Delete Subscribers Now to Grow Your List Fast! With Karen Grill

Episode Summary

Karen Grill Podcast Interview

Kris Ward: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day, and I am your host Kris Ward, and today back in the house we have Karen Grill, and she is a Email Strategist. And I just wanna say I think, I don’t know if it’s politically correct to say this anymore, but it’s like emails from time to time are like the ugly stepchild on Cinderella, okay? So let’s get into why that is. Welcome to the show, Karen. 

Karen Grill: Thanks so much for having me, Kris, and that’s funny that you say that about the ugly stepchild. The, it’s true, a lot of people think of email as an afterthought. I think, social media’s maybe a little sexier and more fun and, more visible, but I think really email should be the hub of your business.

When you think of all the things that go and touch it, it really is a powerful business asset if you treat it the right way. 

Kris Ward: I think you’re right. I don’t necessarily think social media’s sexier, but- … I think whatever we have, in one hand the argument is, we’re not renting space, ’cause [00:01:00] LinkedIn can kick you off or the algorithms or all the things that make the sky falling on whatever platform you’re on, whether it’s Instagram or Facebook, whatever, right?

So there is all that, that, and then so we all say, “Ah, but we own our own email list,” right? Okay, great, that makes sense. But then at the same time, I think sometimes things get devalued because we own them. You’re like it’s not a very good list,” or, “I’m not doing this,” or, “I’m not doing that.” So I think it’s worth having a conversation because every time I do, y- you, when you stop the scroll and put out some good content on LinkedIn or something, I think, “Oh, you’re right.

Yes, I have a email list, but are we leaning into it enough? Are we doing enough with it? Are we working it hard enough?” Or w- we’re s- I think for me we’re still caught up in that whole you don’t wanna bother people too many times on your list, but I seen a couple of people, Dean Sutton had given a good example, and he had in his, showed in his email something like Calvin Klein had emailed him I don’t know, something like 30 times in the last 30 days, and he said, “But look, I bought from them.”

He said, “Because it’s just like it kept coming up, and I’m [00:02:00] like hold on,” and, “Oh, I’ll get that tomorrow,” or, “I’ll buy that later,” and then eventua- “Oh, no, I’ll get it today,” right? And that visual example was really enlightening to me, so I’m like, yeah, you know what? I hate to tell you, Karen, I don’t know if this is gonna be just shameful, but we email people once a week, and I guess we should be doing more.

Karen Grill: Yeah, I have people who email every day. I have people who email once a week. It really depends. I think first of all, we as business owners need to set the expectations at the beginning, right? Okay. We need to tell them, “Okay, you can expect to hear from me once a week,” or whatever. If you wanna change that, that’s fine, but again, you just wanna let them know and let them self-select.

Maybe they don’t wanna have emails every day from you. They get to decide- Okay … they don’t wanna be on it anymore. So I think, it’s setting those expectations and then making sure we can do whatever we promise we’re gonna do, right? If you’re gonna do three times a week, you wanna make sure you’re able to do those three times a week.

Kris Ward: Okay. And if we’re doing that three times a week, I did lean more towards storytelling or things that are going on, we send those out on Fridays. So if we’re doing three times a week, then are we looking at Fridays we do something more personable and [00:03:00] then Mondays we do something more, I don’t wanna say pitchy, but more about s- behind the scenes?

Or that’s… Ah, I did notice my open rate went way up when I started doing something that was more personable. So then I just stuck with that, but maybe that just is to complement, yes, I need personable so that then when I’m talking more about behind the scenes or the services, that they know who I am.

Maybe they go well together. Maybe it’s not exclusive. 

Karen Grill: So I, I do think storytelling and personal kind of… They wanna have personal relationships. I think with all the tech and AI, we really are s- craving that. Okay. And so I see people who do every single day a personal email. Oh, dear God

and, yeah. And so- 

Kris Ward: I don’t have enough personal I’d have to… I would have to borrow stories from your life, Karen. I don’t think I have enough going on. 

Karen Grill: Yeah, again you wanna be able to do what you can do, and you also wanna let your audience, you’ll get a sense of what they like and what they don’t like.

