They Opted In, So Email Them with Allea Grummert

Meet Allea Grummert

Allea Grummert is an email marketing strategist and the host of the Happy Subscribers podcast, where she talks all things email strategy every week. She specializes in helping business owners build email lists that are actually engaged — not just big. Allea has been emailing her own list for over six years, and she brings the kind of practical, no-nonsense advice that makes you feel like you can actually do this. I met her on Threads (love that app!), ended up on her podcast first, and then practically begged her to come on mine — because her brain is just that good.

Links mentioned

• Allea’s welcome sequence freebie
• Andi’s episode on the Happy Subscribers podcast
• Happy Subscribers podcast

Connect with Allea:

• Instagram
• Allea’s website

Connect with Andi:

• Threads
• Pinterest

Unedited Transcript

Allea and I met on Threads. I love threads if you don’t know this about me already. She was asking for podcast guests for her show all about using email marketing in your business, and I raised my hand. So fast after I was on her show, we were practically best friends and I asked if she could be on my show because I love using email marketing for my podcast, and my business, and I know she would help me convince all of you to try it.

Hey, I am Andy Smiley and I’m obsessed with helping you grow your podcast without letting it rule your life. I share strategies that actually work, the stuff I wish someone had told me earlier, and conversations with the smartest podcasters I know. And one of those people is Ally Germert.

She is a brilliant business woman that specializes in email marketing. She has amazing advice for podcasters who are nervous about using email to grow their show.

Allea, you are so good at email marketing. need an email strategy, but sometimes they don’t realize that they do. So what would you tell a podcaster who’s nervous about starting an email marketing strategy?

Oh man. I mean, initially with starting any new strategy, I’m like, valid. Let’s, let’s normalize being a little bit nervous before doing something new. Um, there’s just so many people doing a lot of things on the internet that we’re often like, ah, shoot, I’m behind. And it’s like, okay, you’re right where you need to be.

We’re, we’re gonna talk it through. But I am curious, Andy, from what you hear from folks who perhaps are nervous, what are they nervous about?

I’ll tell you like the main ones, I feel like they’re nervous that their people don’t want to hear from them.

Bananas.

like they’re, and I feel like they’re nervous, um, about like sending too many emails and they’re nervous about just what to write in their emails. I feel like those are the big ones.

Okay. Um, all valid. These are all valid things and I’m gonna like. I’m gonna just, we’re gonna just put the kibosh on some of these fears. Okay. Um, because when it comes to, if people don’t wanna hear from you, like I said, bananas, like they have opted in. Right. We are not, like, we’re not using coercion to get people to join your email as you’re not like, Hey, you in the back alley.

Send up to get my emails, like, we’re not doing that. We are offering it as a resource for them. I’d like to remind you that you are offering this to them for free, right? So like you are being super, super generous. I would argue that if you’re not sending emails or if you’re not telling them about the work that you’re doing or the resources you have or the episodes that you promised you’d send them, then you’re like, you’re breaking some promises.

And we don’t want that either. Like I want you to be able to follow through on what you’re doing. That being said, there are some of those other fears of like, well, what if people don’t wanna hear from me? If they don’t wanna hear from you, they can actually unsubscribe. Again, we’re not holding anybody in the back alley.

Being like, Hey, you point at him, you know, that’s my gangster voice.

I love

Hey, you. Uh, so yeah, so I wanted to address that. They, they do wanna hear from you , but I also understand the fear of like, okay, but when I start emailing them more than once a month, do they still want to hear from me? Right? And

Yeah. That’s a concern.

so that also kind of aligns with your question around like, what if they’re getting too many emails?

So. You could allow people to opt out of weekly emails and just get a monthly digest if they really want.

Sure.

Part of it though, is the expectation you’re setting from the beginning. So if you’re like, I’m only gonna send you a monthly email, and then you up it, you really need to give people the option to say, Hey, no, I’m good.

I just want one email. So I would take that out of your marketing language, um, and just say like, I’m gonna be sending resources and tips. You can always unsubscribe, and this should be on any form you have anyway of like, you can unsubscribe at any time. Like, hey, you, you get the, you get the control here.

