EPISODE 72 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
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What if your email automations could do the heavy lifting of personalisation… without you writing a separate email for every type of subscriber?
That’s exactly what we dig into in this hot seat episode with Rachel Smith, freelance journalist, copywriter, and the founder of Rachel’s List, a thriving jobs board and membership community for writers of all kinds. Rachel is a Retention Lab member, and came to me with a real headache around her email marketing, and we worked through it together live on the show.
What we cover:
Why personalisation isn’t really about first names (and what to do instead)
How to use application form data to create conditional content that feels bespoke
Trigger links and what they can tell you about hot leads sitting in your sequence
The case for re-engagement flows at the three and six month mark
How to incentivise feedback so people actually complete your surveys
Milestone tagging inside your email platform and why it matters for retention
Activity scoring to spot disengaged members before they quietly cancel
Soundbites:
Nadine Nethery: “Sometimes my brain thinks up these hyper complex automations. and I actually go to Claude or ChatGPT because they’re quite good at researching things like that and finding out these little formulas, for example, how to update a custom field and automatically add a plus one. And rather than digging around in support documentation, I just throw this task at Chat GPT and ask: “Chat, this is what I want to do in Drip. Is it possible? If it’s possible, how do I do this?” Sometimes it gets it wrong. Most of the time it’s pretty, pretty damn good.”
Nadine Nethery: “Email marketing is one of my favourite things. So much potential. But the thought process behind it and the mapping I feel is the hardest part. Once you think the way your email platform works, it’s an automated thing. Whenever you build something, it’s rewiring your brain, particularly if you’ve switched to a different platform. It takes a little while.”
More about my guest, Rachel Smith:
Rachel Smith is a freelance journalist and copywriter who loves using her words to help clients solve business problems. She also runs the show at Rachel’s List, a jobs board and membership for word nerds of all kinds.
https://www.rachelslist.com.au
https://www.rachelsmith.com.au
https://www.instagram.com/rachelslist
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelsmithsydney
https://rachelslist.com.au/portfolio/the-pay-rates-report/
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Episode Transcript:
Nadine (00:00)
Hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I am super excited for this week’s guest because she is one of my dear business buddies. We’ve been in each other’s world for quite some time. And this guest is on for a special hot seat episode today where we’re trying to troubleshoot some headaches, obstacles, hurdles, questions that she has, and hopefully.
Give her some ideas to walk away with and implement in her business. So today’s guest is Rachel Smith. She is a freelance journalist and copywriter. She’s based in Sydney, just like me. And Rachel loves using her words to help clients solve business problems. She also runs the show at Rachel’s List, a jobs board and membership for Word nerds of all kinds. And she happens to also be a
retention lab member. So I know Rachel is all about clever hacks and strategies to make her brand even more human in a somewhat automated way where possible. Right. So welcome to the show, Rachel.
Rach (01:06)
Thank you. I have to say you have introduced me to a lot of very cool hacks. So I am loving being in the lab. This is kind of new for me, being in someone else’s membership. So it’s really cool.
Nadine (01:11)
Ha ha.
It’s always nice to be on the other side of an experience, isn’t it? Yeah, I feel like different perspectives, another set of eyes, it absolutely always helps. So before we get started with your headache slash question, whatever we want to call it, I would love you to give our listeners just a little bit of background. obviously, I touched on who you are and how amazing you are, but can you just give people a bit of an idea?
Rach (01:21)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
No.
Nadine (01:45)
You know, how you landed where you are today, how it all evolved.
Rach (01:46)
Yes.
Yeah, sure. So I’ve been freelancing for over twenty five years and as you said I juggle two businesses. I also have a podcast called The Content Byte and another sort of secret podcast for another part of my membership, but that one’s not public. and yeah, I use a really good coloured coded calendar to keep everything going. But yeah, so my day job, you touched on that. I’m
Work as a journalist and a copywriter. So one day I might be writing a magazine article or I might be working on a client’s web copy or their email newsletters. And in between that, I might record a podcast episode or I’ll be in my group answering questions or planning expert trainings for the membership, running challenges or writing different kinds of content.
And behind the scenes, I’m probably making endless rounds of vegmite toast for my eleven year old. So it’s very busy. But yeah, I came from the magazine world and was very deep in that. I was a sub editor, I was a movie reviewer for ten years and I wrote for loads of women’s magazines. And then that work slowly started to go a little bit. and so I just sort of saw the writing on the wall and thought I’m gonna edge into content and copy. And so that is where I have sort of
fallen and that’s where most of my work is. But Rachel’s List started around that time when I was transitioning because I was really lonely. There wasn’t the freelance community that there is now. And so I sort of set out to build build it in a rough sort of organic way. And now that has grown into Rachel’s List, which is this huge community. There’s thousands of people in it and we have paid membership and
We have a jobs board which is free for all kinds of job posters to find writers of all kinds, copywriters, journalists, PRs, editors, content pros. So it’s a really big undertaking and I sort of run that alongside my freelance work.
