EP 110: Email Marketing 102, Opt-In Options

Melissa Arlena: [00:00:00] Hey, guys. Welcome back. We are talking all about email marketing, so this is our series. We’ve titled the first one Email Marketing 101, and we went over CRMs versus ESPs. We talked a little bit about frequency, segmenting your audience, and collecting emails and stuff. And today you are in Email Marketing 102.
Welcome. You have graduated to the next class. And we’re gonna talk really more about the nuts and bolts of how you actually collect those emails, do it, and we’re gonna cover all of those.

Alison: ‘Cause a lot of this email marketing in this series is not about necessarily broadcasting to people you’ve already photographed and past clients, right? Like, you do, not to say you don’t, but it’s really the whole goal is to get in front of people who haven’t hired you yet or who wanna hire you again. And so collecting new emails and addresses is part of the whole structure of email marketing to begin with. [00:01:00]
Which gets us to today’s specific topic, which is opt-ins. What are opt-ins? It’s when people opt in. They choose to exchange their email address for something that you’re gonna give them, right?
It used to be Melissa’s pet peeve. You could people would just sign up just to stay connected with you, right?

Melissa Arlena: I’m not, it’s not my pet peeve of just stay connected. That’s my pet peeve of when, if I land on your website, and I said this in the last episode, and you immediately ask for my email address so I can be, you know, just in touch with what you’re doing. I’m like, “I don’t even know who you are. How do I know I wanna be in touch with what you’re doing?”
So that’s my pet peeve.

Alison: Yeah, and to that point, nobody’s gonna just sign up for your newsletter, right? Like, in my opinion. I’m not interested in your newsletter. I don’t know what that is. So people are gonna exchange their email address for something else, right? Something of value that you’re gonna give them.

And we’ll talk about some ideas for those ideas later. [00:02:00] But what you don’t wanna do is this fabulous website that’s beautiful, well-written, beautiful imagery, blog posts galore that are helpful and enticing and just so juicy with information and your personality, and then not be able to take those strangers and keep connecting with them, people who are very interested in when your next mini session is, or how to get in touch with you about Santa, or wanna work with you in some capacity, love the way you do this full-service approach, but all…
But they can’t. They don’t know how to stay in touch with you, right? Like, you don’t have any sort of way for them to give you their email to stay in touch, all right?

Melissa Arlena: Yeah, and I mean, if you think about it, obviously if they are super in love with you, they’re gonna reach out. They’re gonna hit your contact form.
So you’re hitting the people who aren’t ready. You’re hitting the people who like what they’ve seen, but they’re not quite ready. You’re hitting the people who were maybe looking for something, you had a blog post on it, they landed there, [00:03:00] and then now they’re there.

They’re like, “Oh, well, this is… I’m not ready. I’m not looking for a photographer at the moment, but maybe this fall or this Christmas I would be, so I am interested in getting on their email list.” So you’re giving them an opportunity to do that, but you’re giving it also in a way that is a lot more enticing, where I’m like, “Ooh, yeah, I will give you my email address because I want that thing, that free thing that you’re offering up.”

Alison: And here in Hawaii, I did this in Virginia Beach as well, but here in Hawaii I do a lot of blog posts about traveling Hawaii with kids. I’m a mom of four boys. They were very young when we got… Well, not very young. They were three years younger when we got here, but now they’re teenagers, so traveling Hawaii specifically with teens and with kids is expertise.
I live here. I do this, right? And so when I have a blog post about where to take your kids to eat or where to go boogie boarding so you don’t get killed by the water, that’s enticing stuff. And so I have value and opt-in to get more travel content when I publish new content, right?

[00:04:00] So, first thing, website traffic. It could be coming from anywhere, right? Like, we talk a lot about blogging, but maybe you’re also using Pinterest or people are finding you on social media, maybe they’re just Googling you for mini sessions, right? So if you’re not using an opt-in to garner those emails, they’re just random eyeballs that never come back.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah, and you’ve worked hard to get them to your website initially, so you really don’t want them to just walk right back out the door. I mean, that’s the thing I see a lot of times where photographers will have these really great blog posts and stuff, and they’re getting clicks and traffic, but it’s not necessarily…
I mean, you’re not gonna have a huge conversion on that kind of thing, but there are ways to be like, “Hey, well, if you like this, here’s a freebie. Sign up for this,” and now they’re on your email list. So, you know, that’s the big thing is just trying to make it so they don’t walk away.

