Most commercial photographers are at the mercy of platform changes, but your email list is an asset you truly own. This week, we explore how to move beyond “vanity metrics” and start building a high-trust audience that actually results in bookings.
We dive into why most high-end sales require multiple touchpoints and the specific way email marketing bridges the trust gap between a lead and a booking .
Discover the psychological power of simply appearing in a client’s inbox and how this “invisible” marketing tactic works even if they never click a single link .
Sam reveals a specific legal approach for growing your list using existing contacts and “legitimate interest” that most photographers are too afraid to use .
We explore how to find your own perfect frequency for sending updates so you remain a top-of-mind expert without burning out your audience .
Find out why seeing people leave your mailing list is actually an essential part of refining your business for higher-quality clients .
We break down the technical risks of using standard email for newsletters and why professional delivery systems are non-negotiable for long-term deliverability .
00:00.00
Marcus Ahmad
Sorry, before you start.
00:01.87
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
00:03.86
Marcus Ahmad
Well, hello, everybody. And most important of all, welcome back, Sam. How are you feeling?
00:09.59
Sam Hollis
All good. Thanks, Marcus. Yes. Getting better. Coming back to life. All good. Thank you.
00:13.82
Marcus Ahmad
Very good good, good, good, good. Nice to hear I’m glad you recovered. recovered So, yeah, go on.
00:18.81
Sam Hollis
Cool.
00:20.19
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, wait.
00:22.26
Sam Hollis
so Well, I don’t know. So what have you been doing, Marcus? I think you’ve been in some fun shoots recently, haven’t you?
00:26.17
Marcus Ahmad
oh Yeah, i just been at a lovely shoot down in the South France in Cannes. So I was down there about four or five days. So it’s glorious weather. And also the opportunity to shoot at a conference and an event at 100 ISO, which is ah very rare for me.
00:41.11
Sam Hollis
ven
00:41.48
Marcus Ahmad
They’re normally like in the thousands and thousands, as we were talking about on our mirrorless show the other week.
00:42.04
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
00:46.81
Sam Hollis
Yeah, yeah.
00:46.92
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. So, yeah, that was quite a nice photographer. I’m a photographer for everyone. I’m happy about having a shot 100 ISO. so But, yes, that was a lovely job. Thank you.
00:56.10
Sam Hollis
Excellent. Very good. And this week I’m going to have a bit of a talk about email newsletters because I realized some of those basics of marketing we’ve not actually touched on for a long time. Thought we’d go over some of the kind of real basics and an email newsletter one of those. It’s a really powerful thing. Lots of people do it. Not everybody does it well and some people are thinking about it. It’s a good one to kind of go through the basics of.
01:16.86
Marcus Ahmad
Okay, cool. Sam, I’m just going to cut in here because your mic is really, that’s going a problem cutting that out.
01:19.23
Sam Hollis
Cool.
01:24.02
Sam Hollis
Why im am I moving it?
01:24.93
Marcus Ahmad
Because you can hear it.
01:25.81
Sam Hollis
Oh, because I’m moving it away and together, you mean?
01:27.43
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, yeah, well, it’s rustling. I can hear rustling.
01:31.42
Sam Hollis
Okay.
01:31.54
Marcus Ahmad
And the signal is a bit crap.
01:31.86
Sam Hollis
and Hang on.
01:32.90
Marcus Ahmad
i can’t quite um I couldn’t quite hear what you were saying then and stuff. That’s always little bit faltering.
01:38.49
Sam Hollis
Give me a second. Right. Is that better? I’ve managed to wedge it in Harriet’s suitcase next to me.
01:40.86
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, that’s way better.
01:43.22
Sam Hollis
Cool. Okay.
01:43.77
Marcus Ahmad
The signal, there’s not a lot you can do about is there, really?
01:45.75
Sam Hollis
No, I can hear you fine and it’ll record fine. So just tell me if you need to repeat it for you to understand.
01:48.09
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, yeah.
01:50.43
Sam Hollis
That’s all.
01:50.50
Marcus Ahmad
Do you want start again just for the edit? Want to make it easier or just go?
01:54.01
Sam Hollis
I’ll do it. Okay. Yeah. So I’ll say, yeah. Okay.
01:55.84
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, okay.
01:55.85
Sam Hollis
So, so yeah, this week, Marcus, I thought we’d talk about email marketing and email news. Well, email newsletters, it’s a kind of really basic core of marketing that we’re not talked about for actually a long time.