Nadine (03:42)
Hmm, just right. Like one of the many hats. it sounds like you have a whole lot on your plate. the vegemite toast probably can be the most demanding at times, I can relate. man. but yeah, I just love how you know, working across multiple businesses can give you so many different perspectives. Like you’re on the receiving end of that job search and
Rach (03:44)
Just. my god.
Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Nadine (04:07)
Trying to find clients, which obviously gives you like a really good perspective around what your members may need. So it’s that perfect organic blend of the two. But I can imagine running that membership with thousands of members can also come with a lot of challenges. Do you have team to support you?
Rach (04:17)
Yeah.
Mm.
I have a f small freelance team, two VAs, and and I have like my marketing wing woman who is sort of a mixture of everything. She’s the ultimate unicorn. she’s kind of my talk me off the ledge person. she she knows digital marketing, she can do ads, she can, you know, she is my kind of unofficial editor when I ha have a newsletter that I wanted to run her eye over.
Nadine (04:36)
Yeah.
Rach (04:53)
So she’s great. And then I have a VA who is kind of in my where we’re all in Slack together. And then I have another VA who sort of uploads a lot of my evergreen content. So it’s all yeah, it all sort of runs smoothly, sort of, with their help. Mm.
Nadine (05:08)
Sounds very efficient, like
small team, but everyone is bringing different skills and perspectives to the table. So good. but yeah, I feel like your headache slash question really feeds into that where you know, as a small team and you looking after so many things, being super efficient with your email marketing and automations is critical to keep everything on track, to support your members in a
Rach (05:13)
Yes, yes.
Mm.
Yes.
Nadine (05:34)
somewhat scalable way while still making them feel like you know where they’re up to, how long they’ve been around. and that’s something we’re going to look into today. So do you want to tell people about, your headache question, whatever we want to call it?
Rach (05:48)
My headache. Okay.
Well, I yeah, you’re absolutely right. I think email, I love email. I do it for other clients and I worked out the other day I spent I send probably about forty seven thousand emails to three thousand people every month at Rachel’s list. So lots of emails are going through. we’re on MailAlight, we were on active campaign and we ran screaming from them. the automations are over there just
Nadine (06:06)
Wow.
Rach (06:16)
kind of did my head in and so Mailer Light was it was like Christmas you know because it’s quite easy to do automations and it’s easy to put them together. But so what I struggle with is I wonder if the automations I’m doing are effective and also if they should be more complex in some ways or more segmented in some ways. So yeah with it with our
Nadine (06:18)
Yeah.
Rach (06:43)
email subscribers, we have I I am so loath to admit this, but when you’ve got a small team and you’re super busy, you do drop some balls. And I know that everyone should have a first name tag, but they don’t. So we try to keep that up to date as much as possible. But it does impact personalising your emails and how you do that. And I don’t know how much that impacts the effectiveness of your emails if people don’t feel like you’re talking directly to them. So that’s one little thing
Nadine (07:12)
Yeah.
Rach (07:13)
Yeah. that’s a lot of little things actually. You can start there.
Nadine (07:17)
Yes. But
I I reckon personalization and linking that to first name is totally overrated. Because you know, we’re all I reckon, because we’re all very smart nowadays. Like go on other days where you felt like someone saying hey Nadine or Hey Rach personally is addressed to you, right? Like we we all know there’s automations happening. So I
Rach (07:22)
Yeah.
Right.
Mm.
Yeah.
Nadine (07:41)
actually don’t start my emails with high Rach or high whatever. No. And I no, so I don’t really address people by their first name in most instances. I’m just trying to think. I have one my welcome email actually. the subject line is first name specific. So but also my subscribers all have first names so
Rach (07:45)
Not okay, I couldn’t remember if you did or not.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (08:04)
But inside emails, I actually don’t use first name. So I use other strategies to then feed in content or information that feels highly relevant. So stepping away from that first name, but personalizing it in other ways. So I don’t think having no first name for all of your subscribers is necessarily a problem. Do you capture first names for members? Like all the members have first names?
Rach (08:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
We do now, but because but there are others that were captured in a different way before we relaunched. So yeah, it’s an ongoing project to update those records. and so I use hey there or hi a lot. Yeah.