Alison: Exactly, ’cause you really have worked so very hard. And if you’re doing a quality, [00:05:00] optimized blog post that’s really valuable, that’s not a quick endeavor, is it? And so you wanna think about getting those email addresses. Like, think about yourself. What tempts you to give away your own email address, right? Is it gonna be a styling guide? Is it gonna be a location guide? Pricing information? Melissa’s got some really good ideas that we’re gonna share at the end.
But just kind of flip the script on yourself and think about what would be enticing for me, because the value exchange needs to also match the content of where they’re coming from or where they’ve landed, right?

Like, I’m not gonna give a travel guide, a travel guide opt-in on my artwork, to print your investments, or like how to hang up your images on my blog, right? Like, it needs to match the moment where they find you. So just think about yourself and that.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah, so then we’ll talk about there’s a lot of different placement types for opt-ins and stuff like that. [00:06:00] And I think we’ve probably used all of them.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: And you can use them for different things. So inline is one you’re gonna see, and we’re gonna use terms that you’ll most likely see in your email service provider, so that way, you’re like, “Oh, okay, this is this one.”
So inline is gonna be something that is embedded. So basically what you’re doing is you may create it in your email service provider, and then you copy code for that, and you actually put that code onto the page of your website. So they never actually leave your website. Everything is on the page. So that’s gonna be an inline form.

Alison: It looks…

Melissa Arlena: Yeah.

Alison: It looks like a webpage.

Melissa Arlena: And a lot of times with an inline form, it’ll have a photo or something, like a spot for a photo, where you can do more to it. A ribbon or a banner, that’s similar to an inline because typically you are also going to embed that on your website, but it’s usually just a strip that’s gonna say, like…
[00:07:00] It’s just gonna have text, and it’s gonna say something about, like, grab this thing, and then, you know, email, first name, blah, blah, blah kind of thing, and then the join button. So, you know, it just depends on where you wanna use that. Sometimes people use that at the top. I mean, we just used it recently for a page where we had sold out of something, and so then we have a wait list that’s just a ribbon banner underneath.
‘Cause, you know, the page already had plenty of images and stuff. We didn’t need to clutter it up. We just needed to be like, “Hey, well, here you go.”

Alison: A ribbon has like a background color to it, so it almost looks like its own block, if you’re thinking in terms of web design. Whereas the inline is completely seamless, transparent. My favorite way to use it is just the button and the input fields. I put nothing around it because I use the website to garner, like…

Melissa Arlena: Oh, okay. See, and I’ve done it differently where I’ve had an image there and stuff, so it is… And it has a background and things like that. They’re very flexible, so you can do it where… And actually, we have done it the way you’re talking about where it’s like a transparent background because it’s going somewhere else, that kind of thing.
Another one is the pop-up. So we talked about the fact that I hate a pop-up that pops up right away. [00:08:00] I remember way back in the day, this was probably 10 years ago, maybe more, I had a special plugin for WordPress that would allow me to do a scroll trigger, so it was a delay that they had to scroll a certain amount, or they had to be on your website for a certain amount of time. I really also like an exit intent pop-up, especially on a blog post because I want them to kind of read that blog post, and then when they go to leave, I wanna be like, “Oh, wait, before you go, I have something else for you.”

Alison: How do you know they’re leaving?

Melissa Arlena: It’s something about when they head for the X. Like, it’s almost like it knows the mouse trigger, so when they go head to the X to close out, it pops up and triggers it.

Alison: Does that work on mobile then? If they scroll up maybe?

Melissa Arlena: I don’t know. I haven’t done an exit intent one in a while, but actually, I do have it right now ’cause I use BDOW!, and BDOW! has an exit intent, but I don’t remember on mobile how that works. Mobile may just be a time delay. It may not be an exit intent.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: It’s one of those that they’re kind of guaranteed to see it, very much like your pop-up at the beginning, [00:09:00] but I just want it to be before they’re leaving.

Alison: And Flodesk…

Melissa Arlena: You could have a…

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: Or you could have a dedicated page. So a dedicated page means they’re not on your website, and I use these a lot too, just because it’s easy, and I just wanna send them to a certain spot.
I will say too, with the dedicated page now, at least on Flodesk, and I would check this for whoever your email service provider is, see if they have a way for you to put your Facebook Pixel code in there.

Alison: Then that way, even though they’re not on your website, they’re counting towards your Meta Pixel that if you’re ever running Facebook ads, that you’re capturing them.

