Ep. #897 - How to Increase First-Time Purchases

00:01.12

Andrew Morgans

What’s up, Hustlers? Welcome back. This is Andrew Morgans, Founder of Marknology. Here as today’s host of the Startup Hustle, covering all things e-commerce, Amazon startups, entrepreneurship; you name it. Shout out to our sponsor for today’s episode, Full Scale io, helping you build software teams quickly and affordably. We wouldn’t be able to do this show for free and get it out to all of you, guys. Today’s guest is from Las Vegas, Sandy Donovan. Welcome to the show.

00:28.17

Sandy Donovan

Hi, thanks for having me today. Andrew.

01:06.68

Andrew Morgans

I told her I was a little bit under the weather. So if you hear me sneeze in her coffin or something, just bear with me. We’re not going to stop the show. But Sandy, your business is called the email lady, and I know that you know if you’re in e-commerce, you’re probably doing a lot of things even if that’s the case like you know with your name being so focused. But before we get into what you guys are doing today. Can we go back to your origin story? Did you always know you were going to be in e-commerce? Did you know you’re going to be a business owner? What was your focus in school? For me, it was networking and insecurity completely different arena than where I’m at now?

01:46.73

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

02:18.20

Andrew Morgans

I like just getting to know you know, our guests, and sharing how you became an entrepreneur.

02:00.50

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, so it definitely. I Think like everybody. It’s not a straight path. So This question is always hard for me to answer because I’m always like, well there’s starting point a or starting point B or kind of where we’re we but I kind of look at my starting point When. Ah, it was around 16, I was a single mom with a toddler at the time. Um, and if you have kids, whether you have a partner or and lots of help or not. You know they take up a lot of time, right? And they also take up a lot of money, so I was both.

03:31.60

Andrew Morgans

Um, yeah.

03:16.90

Sandy Donovan

Time broke, and money broke. I was working as a communication instructor at a community college that was my that was what I studied in school. I have Masters in Communication. You know, so I was working that and then I had to pick up another job and so I was tutoring. And then I had to pick up another job for I was doing sales advertising sales for a local magazine. Um, and when that still wasn’t working, and I was now completely out of time and not much better off for money. That’s when I was like, you know, if I am going to work this hard, I want to build something. For me, I want to build something that’s mine. Um, I don’t want to continue to keep going and putting in all these hours and like barely see the needle move, so that’s where I was at, but again, with no time and no money it makes starting a business pretty tough. Um, so That’s when I really found e-commerce because what I really wanted to do was have some sort of passive income, and I know that word gets thrown around a lot. I wasn’t looking to just,t you know, hit a switch and let the money roll in, but I wanted to make sure that my time was leveraged. That was just a really important thing for me. So ecommerce sounded like probably the best bet there because I knew that I could have a site that was doing something for me when I wasn’t, so that was my none kind of dip my toe into eCommerce. So I found um i. You know, I found someone to help me out with that as a mentor, took a course, you know, did all those things, and I ended up opening up a store we were selling. Um, I don’t know how much you would know about this, Andrew but like women when they’re getting ready for their wedding like a bride usually wears um like.

07:16.98

Andrew Morgans

No, bring it.

07:08.30

Sandy Donovan

You know, match your robes with your bridesmaids and all this kind of stuff, so that’s what I was selling. We were embroidering them so that they were all like personalized and cute and all that stuff. Oh, did you? Oh cool.

07:38.44

Andrew Morgans

Yet.

07:53.68

Andrew Morgans

I worked with a brand that did that, so they were called the classy bride out of LA, just a couple of sisters that were like, you know, creating his and hers and that kind of stuff, so I know more about those products probably than I should.

07:51.93

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, okay, awesome. I, I didn’t. I didn’t think you would, but yeah, cool, so um yeah, I mean that was what I started um doing, and I had that business for a few years, and it was I mean, I remember the first time I made a sale when I wasn’t. Physically, you know the none few sales I kind of had a, yeah well for me I was I was on the playground with my son, and I was watching him roll down the grass hill, and I was just kind of like enjoying the afternoon and yeah, you hear that Shopify um thing. Yeah, I go off, and it’s like what just happened.

