Matt: For me, I think the most — after having done this for a while, I think it can be a really powerful way to build a narrative for authors. That ties a lot of their ideas together and introduces people to all the ideas that they have, maybe across three or four books that wouldn't otherwise get the opportunity to do. They wouldn't be able to do it on social media. They wouldn't be able to do it on their Amazon or their bio page, for example. Once you get someone on your email list, then you can really nurture the relationship. It kind of introduces ideas over time.

(intro)

Welcome to the Become a Writer Today Podcast with Bryan Collins. Here, you’ll find practical advice and interviews for all kinds of writers.

Bryan: Email marketing automation — what should writers, bloggers, and authors know about it? And how can you get started if you find it overwhelming? Hi there. My name is Bryan Collins, and welcome to the Become a Writer Today Podcast. Email marketing automation can be a little bit overwhelming. I know when I first started trying to segment my list and figure out what to send to readers and subscribers, I ended up with a smorgasbord of forms, segments, lists, and rules to follow and check. It took me quite some time and a lot of hair pulling to get it right. I was eventually able to get it right because I'm currently using email marketing software ConvertKit, which is pretty easy to use, and which was actually originally built with bloggers and writers in mind. People with lists of all sizes use ConvertKit to send the right message to their readers, and also to segment their list and also to sell their latest books, courses, and offers.

Now, email marketing automation still can be a little bit tricky to get your head around. So, if you're struggling, you may enjoy this week's interview with Matt Treacey. He basically teaches authors and writers how to monetize their lists more effectively through the power of marketing, or should I say email marketing automation. In this week's interview, he provides a number of helpful strategies and tips for doing just that. I hope you enjoy this week's interview with Matt Treacey. It was a good one. If you do, please consider leaving a short review on the iTunes Store. Of course, you could share this show with another writer or another friend who enjoys learning about marketing and writing. Don't forget to review the show as well. Because when you hit the star button on iTunes or when you share the show with another writer, it really does help the podcast grow.

(interview)

Bryan: My guest today is Matt Treacey, who is the author of Natural Orders. Matt also coaches nonfiction authors how they can use email marketing to build relationships with their readers. Welcome to the show, Matt.

Matt: Thank you for having me. A pleasure to be on.

Bryan: It's very nice to talk to you today. So how did you get into teaching nonfiction authors how to use email marketing as part of their marketing strategy for books and writing?

Matt: Well, interestingly enough, it was actually my first foray into marketing at all was with a nonfiction author. So it's what I've been doing from the beginning. Since then, I've been doing it for almost a decade now. I branched out into doing stuff with software as a service, SaaS businesses, a bit of e-commerce stuff, even some stuff in finance. I kind of did a lot of different things. But my bread and butter has always been working with authors. So it's the business model, I understand probably the most comprehensively. This has been where most of my experience is.

Bryan: What type of nonfiction authors are you currently working with?

Matt: Like names, or would you prefer—

Bryan: Just genres or niches. I mean, it could be pretty big.

Matt: Yeah, finance and business mostly. Those are my main things.

Bryan: I've experimented with a number of different types of email marketing over the years. I've used newsletters like SubStack to just publish extracts from a book or just to publish pieces of writing now and later turn into book chapters. These days, I mostly use ConvertKit. So I send out new articles to readers. Then at the end of the article, I might have an update about whatever I'm working on or writing or about a book launch. That strategy seems to work quite well for me. What are the types of strategies that you normally advise your clients on?

Matt: I guess it does depend on the author. But for a lot of people with I've got quite a few books out, that can be really interesting. Because there's a lot of opportunities, obviously, to upsell people to courses, membership programs, and stuff that's on the back end. But, for me, I think the most — after having done this for a while, I think it can be a really powerful way to build a narrative for authors. That ties a lot of their ideas together and introduces people to all the ideas that they have, maybe across three or four books that wouldn't otherwise get the opportunity to do. They wouldn't be able to do it on social media. They wouldn't be able to do it on their Amazon or their bio page, for example. Once you get someone on your email list, then you can really nurture the relationship. It kind of introduces ideas over time.

Bryan: So if I'm getting new readers onto my email list, my particular approach was to perhaps have a short, free book on Amazon. Then that would direct readers to a landing page, and then they would opt in. Then I would send them new chapters from the next book in the series, or perhaps I'd send them some related content or articles. Is that an approach that you recommend your clients, or do you have a different type of approach?