Alison: That really is the benefit of sending them to your website, is getting that click to your website, right? The algorithm, the Google, the chat, all the things.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah.

Alison: A click back to your website. And so you’re losing out on that traffic by sending them to a Flodesk full webpage form. But I actually use this on my social media. Like, if I have somebody that wants a freebie directly from Instagram, [00:10:00] I have a dedicated page opt-in form that I have labeled Instagram, because the only place it is is on Instagram.
And so, one, I don’t get that much traffic, so I’m not losing out on those traffic clicks as much. It’s not a big deal to me. But it kind of helps me know when on the backend on Flodesk how many opt-ins have seen it.
Because Flodesk is giving me data. They’re giving me how many people have clicked to this page and how many have actually been converted and submitted the form, right? And it can be like, I’ve gotten—I can’t remember what opt-in it was—but I’ve had forms that had almost thousands of views, right?

Melissa Arlena: I feel like Alison just figured out what episode Email Marketing 104, like the advanced class, we’re gonna have to record, is gonna be: your analytics of what to look for in your email. [00:11:00] So we’ll have to add that to our notes.

Alison: That’s a great idea. So all that…

Melissa Arlena: The other thing I will say with a dedicated page, though, is, like for me, I have a lot of lead magnets, and I don’t wanna create that many pages on my website.
I already have Showit yelling at me that if I get close to 100… And I’m not even near 100, so I don’t know why they start yelling at me already. But they’re like, “Oh, if you get over 100 pages, your website’ll slow down.” And I’m like, “I’m not even there, posts,” which I guess could be a problem.

Alison: I started doing that on the mentoring side for that very reason, ’cause I feel you. I have so many workflows. Well, the workflows aside, ’cause you have all the things. I started doing Flodesk preferences where it’s one inline form opt-in that I can paste wherever, but they can choose what they want to hear from, and it adds them all to the same segments, to different segments based on, like, if they want podcast, pop-up workshop info, or my…

Melissa Arlena: Oh yeah, no, I’m talking about, like, I have a lead magnet for a website redesign checklist, [00:12:00] and then I have a lead magnet for where to get found. So they’re eventually all ending up on the same list kind of thing, but it’s a different lead magnet bringing them in, and I don’t wanna have to create a page on Showit for lead magnet one, lead magnet two, lead magnet three.
So for me, it just works out really well just to have that dedicated page and not have to create it on my website. But that may not necessarily be the case for photographers. You guys aren’t gonna have, like, a million stuff. You might have a couple.

Alison: Yeah, a specific one, and then maybe genre-specific ones.
So going back to what we touched on, each of these opt-in placement or opt-in types, right? The inline, the ribbon, the pop-up, or the dedicated page needs to match the moment the user’s finding it, right?

Melissa Arlena: The user is finding it.

Alison: So, like, on a blog post, inline and ribbon make a lot of sense. I personally use a very transparent inline opt-in option that is part of a reusable block, so I’m not copying code every single time, [00:13:00] but I have my own graphic above it of what to do that has a… It’s pretty, it’s visual, it’s what it includes, and then the inline code, and then it’s one block altogether, reusable.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah, and so like she was saying, you wanna tie that to that blog post topic. So like I personally love it when, you know, let’s say you do maternity, newborn, and family, I would have an opt-in for maternity/newborn, ’cause I do feel like those are so close to each other that they kind of can be the same, and then I would have a separate one for family.
So if it’s a family blog post, then it’s gonna get that family lead magnet, and if it’s a maternity or newborn blog post, it’s gonna get that maternity or newborn lead magnet. Same thing with branding, headshots, like just make sure that whatever it is, yeah, that it matches the topic of what you’re talking about so it makes sense.

And you guys, I mean, I know I was saying I have a ton of different lead magnets and stuff. You don’t need to have that many. I probably have too many, [00:14:00] but I think if you can just come up with a couple good ones, then you should be fine.

Alison: And just remember to update them every so often, once a year at least.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah.

Alison: Then think about, like, if they’re coming from Instagram. So I just told you my whole story of how I have a dedicated page on Instagram. They might be looking for something different.
Maybe they want… You’ve got a seasonal offer or event. Mini sessions, Santas, cherry blossoms, beach minis, branding minis, what have you. Make sure that wherever they’re finding and clicking from makes sense, and it makes sense for your funnel and your objective and what they’re gonna get in return.

