without getting into too much complication, just know that a workflow is a series of emails that you can set up that are timed. They go, you know, every two days, every one day, whatever it is, it can be every hour if you want. For example, if somebody joins your coaching program, you could add them to a workflow where as soon as they sign the contract and they make their payment, they could get a welcome email and then like, say, 24 hours later, they could say, here's your next step email.
00;08;45;08 - 00;09;12;29 | Debbie
And then let's say one week later it could say, how are you doing? What's happening? Can I get some feedback? So that's how you would use a workflow. The last thing that I will mention to you guys in trying to keep this simple, since we're doing it via podcast, there are results that you can look at. And I really love to help my clients look at what's happening in their business all the way around, and we look to see what's working.
00;09;12;29 - 00;09;38;02 | Debbie
We look to see what's not, and then we make changes accordingly. So you're kind of always approaching your business with a really curious eye. You want to almost be like an investigator investigating what's happening. So when I write an email, I go and I look to see what happened. I look, I sent it to this many people. It will tell you what percentage of people actually opened it up and it will tell you how many people open it up
00;09;38;02 - 00;09;59;06 | Debbie
more than one time. I'm looking actually at an email that I sent out last night, and I can see like this one particular person opened it up four times. So if you look at that and you see somebody opened up something four times, it gives you the opportunity to think, huh, that's interesting. I wonder what's going on? What she thinking about?
00;09;59;29 - 00;10;18;12 | Debbie
Why is she continuing to open that up? That probably, this person to open this up four times, is probably somebody who's very interested in working with me. So I'm obviously not going to reach out to her and say, hey, I saw you open the email four times. That would be kind of creepy. But I know in my mind this is interesting.
00;10;18;27 - 00;10;48;09 | Debbie
There's actually quite a few people that opened up the email that I sent last night multiple times, so I can probably guess make an educated guess. This email must have been pretty effective. That's why so many people opened it up and kept going back to it and opening it up again and again. It also will tell you who's clicked on what so if you have, for example, a scheduling link, you know you're going to have a place where people are going to schedule an appointment.
00;10;48;10 - 00;11;12;09 | Debbie
You can see who's clicked on a scheduling link. You can see how many times did they go there and click on that link. And one of the great things about that is if that person is clicked multiple times and they haven't schedule an appointment, then you can sort of start to think, Hmm, I wonder if they're clicking and I don't have enough times available on my calendar that might make you think, okay, I probably need to open up more on my schedule.
00;11;12;20 - 00;11;37;27 | Debbie
That might be the problem. So analytics provide lots of solid information. They don't give you all the answers and so you have to put on that sort of investigator cap and start thinking about what maybe created that result. But definitely analytics are super useful on a whole. You're going to go through and you're going to look at your emails and you'll be able to see what are the email subject lines that get people to open up emails.
00;11;38;11 - 00;11;57;22 | Debbie
What are they most interested in? And honestly, the only reason why somebody opens up an email is because whatever it says in the subject line. So that's going to be the key piece. It's not going to be what's inside the email. The open rate is affected by what the subject line said. As I wrap this up, I'll tell you one more thing.
00;11;57;22 - 00;12;18;23 | Debbie
You can also pre schedule things in Flodesk. So if you are really efficient, you're very organized. I'm actually getting ready to write 30 emails for 30 days. I will write those emails and I'll go in and create one in Flodesk. And by the way, you guys are going to be useful tips on building your business. I will go in and write one email.
00;12;18;24 - 00;12;40;29 | Debbie
I will get it scheduled and set up with the audience that I want and then I'll duplicate it. I'll use the exact same template, I'll duplicate it and take the copy that I've written and I will copy and paste it into the email document in Flodesk. So to tell you how all the tools work together, I wrote those 30 emails on a Google document.
00;12;40;29 - 00;13;01;14 | Debbie
I shared that Google document with somebody who could look over the Google document and check it, just double check it for typos and some big mistakes. If you guys know me and know me at all, you know, I make typos. So I always have if I can, I try to have somebody else look over what I'm doing so I can share that Google document with them and they can look at it and make any corrections on it.
00;13;01;15 - 00;13;22;16 | Debbie
Then I can take that same Google document, make a copy of it, and add the information to one email, finish that one and schedule it. I can do the next email, copy and paste it, finish and schedule it. As I also mentioned, you can go into Canva and create like a graphic that you could download and then put it into your Flodesk email.
00;13;22;17 - 00;13;45;08 | Debbie
So all of the pieces can work together and gosh, it really makes you look like a pro. I know I mentioned in the Canva training and I'm going to mention again, I want you guys building emails if you do not have any idea how to do that, you want to get some help and get that done because you do not want to rely on social media as being the only way to connect with clients.
00;13;45;12 - 00;14;09;05 | Debbie
Email marketing really works, even if you don't like receiving a ton of emails. I will tell you that that is how coaching really is sold. Emails are what introduce your client successes, are what introduced your promotions, are what introduce anything that's happening in your business. They're really introduced through email, so be thinking about how you're going to grow your email list.
00;14;09;15 - 00;14;35;03 | Debbie
Be thinking about the email options that you've created. You can use your Flodesk form to do that so that the leads, the email address and their name starts building in an audience inside a Flodesk. And then you can do your follow up emails directly from there. Okay, I hope this has been helpful to you guys. I know again, it's going to have to be interesting because you're not following this step by step since it's a podcast.
00;14;35;03 - 00;14;56;02 | Debbie
But there's so many good things to use in these tools that I'm talking to you about. And as a new coach who does not know where to start, I'm hoping that this is giving you the guidance that you need to get started and to get going. Okay, you guys have an amazing day. Work on your email list, start growing it because there is money in your list.
00;14;56;08 - 00;15;22;01 | Debbie
All right. Have an amazing week. Bye bye. That's it. Thanks for listening. Now it's up to you, put what you learn today into action. Do what you need to be seen and then hired by clients in your niche. And if you're ready to stop wasting your precious time and get your business finally booked up, you're invited to join me in the Business Building Boutique for New Life Coaches, where you will learn everything you need to be a coach with plenty of paid clients.
00;15;22;01 - 00;15;30;22 | Debbie
All right. Have an amazing week, until next time. Bye-bye.