Nadine (08:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
I think that totally works. Like you can have
a totally personalized experience without addressing people by name. So I wouldn’t stress about that. What I would look at, and I know before we like we chatted before the episode, tagging and segmenting was something you were looking at as well. I would totally be super strategic with tagging.
Rach (09:02)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (09:15)
or segmenting. I don’t know how Mailer Lite handles it, whether it’s a segment or tag type situation. Segment. So I would totally try to keep track of anything really that you can track. So for example, I know you have an application flow for members. I thought that was a really great starting point. I don’t know whether you want should we start with that? Take a closer look at that. So Rachel before the episode shared.
Rach (09:20)
It’s segments, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Nadine (09:41)
her current setup with me and it’s pretty straightforward. someone has to apply on Rachel’s website to start the process. So they find out about Rachel’s list, her membership, and if they’re interested, they complete this application form, which then triggers Rachel to have a look and if accepted, they go into this application flow with a whole bunch of emails that you know follow up.
Bust objections, do a whole lot of work. but it’s all linear. and it feels like, am I right? Like everyone receives the same email, no matter what actions they take. Is that right?
Rach (10:10)
Yes.
They they do. This is a really new automation that I put together. but I have set it up so that if they at some point in the in the automation buy membership, because that it’s kind of it’s kind of like triggering them to go and buy the actual membership because it’s not something they can do on the website. They need to be approved by us and then they get the pricing page. so if they buy it, I’ve set it up that they will be taken out.
Nadine (10:29)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. so I’ve had a few ideas because you’re asking some really quick questions, obviously, on the intak form. do you have an ability to somehow feed what they select in the in tech form into Maila Lite? Like tag them in a certain way based on what they select?
Rach (10:43)
somehow. But that’s as far as I’ve gone with it. Yeah.
No, because it’s kind of s in a separate type form. But I suppose we could add those fields into Mela Light. But whether
Nadine (11:11)
Mm. Even I’m sure
there would be you know, Zapier or Make. I’m a hundred percent certain if you wanted to take it down that path, that you could link up the form to Zapier or Make preferences, right? and then tag people accordingly on the back end. And what you could do then, so some of the questions, for example, in the application form, I’ve got them here in front of me, is what do you hope to get out of being a member?
Rach (11:15)
Zapiar, yeah.
Yeah.
Nadine (11:36)
Of Rachel’s list. So connections, jobs, learning from experts, accountability. Another question here is what type of freelancer are you? Journalist, copywriter? Another one, how many years of experience do you have? So early career, mid-level, senior. So what you could do is tag people in line with their responses. And you could use conditional content, which Meleight makes totally easy, you know, based on the tag they have, you display.
Rach (11:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (12:04)
personalized text, you could basically create an onboarding or application flow where every email touches on what they told you in the application flow. So if they clicked, for example, I’m all here for the connections, then for example, in the QA email, you could for those people display questions that are around, you know, like how do the live calls work? Or how do I get to connect? Whereas if someone ticks
Rach (12:15)
Mm.
Nadine (12:31)
I’m here for the jobs, you could then go, you know, like how does the application work, how does the job process work? How do the job bots work? So every email then becomes this personalized sales process almost. And you wouldn’t even have to create separate emails with conditional content. you would just create different snippets. So display this if someone is tagged, you know, connections. Display this if someone has the tag.
Rach (12:53)
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (12:55)
jobs, display these if someone has. So you create one email, set up these conditional fields in there, and then all of a sudden the email sends no matter what, but every message is totally bespoke to what they told you in the in tech form.
Rach (13:10)
Mmm, that sounds so scary though. What if you got it wrong?
Nadine (13:15)
If the
well they ticked it. You know, like if they you’d think they take the time to tick it properly. So I reckon Mm mm.
Rach (13:18)
Mm.
Mm. Wow. I didn’t even think of doing that. Because all
our all our answers go into a spreadsheet and then we sometimes run some of those sections through AI for analysis and stuff like that. but yeah, we don’t really bring pull it back into fields in MailAlight. So that makes perfect sense to me. That’s got my brain firing.
Nadine (13:32)
Yeah.
Mm. Yep.
And you know, that doesn’t even have to be something that you then carry on in the messaging once they’re in the membership because obviously that might change. Once they’re in, they might have joined for the connections, but they actually go, my God, like the guest experts are my favorite part. so you know, you only have to use those tags in the application form or in the application flow. but that way you sort of like have this bespoke channel.
Rach (13:52)
Mm.
Yeah.