09:02.86

Andrew Morgans

You’re asleep, and you wake up, right? and it’s like ding or something.

09:22.40

Andrew Morgans

Um, thing. Yeah, now I know exactly that feeling, and you know what it reminds me of? I was thinking about this the other day. Um, you’ve got mail like that like you remember that movie with like and I just remember like when it None came out when email did start coming out. It was super exciting to look in your email inbox and see one.

09:09.37

Sandy Donovan

Um.

09:19.45

Sandy Donovan

Um, yeah, yeah.

09:39.53

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

10:10.26

Andrew Morgans

You know, and I think that that’s kind of what it’s recreated is like oh I woke up and I had two sales, and it’s like you know they could be $14 it doesn’t matter is the None time you made money while you’re playing with your son at the park right? Yeah.

10:04.23

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, or while you’re sleeping while you’re out to dinner. Well, I mean whatever, it’s just, yeah, it was a whole new world. So that was a lot of fun. Um, but I, to be honest with you, totally screwed that business up. Um.

10:43.32

Andrew Morgans

Super cool. Yeah.

10:40.35

Sandy Donovan

So I made a huge mistake in trying to use someone to do the embroidery and then ship it right from there instead because originally, I was like taking everything. Going to, I was working with an embroider. So I was going to embroidery like getting everything out I was like doing everything myself, but then it was too slow, like it just it was taking too long. She wasn’t, yeah, I mean, she just wasn’t. She wasn’t big enough to like it. There were a couple of days Turnaround. It was like a lot of.

11:57.50

Andrew Morgans

Get orders out and everything.

11:52.10

Sandy Donovan

Back and forth and me running back and forth to her and it was just too much so I tried to move it somewhere where this person was going to be. You know he had a much bigger Shop. He was able to like do things a lot faster and we arranged it So that. I’d send him the order and then he would you know do everything and send out Well he ended up totally ghosting me at some point and he had all of my almost all of my inventory. Um, it really sucked and I didn’t really have the money to like.

13:25.74

Andrew Morgans

Start over.

13:04.45

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, you know so and besides that I was getting bad reviews about like things taking too long at this point because even before he goes to me. It was like it was starting to take like two weeks for him to do it or yeah I don’t know what the issue was I still to this day. Don’t know what the issue was but that’s what happened? Um, at that point I had. Already kind of known that while I loved a lot of aspects of of ah ecommerce I did not like the whole um I wasn’t good at organizing the whole logistics of like getting the product and like the whole anything that happens physically in front of me like that I wasn’t good at i. Love the marketing aspect of it and that was pretty much I should have known that going into it because’s you know I studied communication I had always been in sales and marketing that was like kind of already my life so it shouldn’t have been a shock but that was my lesson learned was that I wanted to do marketing and I really wanted. At that point one of my main goals was I really wanted to help other women own businesses like e-commerce because to me there’s a lot on a plate when you’re a woman especially when you’re a mom. There is just so much on your plate and a lot of times you know you want to work you you want to have these other things. But.

15:36.52

Andrew Morgans

Um.

15:41.71

Sandy Donovan

It’s also like it’s hard to to be in the corporate world and the 9 to 5 or whatever and still kind of balance all that and I feel like e-commerce really is the perfect kind of solution to that. Um I feel like it’s empowering to have your own thing so that’s kind of yeah that’s.

16:39.12

Andrew Morgans

Um, yeah.

16:19.53

Sandy Donovan

That’s kind of what I wanted to do I wanted to help other people do that lots happened in between. But anyway I ended up um, copywriting and doing email mostly email marketing and eventually moved to open up the email lady in early Twenty Twenty right before everyone decided that they needed to be in ecommerce. As well. So that’s kind of how we got there.

17:27.36

Andrew Morgans

Well, let’s let’s back up just a little bit. Um, how are you getting your none clients like you know one thing I think about with email is um, you know you can build lists right? You can obviously build lists and then email them. Um, but otherwise it’s like you’re getting customers then you collect their email and then you can like you know retain them later. Um, but why’d you go into email and like are you getting clients in the early days of like you know doing that as a freelancer.