But I don’t think there’s rigid rules like on Friday you have to send this, on Wednesday you have to send that. I don’t think we have to think of it like that. But I do think, you wanna get into your own [00:04:00] rhythm. So if you’re seeing that they like those storytelling emails, I, I would definitely do more of that.

And whether that then is at the end, like PS, and te- telling about your offer or weaving it in, there’s different ways that we can do that. 

Kris Ward: Okay, so to that point, if the, our open rate went up with the personable stories, then do I continue to do that on my other two days? Is that what you’re suggesting?

Karen Grill: Yeah, it’s all about testing, right? Every audience is different, every industry is different, so we really have to test. And so I would do, try adding one more story and see how that goes, and then you can add another one and see how that goes. And then, take your cues from what your audience is actually reacting to.

Kris Ward: Okay, so then if we do that, am I… then am I not swinging too far the other way? I’m just doing my personal stuff, but I don’t have any behind-the-scenes or any edu- e- education or any tips or… So that’s where I get confused of what the recipe looks like. 

Karen Grill: And again, it’s really what your audience likes, but a lot of people will start with a story and then weave it into kind of their business tips or their education.

Right. 

Kris Ward: Okay. 

Karen Grill: So you can combine [00:05:00] the two. It doesn’t like… It’s not siloed necessarily. So it’s really finding your own voice and your own way of writing and including those tips and those education that you wanna do. 

Kris Ward: Yeah, see, that’s a problem with me, is sometimes people come to work with me and they think, “Oh, you know what?

If I was more organized, if I was more this…” And I tell people, “No, those things can really handcuff you,” ’cause what happens is when you are a organized person, which I am, you then just try to reorganize yourself or often I will limit myself on schedules that “Okay, I just need to know the formula, Karen.

You keep telling me to learn stuff and go with the flow.” I’m like, “No, I need to know to do this on Mondays and that on Wednesdays, and here’s the formula,” and I get bound up in it. So I’m also thinking, too, once upon a time we had the newsletter where it looked like newsletter, broken up and maybe in three sections.

A little similar to Boys & Girls in the 1800s, the newspaper kinda look. But now I find it feels to me that good marketing is when you read a newsletter, you almost didn’t know it was a newsletter till you get to the bottom. W- it could be written [00:06:00] exactly to you from someone. So that’s the style I’m going with now.

But so again, is it testing your audience, or is there trends in that? Where do we go with that? 

Karen Grill: Yeah, I definitely think there’s trends away from that formal newsletter- yeah … with, like a header and all of those things. Again, even inbox providers are really looking to see, emails that kind of look like it came from a friend as opposed to a sales email.

They really, are trying to move away from that ’cause spammers do it- … that kind of thing. So the more we can make it look like, we actually have a relationship with our audience and we’re actually just- Okay … sending it like a friend email, that’s, I think, the things that are doing the best right now.

Kris Ward: Okay, so I’m gonna see if I can emotionally break you with just keep asking you structured questions- … ’cause that’s how my brain works. So if I do the stories, and then maybe I decide another day I’m gonna do something like behind the scenes, but tell stories behind the scenes, I could do that. 

Karen Grill: Yeah.

Kris Ward: And I guess there, everybody just will quiet while I think this out [00:07:00] ’cause I just stopped talking. It’s a podcast and I was like… ‘Cause I started thinking and I was like, all so what I’m trying to say is give… Don’t be limited to my crazy thinking. What can some of those options look like? ‘Cause I’m getting stu- I’m getting stuck on the routine, Karen, my God.

Karen Grill: Yeah. 

Kris Ward: Yeah. 

Karen Grill: Like I said, I don’t want you to change everything right away, especially if- … you’re having good open rates. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should change anything. If you wanted to test, like if you do Friday was your personal story, try adding one on Wednesday, but keep the tips or whatever you had on Monday, right?

I don’t want you to make- Okay … wholesale change without any data to, to back that up. Try just one change. One small change, that’s all you need. You don’t need to do everything at once. 