Nadine (14:12)
For every response, and you don’t have to tap into all the tags in every email. but yeah, like objections, for example, you can pull specific objections someone might have around community, like I can’t make live calls around the jobs, there, you know. yeah, so all every email basically becomes this totally bespoke sales channel, and you don’t have to keep track of it, you set it up once.
Rach (14:25)
I’m not in the face I’m not on Facebook, so I can’t be in the community.
Nadine (14:38)
Takes a little bit of time, obviously, but if you do it properly, I reckon your conversion rates from application through to people actually joining are going to go up because it’s just so specific.
Rach (14:49)
Yeah, I love that idea. Okay. Cool.
Nadine (14:51)
Hmm. Another
thing, because you know, I’m obsessed with email. And I’m with Drip, which has very similar functionality to MailerLite And once I started looking into it, it’s just like I’m just obsessed because it’s so easy. You just need to really embed it into the way you look at your emails. So another thing you could do is using trigger links to track whether people are actually clicking. So let’s say
Rach (15:14)
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (15:15)
There are how many emails are in that sequence? Is it six from yeah? So let’s say six emails. So rather than just linking through to that join page as a regular link, you could turn that into a trigger link, meaning I don’t know what MailAlite calls it, but a trackable link where someone clicks and then action happens on the back end. And you could have a bit of code. it’s all possible for custom fields. So you could set up a custom field for people to keep track of how many times.
Rach (15:18)
Six, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (15:42)
They click on the sales page, but don’t join. And then for example, let’s say before the last email, if someone has clicked three times, you could set that parameter, but you know, three times they’re still in that flow, they haven’t joined. Clearly, there’s some traction. You could then trigger a task, for example, in like I personally use Bonjoro to remind you that you know someone’s a hot lead.
Rach (15:44)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (16:08)
Send them a video message.
Rach (16:09)
I do Zoom clips for that, but yeah. Yeah.
Nadine (16:11)
Or yeah. So even if
you, you know, trigger a Slack or some or an email to yourself even to go, you know, check in with, I don’t know, Brad, that’s his email. you know, he’s in the lead process, he’s clicked three times. You send him a quick message and you might be able to clear up whatever questions he’s got, whatever hesitations. And it just means it tracks for you, the email system tracks for you who’s a super hot lead. You know, people who don’t click, they just complete, they’re clearly not quite ready.
whatever didn’t align, but interfering or intervening with those hot leads gives you that opportunity to open up a conversation.
Rach (16:39)
Mm.
So how do you do that with your end without sounding like a complete stalker?
Nadine (16:51)
Mm-hmm. I I always frame it in a very non-stalkery kind of way. So I usually go, you know, like a little
birdie tells me you know, you might be interested, but something clearly doesn’t click for you. So this is just an open invitation to reach out, you know, hit reply if you if there’s anything I can do for you to decide either way. I’m not here to sell you into joining. it is just an
invitation. Some people never reply, but a lot of people are going to come back to you and go, This is awesome. I actually have a question. So yeah, like you don’t want to sell them into it. It’s just, you know, this, someone, you know, tells me. And you know, they know there’s analytics and tracking. But that might be again something to just capture people who are super hot. And again, like you don’t have to set it low.
Rach (17:25)
Mm. Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Nadine (17:43)
Like we all know what it’s like. If there’s an offer, we all click across and check out the sales page, right? So if you set it at three or four clicks and this custom field, you know, adds a plus one every time someone clicks. Like if you check it out four times, there’s clearly something something there. And it just means it’s manageable for you in your flow. But, you know, you might just convert that one person. And again, it’s all automated. It sits in the flow to just
Rach (18:04)
Mm-hmm. I love that idea.
Nadine (18:11)
send you a little, you know, job to Slack or however you want to manage it.
Rach (18:15)
Yes.
I love that. Because that’s all managed manually now. We might look at someone who’s opened it twenty seven times or something and go, that person But also that’s another ball dropping moment for me because I wouldn’t I’d go, that person’s really keen. They’re obviously gonna convert. But I wouldn’t I didn’t think to do a kind of bongioro reach out. Yeah. I love that idea too.
Nadine (18:23)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah. And you
know what? People actually appreciate being you being proactive. I feel it’s that you know the invitation. A lot of people have questions but they don’t know how to contact you. You know, they don’t want to hit reply to a random email because they know it’s like a system email. Reaching out with a personal email that comes from your Gmail or personal email is a whole different conversation.
Rach (18:42)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
What about like if they hit the last thing and they haven’t converted, what would you do at that point? Would you just let them exit the flow or would you keep it going or e touch base with them every couple of months? Or how would you continue that conversation?