Melissa Arlena: And that can be a great one. Like, I remember talking to Shannon Vondi, and it might have been when I was in her email club. She mentioned that having, like, if she was gonna have an announcement that was coming out on email, she would go onto social media and tease the announcement and then say, “Go get on my email list,” and then she would have that link to join her email list so that they could find out what was gonna happen the next time, and she said she always would pick up a few.

So if you think about it, [00:15:00] especially if you’re doing an upcoming seasonal event like Alison was talking about for minis, you could create a VIP opt-in list, which I always love for people to do. Create that VIP opt-in list. It’s gonna go on your page when you’re not booking those sessions, and then when you are getting ready to book them, you’ve already got a list of people.

But you could go onto your social media a week before you’re gonna open up your Santa minis, and you could start dropping that link to that opt-in form to join the VIP wait list for Christmas minis, things like that, and getting people on there. And that’s a great way to use, like Alison was saying, just an easy form for them to fill out, and then you can know, like, “Oh, these were all from Instagram that came in because that’s the form that they used.”

Alison: Yeah, so it just needs to match. And then have a static… This is probably a great place for a ribbon one or even just the inline option or the pop-up if it’s not in the first 30 seconds. Have something static on your primary web pages. Again, it needs to match, so like branding on branding pages, family on family pages.
[00:16:00] But maybe something in the footer or its own little block right above the footer, where…

Melissa Arlena: And again, if you can have it as an opt-in tease, like tell them what they’re gonna get. Don’t just say, “Stay in touch with me.” I mean, you could put on there like, “Be the first to know, get special discounts.” Those are things that I’m like, “Oh, okay. I might be interested in giving my email for a person like…”

Alison: So, on the photography side, go to my website, allisonbellphotographer.com. At the bottom, right above the footer, it says, “What to wear is the worst.”
And it says, “Get my what to wear for family photos in Hawaii updated,” right?

Melissa Arlena: Yeah.

Alison: ‘Cause I do believe it’s the worst. So you want a static page or static option to opt in.
And I hate a pop-up myself. I think they’re annoying, but they have the best track record for actually converting people. So don’t be afraid of the pop-up. It is annoying, but it does…

Melissa Arlena: Yeah, just try to delay the time on that one.

Alison: Please, for the…

Melissa Arlena: And again, make it interesting.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: ‘Cause I 100% will give up my email address for stuff, but it’s gotta be interesting, [00:17:00] which leads us into, okay, so what are some ideas for lead magnets?
So the first one I was telling Alison is something that I think works really well for product photographers who offer products and things like that, is how to incorporate artwork in your home.

Like, start pre-selling your artwork. A lot of times people are thinking like, “Oh, I’m gonna get these photos, but I don’t know what to do with them afterwards.” You could have a whole little PDF… And we’re talking with opt-ins and stuff, guys. These are PDFs. Like, you can go create these on Canva. You can find templates on Etsy.
But you could do one on how to incorporate artwork in your home, show all the different things, talk about it to a client. That’s a good one. And that could go for maternity and newborn or family. Like, that could be whatever.

I used to do the resource roundup. So I would create a bunch of blog posts that were all geared towards maternity and newborn clients, and then I would have a PDF that just was all of that information together in a checklist or a list of stuff.

It was broken down, like the top doulas, the top midwives, [00:18:00] the places to go for prenatal massage. I just put it all into one. And so then I was like, “Go ahead and download my top birth pros in Miami,” kind of thing, and I could put that on all of my maternity posts. And honestly, yes, if they land on maternity post A that’s like, “Best doulas in the area,” that is in that book.
And yes, they could go find all of that information on my blog. I had to kind of get over this myself ’cause I was like, “Well, they could just go look on my blog and find this. Why would they give up their email?”

They’re not, and I made it easy for them. Like, basically I said, “You don’t now have to go read 12 blog posts. You can download this PDF, and it’s all summarized for you in exchange for your email.”

Alison: Yep, and it’s reusable. They can refer to it, they can open it back up, and they don’t…

Melissa Arlena: Yeah.

Alison: Don’t underestimate our laziness.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah. And then a style guide. [00:19:00] Like Alison was just talking about what to wear is the worst. We were just chatting about the fact that we get all of these ads served to us, or whatever, for both of us now at this point, of like football mom attire, and they’re all Amazon links.
Yeah, I honestly love them, y’all. Like, I’ve been definitely looking at them ’cause…

Alison: What’s in my…

Melissa Arlena: We’re…

Alison: I hate clicking on them ’cause then you get so many more.