02:03.58
Marcus Ahmad
Nice.
02:07.05
Sam Hollis
though It’s good to circle back to that um because it’s kind of a core people of a lot of marketing and should be more people as well. So that we’ll go through the basics, go through how it works, make sure everybody really kind of understands how they can make the most of it.
02:19.67
Marcus Ahmad
Well, that’s excellent, Sam, because, you know, i mean, the last time we talked about this, I wasn’t doing email marketing. But after that show, I was totally enthused to do it myself. And I’ve been ah and yeah, I’m really, really enjoying it. I think it’s a great way of communicating with your audience.
02:34.52
Sam Hollis
Exactly, yeah, and I have been getting them on. Yeah, so it’s really impressive stuff, Mark. It is a regular input in my inbox and i I’m reading it even though it’s not aimed at me.
02:39.00
Marcus Ahmad
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
02:43.61
Sam Hollis
um So yeah, I mean, the first thing I always say is why all sorts of reasons to do email marketing, of course, an email newsletter. Obviously, it’s engagement. You’ve got this email list, you’ve worked hard to build it up.
02:55.17
Sam Hollis
Partly it’s just engagement. I mean, a lot of, you know, marketing people often talk about touch points. How many touch points do we need before someone makes a sale? I’m not ever sure how relevant that is because some people will, for me, will make one phone call and they’ll buy it while other people want to talk for ages.
03:09.41
Sam Hollis
So I think there’s a lot of variation in there. But I think what is generally with all the different forms of media, it is getting more people on average need more touch points. Norm times you’re talking to them before they buy.
03:19.79
Sam Hollis
And so if they’re on your email marketing newsletter, every single email that goes out is a touch point.
03:22.90
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yes.
03:25.98
Sam Hollis
They’re hearing from you again. They’re hearing from you again. they’re hearing from you again. So that that’s really helpful. um It can explain the service you do. So a lot of people on your mailing list, a lot of people you may know, I don’t know, from networking or from your website, might not know all the things you do.
03:39.48
Sam Hollis
So it’s a way to explain all of the services you offer. That can be really useful. It’s a great way to build trust and show you an expert through you know giving things away and talking about what you do.
03:44.79
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
03:49.88
Marcus Ahmad
yes
03:50.84
Sam Hollis
It also is an opportunity to sell. So like if you’re on social media and that sort of thing, selling on social media is generally disaster and unless you’re something really cheap and cheerful. Wow.
04:01.14
Sam Hollis
Once they’re on your mailing list, you’ve got that trust.
04:05.24
Marcus Ahmad
hu
04:05.53
Sam Hollis
I wouldn’t sell hard every newsletter, but once in a while you can go for a sell and it and it can work quite well. It you know you can it it is ah a marketing medium where you can go through that next step and and get the sale.
04:19.00
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, I totally agree.
04:21.09
Sam Hollis
Excuse me a moment.
04:25.40
Sam Hollis
So yeah, all sorts of reasons to do it. People think about how often it’s quite important. um How often are you sending yours, Marcus?
04:32.73
Marcus Ahmad
I do it thought lightly, Sam.
04:34.71
Sam Hollis
Okay, excellent. And the key with that is it’s regular. So my answer when people say how often is mainly how often can you manage? You know, there’s no point saying i’m going to send two a week when you really don’t have time. You’re much better picking a like every two weeks where you know you you can manage that. You know, it’s a frequency. I’d say monthly is kind of minimum, much less than monthly. it’s People don’t notice it’s too irregular. But yeah, pick a time that you can go. That’s, you know,
05:00.63
Sam Hollis
frequently enough where people are going to notice but it’s not so much I can’t manage it you’re better off saying monthly and making it monthly than saying two weekly or weekly but end up skipping every other one that’s it
05:11.61
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, totally. It’s the same with our podcast, isn’t it, Sam? In fact, you know, we always, we manage to get it out every week by just saying, right, it’s got to be done at this particular time and just set it in a diary.
05:20.06
Sam Hollis
that’s it ah That’s it. And that exactly the same. It’s priorities. And if you’re going to do it, prioritize it. Make sure it’s on that. And you go, it is a priority. And I am going to do it. And it’s going to get out on time. And that regularity on time really helps that. OK, I know that Marcus’s email is coming on Thursday afternoon or whatever it is. That really helps with people engaging with it. They know when it’s coming. It’s a regular thing. And that does really help.