17:56.33

Sandy Donovan

So originally this is way way way back when um, what was before was it. It was before upwork it was odesk and what was the other one elance. Yeah, that’s it. Um, so that’s where I started I mean.

18:45.92

Andrew Morgans

Um, elance.

18:35.77

Sandy Donovan

Because again I really had no money to be like advertising or or something like that. Um, so that’s where I started I had tried those platforms actually a couple times before like before I looked at just.

19:16.44

Andrew Morgans

I know.

19:11.85

Sandy Donovan

And I did like really weird things like I was writing eulogies for people at some point like just like because I mean those I write you know like that was what I did I wrote and I was just trying to find like well what do people need? Yeah, so that was where I started. Um I Still honestly still get a lot of clients on Upwork like I’m.

19:56.82

Andrew Morgans

Side hustles. Yeah.

19:48.15

Sandy Donovan

Fan of upwork I know a lot of people are not but I am um so yeah, that’s how I initially that and Linkedin like honestly just like reaching out to people and connecting with ecom store owners and seeing like hey you know? Yeah, what do you need? so that was kind of how.

20:42.62

Andrew Morgans

You need help with email like yeah.

20:27.15

Sandy Donovan

Started and then again it just it started picking up a lot March April may June of 2020 when people were really starting to be like in panic mode. Um, who had like retail stores and stuff that they needed to do something. Yeah.

21:20.94

Andrew Morgans

Yeah, they start going to like focus on their ecom right? They were like I do believe like 2020 was a hard year for us too at marnology. Um, we didn’t lose a lot of our clients that we had we lost a few but we weren’t really gaining any either. They weren’t like. New initiatives like you know, let’s take on Amazon it was like if they were already there they were trying to operate and it did feel like we finally got their attention like who’s whoever’s on that side of the business was like finally like okay, let’s actually give ecommerce some attention. Um, so they’re taking on different initiatives. Ah. But since then so we had none right? where the sales were up but like my agency sales weren’t up if that makes sense so like sales and ecommerce were up for all the brands we were running agency sales weren’t up 2021 agency sales went up but they got super hard to like beat 2020 s numbers at least for us like to go beat.

22:08.79

Sandy Donovan

Ah.

22:38.47

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

23:05.80

Andrew Morgans

Those numbers because you’re always trying to grow so people from the outside don’t really understand some of the complexities that were happening just from you know when you don’t have a benchmark of like this is normal. This is not normal like this is a pandemic year like you know it was just especially on Amazon where they were only having essential items you could send in and. It was a little bit of chaos. Um, where did you get like the most momentum was it certain types of clients that were like the ones kind of like that you were starting to see or was it still wide variety.

23:37.51

Sandy Donovan

Ah, yeah, so I mean for whatever reason health and beauty seems to be what comes to us the most um not because we’re necessarily targeting health and beauty. Um, but. Then of course the more you get the more you get. So um, yeah, health and beauty I think too and you know we were talking about this I think before we started hitting record but the size of the client um looking at that I mean people who were smaller who had. Who had products in a store or who were kind of selling them here and there were much quicker to be like I need to do something right now like I’m not going to wait around to see what happens in the future like I need I need a website I need an outlet for selling this because whatever I was doing last month isn’t working and that’s all I know right now like I just need to switch so I mean when you’re looking at size wise like that was the smaller companies in 2020 into that summer and even going into you know, like the black friday season. Um.

26:14.24

Andrew Morgans

On.

26:02.90

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, lots lots of that. But yeah for some reason Health and Beauty is just that’s kind of the yeah that that we end up attracting for some reason and I mean it kind of makes sense because um, you’re always going to or mostly you’re going to have.

26:43.20

Andrew Morgans

Niche. Okay.

26:35.89

Sandy Donovan

Consumable products in both of those industries and email really lends well to consumable products because you know if you’re gonna sell if you have 1 product in it only you’re gonna sell it to somebody 1 time like email following up on them isn’t that helpful. so yeah so I mean it it kind of makes sense but there are still lots of other.