Melissa Arlena: I know, but it’s one of those, like right now we’ve—we’re now a football family, and the first game that was a little scrimmage, we showed up with towels to sit on on the bleachers, and I was like, “We have got to do some research on what the proper stuff is to bring.”

And I immediately was typing in “football mom” on Pinterest, like, someone’s got a list. I know someone has already done the research and has a list for me.

Alison: The most random but very specific one I got recently was “What to Wear for Game Day: Blue Edition.” So it was clothing for mom for all the different climates, but it all had blue in it.

Melissa Arlena: Okay, well, I need that ’cause my kid’s blue and gold.

Alison: We’re blue and orange. And I don’t do orange.

Melissa Arlena: I don’t do yellow, so.

Alison: You should do orange, but do yourself. Do you.

Melissa Arlena: Which is funny because half my family walks around in orange because they’re Clemson fans, so yeah.

Alison: You shouldn’t, right there. Go Gamecocks.

Melissa Arlena: [00:20:00] But yeah, so style guide. If you’re somebody who’s good at that kind of stuff, you could put together one for every season. Like, you could have a fall family style guide with affiliate links. Make it easy. And even, I would even say like, “Hey, I’m gonna make this easy for you, Mom. Here’s four different outfit ideas for…”
You know, and put them on a page, and then where people could click. And I mean, obviously you gotta keep this updated, and you need to be somebody who’s good at this. But I feel like it must be easy, ’cause I see them all over the place.

Alison: But that’s something that I’ll trade my email address for, something like that.

Alison: Well, and they even have a plugin so you can put this native shop in your blog post, and it looks really cool. But you’ve gotta keep it updated with things because sales are changing, your commission’s changing, and what’s available on ShopMy is changing with the seasons. And so I had a hard time keeping up with it, and then keeping up with what was available that looked good in Hawaii. [00:21:00] Like, very little outside of spring and summer that I would actually recommend in Hawaii, much less get a commission on. But that is a great idea. I actually personally have a style guide.

I don’t have affiliate links in it, but I have a guide where I break it down for everybody in the family, extended families, nuclear families, babies, kids, mom, dad. And then I have a resource roundup of my travel guide. My travel guide is where to go, where to eat, how to save money, is Kualoa really worth it? All that kind of…

Melissa Arlena: Yeah.

Alison: So…

Melissa Arlena: I think you could even do with that style guide and stuff of, like, what parents should bring to a session kind of thing, you know? And almost, I’m not trying to say like props, but almost yes in some sense of, like, props you approve of. Like, here’s a great blanket to bring, or a scarf or a sweater or something, or a shawl is what I’m thinking.

Yeah, body pins. Or I love, too, like a little bubble camera for kids or something, could be fun to play with. Like, I think you could go a lot even beyond just the style guide of what to wear. It could be like how to have the perfect session. [00:22:00] Here’s all the things you need. Like, Alison has a kit that she carries around.
Have we done an episode about your kit specifically and what you bring? I think we should. Yeah, we should do that one, ’cause Alison’s got a lot of great stuff.

Alison: I did this back in Virginia Beach. I did one, or I did a blog post on how to ruin your photo session. That’s what it was. It was a satire on exactly what you just said, how to make the most of it. It was like, no, how to ruin it, like how to ruin your photo session. And it’s a total satire, like if you do this, then it’ll go really well. Like, be late, please, by all means. It’ll go really good. Don’t feed your kids. Don’t plan out clothing before the day of. Make sure, because everything’s gonna fit and nothing’s gonna… And you’ll find it the first time you look for it.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah. Make sure your dog has been exercised. Yeah, I could see that.

Alison: All that stuff. Well, okay, so this was super fun, guys. Hopefully you got a little tidbit of inspiration. If you did, please let us know. If you have questions, again, let us know. We’re here to help. That’s why we do this podcast. And then all the links for everything we chatted about will be in the show notes.

[00:23:00] So, if you… Don’t forget, September 17th, 8:00 AM Hawaii time. It’s before the time change, so it’ll be 2:00 PM Eastern Time. All the rest you’ll have to DM me for. I’ll do the math for you. But it is going to be email marketing for photographers. This is a quick workshop. If you can’t be there live, there will be a recording, on how to get started or streamline your email marketing and getting list building. So thanks for listening, guys.

Melissa Arlena: What are you?