Matt: Beautiful, yeah, that can work perfectly. You can be really creative with it. It depends on the author and the voice that they have, in the way that they communicate with their audience. I think that's the most powerful thing. We often hear about how powerful email is as part of your author platform. But I think this narrative component of it is really where the goal is. With email, you own the audience, right? But you get to direct the conversation and build up and continue the conversation that you've had in that book.

Bryan: It makes sense. What I tried to do is, I have a story that I would tell over the course of three or four emails. So perhaps I have a cliffhanger at the end of the email, almost like a thriller book. In email two, I would continue the story. Then in email three, hopefully, to some sort of conclusion. Then I might follow up with readers who clicked on links to whatever the offer is or whatever the sale is or the promotion, annoying everybody in the list. I'm just really talking to people who are most engaged. Is that an approach that you take? Are there any tweaks that I could make to that approach?

Matt: Yeah, man, I'll tell you what. You're ahead of the curve. Because, honestly, before I said I got into marketing a little bit later in my career, what I did before that actually was ecology. Hence, the name of the book being Natural Orders. The whole idea of Natural Orders and email marketing is this idea that the email list is like an ecosystem. It has the same characteristics. It can collapse just like an ecosystem if you don't treat it the right way. So the fact you're already thinking about all these things in terms of nurturing your audience, only sending stuff to engaged segments of your audience, and having this whole narrative side of things, it's leaps and bounds beyond what a lot of people seem to do with their email list in terms of just sending promotion after promotion and exhausting it, and eventually having nothing good really come of this asset.

Bryan: I found, with marketing automation, it can get a little bit overwhelming. So I use ConvertKit, which is, I suppose, built with bloggers and content creators in mind. I can end up with a smorgasbord of forms and segments and rules. It can take some time then to figure out what's happening. So maybe perhaps you could walk to a few steps that somebody could take if they're just getting into marketing automation for the first time so that they don't get too overwhelmed.

Matt: What is that saying? I'm not sure who it's attributed to. As simple as possible, but no simpler. I think that it 100% applies to email. I've been down the path of, you come up with all these cool ideas, ways you can segment people and tag them up and send them all these personalized offers. There's definitely space for that, and there's definitely places where you should do it. But often, simpler is better. I've worked with authors before. I've said to them, really, what all you need to be doing is sending a newsletter every week, or maybe dividing your audience into two segments, sending a different newsletter on alternating weeks, and then targeting people who are engaged. Keeping it very simple. ConvertKit is great for that sort of thing. A great tool. There's a lot of great tools out there.

To answer your question, where someone should start? It's exactly what we've been talking about. It's all about the list health. So the first stage I talked about in the book, that's like setting the foundation for the ecosystem. So your engagement rates. It could be opens or clicks. But that could also be measured in terms of just keeping your unsubscribe figure really low. So if people aren't being as fast, that could be a really good way to measure the health of your overall email list. Doing whatever you can do, keep that engagement really high. It's going to be the best place to start for an author as they're building their list slowly over time.

Bryan: Could you talk a little bit more about the approach that you described a few minutes ago where you recommend that your new clients send two different types of newsletters on different weeks?

Matt: That was a specific example of someone I worked with. Say you've written two or three different books, and they have overlapping but quite different audiences, then that's going to be major segment lines within your email list. Sometimes that's worth dividing up. Sometimes it's not. In cases like that, it might make sense to send very specific newsletters to specific segments of the audience, if they exist. But that was just a specific example.

One thing I typically recommend that author's do though is — I remember previously you mentioned that you have that kind of narrative sequence with four emails. You put on your paperback writer hat, build a bit of a narrative for them. You start with that. But then, there's something really interesting you can do. The people who are engaged with that, you gratulate them to a sequence where you can talk a little bit more about the problem that they experienced or, more specifically, the solution to the problem that they signed up to your email list for in the first place. Going back to classic copywriting stuff. So the Schwartz five stages of awareness.

For an author, typically, if someone signs up to your list, they're going to be like problem aware, maybe solution aware. So if you target your messaging to bridge someone from problem aware over to solution aware, and you only talk to those people who have engaged with your emails about solution aware content, then that can be a really powerful way to turn those subscribers into something potentially more valuable — whether that's in the form of more books, courses, memberships, whatever the author business model has.

Bryan: So if somebody is listening to this and they have a small list, or perhaps they've just started growing their lists — maybe they have a couple of dozen, or maybe just 1 or 200 subscribers — is it a lot of work to start segmenting a list? Is that a valuable exercise when your list is due?