27:29.00

Andrew Morgans

Yet.

27:15.65

Sandy Donovan

Not just that we could work with but we we seem to attract them for some reason.

27:48.60

Andrew Morgans

So you talked about like you know you obviously have your master’s in communication, you’ve been writing. There’s a big part to email That’s tech right? There’s still like understanding open rates and understanding like conversions and pixels and all of that kind of stuff. How did you I guess get confidence around that area and then like.

27:37.91

Sandy Donovan

Oh yeah.

28:27.80

Andrew Morgans

As well as like there’slavio and there’s mailchimp and there’s like all these different platforms. Um, is that something you had to help with. Are you just kind of dug in and figured it out or like what’s really the the process there.

28:04.61

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

28:20.37

Sandy Donovan

Yeah I mean a little both so I started copywriting as basically as soon I mean for money like not just for my own brand. But basically as soon as um I realized that. Like I had to shut my store down. You know so that was like maybe early 2015 or something around there. So um, that was a while ago so I was writing for a long time I was working as a. Contract you know freelancer just for various email marketing agencies various marketing agencies in general. So I mean that was a while to be looking at numbers like because as a writer especially if you’re doing direct response writing not like if you’re doing. Content. But if you’re doing direct response writing like you have to look at the numbers all the time right? like.

30:35.62

Andrew Morgans

It’s direct response writing for everyone listening is that the same as like sales copy like sales copy in action.

30:13.75

Sandy Donovan

So yeah, yeah, you’re getting them to take a direct response. You’re getting them to take an action right? then and there. Yeah so I mean all of the writing or like 99% of the writing that I was doing was really close to the sale versus um, you know, kind of like yeah.

31:17.40

Andrew Morgans

Educational or like.

30:53.47

Sandy Donovan

You know? um so you have to look at the numbers because if you don’t you don’t know like because it’s I mean for every brand in every situation. It’s not like you’re taking oh I use these words before and they’re gonna work here like you have to kind of see so I mean that was something I was already.

31:58.28

Andrew Morgans

Okay.

31:32.97

Sandy Donovan

Had gotten familiar with over the years but then also like I said I mean I was freelancing for some different agencies that were doing a lot of email marketing and I was writing a lot of their emails for them. So You know you just start learning those things as you go and you know what’s working What’s best. Um. Looking at the tech side of things I mean we work withlavio and that they’re just hands down. They’re the best for ecommerce. Um, so it wasn’t really a question when you look I mean I had worked with some other I worked with a client of mine was on Bronta I don’t even. They don’t They’re not even around anymore and do you know I don’t know if you know about bronto but okay so they were just like literally their their logo was a dinosaur and I feel like it was so fitting because it was just this big complex thing. That did like a quarter of Whatlaviio does in terms of like reporting and segmentation and all this Stuff. So I just felt like it was just it was big and bulky and useless like but Clavio is is just you know they’re user, friendly and stuff so the tech side really I mean is not scary at all.

34:19.59

Andrew Morgans

They made it easy. Yeah.

33:59.19

Sandy Donovan

Made it so easy and and that’s what you’re seeing really across the board right? like shopify so much easier than I mean when I started my store I wasn’t even on shopify for the first few months I just like built my own website in the back and I know I mean that was a lot.. It was tough and that’s not my thing. So. You know, but you don’t have to do that Anymore. There’s so many so many easy ways to go and and with all even all software like integrates and talks to each other Now. So the tech side really isn’t I don’t know it’s not.. It’s really not that scary I Think if you dive in and take a look at it.