05:46.46
Sam Hollis
um And then there’s the kind of how much do you write, what do you write about all kind of questions that come up. um And I think it’s good to do more newsletters that are relatively short than do kind of really long ones.
05:59.05
Sam Hollis
I did some, I was helping a client the other day they’ve been doing some newsletters and I look and it was like pages and pages and pages.
06:05.11
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, gosh.
06:06.17
Sam Hollis
And it’s just like, And it didn’t have any internal linking either. So you can do kind of a bit longer ones if you have like at the top a very quick summary. So you can have a longish one if at the top you’ve got, I’ve got this, this, this and this. and you know, actually you’ve got different audiences are going to click on the link and go down to the right part. But no one is just going to scroll. But in some ways, I think you’re better having relatively shortish newsletters. They’re much more engaging that people, you know, bite sized chunks that people can take on board fairly quickly.
06:34.33
Sam Hollis
um And you can always link it to blogs. That works really well.
06:37.66
Marcus Ahmad
Yes, that’s right.
06:37.61
Sam Hollis
So if you’ve written a blog, like a really short preview of that blog and then send them to the blog, don’t put the whole blog in there for God’s sake.
06:38.26
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
06:44.01
Sam Hollis
Nobody ever read it. But, you know, you can tempt them in. What’s it about? What’s the key stuff? And then send them to the website. And then they’re reading the website. And another advantage of newsletters is disease you can get people to your website and help to build your website traffic.
06:55.70
Marcus Ahmad
I think that’s one of the best things about the newsletter, Sam, is that you can put the links in and direct people to, yeah as you say, your blogs or your YouTube channel or whatever it might be. And you just you’ve just got so much control within one space, you know?
07:08.06
Sam Hollis
That’s it. And think carefully about what you want, where you do want them to go, what your call to actions are in the newsletter. So I say some of them might literally be a sale and you’re saying click here to do this, to join whatever it is, to buy whatever it is.
07:19.14
Sam Hollis
Sometimes it might be like you say, you’re trying to build your YouTube channel. You need to think about that carefully because sometimes maybe it’s a YouTube channel that built your newsletter list and then there’s no point sending them back because they’re already on it. So you need to think, have a strategy, work you know where have these people come from, what is it I want them to do next?
07:35.00
Sam Hollis
and that’s not always easy because often some of them are in different places some of them might be already customers and then kind of you actually want them to engage in a different way to people who are not customers or people who are just joined um so yeah so that takes a bit of thought and management now
07:43.29
Marcus Ahmad
m
07:50.39
Sam Hollis
At this point, some people think, oh, well, maybe I should subdivide my newsletter. i have a newsletter for those groups of people a newsletter for that group of people.
07:57.59
Marcus Ahmad
gosh
07:57.59
Sam Hollis
And that can work. But only if you’ve got the numbers. There’s no point doing it if you’ve, you know, there’s no point flogging yourself to death for sending one newsletter to four people and one newsletter to 20 people. You know, you’ve got to. There’s absolutely no point if you haven’t got the numbers.
08:11.19
Sam Hollis
um
08:12.86
Marcus Ahmad
No, that’s…
08:12.86
Sam Hollis
So I i think in some ways that’s more of a caution. I can see you’re thinking that’d be crazy. And for me, actually, that’s more of a cautionary tale, Marcus. I’m saying probably avoid it as much as possible and want to do. Because what I find is that some people come to me and they’re trying to do this when actually, one, they don’t have the time and two, they don’t actually have the audience. So they’re sending newsletters to really tiny audiences and they don’t have the time to it. You’re better off doing one.
08:35.72
Sam Hollis
You’re better off doing a really good newsletter for everybody than, you know, being rushed and and trying to send 14 all sorts of different groups.
08:42.55
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, gosh, I totally agree, Sam. They take a bit of time, you know, to get them looking nice and and to load, and especially some the templates are a little bit slow to use on the software, definitely.
08:46.36
Sam Hollis
Yeah, that’s it.
08:50.27
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
08:52.94
Sam Hollis
That’s it. So yeah, I would say it is, you know, if your newsletter is getting huge and you could maybe think about spitting in half or something something, maybe start to think about it. But even then you can actually effectively do one newsletter and then tweak it for the next group. So it can be not that hard. But yeah, definitely for most people want to just avoid and not get bogged down in. Yeah.
09:13.98
Sam Hollis
So yeah, oh I’m trying to think what else we’re going to talk about there now.