Matt: No. Actually, I recommend this for anyone because it doesn't matter what email marketing service (EMS) you're using. You should be able to build a sequence like this. I mean, you're right on the money saying with the narrative and everything. Sometimes that's an uphill battle to describe that whole process, instead of just sending offers out as soon as someone signs up. Just that mindset shift is a very powerful thing. Most EMS, like I was saying, will allow you to have a sequence of emails where you're building a bit of narrative. Then you should be able to just apply a tag or build a segment of people who have engaged with any of those emails you've sent. Then all of a sudden, you've got your solution aware or graduated engagement group. Then you can talk to them in a slightly different way to slightly closer cohort, and the messaging changes slowly.

Bryan: When you're working with your clients, and you're helping them set up their segments for the first time, how would you advise them to figure out what those particular segments are? Any tips you could offer?

Matt: I mean, this goes back to as simple as possible. Because you want it to be a self-selecting thing. So if you build that first narrative sequence, then these people are self-selecting. Those people who are engaged with those emails, they're going to form the basis of that next engaged, the higher engaged segment. All of the sequences you build in your email marketing automation, I'd say 80% of them should have the goal of, number one, gathering data about what those people are actually doing. Of course, they can sell. They can drive traffic to different places. There's all these things you can do with email. But number one is: you're gathering data about your audience that you own. Because it's the only way that you actually own the data of your audience, especially the small online business owner and author.

Bryan: Yeah, true. It makes sense. When you are gathering data about your audience, do you recommend that sending out surveys or getting on calls? Is there another way to gather that kind of information?

Matt: It can be a way to do it. But say you've got this second engaged group that we're just talking about, you could start sending them back to your site to specific articles. If you've got different categories of articles on your site, all you have to do then is tag which articles they're going back to. Then you have interest groups, and you have another layer of data that you've built for that audience. Then you can get really discreet with your messaging. You can further segment and just send them very specific messages about whatever articles they've looked at.

So if you've come onto my site, and you've looked at five articles about using ChatGPT to write books — it's a category of articles on my site — then I can send you more content that's like that. You're going to be a more engaged person on that list and, down the line, more likely to buy something. So that's a build up over time. It's self-evolving. It builds on itself. It's not something that you sit down and put on your hat and sketch you out all of these different avatars. It's like, you just build a system. You let the data build itself.

Bryan: You mentioned sending out articles that you might have written about ChatGPT, for example. One problem that I suppose newer authors would encounter is they've written their book, but then it's going be a few months, maybe even a year or two before they write the next book. Perhaps they're not necessarily blogging too much, or they don't have a content website with a lot of content to send. Instead, they rode into the classic problem of, "It's Thursday. I need to send out something to my email list. But I don't know what to send." What would you recommend to a writer or an author who's encountering an issue like that?

Matt: It depends. The newsletter is in vogue now and for good reason, right? Because it's timely and relevant content. When you really break down what email is all about, it's about sending timely and relevant content. That's a good way to define personalization. So newsletters are fantastic at that, because it's something like I thought of the press. Every time, it engages people. It's newsworthy stuff for whatever niche someone's writing in. Newsletters work really well for that.

I don't practice what I preach. With my own email list, I don't send out a newsletter because I'm too busy managing newsletters for other people. So when it comes time to I have to send a newsletter for my own list, I don't do it. I can see a lot of authors who are also in that position. What I'd recommend in that situation is: just make your nurture sequence longer. One of the virtues of being an author is that you have so much content. You can repackage these 100,000, 150,000-word book into probably a killer email sequence, without repeating yourself too much and with some light editing and reshaping the narrative in whichever way you want to take it. So you've already got this content. You can create more content, easily if you want because you're an author. So I just say build a nurture sequence, so you can just set and forget. Sometime it goes for a year. Send one email every two weeks. Sometimes that can be good not flooding people's inboxes stuff.

Bryan: So a nurture sequence being a sequence that builds a relationship with your readers over time. You mentioned that it will go out over a year. So if you send that out every fortnight, that's approximately 26 emails. Based on your work with your clients, Matt, could you perhaps give some suggestions or some tips about what to put into the nurture sequence, or perhaps some examples of what worked well for your clients? Like how long should it be? Am I linking to my own content? Am I linking to external content? Should I write it out in advance, or do I write in it as I go along?