Nadine (19:08)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, personally,
I feel like if you’ve given them that many opportunities, they haven’t really engaged. Maybe it’s, you know, money, not the right time. Like we we know what it’s like. We’re interested today, and then something comes up. So I personally would just like feed them into your regular newsletter. but again, give them opportunity in the future to potentially reenter like a nurture flow.
Rach (19:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (19:42)
So maybe in three months time, check whether they’ve joined. If they’re in three months’ time not a member, just send them even like a one-off email reminding them that three months ago you decided or you know you were interested, maybe it wasn’t the right time, just checking, are you still interested? And you can even have like a little poll in the email, you know, yes, no, or tell me more. And based on what they click, you can potentially.
Rach (19:56)
Mm.
Nadine (20:11)
feed them into an evergreen flow that sort of rehashes the features and get them to reapply because their situation might have changed. Plus you want to update any tags you might have. if they say no, it’s like, you know, fine. they just go on their merry way. and then it could even be, you know, maybe potentially you send them one email if they engage with that. You then put them into the
Rach (20:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
Nadine (20:36)
flow. So I would definitely keep checking in with them on a regular basis, but make it on an like on a, you know, opt in type of basis. You know, tell me if you’re still keen. If not, that’s totally fine. I’ll let you be. But it clearly at some point it spoke to them. So I would keep up that conversation.
Rach (20:39)
Mm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting with those. Like I’ve got one for the job posters too. So they get an email saying, Hey, we’ve put your job on the jobs board. It’s going out in our newsletters shortly. And then two weeks later it says, Hey, has have you filled the role? Do you want us to extend it or whatever? And it takes them through. I think there might be also some that say, you know, come circle back around three months later. Have you got anything new to post or whatever? But
Nadine (21:01)
Mm.
Hmm, yeah.
Rach (21:23)
I struggle with all these automations that kind of ask for feedback. I just hardly ever get feedback and it’s only personalised emails, you know, direct one on ones that help you get that feedback. So have you got any tips on trying to get feedback via automations?
Nadine (21:27)
Mm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah. So I have feedback forms or feedback requests in any onboarding sequence after someone purchases one of my toolkits or courses. But what I do is I incentivize if they come yeah, if they’re completed. Not like I make it very clear, I’m not incentivizing you to give me good feedback. I just want your honest feedback. I use Elizabeth Goddard’s I’m just trying to
Rach (21:47)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay, let’s see that’s something I don’t do.
Nadine (22:07)
think what she’s calling it, cash to your business or something. Like it’s like a system she’s designed where yeah, you get nine dollars in can do cash, as I call it, to use on anything I sell in my business in the next six months. But you totally don’t have to systemize it that way. I feel like even linking to a resource that might be highly relevant for people or a super popular guest expert session, something that people might
Rach (22:16)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Nadine (22:35)
want to access in return for sharing their thoughts, might work a treat. And what you could do is just link to the form. And as soon as they submit it, it links through to whatever resource you have. It’s definitely worth trying. I feel people are so busy nowadays. Like it’s like another thing to complete, another thing to do. Whereas if there’s something on the other end of that survey.
Rach (22:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Nadine (23:01)
And make it clear like in its two minutes, super short, I want your honest feedback, anything I can do to make it better, let me know. And just test and see whether that maybe impacts something.
Rach (23:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yes, I will try all of that. gosh. Is there any will y I know you’ve had a little look at some of the automations. Are there any automations you think I’m missing or where I could be leaving money on the table in ways I might not be seeing?
Nadine (23:15)
Mm.
Mm, I definitely think an evergreen nurture sequence of those people who applied and for whatever reason never converted. So, you know, keep looping in with them. As long as they stay on your list, they’re clearly interested. So set up something that potentially even shares case studies. I wonder whether you can just invite them, you know, check in. Are you interested to find out more? You know, do you want to
Rach (23:30)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (23:50)
Do you want me to remind you of the awesome things waiting for you insight? and then yeah, potentially case studies, results, amazing feedback from people, just things to show the value, basically, you know, like this is waiting for you. This is what you could have. yeah, definitely that because putting the effort into getting people to convert obviously gets you gives you that recurring revenue. So it’s definitely
Rach (23:55)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (24:18)
I think should be your starting point over our nurture sequences for individual standalone products that you might have. Cause yeah, if you get that right, you know, it’s going to convert. Even people that sign up today, apply, don’t take action. It’s going to keep them in your in your orbit and keep your membership front of mind for when that time is right.
Rach (24:24)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. No, I’ll definitely do that. yeah, it’s a
Nadine (24:42)
Mm.