09:16.79
Marcus Ahmad
Well, just what you’re doing, thinking through that, Sam, can I just give a heads up to a newsletter that I do receive?
09:16.94
Sam Hollis
Blogs are good. Yeah. Sorry, go on, Marcus. Yeah. Yeah,
09:22.65
Marcus Ahmad
And it’s a guest we’ve had on the show.
09:23.67
Sam Hollis
of course.
09:24.61
Marcus Ahmad
And it’s a guy called Alex Vita.
09:24.99
Sam Hollis
OK.
09:26.69
Marcus Ahmad
Do you remember him?
09:28.28
Sam Hollis
Alex.
09:29.58
Marcus Ahmad
Vita. I think I’m was saying it right.
09:30.68
Sam Hollis
Now, what did we talk about?
09:31.18
Marcus Ahmad
he did them He was the one who does websites for photographers.
09:35.26
Sam Hollis
okay
09:36.34
Marcus Ahmad
And i’m so but he he does a what he does a newsletter, actually, and it’s it’s very good. it’s really it’s It’s really good. It’s just… um some You know, he’s just got the right amount of text and links and graphics in there to make it look really interesting.
09:48.35
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
09:51.51
Sam Hollis
Perfect. Yeah, and I think that is, isn’t it? It’s getting that mix in, getting the text in, getting it in little little bits to engage people, getting the images in there.
09:59.00
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
10:01.22
Sam Hollis
As we say, blogs are great because once you’ve written a blog, you’ve half written your newsletter. I think that’s really good. Thinking about what offers you want to put in there and what you want people to actually click and do can be really good as well.
10:11.86
Sam Hollis
um um I think another thing is systems. So just really briefly, always use an email marketing system. Don’t just send it on Outlook or something. All sorts of technical reasons why they won’t deliver.
10:22.89
Marcus Ahmad
Oh gosh, yeah.
10:23.98
Sam Hollis
You’ll get a spammy reputation, be a total disaster. It’s illegal because you’re not doing all the GDPR stuff. So just always, you know, whatever it is, MailChimp, Moosan, there’s loads of them.
10:35.39
Sam Hollis
Whichever you use, just use them. You’ve got to got to use a proper system.
10:38.98
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s all set up for you, isn’t it? okay i said I use MailLite.
10:41.40
Sam Hollis
Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. Yeah.
10:45.59
Marcus Ahmad
I’m sure you use others. but And it’s a bit clunky to use, ill I’ll be honest. But the more you use it, the more you get used to it. But guys, to try and do it on Outlook, Sam, I don’t know how you even start doing it.
10:55.49
Sam Hollis
It be a disaster.
10:55.65
Marcus Ahmad
You’ve got schedule it.
10:56.30
Sam Hollis
i mean, yeah it is and it wouldn’t deliver.
10:56.61
Marcus Ahmad
You’ve got to do all sorts, haven’t you?
10:59.80
Sam Hollis
it’s the the Getting emails to deliver is quite a challenge nowadays. And, you know, the people at those systems, at MailerLite, at MailChimp, have vast numbers of staff whose entire job is getting your emails to deliver, you know, and they spend a lot of time doing it.
11:12.00
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
11:14.07
Sam Hollis
um Speaking of which, though, you obviously get, when you send out newsletters, you get unsubscribed and some people worry about those. So people are unsubscribed from your mailing list. I mean, for me, if, you know, half your mailing list is unsubscribed, it’s time to, you know, it’s unsubscribing.
11:28.15
Sam Hollis
It’s time to think about it.
11:29.05
Marcus Ahmad
yes
11:29.11
Sam Hollis
But if it’s one or two people, I say don’t worry, you’ probably they were probably not the people for you, they’re probably not your clients. If you’re sending out the right stuff and it’s engaging most of your audience and one or two are slipping out, that’s fine.
11:40.15
Sam Hollis
You’re effectively filtering out the ones who probably are not you know are not for you anyway. So I i think that’s something people stress about too much, unless it’s lots of people going. It’s actually a good thing and it’s actually refining your newsletter list of people who are really engaged.
11:50.87
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. Yeah, totally. it’s um yeah You’re right though, Sam. I think when I did, I thought, gosh, you’re not going to get loads people under describing, loads of people getting cheesed off with me. But that is definitely not the case.
12:02.83
Marcus Ahmad
It’s a great way of reaching out and putting a tribe, as they call it together.