35:31.32

Andrew Morgans

Yeah there’s um, there’s some pretty cool strategies like if we’re working with a brand that has like you know None email lists or something right or like None like these big email lists um can really utilize them for product launches on Amazon that’s within terms of service with Amazon too. You know so. There’s been several instances where we’ve worked with some companies that have these really big email lists and trying to leverage leverage all of that from there’s pixel tracking now on Amazon and and understanding kind of like is there a landing page in between what are we trying to do um. From the outside I’ve gotten to play a little bit and I do know that like if a brand is executing it really? Well, we all benefit and one of the major like I guess disadvantages or challenges to the Amazon play is how do you get customers emails off of Amazon um, you know it could be anything like product inserts. It could be like Qr codes on the box. It could be. Um, you know, lookalike audiences that you’re trying to create right? like there’s certain things you can do there I’m like keeping it pg here but you know there’s like there’s still these um, there’s even email within Amazon to. Like it’s not as sophisticated as clavia you can’t segment it and all of that but you can have different emails per products and different things like that that plug in but they’re so archaic really compared to like what’s out there for the d to c side that it’s like we keep it more like a touch than it is anything else like you know, just a customer touch. Um, but claviio is still one that.

37:47.61

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

38:27.52

Andrew Morgans

As I talk to just different even podcast guests or like different founders like it seems like everyone is is using Clavia not surprise.

38:13.27

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, yeah, I mean like I said hands down. It’s the best and I mean Mailchimp doesn’t even integrate with shopify anymore. Um, and they haven’t for years. So I mean. That was the other one that a lot of people were really trying to make work I feel like even though it didn’t really trying to segment in Mailchimp and trying to like automate anything is really not that much fun. It’s really not that sophisticated. But um, you know they took themselves really out of the game for ecommerce.

39:32.36

Andrew Morgans

Um, yeah.

39:23.25

Sandy Donovan

When they broke up with shopify so you know I felt like then made it a no brainer especially to go to cleveo. So.

40:00.58

Andrew Morgans

Yeah, Okay, so before we jump in the next questions shout out again to our sponsor fullscale Io helping you build software teams quickly and affordably um, talk to me about like who’s a good fit for the email lady. Um, like who’s a good fit is it is it. Ah you know service-based brands is it. You know product-based brands is it. Um, you know they need to be a certain size just educate a little bit anyone listening like. Um, when maybe whether it’s with you or or elsewhere like when email becomes like something they should be considering.

40:42.13

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, Well I mean we work specifically with direct Toconsumer Ecommerce brands like we’re working with brands who at least. Have some physical products if you know for most of them. That’s all, but we do have some brands who also do some also have some info products. But really, we’re working with you know D to C ah ecom brands who have control of their own site I will say so we don’t really.

42:09.96

Andrew Morgans

Um, okay.

41:48.57

Sandy Donovan

It’s not that we don’t work with people who who do also use Amazon um, but for some of the reasons you mentioned it’s just so much more difficult on Amazon even if you do send out. You know a product iner. You know you have your Qr code. You have whatever and you have incentive for them to come back. It’s just a It’s a lot It’s it’s more of pushing that boulder up the hill than if they land on a site that you own where you can track them and better and you can ask them to opt in and you know then when they come back, you can even get more information from them and it’s just It’s just it works a lot better that way so that’s kind of our sweet spot. Um, yeah, so that’s mostly is in terms of size. So I always tell people you might not want to invest in email right away in terms of like outsourcing this or something but as soon as. You open, you should be collecting emails right? And as soon as you start collecting emails you should have emails to start sending out then so even if you’re just going to set up your automated flows from the beginning. Um, so the. Even the big ones you don’t even have to do advanced ones. But even if you’re just gonna do a welcome flow postpurchase flow and your abandoned cart flow. Even if that’s it right? and that should take you all of a couple hours to do even with even if you’re doing it on your own as a store owner who doesn’t have any experience. It shouldn’t take you terribly long. But bare minimum like have something have some touchpoints for your customers when you start um also have an opt in box to get people before they actually buy because you’re going to lose people who come to the site who don’t make a purchase and. Your choice is do you want to pay to advertise to them again or do you want to send them an email for almost nothing. You know, almost nothing in comparison to that that advertisement. So I recommend starting with email right away now when are you going to start seeing a return on that. Um.

45:59.36

Andrew Morgans

Um.