The other
one, I had a look at your membership onboarding journey because I always feel like there’s so much opportunity there. and it’s very similar. Again, I don’t think you have to overcomplicate things, particularly because your membership involves, you know, live sessions and so you’re in contact with a lot of your members all the time. But even little things and keeping track of how long people have in your have been in your membership inside your email platform.
Rach (24:48)
yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Nadine (25:12)
and
then celebrating milestones triggering certain celebrations. Mm.
Rach (25:16)
I do that I do that in a little way, but I
did think what could I be doing better here if somebody hits also I’m thinking, what if they hit three months or six months and think, Well, you know, I really don’t know why I’m here and they leave. So that was like kind of worrying me, like even having that that email sequence.
Nadine (25:23)
Mm.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but it’s again a lot of it you can automate. So in like my onboarding sequence for Retention App is a year long. It’s very yeah. So it keeps you in the loop, it checks in with you. It’s all just trying to think. Most of it is automated. Again, I’ve got certain milestones where I will check in with you via personal video message, but again, that triggers based on things happening or you
Rach (25:44)
Mm-hmm. All okay.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (26:02)
not doing certain th certain things that I wanted you to do by now. So but yeah it’s fully mapped out so I don’t have to touch it. You sort of go through it. It checks whether certain things have happened or haven’t happened and sends you certain things. So I definitely think you know if you have an intake form, do you do people repl reply or like complete an intake form when they join?
Rach (26:06)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Not really. They just do the application form and then we sort of take it from there and we say, Hey, you’re approved. Here’s you know, here’s everything. and here’s t here’s how to choose, you know, the membership that’s right for you. So they get that. And then they if they don’t immediately upgrade to a paid membership, they just go into that sequence where show them behind the scenes and talk words from other members and what they think and
Nadine (26:29)
Yeah. Yeah, okay.
Mm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rach (26:54)
All of that. But yeah, th you’re saying that could be longer.
Nadine (26:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, no, no. I I’m just thinking when they sign up. So as they sign up, like I know we said the the tags they have, which is like that’s a lot more than people that other people have, so it’s good. but we you could totally use the in tag form or like the application form tags in a bis bulk.
Rach (27:01)
Yeah. Yeah.
I think mine stops at six months. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nadine (27:21)
Onboarding sequence. Again, you would do conditional content, but you assume if they’ve applied, you know, even three weeks ago, they joined today, without being inside the membership, nothing would have changed around their motivations, right? Like the experience level is still the same, what they do is the same, and what they’re applied for would also still be the same. So you could, again, with conditional content, even just create.
Rach (27:33)
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (27:46)
like a mini journey for the first month. Let’s assume, you know, it takes about a month to settle in, to attend your first guest expert session, apply for your first job. So use that intake form or application, I keep calling it intake form. The application form data to again be like personalize those first emails and what you point them towards. So if someone came for the jobs, again remind them
Rach (27:48)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (28:12)
You know, here’s the jobs, this is the process. So make sure it’s easy for them to apply and land, hopefully, that first job. Community, you would potentially steer them towards something else. You know, these are your community opportunities. Make sure you introduce yourself in the community. this is what happens when you do that. So share, you know, connections that have happened. So maybe spend the first month on specifically targeting what they’ve told you, their biggest motivation.
Rach (28:19)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (28:39)
which then hopefully leads to the first quick win. So if they get one quick win in the first month, they’re likely to keep up that momentum. what you can then also do, just to give you again opportunity to target them in specific ways. If you have special promotions that you want to only target at people, for example, that have been there three months. in that flow, what I do in mine is I keep sort of track.
Rach (28:42)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (29:02)
against each subscriber how long they’ve been in the membership so my email platform knows. So after it’s been two months, I add a tag, you know, retention lap two plus months. After four months, I remove the two months tag and tag them as four months, six months, etc. So for example, you know, if there’s an end of year, end of financial year offer to upgrade to annual or you know, whatever special promotion to commit longer term,
Rach (29:12)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (29:31)
you could decide, you know, if someone’s only been in for a month, it’s very unlikely they’re going to upgrade. So you could go, maybe anyone who’s been here longer than four months receives this special offer. And that just means you don’t have to cross-reference platforms and, you know, your membership database to find out who has been in the membership how long. So that’s like a basic thing I would do just to give you some insights. and again keep track of, you know,
Rach (29:52)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Nadine (30:00)
Who’s in which group? another thing, which again depends on, probably doesn’t really apply for your membership, but if you can somehow track actions and whether they’re engaging in the community, you could again automize that. So in my membership retention lab, you would know, like you’re getting invited every month to submit an execution. So that gives me visibility of how you are engaging.