Kris Ward: Okay, so w- and w- so I can do that one small change, okay? So I’m gonna do another day maybe telling behind the scenes stories where I can- Yeah

maybe give tips and- Yeah … then send that out another day. Okay, I really like that. Okay, behind the scenes. Everybody, I’m writing this down. Okay. All right. So with all that’s happening in the email world, and you… you’re such a trooper ’cause I do feel like you, you get neglected a [00:08:00] lot. What are some other things that we’re overlooking that we’re not thinking about?

I know you talk about hy- email list hygiene. I love that. It just sounds so- I don’t know. Get the soap out. Yeah. 

Karen Grill: People definitely need to do this, and unfortunately, a lot of times their coach or, influencer or guru told them to start an email list. But that’s it. They didn’t tell them how to set it up.

They didn’t tell them- Yeah … how to maintain it or what to do. And one of the things that I see most often is neglected is cleaning your list and how to clean your list. And it’s more important than ever now because, inbox providers are really making that decision for us whether our emails wind up in the inbox or promotions or spam, right?

And we need to- Okay … do everything we can to get them there And so there’s three areas that I want to talk about in terms of kind of list hygiene. So the first is cold subscribers. Okay. So a cold subscriber is someone who hasn’t opened in an extended period of time. 

Kris Ward: Oh, okay. 

Karen Grill: So look at 90 days or 180 days.

And the problem is, like in the past, before 2024, you could send one email to your whole list, [00:09:00] and whether people opened or not, you maybe you just had a low open rate, but it didn’t penalize you. But now you get penalized. Your sender reputation gets penalized if you continue to send emails to people who don’t open them.

Oh, okay. You look like a spammer, right? Okay. If you send emails to people who don’t open. Okay. And so unfortunately, nobody really told people that, and that they need to get rid of them. And so I have a lot of people who come to me who didn’t know they were supposed to clean their list. So typically what I would say, if you’re sending, like you’re sending weekly, I think, if you look at a 90-day window.

If someone hasn’t opened in 90 days, then I would remove them from your list. 

Kris Ward: Okay. 

Karen Grill: And, I get a lot of pushback like, “Karen, but I’ve worked so hard for every person on my email list, and now you’re telling me to remove them.” The problem is, though, having those cold subscribers can affect the people who actually want to read your email list.

Kris Ward: Okay. 

Karen Grill: Inbox writers like Gmail and Yahoo, they didn’t tell us how they penalize exactly. The only kind of hint they gave us is that, “We slowly penalize your list. So we’ll first penalize like 5% of your list, then 10%.” And so those cold subscribers could have a negative effect and not allow the people who want to read your email every week [00:10:00] actually read it.

And so that’s why it’s so important that you remove those cold subscribers. 

Kris Ward: I never thought of that at all. I just thought if they’re not opting in, they’re still on my list, there’s the hope of them opening it, and my list still has whatever number. ‘Cause, what they have trained us all to be, Karen, is crazy.

Like when somebody comes unsubscribes, we have been officially dumped, right? So it’s traumatic. So as long as they… “Don’t leave me. Don’t take my call, but don’t leave me,” right? So that’s a problem if they’re not opening. Oh my gosh, that could cut some of our lists in half. ‘Cause if… if you got like a 30% open rate, which is good as long as if that’s who’s opening them is a juggling.

But if they’re not opening, they’re not opening it. 

Karen Grill: Yeah. 

Kris Ward: And so- If somebody’s not taking your call and you’re calling them all the time, you have to stop calling them, is the whole point. 

Karen Grill: Exactly. And like I said, you just don’t want to affect the people who want to read from you, because what if they’re not getting your email because of these cold subscribers?

So- 

Kris Ward: Yeah … 

Karen Grill: we want to make sure the people who want to hear from us get to hear from us, and that’s what we do, is remove those cold [00:11:00] subscribers. And I know, unsubscribe, people take it personally. I try to look at it a different way. I’m not right for them right now, but they’re more- Yeah

than welcome back at any time, right? So that’s the way I view that and hopefully, you can start to look at it that way too. 

Kris Ward: Okay. ‘Cause what there’s, there… The email gods are looking at it as really I’m being a nuisance ’cause I keep sending stuff to somebody that doesn’t want it. And they don’t want it ’cause they’re not reading it.

Karen Grill: And you look like a spammer, ’cause that’s what spammers do. They send em- unwanted email to people, and if you continue to send email, you look like it’s unwanted email. 