46:09.17

Sandy Donovan

It’s I mean there’s not an exact equation. But I mean I think sooner than people actually might think so I mean I had a brand that I started working with um spring of 2020 so I mean almost right when I started. They’ve been with me for a while. They only had None product and they had about 2000 people on their list and he the none month that we did email with them. He made his money back on the investment that he put into me and my team and what he was paying. Playvio which you know wasn’t that much with that list size but he made his money back. You know that month that that we none the first 30 days that we ran emails. Um, so even with a small list like you’re going to make money if you’re consistent with your emails and if you have the right flows set up. And obviously you’re going to make a lot more if you have you know none people on your list but you don’t need to be at that size before you start to see return. Yeah for sure and a comfortable list range that we’re pretty short like.

48:48.12

Andrew Morgans

Start using it.

48:39.65

Sandy Donovan

We’re going to make decent amount of money like 23000 um is usually no problem at all to to like start seeing a return on that. So a pretty small list size I would say is when you need to really start thinking about it or you’re leaving money on the table. You know.

49:38.10

Andrew Morgans

Okay I have like I have a like a little outside the box question for you. So let’s say that a small ecommerce brand is really like built on a social media bike right? It’s someone’s Instagram almost all their sales come from Instagram or Tiktok or something like that. Um the thinking being that like. You have these customers that are like on social media and that’s why you’re reaching them. Are they the same customers that then use their email. Um, and I found that it it kind of depends as like email’s a little bit old school. Um, so you have this kind of certain age range of people that have an email that they’re using right? and so I guess I’m just like.

50:00.13

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

50:55.50

Andrew Morgans

I Guess I want from your experience like have you worked with any brands that had like a strong social presence that then was trying to get email started and like can that be successful too like what are some ways to if you have a bigger social brand like bring email into that.

50:54.21

Sandy Donovan

So I mean I haven’t seen any brand where email was like wow we can’t get anything going for you guys like I mean I think that there’s always and I work with this on. Ah. On the opposite side too when talking to people about trying to get sms going because that’s kind of you know, email’s cousin right? That’s that’s really also beneficial. Also you know we we do that as well. But um, because on that side there’s this idea that well I work. My customers are like over 40 or something. They’re not going to open their text message and again I don’t view that to be true and I don’t view it to be true with email for younger too. So speaking specifically about like brands that have yeah I mean I would say most of our brands.

52:39.42

Andrew Morgans

Um, and that’s wrong. Um.

52:40.69

Sandy Donovan

Especially the beauty space are getting most of their customers are coming over from social I mean that’s pretty much mainly where you know influencer marketing is big and they’re sending people over. So Even if it’s not coming from their social account but it’s you know it’s coming from whoever they’re working With. Um, I’m not seeing those brands as standing out in any way of being more difficult to get them to respond to email I think that I mean if as long as you’re working with people who are a. Adults. You’re selling to adults I mean I think for the most part people have an email even though yeah, it might not be the primary form of communication I mean I think they’re still opening their email for things like you know the receipt even that they’re getting from you I mean they’re opening their email for a lot of things that they need to open their email for to.

54:48.90

Andrew Morgans

True.

54:35.27

Sandy Donovan

Just to function and they’re if you’re doing it right? like you’re going to be in their inbox and they’re going to see you So if they’re interested in your products If if they’re interested in whatever you’re offering whatever solution you have to whatever problem they have you know you’re you’re going to get their attention.

55:35.46

Andrew Morgans

Okay, no, that might have been straightforward. But for me, you know, just thinking about how we I spend a lot of time thinking about how all of the different channels come together and you know so for Amazon you know it could be like we’re trying to get them to register their warranty on the website right? or we might be trying to get them to get.

55:12.79

Sandy Donovan

So.

55:26.95

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

56:14.16

Andrew Morgans

Um, you know, sign up to our newsletter for the next release or you know we do a lot of the same things that you would do in d two c we’re just doing it on Amazon trying to get them to come over to Dc a lot of people think oh and but and Amazon will cannibalize my website. That’s not the case like if you’re doing it right? You’re trying to build both of them right? and.

56:12.85

Sandy Donovan

Right.