And while people can follow along on, you know, a podcast app and get notified, um, I get very few notifications on my phone. I am actively like, turn off badge, turn off sound, turn off whatever. Like I get notified for two different, two different podcasts. That’s it. Everything else will like show up in my feed, but I’m not getting notified.

That being said, if you gather people’s emails, you get away. Like you literally are like, I’ve published this podcast, send an email. Like. Schedule, broadcast or whatever hit send and it lands in their inbox. Like it’s another way for them to be notified that they can turn off if they want, but you have more control over it because you don’t have a control whether they hit the little bell button on Spotify or whatever.

Um, so you just get a lot more control that way. And I know Andy, when you were on my podcast, we’re talking about like, okay, but like how do you pitch things to your audience? You can’t get to the point of pitching things if you don’t have an audience or if you don’t have a warm audience. So like that’s what we’re doing here.

Think about it like a long-term strategy, but as much as people hear you on your podcast or they follow you on social media, email is just an extension of that in a different medium.

Yeah, definitely. And one thing that I have to tell myself probably monthly is that kind of like what you said, like my email subscribers are not being held hostage. They can unsubscribe at any time. So like if they’re like, you know what, I really don’t, I don’t vibe with Andy anymore. They can just unsubscribe. That’s okay.

That will actually make my percentages higher because the people that want to read and like know what’s going on will still click.

So

absolutely. And. When you start emailing your list, I’m just, I just roll with me on this. If I, if I had to tell you like, what’s the order of doing things? Do I grow my list or do I email my list? ’cause I know that’s a question. Um, I will say it is way more fun to grow your email list if you’re already emailing them.

Even if your list is 15 people, which I saw today on a client call. He’s like, I need to grow my list. I was like, yeah, you do. Let’s go. And here are some strategies for doing that.

totally.

But once you’re actually emailing your list, you already know that as you’re growing your list, these people are coming into an existing strategy that’s filled with value.

It’s already kind of got a cadence set, you know that you’re emailing your list monthly or weekly. And then yeah, we can talk more if you want on like how to simplify that. But that would be my number one piece of advice is to actually just start emailing the list that you do have followed shortly by, do not look at the stats.

Mm. Mm-hmm.

look at, don’t look at your unsubscribes. Like not until your list is like a thousand people, it doesn’t

yeah, no. Well, yeah.

’cause it just doesn’t matter. Like that’s truly, that’s how I feel about podcasts too. When I help people start their podcasts, I’m like, don’t look at your stats for a year. Like stats just don’t really matter when you’re starting. It’s figuring out all of the things that go into creating this thing.

And I feel like email’s the

hundred percent. So you wanna go a little nerdy with me?

Love it.

So there’s leading metrics and lagging metrics.

Sure.

so the lagging metrics are like how many people clicked in an email, how many people opened, maybe even how many subscribers you have. The leading metrics are the things you actually have control over.

How often am I sharing my opt-in on social media? How many visitors are even coming to this page where I ask them to subscribe, and it could be the number of emails I’m sending out in a year, how many I’m sending out in a month. Those are things you actually have control over. So if you’re like, I’m consist like, I would like to consistently send three emails a month, that is a leading metric.

And you just build that consistency and then over time you’ll have actual like data. Of more than 15 people. Of more than 50 people, that you can go back and be like, what are people most interested in? Or the alternative. And what I don’t want you to do is to be like, oh no, two people unsubscribe. Don’t you dare click and see, that’s how you find out an ex-boyfriend.

Unsubscribed ask me how I know. And I was like, why were you still on my list? It’s been six months. Like, get outta here. But like, that’s, that’s not good for your emotional health when really, like, you wanna be coming from a place of giving and generosity and consistently, you know, delivering on what you’ve promised.

Those stats are somewhat helpful. But like when you’re a small, tiny business, like my list is only 2000 people, and so I can take some credence in like what’s happening when I send an email, who’s engaging in what, but I’ve also been doing it for like, I’ve been, I’ve been emailing my list for six and a half years.

So like, I also have, this is the size of my list. I don’t get it much bigger than this. I prune it often. And so, but that’s different because I’ve actually been doing it and I’m okay with this audience size, if you will.