Kris Ward: Okay, see, I think for us, you just… All these little nuances are so important because in my definition back in the day, and they do seem to have finally gotten rid of this, but in the 1800s, there used to be this whole Viagra, everything was…

That was your spam, is when somebody’s, you know- Yeah … sending you just l- horrible things that you would not saying… If you’re a Viagra user and you’re listening not saying it’s horrible. Things that were inappropriate. And that was spam to me. And so now I would [00:12:00] never look at me sending somebody who’s signed into my list, who’s not opening it, I would never deem myself as spam, right?

Yeah. But the definition of spam is evolving 

Karen Grill: Yeah, and like I said, the, in 2024 they put in those new rules in place about email authentication. It really changed the way email marketing can happen. Yeah. So you shouldn’t be getting those kind of, un- inappropriate emails that we used to get.

They really cracked down on that. But that means also in order to do that, they also have to crack down on everybody who is sending email to people who don’t open. Okay. So they’re really looking at our behaviors now. So cold subscribers is a huge one most people don’t know, so make sure you go after the scheduled time to go remove those cold subscribers.

Oh, yeah. 

Kris Ward: Okay. So and then you talk about the difference between a small list and a big list, and why that isn’t the goal. 

Karen Grill: I get frustrated, ’cause I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to sign up for a summit or a speaking gig or a bundle or something. A lot of times they say you have to have a 5,000 person email list.

Kris Ward: Right. 

Karen Grill: And to me that’s crazy because, just because someone has a 5,000 person email list, maybe the- their open rate is like 5%. [00:13:00] Like- 

Kris Ward: Yeah … 

Karen Grill: what’s the point of that? You’re much better to have a 500 person that’s really engaged. Maybe they have 60% open rate. That’s the- Yeah … kind of person you wanna have.

Yeah. It’s not the number. It’s really the engagement of the list. And so I hope we can start to s- shift that from just knowing the number. You’d be better off asking what’s your open rate or what’s your engagement rate. Something along those lines. Yeah. Really not the size.

Kris Ward: That’s so true, and I also find it ugh, not offensive, but it, quantifying us all by numbers.

What’s the size of your list? Yeah. And it’s like why don’t you just walk up and ask me how much I weigh? You know what I mean? What are we doing here, right? And it really is like saying that, “Oh, I have a better family than you because I have a bunch of aunts and uncles. I have a family of 25. Oh, you only have a family of four.”

Again, maybe I haven’t seen half my aunts and uncles in 10 Christmases, and maybe one of them drinks too much. So nobody said that the quantity makes up for wealth of qualti- quality, right? And but yet we, you, I’m sure probably could wear a T-shirt that says all these [00:14:00] things, because I’ve heard them before, but it resonate like every ti-

Oh that makes sense. But when you’re scooting through the day, running your own business you get, you constantly get derailed and think this matters. My list is small. Why is my list so small after all this time?” 

Karen Grill: But I’ve had people, with 200, 300 people on their list sell tremendously more than people- Yeah with 5,000, 10,000 people on their list. So I hope we can reframe that for ourselves. We want engaged people. It doesn’t matter if it’s 100 or 10,000, right? We just want engaged lists. 

Kris Ward: Okay, so you just used a key word there, sell to your list. So I got hung up on my stories Monday, Friday, right? When can I sell to my list?

When is it too often? W- is there a price point I should be selling to my list? Where does that begin and end? 

Karen Grill: And again, it d- really depends. I have people who every day send an email to their list. They sell every day. It’s not… I think it’s just not the outright before in a newsletter you’d have a sales kind of email.

You’d have a header- … and it’d say sale or something like that. It’s not that kind of obvious or blatant like that. [00:15:00] It’s more just weaving the story and “Oh, I was able to help this client, and they got these results. If you’re looking for that too, hit reply and let me know.”

So it’s much more- Okay … subtle, in the way that you’re s- now, you can have if you’re having a workshop, obviously that’s a little bit more. You would do something like that for a launch. But I don’t want you to think I can only sell on this day or I can only sell in this way. I think there’s many ways you can try and see what your list responds to. 