Rach (30:11)
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (30:24)
With the formulas and with the features in the membership. And so I have a tag against every member when they join. no activity. And as soon as a custom field gets updated by submitting an Airtable format, it sounds all techie, it’s not really. So, you know, someone submits their execution in Airtable, it updates a custom field in their field in their profile, plus one, so I can actually track how many actions they’ve taken.
Rach (30:33)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Nadine (30:50)
So if they get to six months and there’s no activity, I actually sent these people like a somewhat direct email along the lines of, you know, judging by your activity score. And I actually remind people in every email, like their score, how many actions they’ve taken. So, you know, judging by your score, something’s not working, or hopefully you’ve just been doing all the work in the background without ever.
Rach (30:50)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mm.
Nadine (31:16)
submitting, in which case, amazing. But if not, I absolutely want to make sure you’re on the right track. Like reach out, let me know how I can support you. So if there is a way for you to measure how active or how inactive someone is, again by tracking that via counts in custom fields or tags that you remove or at, that could be something to prevent churn because you’re reaching out. You know?
Rach (31:17)
Exa yeah.
Mm.
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Nadine (31:43)
So
it always sounds complex, but it’s literally like sitting down and thinking about all the indicators that could in indicate churn or someone being disengaged and then potentially, hopefully, having some ability to get that into your email platform via make or zapiar, some sort of automation that can track that for you.
Rach (32:01)
Mm.
Yeah, that definitely didn’t occur to me before how to bring Mailalite into the whole process. But what do you how do you keep track of everything? Obviously an air table, but do you have a spreadsheet where you keep track of all your automations or segments or anything like that?
Nadine (32:12)
Mm.
most it lives up here. But I try to keep it simple as well. So I have, as I said, one all onboarding flow for my membership. And what I try to do is work on one thing at a time. So rather than like updating 15 things at once, I go hyper focused on one for workflow, one automation. I think through, you know, the tagging.
Rach (32:26)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Nadine (32:48)
what I need to know, how I can get information that I need to execute things into Drip, and then start from there. So literally going, what do I need to make this efficient? How can I get it to happen? and then once I’ve got all that tagging in place, I then build the emails with conditional content, you know, the custom fields, the rules.
Rach (32:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine (33:15)
So it takes a bit of time and effort to map out, plus a bit of tweaking. So like it’s always worth every three months to have a look at the emails that are performing, anything that might need updating, because I’m sure your membership evolves as well. You maybe have new testimonials. So it’s like this ever-evolving beast. But if you focus on the highest impact sequences and try and get those right, like in your instance, the application flow, I definitely would look at
Rach (33:32)
Yeah.
Mm.
Nadine (33:44)
making more personalized, then potentially like a nurture sequence that kicks off three months down the track. And that member flow, if you can make that member experience hyper personalized while being automated, you know, that secures your ongoing revenue and it’s definitely worth worth your time and energy, I reckon.
Rach (33:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mm, I love all that. I’m gonna have to get my VA involved because she is like the Zapier queen who does all the so basically if somebody upgrades now, she’s done a Zapier thing into Slack and it says, Hey, somebody’s just upgraded, you need to send them a video. And so, yeah, but that’s a new thing. Yeah.
Nadine (34:07)
Yeah.
Yay. See? Yeah. If she’s got that systems mindset, I reckon
like if you just give her a little job, like have a think about. Like what are we recording? How are we recording it? Can we get that into mailalite? And even if you don’t do anything with it right away, if you think it could be helpful down the track, I would totally just track it and then yeah and then go from there.
Rach (34:36)
Yeah.
Mm
Hmm. Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I don’t
Nadine (34:50)
That’s the whole point. And you don’t have to
do it all. That’s the thing. People always go, my God, it’s so much. I’m like, no, no, no. You just just start thinking about what is the lowest hanging fruit with the highest impact. And then just the other things you can just, you know, think about, build a list of things you want to add to your onboarding flow. Like you can chip away at that. Yeah. Exactly. But just being more strategic, I feel.
Rach (34:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s an ongoing process, all of these things anyway. Yeah. Amazing.
Nadine (35:17)
You know, like there’s all this opportunity inside our email platform. And it’s just a matter of tracking it efficiently and using like custom fields, all these beautiful things that can make things so much more personalised.
Rach (35:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes. I think I’ve definitely ignored custom fields and ignored segmenting because it didn’t work in the same way as as active campaigns. So kind of got to know that very well. And then now I’m like, you know, how is it different to groups? I’ll just use groups ’cause that’s easy, you know, and but I will go back in and investigate all of that because there’s obviously things I could be doing better.