12:05.40
Sam Hollis
It is. Yeah, that’s it. And one of the things actually I found and I learned with mine is is questions are really good. So audience love it, questions you ask them. And I used to get really upset because people didn’t answer them. And what I found with talking to people, so some of my clients who are kind of new and I’ve talked about the newsletter, what I found was that they actually liked being asked the question, even though they didn’t answer.
12:26.26
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
12:26.74
Sam Hollis
Interestingly, so it doesn’t matter that you don’t get the response and it’s nice if you do, but actually just the fact they’re being asked, they appreciate, even though they don’t bother to reply.
12:34.74
Marcus Ahmad
That’s interesting. That’s a good one.
12:36.18
Sam Hollis
Yeah, because I often found that put me off, but actually they’re quite interested.
12:36.73
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
12:39.64
Sam Hollis
um I think looking at the data for your newsletters can be quite good. It’s one of those things you can get obsessed with. So, you know, don’t get obsessed with, but just keep a vague eye that, you know, a reasonable amount of people are opening it.
12:51.56
Sam Hollis
So open rates, you’re getting percentages. And, you know, you can never expect miracles.
12:54.14
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
12:57.18
Sam Hollis
You know, I mean, you know, 20, 30% open rate is pretty good. um And then click rates are more like kind of 5%, 2, 3, 4, 5%.
13:06.54
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
13:08.23
Sam Hollis
So if you know you get around that, lots of people get disheartened with that. But that’s normal. that’s you know It’s quite hard to get above that. Some people do. And it varies depending on your audience. Sometimes you get more or less. um But that’s normal.
13:19.86
Sam Hollis
Don’t get disheartened by that. That’s absolutely fine absolutely normal. Now, if you’re not getting any clicks for lots and you’re not getting you know hardly any opens, then it’s different.
13:25.10
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, you won’t, Sam. It’s not going to happen.
13:27.10
Sam Hollis
But
13:27.98
Marcus Ahmad
It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen. People, you know, if you’ve got good information, you’ve got the right people on the emailing message, you’re going to good opening rate. I spoke about this before, Sam.
13:36.90
Sam Hollis
That’s it.
13:39.00
Marcus Ahmad
I get like 70, 80% opening rate on mine, which it really infused me to carry on doing it.
13:41.56
Sam Hollis
Which is, yeah, which is pretty miraculous. So you’ve got a really engaging newsletter there and you’ve obviously got the right audience. There’s an amazing combination. Most people won’t get that and don’t worry that you don’t get that.
13:51.82
Sam Hollis
Absolutely no problem at all.
13:53.08
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. Yes.
13:53.74
Sam Hollis
um And yeah, people will still be looking at, people be reading it And what I found as well is one of the powers of the email newsletter is nothing to do with anything except your name appears in somebody’s inbox every so often.
14:05.68
Sam Hollis
And so your name is just in their head. And I’ve had people who I don’t think have ever read my newsletter, but they get it and they’ll reply to one newsletter with an email, nothing to do with what I just sent them.
14:18.68
Sam Hollis
But they’ve seen my name. They’ve remembered they need some work done on a website. My name’s appeared in the inbox they’ve replied. It’s simple as that.
14:25.91
Marcus Ahmad
Perfect. Perfect, Sam.
14:27.03
Sam Hollis
um So just for that, that just reminder that you exist constantly is really powerful in itself.
14:27.62
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
14:35.06
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. it’s I mean, obviously we’re we’re we’re both really enthusing about the power of the email list, but, i you know, i mean, um’ ah um ah much um I’m much preferred doing my email marketing than I do with Instagram or LinkedIn or any of that. I just find, I don’t know, it I just find it seems to be more engagement. Yeah.
14:54.39
Sam Hollis
Well, very I mean, you’ve got an engaged audience, so they’ve already, you know, LinkedIn and whatever is going out to people who might be connected to you, might vaguely see it.
14:57.08
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
15:01.63
Sam Hollis
Your newsletter list is people who’ve actively subscribed to your newsletter. So there already people who want to hear from you, they’re engaged with you, they’re interested in you, so you’ve got an engaged audience, so yeah. They’re way, way more engaged audience. They’re way easier to sell to to and all sorts of things. So yes, it’s a completely different audience. Much, much, yeah, much more engaged audience, much more interested audience. Down the funnel, if you think about the marketing funnel, is that starting at the top where you barely know everybody and at the end they’re a customer. They’re kind of much further down that that system because they’ve clicked on something, you know, they’ve done something to join your mailing list. It doesn’t happen by magic. They’re filled in a form, whatever it is, but they’ve done something to get there.