56:48.94

Andrew Morgans

Um, you know people understand that so what are all the ways that you do it? Maybe you have custom on the website but not on Amazon maybe you have a limited number of skews there but not there you know, maybe you’re getting you can actually buy just the bulk on the website or like there’s all these little things you can do if you’re really engaging with the customer over a long period of time. Um, where. You’re trying to get them to the email right? like ah one that was really big for Amazon Brands was the chat bots okay, so getting their email through the chat bot of course, but like these chatbot sequences that were like engaging with customers on Facebook or wherever and the goal is to get an email. Then do launches with under email. So like you know I’ve been doing this a long time and seeing some of them like how they’re executing um, but there’s like there’s so many ways to get them in cross to get them across like let’s say you’re selling a product and um. You know you’re trying to have customers take a picture like user-generated content. You want them to take a picture or a video with your product. Well if you can get them to tag you on Instagram and you’re giving them a free product or something like that and you’re getting them to take a picture tag you on Instagram well technically now you’ve got the Amazon customer on social not email.

58:38.53

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, you’re moving there.

59:06.80

Andrew Morgans

But you’re None step away right? So it’s it’s really all these different things that are like you know how do we just get to be able to stay in front of them again. You know Amazon has a subscribe and save program which is kind of similar to ah maybe a retention program on email. Um, but we include inserts to have them come back that. You know those kinds of things so there’s um, I’m always wondering just like how how the best of the best are really executing across multiple because typically if we’re working with a decent size brand I’m not talking to the owner operator that set everything up right? They’ve got an agency for this or a consultant for this or a consultant for this. So unless you’re in there setting them all up yourself. It can be difficult to to find but None thing that might be interesting for you and for our listeners is like probably the last six months Amazon has a program where if you have brand registry which is a trademark as a brand if you’re sending traffic from off of Amazon to Amazon. But’s say an email blast hey guys. we just just let you know like we just launched on Amazon. We’d love if you support us there you know that’s an example and if they come over and buy or a lot of times you’ll you’ll send down email blast and if you’re also on Amazon even if you’re sending traffic to the website. There’s a certain amount of them that will search you on Amazon and buy you there. Right? And so if you’re set up correctly, you can actually get 10% back from Amazon that’s a program they have so these are things that as businesses getting harder. Um, you know and you’re like well why would I want to send that there Amazon takes more fees and well there’s this momentum play on Amazon that doesn’t necessarily exist on a website which is like an algorithmic scoring. Um, but I get just super fascinated with how um you know you can utilize email or social or these things really to like create this holistic this holistic brand.

01:02:09.37

Sandy Donovan

Well, that’s the thing right? I mean I’m obviously a big fan of email and I’m sms. But I mean that doesn’t mean that you’re just going to do that and nothing else right? Like I mean that’s the thing you have to you really want to get in front of people anywhere you can because it’s not just does. Person a only go on Instagram or only go on Tiktok or whatever they’re probably on multiple channels and the more they see you I mean the more you’re top of mind and the more they’re coming back to you and the more they’re going to feel that you know.

01:03:27.42

Andrew Morgans

Um.

01:03:23.29

Sandy Donovan

Connection to your brand. So I mean email is just one of those ways None of the reasons I really like it though, especially for ecom stores for d to c stores for ecom stores especially that are smaller is it’s ah, there’s just a very low cost to it. So I mean if you’re if you have a physical product and you’re already. You know you’re watching your margins. You don’t have like investors and stuff you know you’re doing this yourself. Sometimes it’s ah it’s it’s really difficult to get in front of people on those social platforms. And once you once you do and once you build your following and stuff like that. That’s also great. Um, but email costs so little for these brands that it’s like and it it does drive a lot of sales I mean really, we’re looking at brands. Getting no less than 20% of their sales coming. You know being generated through email that is our minimum minimum minimum benchmark like we don’t want to see anything go below that but a lot of times it goes quite a bit above that. So I mean.

01:05:44.42

Andrew Morgans

Um, okay, wow.

01:05:43.70

Sandy Donovan

You don’t want to ignore it even and even if you have it in your head like oh well, my people come from social like that’s fine, but you know you don’t want to exclude email because it’s It’s yeah like I said solo cost. It’s just money sitting there I feel like that you just don’t want to ignore.