Totally. And just so you know, I think I have 300

Heck yeah, you do.

if you’re sad that you don’t have 2000, like Allea, just know I have 300 and I and I. Make money selling stuff on my email list. So, and my people, my people are there. So like,

I feel like it doesn’t really matter the size of your list, it’s more so are people engaged?

Are people opening, like enjoying your emails? I feel like that’s way more important.

100%.

Okay. So truly, can almost hear my listeners asking, so how many emails should we be sending a month? And I know it’s gonna be like, what’s best for you, but what are some like. If you have a podcast every week, how many emails should you be sending out slash I dunno.

Go with that.

Yeah, I had to laugh ’cause it’s such a marketing answer of like, well it depends. Like I went to school for advertising, so like. That’s basically like tattooed on my arm. Well, it depends on your audience. Um, I would say if you’re releasing a weekly podcast episode, you release a weekly email, what I recommend, like mine drop on Tuesdays, and then they get an email on Thursday, like it doesn’t even have to be the same day.

You can lay it like, let it sit for 48 hours and send out an email. If you’re sending out three emails a week, maybe you do a digest or you feature one of them and you remind them that, hey, while you’re in there. There’s two other episodes to listen to or like, here’s the five minute episode of this week.

So I would say weekly if I would say almost like across the board, I have clients in like the blogging space where traffic is how they make money.

Mm-hmm.

sending three, four emails a week. I’m not telling you, you have to do that.

Yeah. I, for me, right now, my, my, cadence that I’ve been, that’s been working for me is two, and so what I’ll do is one will be about the episode of the week. For those of you not watching balloons just came out of nowhere

because I said two.

Why won’t it work for me,

I don’t know. It always does it for me and no one else. It’s fine, it’s fine. Um, I do two emails a week. I do one about the episode and then one that’s specifically for my offer, whatever offer I’m selling, and that’s what works for me and I feel like, yeah. And I feel like the only way you’re gonna figure out what works for you is by diving in and trying something

And like honestly, just like pick a cadence and stick with it. Don’t change it for like three months. Just get in a rhythm and, and then you can kinda see how it feels for you. And you can look at your stats if you’re like, oh, I really noticed that once I started sending two emails a week. My open rates tanked.

Take note of that. Tanked is like more than 10 to 15% drop, not 2%. The reason why I don’t want you looking at your stats is, is you’re like, my click rate changed by a quarter of a percent. I’m failing. And I’m like, no, stop it. It was a holiday week, like people just didn’t click in the email, you know? So that’s why I’m like, I just don’t want you to get so zeroed in that you’re taking it.

To literally when really like so much of, so much of it is the heart behind it, the practice behind it, and the value you’re providing to your subscribers. Let’s, do you wanna brainstorm with me,

Always,

So say people are sending out an email with their new podcast episode. What are some other alternatives for what the second email could be?

Hmm.

You mentioned like being a service provider, here’s an offer. Mm-hmm.

totally. And I think it also could just be like a, here’s the beside, behind the scenes of my life.

Like here’s the other stuff that’s going on that has nothing to do with the podcast. ’cause podcast listeners are nosy. We wanna know what’s going on. So

us what’s going on.

Um, yeah, I think it’s helpful to have kind of a menu of ideas because this is also what allows you to say, oh, this would kind of, this kind of content idea would fit within this framework. That’s a valid. Reason to send an email. Noted. Um, so for instance, things like services or doing a service offer, like, hey, and if you reply back by Friday, you’ll get $200 off or something like that.

Um, you can kind of plug and play that, but it could also be like, what are some resources from like certain industry experts that I could share? Or can I share a case study? Just like a brief story of like, Hey. Last week or last month, I saw these stats come through on one of my Pinterest clients and this is what she had to say about it.

If you’re interested, reply back. So it’s not even just like a necessarily a service push as much as it is like, Hey, I wanna engage with you. You could also do a poll and say, Hey, which of these, which of these three topic ideas do you want to hear from the most? Or hear from first in April or something like that.