15:40.50
Marcus Ahmad
Quite, yes, quite. Sam, if someone was just starting off from doing it, which platform, we’ve already mentioned a couple, which platform do you use or would you recommend?
15:51.80
Sam Hollis
To be honest, there’s loads out there, and they all basically do the same job.
15:53.05
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Same.
15:56.18
Sam Hollis
um the The key is there’s lots of different prices and pricing structures, so it depends what you’re doing. So obviously, there’s the email newsletter, which people use. But there’s also automations, which means it automatically sends a series of emails. Now, for some systems, it’s really cheap to send email newsletters, but it’s really expensive to send.
16:16.57
Sam Hollis
Hang on a second. We’ll have a wait while Harriet digs around in a suitcase where my the microphone is.
16:21.11
Marcus Ahmad
wonder what that noise was.
16:21.85
Sam Hollis
do Can you not wait two minutes, Harriet? We’re nearly done.
16:25.14
Marcus Ahmad
wonder what that… here
16:27.01
Sam Hollis
Oh, dearie. Go on, have a dig. I don’t want to dig anything else out.
16:30.36
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, God, this is definitely going to be edited out. which was That’s painful.
16:32.57
Sam Hollis
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, she’s gone now. It’s right. She’s getting her bikini out. There we go. Dropped her. Right. um What was I saying? What was I just saying?
16:41.98
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, God, no, I don’t know.
16:42.15
Sam Hollis
What was…
16:43.26
Marcus Ahmad
i was number number No, I don’t know. Platforms, templates, platforms.
16:46.84
Sam Hollis
Yeah, platforms, yeah, platforms.
16:48.03
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
16:49.61
Sam Hollis
Yeah, so platforms, markets, there’s all sorts of different options. And to be honest, they all do basically the same thing, and they all do a good job. Now, the interface is slightly different. So for different people, they prefer different interfaces for other, and the pricing structure is very different.
17:03.26
Sam Hollis
So some people just send email newsletters, and for some of the platforms, that’s relatively cheap. ah The other thing you can do with email marketing is send automated emails. We’ve had a lot of shows about that, you know, where if somebody fills in a form, you then send them an email the next day, an email four days later, to another email six days later and hand them a so send them a whole series of emails. They’re called automations. Now, for some of the platforms, it’s more expensive to have automations than just newsletters. For others, you get all of it together. And then for some of them, they charge different amounts for different audience members.
17:34.52
Sam Hollis
So I think it’s a case of thinking about what you want it for and then looking at the pricing structure, frankly.
17:40.72
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, I think. I mean, that’s some good advice as any, really.
17:41.75
Sam Hollis
um Mail, that’s it. I think the only other thing to say about that is MailChimp is kind of the industry standard. It tends to be a bit more expensive than the others. The advantage of MailChimp, I actually use a couple of MailChimp for some things, but not everything. And the the advantage of MailChimp is if you’ve if you’re going to want to hook your ah mailing system up to your website in a more complicated way, like, for example, you might have a membership area on your website. and You want everyone joins the membership to be on your MailChimp.
18:12.41
Sam Hollis
list or you have a shop and you want the checkout people to have the option to go to a new mailing list those sorts of integrations generally work better with Mailchimp for the very simple reason it’s kind of the industry leader so if a piece of software is going to bother to connect to any piece of email marketing software, it’s probably MailChimp.
18:28.06
Marcus Ahmad
Right. Yep.
18:30.52
Sam Hollis
So that’s one advantage of it, but it then generally is more expensive.
18:30.84
Marcus Ahmad
Okay. Right.
18:35.32
Sam Hollis
so So I’ve used it for one site, which is like though is more complicated for my clients, that’s what I recommend. MailChimp, if you’ve got a membership site or a shop or stuff, is generally better.
18:44.92
Marcus Ahmad
Right.
18:45.43
Sam Hollis
If you’ve not, and you’re just getting people to sign up, It’s a case of, you know, look at which one’s gonna work for you in terms of pricing, look at one which gonna work for you in terms of the interface, you know, which to prefer making the newsletters on, I’d say it’s, you know, down to that really.
19:02.61
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
19:03.03
Sam Hollis
Cool, and I think that’s about all I’ve got to say about that really, Marcus, I think.
19:05.94
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, i’ve i’ve got well I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about, Sam, and if you don’t mind.