01:06:37.54

Andrew Morgans

Right? It’s all about 10% from here and 20% from here and 15% from here and 10% from here diversifying. So if so if Amazon comes down hard or you know like if you’re an Amazon seller. So there’s a lot of very successful Amazon sellers that are just on the Amazon well they.

01:06:23.43

Sandy Donovan

Oh yeah.

01:07:12.16

Andrew Morgans

You know they obsess about well what happens if Amazon takes me down or like you know so that d to c and getting their website and getting their sales and marketing working well off Amazon is really important to a lot of them. Um, and it’s just like they become experts at Amazon but they’re not experts at everything online. You know? So um.

01:07:15.29

Sandy Donovan

Yeah.

01:07:49.64

Andrew Morgans

Know that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so we’re coming up on time and I want to give you just a couple of minutes to you know what would be something you share with any female founders that are you know maybe have maybe their’re single moms or have a little toddler or maybe they’re not and they’re just like you know, looking to get started out there. Um or people that are looking so one to the females. Ah, because I know it’s a passion of yours and to um to anyone just looking to get started in an email like where how should they get started.

01:08:13.90

Sandy Donovan

Okay, so first. Um I don’t know for females who want to jump in I mean I think there’s a lot of fear around sometimes the unknown for anybody not not just for women. But there’s this fear of the unknown and if you’ve been. Sitting around listening to the podcasts and listening to you know, checking things out or online or whatever. Um, most of this stuff is not nearly as scary as it appears I think before you jump in and and look at it. Um, and it’s also I mean maybe I’m a nerd but I think it’s a lot of fun. So.

01:09:45.84

Andrew Morgans

Um, yeah.

01:09:24.45

Sandy Donovan

I think it’s fun to play around with and to you know, kind of experiment that’s all marketing is is experimenting and seeing you know what works and testing it out so to me, it’s a lot of fun. So you know why? not? um, none question if you wanted to get started with email I mean like I mentioned I think if you have a business. Um. Obviously like I said I focus on stores with physical products but anybody really who has a business you want to own something. You know you want to own your list. You want to own a portion of your revenue at least because exactly what you were saying. Amazon can take you down Instagram can change our algorithm tiktok can just go away like we don’t know what’s gonna happen so you want something that you own. So if you want to get started with email. Um, find a simple email service provider I definitely recommend clavio if you have an ecom store. Um.

01:11:26.90

Andrew Morgans

Um, okay.

01:11:08.45

Sandy Donovan

But if you if you’re you know so like active campaign is easy to use like there’s a bunch of really easy ones to use that you can just start right away. The None thing I would say you get a pop-up um people think pop-ups are annoying but they work they work way better than an embedded form So get a pop-up start collecting. Your emails um collect them at checkout and then make sure that you have those touch pointss like I mentioned that least have your welcome flow have your abandoned cart flow have your post-purchase flow at the very very very least.. There are many many more flows that you can do and that you should do. But at least have those as just a touch point for before they purchase right after they purchase and if they abandon your purchase if you want to go a little further. You can go if they have lapsed on their purchase. You know that’s the next one I would set up. You can also do one if they view a product and don’t add it to the cart or whatever.

01:13:27.52

Andrew Morgans

Um, okay.

01:13:01.33

Sandy Donovan

There are so many options but just do the basics and just let that sit in the background until you know you start building up, um, a following you’re building up a list and then you can go back and start adding to it and I think you will actually be surprised. The money that just those flow just you’re welcome and your abandoned cart flow will generate for you. Um, even if you just set it up and don’t touch it for six months while you’re working on starting to send traffic over to your site I think you’d I think you’d be surprised.

01:14:31.88

Andrew Morgans

Sandy. Thank you so much for all of that I think it’s gonna be very helpful to a lot of people. Um very knowledgeable and I appreciate your time and and shoutout again to our sponsor for today’s episode fullscale that I o helping you build software teams quickly and affordably. Um.

01:14:36.13

Sandy Donovan

Yeah, thank you Andrew.

01:15:04.22

Andrew Morgans

Sandy, Thanks for being on the show. Awesome! We’ll see you next time. Hustlers.