Matt: Yeah, all good questions. Into the conversation going on in your prospect's mind, so this is what it's all about. This first sequence that you're building, whether you want to call it a problem aware prospect. These first emails you sent are all about reestablishing the reason that they signed up in the first place. Say you wrote a book about fitness and diet. Those first emails you send are all going to be about reestablishing this problem that these people have about either losing weight, or getting fit, or whatever the thing is. There's no providing solutions to those problems. There's no offering any products or anything like this. You're just using this framework to think about how you stage your communication. And to answer your question, I'd recommend writing this stuff upfront and really putting a lot of effort into it as a work in itself. This conversation you're having with these people who subscribe to your email list, it's very powerful as people know it. So it's worth spending the time in doing it right.

Bryan: You mentioned that you're actually managing email lists for your clients. So you're actually physically going into and emailing clients and sending the emails and drafting them, or are you just giving consultancy advice?

Matt: I mean, I'll start off with doing strategy work for this sort of stuff that we're talking about now. I do work one-on-one with some clients. It's bigger projects of sending newsletters and doing launches. So launches for products and all books, I've been involved in those before. There's a lot of ongoing work. Managing the health of a list when you've got a 200, 300, 400,000-person email list can be significant. There's a lot of segmentation that happens, a lot of different things that you just have to look after. Things come up all the time.

Bryan: Oh, interesting. That's quite a big list. I'd be curious to learn more about some of the issues that a bigger list like that would encounter.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, it all depends on the sophistication of the automation you have running in the background. I was alluding before to this idea of, you have all of these automations that are gathering data about people and building these segments. You adjust this over time, and then you can build carry-on sequences. Once there's X amount of people, sort them into Y bucket. Then you can have that trigger a sequence that sends them down another path of emails, another whole set of nurture. That might take another month, two months. When there's a whole lot of that, and there's a whole lot of people coming in from all different sources, it can become quite a lot to manage, absolutely.

But like I said, going back to this main thing, it's as simple as possible. But no simpler. Sometimes this stuff is warranted, especially if you've got a high-ticket sales to make on the backend. You can definitely make a business case for a lot of these things. Then the management just comes with it. But for a lot of authors, really, sometimes it can be as simple as just sending a newsletter every week and see who engages with it, and then just build up from there.

Bryan: Then your clients who have email lists of that size, are they using ConvertKit? Are they using dedicated marketing automation software?

Matt: Of course, ConvertKit has dedicated marketing automation software. It's a good tool. It's really like you have your entry-level tools stuff like MailChimp. You have your mid-market solutions, of which ConvertKit is part. I think it was originally made for bloggers, and I think a lot of authors have taken on. It's a good tool. Then there's enterprise solutions. I mean, it's really just about finding mid-market. It's going to have the features you want.

The features you're really looking for, number one: the ability to segment really easy. So do easily search through the database and create custom segments with really discreet queries. That's a really important thing. Then obviously, the automation builder. If you have a really powerful automation builder, then you can deal with those two things. They usually go together. Because the power of the automation is based on the depth to which you can segment your audience. ActiveCampaign is a really good tool for this, actually. No tool is perfect. A lot of them have problems. It's always a tradeoff. But yeah, ActiveCampaign seems to tick all the boxes for this.

Bryan: Yeah, I've looked at ActiveCampaign. I decided not to migrate to it in the end. I was happy with ConvertKit. They are certainly both good email tools. I've interviewed a number of people lately who are just using SubStack. I know it doesn't have marketing automation, but they're basically using SubStack to send out their latest article, their latest blog post. I even know one or two bloggers who have just stopped writing on their own site and have now migrated entirely to SubStack because of the ecosystem that's built within it. I suppose, based on your experience working with lists of all sizes, have you had any thoughts on a newsletter or platform like SubStack versus traditional newsletter that you might send out using ConvertKit or ActiveCampaign?

Matt: Yeah, I mean it does all come down to what the opportunities are. Being on a platform like Active Campaign where you actually own the database, and you have all these automation opportunities, versus SubStack where I guess you do own the database, but you don't have the possibilities to really gather the data like we were talking about.

One really good thing you get with SubStack though — Beehiiv is another one that's taking off. It's also a really good tool. It has some really good features — is the discoverability. That's something that's not built into your own email list. I know a lot of people who write in finance. They got this big SubStack newsletters. That actually provides them a source of traffic, so that can be a really valuable thing. Also, if you're running a subscription newsletter and that is your model, fantastic. Use SubStack or Beehiiv. There's no need to sell people things on the back end or do complicated and complex automation, if that's not your model. So there's definitely certain cases where a SubStack or a Beehiiv newsletter is going to do just fine. But you really need to think about what the opportunities are for you.