19:08.25
Sam Hollis
Okay, go on then.
19:10.36
Marcus Ahmad
First of all, um what do you do with your old newsletters?
19:10.39
Sam Hollis
Yeah, course.
19:16.15
Sam Hollis
In terms of, oh
19:16.25
Marcus Ahmad
Because obviously spend when you spend a bit of time putting it together, you’ve sent it out.
19:19.54
Sam Hollis
don’t see. Yeah, it
19:21.50
Marcus Ahmad
What I do with them, Sam, is I put them on my blog.
19:25.21
Sam Hollis
yeah. Okay. So I’ve always, so that’s one way to, I’ve done it the other way. So I’ve always effectively written a blog and my newsletters are effectively directing people back to my blog.
19:36.15
Sam Hollis
So I’ve kind of done it the other way. So effective, once I’ve written a blog, my newsletters are just kind of showing, you know why don’t you find out about this? And why don’t you find out about this? Click here and send them to the blog.
19:46.14
Marcus Ahmad
Okay, yes, okay.
19:47.93
Sam Hollis
But yeah,
19:48.00
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, I just do that because, you know, it’s just a way of getting, you know, content. I mean, if you’ve got really long news, you can break them up and do posts with them, but mine aren’t that long, really. So I put, I, yes.
19:58.26
Sam Hollis
as the other thing you can so i got so The other thing you can do is, to be honest, is recycle them.
20:01.27
Marcus Ahmad
No, go on, no, go on, Sam. That’s it.
20:05.79
Sam Hollis
so after if you’re doing it for a long time, after you know a year, year and a half, don’t put exactly the same newsletter out, but frankly, you could probably you know take an old one, rejig it a bit and resend out.
20:13.66
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
20:17.03
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. um How do you build up your newsletter, um your your client your list? how do you bu me How do you build up the list?
20:26.52
Sam Hollis
Yeah, i mean so that I mean, that’s kind of a show. in it We’ll do a couple of quick things.
20:29.78
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
20:29.97
Sam Hollis
Well, that’s kind of a show in itself in some ways.
20:31.80
Marcus Ahmad
It is. I know it’s quite broad, but on.
20:32.28
Sam Hollis
I mean, there’s there’s kind of the online and offline ways. So, I mean, if you’re kind of networking and stuff, that’s a real gray area to me because you kind of need permission for people to be on your mailing list.
20:43.46
Marcus Ahmad
That’s right.
20:43.81
Sam Hollis
So there’s a couple of things. First of all, if they’ve ever… inquired about buying something from you so if they’ve ever been a lead or ever been a customer you’re perfectly allowed to put them on mailing list that’s called legitimate interest and the gdpr rules so they have shown legitimate interest in your company therefore you can send them information
21:01.22
Marcus Ahmad
Right.
21:01.27
Sam Hollis
Yeah. So that’s fully allowed. Anybody who’s ever been elite. Well, I mean, not, you know, 10 years ago, but say in the last three or four years, anyone been elite can go on there. Anyone customer can go on their legitimate interest. No problem at all. Obviously you can have, you know, the free download on your website type of thing, or you have a webinar or whatever, where, you know, you just say, you know, you’ll join the newsletter.
21:17.82
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. That’s what we’ve done. We’ve done that. Yes.
21:21.17
Sam Hollis
That’s it. So you can have that approach where it’s kind of online. I mean, you can have on your website, join the newsletter. Now for a lot of people, know, that’s not tempting now if you know you’re a band people want to know when you’re next releasing stuff and people are quite keen to join your newsletter and i’ve got a client who’s a musician and yeah people just sign up but if you’re an accountant that’s less tempting isn’t it let’s be honest um i’ll frankly a photographer not that many people are going to go i really want this photographer to contact me every week you’ve got to kind of tempt them a bit more which is why we give away the free downloads don’t you’re the free call and you say if you know this puts you on the mailing list um
21:38.58
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, yeah.
21:42.42
Marcus Ahmad
specific
21:56.50
Sam Hollis
There’s the meeting that the networking is always a gray area, I think, because it’s kind of at what point have you kind of met them enough that you’re OK to put them on your newsletter list? I mean, when I was going networking in person, my approach was usually if I’d.