Kris Ward: You’re just shattering my world, Karen, ’cause I’m very structured. There’s only certain days I do laundry, and yes, I have a, the, a launch- washer in my house. There was one time I was like I wanted something, and I was like, “No, but I’m gonna do…

I do laundry on Fridays.” And then I was like Kris, you don’t you live here.” And then what is this… Why do we have this structure? You’re here by yourself. Throw a load in. Live wild, right? I just get caught up in structure. But anyhow okay. So I think what you’re saying, too, back to the whole we use social media and we keep forgetting that social media’s supposed to be social and we’re supposed to be networking.

I think what you’re trying to drive home here, and I’m a slow learner, is really looking at my list as a networking tool and conversational tool. So the way you [00:16:00] described talking about something, “Oh, this is how I helped a client, and we’re doing this, too,” is again I think we get still caught up in the, “I don’t wanna bother my list,” so then we see it as a blast.

‘Cause some of the language associated with the email does train us to think like that, an email blast, right? Yeah. So the way you’re describing it is, “Hey, let’s just keep the conversation going,” and if you’re doing something that benefits them, slide it into the conversation. 

Karen Grill: Yep, exactly. I think in the old days you did do that.

You had one email, you’d send it to your whole list, and you would blast. I hate using that word, but- Yeah … that’s what you did. You didn’t have to worry about things. Now with these new rules, you really have to rethink how you approach your list, and I really feel like you need to have a relationship with your list.

So you’re really talking to people that and you like, and they wanna learn from you. It’s not just you. It’s not just a broadcast, right? We’re starting a two-way conversation. So the more ways that you can do that, they will feel like they know and trust you, right? They are gonna feel like they know who you are and what you offer.

So when it’s time, the best time for them, then they’ll be able to take you up on those offers that you put out. And [00:17:00] so I do think that it’s a little different than it was in the past, and I think- 

… 

Karen Grill: People haven’t quite changed their mindset about how they look at their email. And bothering people, again, you need to test a little bit, but I think maybe if, you’re sending three emails a week and someone thinks that’s too much, maybe they’re not the right person for your list, and they can self-select out.

So I don’t think we need to do it that… You need to come up with what works for you and test it with your audience. And I think, like I said, we can do subtle selling all the time, not being blatant and obvious about it. 

Kris Ward: Yeah. 

Karen Grill: And people do respond to that, I think more than ever now.

Kris Ward: Okay. And if you talk about sender reputation, how to fix it if it’s damaged. How do we know it’s damaged, for starters? 

Karen Grill: Yeah. So one of the things that I think is a problem is most business owners, I know they don’t have time, but they don’t look at their email list analytics regularly.

So if you like every, like last week of every month, schedule like 30 minutes to do that- 

Kris Ward: We do that. We do that, yeah. That’s good. ‘Cause there’s structure there, Karen. I can do it if it’s structured. Yes. 

Karen Grill: But I will say a lot of people don’t. Okay. But, because then you can set a baseline for yourself.

You say, [00:18:00] “Okay, this is my baseline.” So if it ever goes up or down, you have that clue. If you never look at your analytics, you have no idea like if this is normal or not. So we really would need to look at, are open rates dropping over time or is there a significant drop all of a sudden?

If your click-through rates, you used to have a pretty good rate and now it’s nonexistent. If you used to get replies and you don’t get replies. So anything- Okay … that seems to be out of the ordinary. I also think if people reach out to you and say, “Hey, I haven’t been getting your emails,” I get that a lot.

That’s when people come to me. Oh. They’re like, “Karen, people said that, my email’s in spam or I’m not getting their emails.” And if you set up DMARC reporting and or looking at Google Postmaster Tools, some of these other monitoring tools, if you see significant changes there, that’s when you know you need to do something.

Kris Ward: Oh, okay. All right. That makes sense. I never thought of that. I would always take the blame on me “Oh look, all of a sudden they’re not opening this week. Oh, my newsletter sucked.” I never go, “Oh, there’s something wrong with the system.” Always when in doubt blame myself first. That’s how I go. 

Karen Grill: We don’t… sometimes that can be the case, but that’s- 

Kris Ward: Yes usually not most- But at least look into it, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. All right. [00:19:00] So h- w- man, do you not wish I, now I feel sorry for your g- what you have to do for a living here because I think everything else, there’s a language around it that changes, and email marketing has just had the same name all this time.