Bryan: The discovery feature is probably one of the key selling points of SubStack. Plus, it's free to use, which is always nice. You mentioned again that you're working with clients who have pretty big email lists. I would imagine, if they have an email list that's quite large, they have a budget for hiring somebody like you, Matt, or perhaps they have team members who are sending emails on their behalf and taking care of the automation, and the segmentation, and so on. If somebody's listening to this and they're thinking, "This all sounds very time-consuming. I'd rather just be writing my book or writing my articles. I don't really want to be setting up tags and setting up a system inside of ConvertKit, because it could be a job in itself," what would you say to them?

Matt: Well, I mean this is partly, for me, the impetus of writing a book. If you get these foundations right, then this is something that can just grow over time. Then you can step back, come back a year later, and then look at it and say, "Okay, what have I got here? How has my audience segmented itself? What data do I have about these people who are joining my list? Who are my readers?" Those questions can reveal themselves once you've done and laid the foundations. So I break it down to three stages in this book. If you get through that first stage and maybe a little bit of the second, arguably, you'll be in that situation. It's not a lot of upfront work. It's more theory. It's just that perspective shift about how you think about email and what role it plays in your business. I think that's the important thing.

Bryan: How often would you recommend a author or a writer review the segmentation campaign that they've created, or perhaps those 26 emails that they set up to send out over the course of a year? Because what I found is, if I go in and look at it after two weeks, there's not really enough information for me to make any meaningful decisions. But then, if I wait an entire year, perhaps I've missed some issues or things that I could have fixed.

Matt: Yeah, look at me. It's all about setting goals and monitoring it over time. What part it plays in your business and what you're trying to get out of it? I mean I'll do weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports on all of these things just to get a sense of how they're performing, and what they're doing big picture. But yeah, you'd have to set the goal before you can measure something properly.

Bryan: What type of goals would you recommend?

Matt: Say you've got one specific segment; it's getting sent into a specific sequence. What are you trying to do in that sequence? Are you trying to get them to click through to a page so that they can move on in another stage of education? Are you trying to sell them a product? Are you trying to get them to be part of a book launch cohort? It's all about figuring out what you're actually trying to do with that thing, and what the end result of it is. I'll set these things up as formula experiments. You set out a hypothesis and a method, results, and you revisit them.

Bryan: When you're revisiting them, are you tracking the results in a spreadsheet, or are you just looking at the data in the email marketing software? Do you have some other system for them?

Matt: Yeah, I'll pump it out into Google Data Studio. Well, they're Looker Studio now, they call it.

Bryan: Okay. So I'm curious. What does Google Data Studio do? Because normally, I thought that would be for website traffic.

Matt: No, you can get some integrations. I mean, for example, Active Campaign, or ConvertKit. You can put it right into a dashboard you've built. I've built a purpose. I'll have all the metrics I typically track that you'll need for an email list. Then if you're running a specific experiment that's got several iterations over time, you just create a new sheet. You do custom reports and just pull it straight out. I was using spreadsheets for a while. I was manually tracking everything, but you need to level up.

Bryan: Is that technical to do or otherwise?

Matt: No, not particularly. You just get these integrations. I mean you have to pay for them, but it's absolutely worth it. Because you need to look at the data.

Bryan: Does it work with ConvertKit?

Matt: I'm not sure on ConvertKit. I'll have to look into that one. But I'm sure that would be, almost certainly would be.

Bryan: Is it just showing information about the open rates, and click through rates, and goal completion in a different way to what you get inside of ActiveCampaign? Is it doing something that ActiveCampaign can't do?

Matt: You'd have to export all the data and then clean it up, put it into a pivot table and analyze it that way. Whereas if you've got it coming straight into the dashboard that you've built, it can be a little bit easier.

Bryan: Oh, interesting. I must look at that. Somehow, if people are interested in learning more about your work, where should they go?

Matt: Naturalordersbook.com. You can find out more about the book. That'll be on my site. That's it. That's the best way. Just the book has most of my knowledge.

Bryan: I got to include the links in the show notes. It's very nice to talk to you today.

Matt: Yeah, thanks Bryan.

(outro)

Bryan: I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. If you did, please consider leaving a short review on the iTunes Store or sharing the show on Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you’re listening. More reviews, more ratings, and more shares will help more people find the Become a Writer Today Podcast. And did you know, for just a couple of dollars a month, you could become a Patreon for the show? Visit patreon.com/becomeawritertoday or look for the Support button in the show notes. Your support will help me record, produce, and publish more episodes each month. And if you become a Patreon, I’ll give you my writing books, discounts on writing software and on my writing courses.