And you could like rearrange your, your podcast schedule based on what they tell you. Or not like, but you’re asking them to reply. You could ask people, um, a question like the whole email. Could you, could be you just asking them a question like, Hey, podcast listener. Super curious. I’ve heard people struggling with this.

Is this something that you’re struggling with too

And a short email will get read more often? than a long one.

I will say I tend to see people reply back to emails when it’s asking about what. What’s stuck in your craw? What are the problems you’re dealing with versus like, what’s going well? It’s more just like, well, let me tell you, like, like they’re just more likely to reply back.

Yeah. Okay. And that makes sense. I feel like people are like, oh, this is top of mind. These are all the things I’m dealing with right now,

not the things that are going well,

Um,

of a bummer, here we are.

But here we are. And then you get to be like, oh, problems. I can solve them. Uh, or you, and you can link them back to previous episodes. You can tell ’em about your services. You can ask follow up questions. But I feel like that’s also a part of email marketing that people overlook is that you can have one-on-one conversations with people.

Totally,

For sure. My welcome sequence. So. Dear listener, uh, I, primarily my team and I write like the introductory series of how people get to know you when you join their email list. So in mine I’m asking like, Hey, what’s your biggest issue with email marketing? What’s stuck in your craw? I don’t really say it like that, um, but maybe I should.

Uh, it’s a real flavor. It’s a real flavor.

It’s a vibe. It’s a vibe.

wow. And, but I get people replying back to that, and I just got to send a gal Loom video today of like, actually, here’s how I would set that up in kit. She’s not asking for free advice. If anything, she was like, um, what did she say? She was basically having like a pinch me moment.

’cause she’s like, I listen to your podcast all the time and then hear your faces on my screen and like, I really like through or for a loop, but like I’m building that relationship with the people who wanna have that relationship with me too. But it’s automated. So also think about these things like, so say you have a podcast, but you also have a YouTube channel.

So as people are joining your email, your list, you’re like, Hey, I wanna make sure that you subscribe to my podcast. It’s on these platforms. I also have a YouTube channel if you prefer to subscribe over there. That’s one email. You could also talk about your backstory, like, Andy, how did you get into Pinterest for podcasters?

Like, and maybe it’s a little bit of a written explanation and maybe you link them back to one of your earlier episodes where you answer that for them, but it’s building credibility, it’s giving backstory, and they’re not like. Oh, she’s just out here. Hawking Services. You’re like, no, I actually had a purpose and a reason why I got into this.

Same with me. I was a personal finance blogger who went a little hard into blogging and got into email marketing, and now that’s what I

love it.

And then eventually it led me to working with food bloggers primarily. Like when you tell that backstory, it also also differentiates you from your competition.

Other people, other service providers, then doing it themselves is technically competition or ai. So with your listener, if you think about your own welcome sequence, you’re like, oh yeah, my story might not be like, feel hugely significant to you, but it does matter to your subscriber. ’cause think about like all those services and like resources that you have.

And somebody’s sitting there going, well, I could do it by myself. And you’re like, okay, lemme tell you how many years it took me to figure this out. I can actually just do it for you in a VIP day.

Yeah,

And then you’re just off to the races.

have to like any of the YouTube University.

Yeah. And then what’s cool about it being an automated welcome sequence is that you know that every new subscriber has at least been introduced to those pieces of you and your business. So as you send out new newsletters, they’re not like, who is this chick?

Totally.

They at least have some context

Okay. So again, I feel like I can almost hear my listeners being like, what’s a welcome sequence? And that sounds scary. How do we do that?

I have a freebie for this, Andy. We

perfect.

it to people, send it, send it to folks, um, or put it in the show notes, but a welcome sequence. I didn’t think of it like a brand hub of like, what are these three to five emails that. Explain who I am to somebody who’s never heard of me before. That’s all it is.

But what we’re doing is we’re kind of taking people through a journey of like kind of figuring out like what are their questions, what are they struggling with, and identifying that so that they’re not like, oh no, I’m in the wrong place. They’re like, oh no, I am trying to figure out this problem. Andy is the right person to help me with this.