So I think you’re right. It’s not that social media sounds sexy. I think email marketing s- sounds un-sexy. That’s the problem there, right? Yep. It gets overlooked. So what are some other things in that area that y- we just don’t think about enough,

Karen Grill: like I said, it’s not only building a relationship with your audience, but you understanding your email list.

If you want it to perform for you, if you want to get book- calls booked, if you wanna get sales and things, you n- really need to treat it as an asset. And we need to- … think about, like, how can my email list support my larger business goals? I think people think of email lists as a silo, just like a- Yeah

task to check off on their list, right? As opposed to- Yeah … like, how can my email list help me reach my revenue goals, or how can my email list help me grow my audience? We need to think about it in a broader perspective, not just like this thing we [00:20:00] gotta… this week I gotta send an email and check it off my list, and that’s it, right?

We don’t think of it- Yeah … in higher level strat- strategy or the bigger picture. 

Kris Ward: I’m not gonna lie, it just, like, all right, we gotta w- we gotta get a email list- Yep … email out this week, so it’s do- it just has to be done. I try to make it somewhat interesting or… And my team is just horrible.

If something happens to me, long story short, one week I, living alone, got locked in my own bathroom ’cause I was trying to change a doorknob. And I did say to my friend, “I think this is beyond our ability.” But she’s no, take the doorknobs off, and then come down tomorrow. I’ll show… I’ll bring the new ones, and we’ll ju- it’ll look so nice.”

And I wiggled and wiggled with the doorknob, and all of a sudden I’m inside the bathroom and it g- falls out to the hall. And I live alone, and in the country, and I didn’t even have my phone with me. Luckily I have a Apple Watch ’cause I’m like, I had to call my neighbor. I’m like, “I think I have a situation here,” like I…

It was Saturday. I could have been here till Monday thinking somebody on my team will eventually notice I’m not coming to work, right? But I, it was, it w- and it was the middle of [00:21:00] winter too, so I couldn’t even open- Oh, wow … the window and yell out the back. Nobody was in the back field. But so the near-miss and trauma of this story, and then my team says, “Oh, that would be good.

That would be good content.” I’m like, “Okay. Hi, a moment for me, please. Thank you.” So we get them out, and then I go, “Phew, it’s done.” But you’re right, I don’t really think I’m giving it the thoughtfulness that- … that definitely you are, but that it c- the potential it could have. 

Karen Grill: Yeah. A- obviously most business owners have so much to think about.

But I do think that, email performs typically better than social media. A lot of people spend a lot of time on their- Yeah … yeah, I would take a little of that time and transfer it to their email list. And at the beginning of the month think, “Okay, what am I promoting this month for my business?

And then what are the emails that could support that and help me actually reach that goal,” right? I don’t think people think of it that way. 

Kris Ward: We don’t, ’cause you know why, Karen? Ashamed to tell you this. Sometimes that story, if I post it on LinkedIn, I would just take it and then send it to my list as well.

But I’m not really thinking about how can this support my goals. I’m thinking, “Damn it, I got a email out, so we’re good.”

Karen Grill: But even if you took that story and then somehow [00:22:00] weaved in something about y- one of the goals that you wanna meet, that can- … still work. So it’s just, we have to first, have that strategic thought and that- 

Kris Ward: Right

Karen Grill: practice at the beginning of the month. And then when you get these stories we can say, “Oh remember I’m promoting that, this thing this week? So what, how can I wrap that into that story?” 

Kris Ward: Okay. Oh my gosh, Karen, where can we find more of your brilliance or get us on your email list? 

Karen Grill: So I have karengrill.com.You can find me there. Okay. I’m on LinkedIn a lot, as Kris. That’s how I think we’ve been connected, and I have a lot of free kind of information there that you can sign up for, and I’d love to have you on my list so you can learn more about email. 

Kris Ward: Okay. Oh my gosh, please share this with a business buddy. Lots of takeaways here, and we, and I think it’s a subject we constantly overlook. So once again, Karen, thank you very much. And everyone else, we’ll see you in the next episode.