22:07.74
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
22:12.06
Sam Hollis
I wouldn’t anybody who I’d met at the networking event, I wouldn’t automatically put on. But if I’d had a one to one with them, I’d put them on at that stage. That was kind of my approach. you know And it is a bit of gray area. You probably ought to, you know, them just handing you the business card is probably not enough. If you say, if you when you take it, you go, or do you mind if I put you on the mailing list? You could definitely do it they say yeah. um And most people would at that stage because most people tend to be polite. um But yeah, that’s kind of, you definitely want to add them at some stage, but it’s a bit of a gray area as to when. There’s no hard and fast rules.
22:42.68
Marcus Ahmad
I mean, at the end of the not the worst thing that can happen, but it would be that you can unsubscribe, aren’t they? Really? That’s really it.
22:50.39
Sam Hollis
Yeah, you’re, if you, you, yeah, yeah, definitely, but not generally that’s the thing, but it also will upset people.
22:50.72
Marcus Ahmad
mean, has anybody ever been done for GDPR, Sam, that you’re aware of?
22:58.57
Sam Hollis
If they’ve been to a news, you know, a networking meeting, you vaguely pass them, you’ve exchanged cards and barely said a word, you can annoy them and they’ll go to other networking groups and they’ll say, oh, you know what this person, that’s true.
23:04.89
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, can’t you be… Yes. Yes.
23:09.41
Sam Hollis
So I think it’s partly that as much as the law, as you don’t want to annoy people, uh,
23:09.98
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. yes
23:15.10
Marcus Ahmad
Well, I think that’s common sense, really.
23:15.35
Sam Hollis
Yeah, so I think that i think that’s my one-to-one is probably a good point. If you had a one-to-one with someone, put them on the list.
23:19.74
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. yeah
23:21.85
Sam Hollis
Don’t just bung everybody at every meeting on the list. That would that kind of be pushing it too far and you will annoy people.
23:25.95
Marcus Ahmad
Cool.
23:27.61
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
23:28.57
Marcus Ahmad
And just one more comment, if I make me sound a little tip I can pass on, which I’ve spoken you about before.
23:32.09
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
23:33.07
Marcus Ahmad
ah You do get an option in your new newsletter that you can send it out to people who haven’t opened it from your list.
23:39.58
Sam Hollis
Yeah, resend it.
23:40.03
Marcus Ahmad
And I do do that, actually.
23:40.86
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
23:41.55
Marcus Ahmad
So I i wait a week and then for the people haven’t opened it, i do I just send it out once more. And, you know, I get a little the few percentage of people open it again.
23:46.87
Sam Hollis
oh okay that’s good so yeah on my system i can just when i send it i get that option it does would you like us to resim this in a few days it does it automatically if you tick the box um yeah yeah so yes so and again that’s down to your audience and if you think they’ll get annoyed by it or if they think they’ll be quite happy that most people quite happy because effectively they’ve often just forgotten about it yeah cool
23:50.16
Marcus Ahmad
you know.
23:56.92
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. Oh, it’s automatically. Okay. Wow. Okay.
24:08.47
Marcus Ahmad
Most people are happy. Some them. Yes. Look, I think, as I said, you’ve really infused me to do one. i’m really I would say now it’s my favorite type of marketing that I’m doing and the one that um um I aim to keep building up.
24:23.67
Sam Hollis
There we go. ah Frankly, I think having Marcus saying that he’s pleased doing any marketing is a bloody miracle.
24:27.58
Marcus Ahmad
Yes, that is exactly right.
24:27.91
Sam Hollis
So there we go.
24:30.33
Marcus Ahmad
Exactly right.
24:30.84
Sam Hollis
Brilliant, Marcus.
24:30.97
Marcus Ahmad
yeah definitely Yeah, definitely. I mean, LinkedIn and all that, ive got loads of followers, but really, you know, was trying to put a newsletter out.
24:38.88
Sam Hollis
Well, to honest, the aim is from those to get them onto the newsletter list. So that’s your next stage. Yeah.
24:42.84
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
24:43.21
Sam Hollis
Anyway, Marcus, we have talked enough.
24:44.06
Marcus Ahmad
Thank you.
24:44.89
Sam Hollis
I think it’s time to go. Thank you for the amazing questions.
24:46.53
Marcus Ahmad
It is. Thank you.
24:48.44
Sam Hollis
And…
24:50.07
Marcus Ahmad
Nice to have you back, Sam.
24:50.01
Sam Hollis
ah Marcus, thank you very much. And Marcus and listeners, I will see you all next week.
24:55.61
Marcus Ahmad
See you next week.
24:57.69
Sam Hollis
Bye.