Or at least like close enough that like once I get to know her a little bit, I’ll know whether I wanna work with her. So, um, yeah, you can introduce your services, your products. It’s a, like, I trip it out over a week, 10 days, something like that. Um, the first few emails, three days in a row, and then I spread it out to two days apart after that.

And then people start getting your newsletter. So while they’re in there, I don’t send them any newsletters. Because they’re in, they’re this happy little like honeymoon bubble of like, what’s happening here? I just want like a little, little love bubble of you and getting to know you and being introduced to you without distraction.

Sure. They’re not like, oh, you’re also selling something right now, but I’m still trying to get to know you. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like I mentioned, it also gives you peace of mind that like, oh no, I’ve at least told everyone about my book. Or I’ve at least told everyone about my YouTube channel or my Facebook group that’s free to join or my low-cost membership like, and it doesn’t have to be a hard pitch.

It could be like a, Hey, PS I have a membership, and like one of the first couple emails and maybe email five is like, Hey, have you had a chance to check out my membership yet? Click here and if you have questions, just reply back to this email.

Totally.

But you’re like, it serves the purpose of answering your audience’s biggest questions.

Introducing you, which has its own value, but then also serving the needs of your business, which is making sure they know that you’re a service provider and you know you’re cross-promoting them to other platforms where they might also be on Instagram and you show up on Instagram all the time. So of course you wanna make sure they know about that as well.

I love it, and that makes sense to me. Okay. As we’re wrapping up, I feel like we’ve talked about lots of things, which is. Very necessary, and I’m glad. But if there was like one big or small piece of advice for podcasters who want to either start or reinvigorate their email marketing, where should people start

What’s that first step?

Yeah, I would say the first step is to create a really simple layout for an email

Mm.

like. So you’re not rebuilding an email from scratch every week. Like this is the email that features your podcast episode. Like this is the blurb, this is the button, this is the format for the subject line, if you really want to, or just say like, I’m gonna use a quote from the podcast as the subject line, like, make those decisions now so that when you go to duplicate that email and swap out the files and swap out the subject line, then you just hit send.

The easier you can make it on yourself and the more low lift. The more exciting it’ll be to actually like see people receiving that email because you’re not like taking all the emotional strain of like, what do I say? How do I say it? How do I format it? What color is the button? Just do it. Create a really simple template.

I love that so much because that I, that is definitely a big part of email for me personally, is like, ugh, I gotta make sure it sounds fun and nice and it makes the episodes sound cool. But I feel like if there’s at least like. An outline for me to follow. It’s so much easier just to,

it just, it just, it just

and then like the next time you write up like a little bit of a roundup, so like here are three episodes for beginners or something. The next time you do one for advanced, you go back and you duplicate it. You are like, just use the same layout. Like don’t make it harder for yourself.

Yeah. I love that so much. Okay. Thank you so much. Ally. You are literally. The best. I adore you and I’m so glad that I know you,

and I’m so happy that my listeners got to know you in this episode, and we’ll get that freebie in the show notes for them. And also will you talk about your podcast for a second so they know that you also have an awesome podcast.

have a podcast, it’s called Happy Subscribers, and it’s all about email marketing. So I, I do this where I talk with funny voices and like get jazzed about email strategy weekly. Uh, so as happy subscribers, we’re on all of your listening platforms and I know Andy’s gonna link to it in the show notes as well.

I am, and I am even gonna put the episode where I was on your

Yes.

because it was so much fun. And ally, did like a mini, uh, coaching session in there, and it worked for me. So y’all should go listen to it too.

Do it. And then yeah, you just know that you can always reply back to emails when you join my email list. You can chat with me on Instagram. Um, I’m available. We’d love to chat.

I love it. Thank you. Thank you.

You’re so welcome

Y’all. Allea has the best advice and her last piece of advice about having an email template is completely gold. She’s the best, and I highly recommend you go and listen to her podcast.

Happy subscribers, because all of her episodes are full of amazing advice, just like that. The link for her podcast is in the show notes. If you were convinced to try email marketing because of this episode, you should open up your text messages and send this to your podcasting friend right now. She probably needs to be convinced too next week, I’ll be talking about the two different types of marketing you should have in your strategy to not only grow your podcast, but also make money.

Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next week. Okay.