Nadine (35:34)
Mm.
Yeah.
Mm, mm. Yeah.
Yeah.
And you know what a good starting point is too? Like sometimes my brain thinks up these hyper complex automations. and I actually go to Claude or ChatGPT because they’re quite good at researching things like that and finding out these little formulas, for example, how to update custom field and automatically add a plus one or you know, like add a certain value. And rather than you digging around in support.
Rach (36:01)
Mm.
Yeah.
Nadine (36:18)
documentation, I just throw this task at Chat GPT and go, chat, this is what I want to do in Drip. Is it possible? If it’s possible, how do I do this? Sometimes it gets it wrong. Most of the time it’s pretty, pretty damn good. Hmm. Yes.
Rach (36:31)
Yeah. I’ve done that a few times as well with Chat GPT. Yeah. gosh.
Well, I’m gonna work on transforming my email automation. So thank you so much.
Nadine (36:39)
Yay. Yes. No,
that’s okay. And if you get stuck, you can always find me in Discord. In the lab. That’s right. but yeah, so exciting. It’s one of my favorite things, email marketing. my god. So much potential. Yeah.
Rach (36:46)
In the lab? Yeah, yeah.
Mm, yeah. When you get it right, it’s really
yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it?
Nadine (36:58)
Hmm. It’s
the thought process behind it and the mapping I feel is the hardest part. Once you think the way your email platform works, it’s like this automated thing. Whenever you build something, it’s like, Okay, I need to do this, need to it’s you know, rewiring your brain, particularly if you’ve switched to a different platform. It takes a little while.
Rach (37:07)
Yeah.
Mm. Well,
I did an automation for my freelance business, which kind of people come along and they subscribe so that they can get my services guide and then it takes them through what it’s like to work with me and all the things I do and social proof, et cetera, et cetera. And you know Miish Kirsty’s friend. Yeah, so she signed up and so anyway I sent her a box and I said, I’m totally not stalking you, but what did you think of my automation? So that was
Nadine (37:21)
Mm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rach (37:44)
That was good. When you see a friend has has gone through it and can give you feedback. Mmm. Yep. Yes, exactly. Mmm. No. No.
Nadine (37:45)
That’s good. Yeah.
Mystery shopping, always the best feedback, right? Yeah. And yeah, can’t test enough. Definitely.
amazing. I ask all my guests one particular question. you know, if you could ask anyone anything when it comes to your customer experience in your business, what would that be?
Rach (38:01)
yeah.
Mm.
This isn’t related to email marketing, but Rachel’s list is as well as being a really big community, it’s also a free jobs board to find writers of all kinds. So I would love it to become the household name for finding a writer. So instead of going anywhere else, you just go straight to us for a copywriter, a journalist, whatever you need. But because so many different groups post with us, like we get
Nadine (38:13)
Mm-hmm.
Rach (38:35)
Blue chips, small businesses, academics, agencies, you know, entrepreneurs. I want to know the most efficient and cost effective way of getting the word out on a wide scale to a all the groups. And I know it’s probably advertising or PR, but I thought there may be other tactics I’m not familiar with that I could be missing. So that’s my long winded question, burning question.
Nadine (38:46)
Mm.
Yeah. Love it.
Let me sit on that and see who I can get on the show to give their five cents worth. I’ve got a few ideas, but I need to need to sleep on it. But yeah, great question. And I reckon there’s gonna be some really cool response. We’ve we both haven’t considered. So yeah, love it. Amazing. So I will obviously link up various destinations to track you down.
Rach (39:03)
Okay.
Amazing.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay.
Nadine (39:22)
online in the show notes, but if someone wanted to connect with you, what’s the best platform to do that?
Rach (39:29)
they can come to me at Rachel’s List or they could just come straight to my website which is rachelsmith dot com dot au. I’m on LinkedIn at Rachel Smith Sydney and I’m on Instagram as well. so yeah, come and find me, come and say hello. Always love connecting with new people.
Nadine (39:43)
Awesome. So yeah.
Find Rachel in all the places. Yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Rachel. Hopefully you walk away with lots of ideas.
Rach (39:51)
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, lending me your brain, it’s really great. Yay.
Nadine (40:00)
Yay, always good.
and yeah, if you have listened and you would love your burning question answered on the show, make sure you head to the link in the show notes and submit your question. And it’s either going to be myself or a guest expert who I’m going to get on the show to answer your burning headache slash question for you. and yeah, if you enjoyed listening, please make sure you follow, hit subscribe in all the places, and share the
show with your friends and I will be back in your AirPods next week.
