May Review Session: The Month We Deleted 21k Subscribers
Episode 234: Show Notes
Hey ya’ll! It’s our May review / June planning session coming to you live from Emylee’s very dirty office. In this episode, we go over some of the things we accomplished and didn’t accomplish in May, some of our daring plans for June and let you in on a little big secret… This June we will be bringing you the biggest launch you have ever witnessed at TCC and share some of our exciting new sponsorship prospects on the horizon.
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We also share some successful news from our grueling switch over to Active Campaign and reveal why we deleted 21k subscribers from our list and are as cool as cucumbers about it. We also share the changes we have made to the business with GDPR compliance and why vanity numbers really don’t mean a thing. By the end of this episode, you will have a few great resources to help you take the steps you need to take in your business in order to reach success and sustainability.
Woohoo! Strategy Academy Is Back Together With A New Evergreen Funnel
The big secret plan we’ve been quietly nurturing this May is that we are bringing our signature program, The Strategy Academy, back this June. This is going to be the biggest launch you have ever witnessed at TCC. The program is officially one year old and we feel like proud mamma bears! So that’s our big, exciting news. Another thing we have started doing to get ready for the launch, is weekly lives on our page that we can turn into ads. Not only have they been beneficial to our current audience but they will be a great tool to help us target cold audiences as we move into an evergreen situation. They are short, sweet and helpful, so go and check those out over on our Facebook page. In May, we also decided to set up a rather large funnel that is targeting cold people to warm them up and introduce them into our evergreen funnel. The first round of videos are our “Why?” videos. The second layer of the funnel is our live content, which is more actionable. This is eventually going to get people to sign up for an evergreen webinar.
New Sponsorships And Collaborations On The Horizon
The other big thing we had planned for this month, didn’t happen. It got postponed and it was out of our control. The plan had involved a big sponsor which fell through, but in a way we’re kind of glad! Because Emylee was sick and the campaign would have involved a lot of travel during that “sick” week. We can’t give away too much info as you can tell but we’re hoping this deal comes through at a later stage. However, this month we have definitely focused more on sponsorship. We have tasked our team to focus more on income producing activities and our Director of Ops has really gotten on board with engaging in sponsorship activities. So we have been looking at new sponsors for the podcast, as well as finding interesting collaborations for our Instagram and other social media platforms. Sponsorship has been a bit of an untapped resource up until now because it is such a large undertaking – but we’re excited for the prospects!
The Final Trek To The Other Side Of The Universe... And Back
So one of our accomplishments for May, specifically for Emylee, was making the final trek to Active Campaign. We spoke about our confusing transition over to Active Campaign in a previous episode and that will give you some good insight as to why we did it. But as you guys know, moving systems is never fun or easy. When you are moving over tens of thousands of subscribers and information and privacy – it’s super stressful. But we love the new platform and the knowledge gained from the pretty grueling process. So finally we have gotten to a place where we can now just tweak inside Active Campaign, rather than build. That feels really good. The nice thing now is we have four weeks of data on how things have been running and for the first time we feel like we are being far more intentional with our content because of this incredible insight into our data.
The Cat’s Out The Bag: Our GDPR Compliance Decisions
We are so irritated with GDPR, but we feel confident with our decisions and with how we handled it. Do not hear this story as a scare tactic, this is just what we chose to do in our business after consulting a lot of very smart people. We want to do things that protect the integrity of our business because well, we want to be on an Oprah level someday! Our company is growing fast and we want to treat our company like the company we want it to be, not the company it is. One of the key factors that came from GDPR is when people are signing up for your list, for something specific, you need to give them the specific thing. Then unless you are very clear whether you are going to be sending them more information about other stuff in your business you can only send them that specific thing and no other communications. With GDPR compliance, all of our sign-up boxes are very clear now about what you are getting. Before, you would be getting a whole bunch of stuff you hadn’t necessarily asked for! So we made sure to get our GDPR is order to protect our integrity and our clients.
Why We Deleted 21,000 Emails From Our Subscriber List
After analyzing our lists and our data, we have also been able to remove subscribers who are not actively engaged. We went from over 27,000 subscribers, of which 15,000 were cold (meaning they had not opened any email in the last six months), to 6,542 subscribers. But the plus side is, we know SO much about these subscribers. We now have quality leads and know that when we are sending them stuff, they are engaging with it and our open rates are going to go up. Although cutting our subscriber list, arguably one of our biggest assets, down to a third made us nervous, it feels really good to be starting fresh in a new platform with a new sense of control over who is seeing what. Things feel so much more intentional now with our list and we have not lost in revenue because of this. So, yes, perhaps your email list is also just another vanity metric! We are not at all worried that we will get this list back up in the upcoming weeks. We are running a major promotion in June and our set goal is to get 13,000 subscribers.
Our Goals For June And Why Vanity Numbers Don’t Mean Sh*t
Our biggest goal for June includes a $250,000 launch for The Strategy Academy. It’s happening and we’re as cool as cucumbers because we are so prepared. In addition, we anticipate 13,000 people or more participating in our challenge. We want to prove to you that all those vanity metrics don’t mean shit! All of these numbers that people keep throwing around, they just don’t matter. So get yourself over to our PBR Masterclass, enroll and take the steps you need to take in your business in order to reach success and sustainability. Here, we’ll show you why these vanity metrics don’t matter and how you can engage your most engaged audience effectively.
Quote This
All of these numbers that people keep throwing around, they just don’t matter.
Highlights
Woohoo! Strategy Academy Is Back Together With A New Evergreen Funnel. [0:03:30.1]
New Sponsorships And Collaborations On The Horizon. [0:08:52.1]
The Final Trek To The Other Side Of The Universe... And Back. [0:12:50.1]
The Cat’s Out The Bag: Our GDPR Compliance Decisions. [0:18:30.1]
Why We Deleted 21,000 Emails From Our Subscriber List. [0:26:00.1]
Our Goals For June And Why Vanity Numbers Don’t Mean Sh*t. [0:29:30.1]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
KEY TOPICS
Email list, Vanity numbers, Sponsorship, GDPR, Evergreen funnel, Active Campaign
