March 12, 2025 • 26 mins
Welcome to this episode of Digital Coffee: Marketing Brew! I'm your host, Brett Deister, and today we're diving into the magic of building community through email marketing. Joining me is Paul Gowder, owner of powwows.com, an esteemed online community celebrating Native American arts and culture for over 25 years. Paul shares his unique insights into transforming email from a simple communication tool into a vibrant community hub. We discuss the old-school charm of email marketing, how to effectively communicate and engage with your audience, and the art of personalizing your approach to build authentic relationships. Whether you're a marketer or just curious about email strategies, this conversation will inspire you to see email marketing in a whole new light. So settle in with your favorite brew and let's get started!
Speaker Bio:
Paul Gowder is a passionate advocate for Native American culture and the founder of powellows.com, a platform dedicated to fostering understanding and connection with Native American traditions. His venture serves as a vital resource for Native individuals seeking to maintain ties with their heritage and for those curious about exploring these rich cultural traditions. Through a variety of educational offerings, including articles, podcasts, and live videos, Paul ensures that powwows and the broader cultural experiences are accessible to all. His work encourages public participation and aims to bridge communities by inviting everyone to experience and appreciate the vibrant tapestry of Native American culture.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul Gowder (00:00):
Community is not a Facebook group where it's many
people talking to many people.
Community is just, if you have a group ofpeople who have that sense of belonging,
and you can create that in email, but it,but you have to, there's a right way to
do it and you really have to work at it.
Brett (00:25):
Mm, that's good.
And welcome to a new episode ofDigital Coffee Market Getting Brew.
And I'm your host, Brett Deister.
And if you could please subscribe to thispodcast, all your favorite podcasting.
Absolutely.
A five star review.
It really just helped me, letme know how I'm doing as well.
But this week we'll be talking about
How to build your community through email,because community email, I mean it's
(00:49):
the two oldest things in marketing ever.
And so why not bridge 'em togetherand try to make a great community?
But with me is Paul and heis the owner of powwows.com
and the leading online communitycelebrating Native American and Col
arts and culture for the past 25 years.
And he is, had a wealth of experiencethrough email marketing emails in general.
(01:10):
So this is why he's on the show.
But welcome to show Paul.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate the time and you're welcome.
And the first question is all my guestis, are you coffee or tea drinker?
Paul Gowder (01:19):
So I'm I'm from the south, sweet tea.
Yes.
Coffee.
Only if it's in, like I don'tdo like straight coffee.
I'll do like a frappuccinoor a nitro cold bru.
Know something different.
Can't just have a coffee killer.
Brett (01:35):
Technically nitro cold brew's still black.
It's just nitro shot through the I
Paul Gowder (01:39):
put lots of sweet cream in it and yeah, some other,
Brett (01:41):
oh
Paul Gowder (01:41):
Yeah.
Brett (01:41):
Fair enough.
. . Anyways, I gave a briefsummary of your expertise.
Can your listeners a littlebit more about what you do?
Paul Gowder (01:49):
Yeah, appreciate it.
Pows.com
is a place for anybody to comelearn, experience and connect
with Native American culture.
And we serve a lot of native peoplewho are looking for ways to, stay
connected with their culture, findout about powwows happening across
North America, but then we also helpeducate people that are just interested
in the culture through articles andpodcasts, live videos, things like that.
So powwows are open to the public and weencourage everybody to go and attend one.
(02:12):
And that's what we want to do, is justto help everybody experience the culture.
Brett (02:16):
Got you.
So email marketing, I always call itthe dinosaur of marketing because it's
one of the older things in digitalmarket, I should say, because we
have traditional marketing as well.
So how do you build a communitythrough emails specifically?
'cause people don't really associatethose two together a lot of times.
Paul Gowder (02:34):
Yeah.
And I think that's a big mistake.
And right now I hear so manypeople say, email's been around
forever, it's, it, like you said,this is the dinosaur, right?
But I think now more than ever, it's soimportant with the algorithm changes on
social media, Pinterest and YouTube andall these things are changing so fast.
And then YouTube is just killing peoplewith their helpful content update and the
(02:56):
AI overview and all this stuff, right?
You cannot depend on all thesetra traditional marketing channels
that we've used for years.
It's time to, if you haven't been to lookback at email and e 'cause when you send
an email, you know they're gonna get it.
They may not open it right every time,it's gonna at least be delivered.
And for me it was buildingcommunity and email is something,
(03:19):
I didn't always do well.
It was something I discovered probablyabout five or six years ago when
I made a real shift in my email.
I.
Instead of what I see so many peopledoing, and I was doing the same thing as
just shouting at our users and sendingthese nice, fancy, laid out graphical
emails and just blasting them with it.
I changed my approach and now I'msending text-based emails where
I'm talking directly to people.
(03:40):
I'm still putting links andencouraging people to click on
things and go read other things, the.
First part of my emails are mejust talking to people, asking
questions, and it is so fantastic.
I just, I'm just telling my wife, I gota really cool email a few minutes ago
because somebody replied to my message.
We've had four or five email exchangestoday that is building community.
It's getting those responses.
Community is not always aFacebook group where it's many
(04:02):
people talking to many people.
Community is just, if you have a group ofpeople who have that sense of belonging,
and you can create that in email, but it,but you have to, there's a right way to
do it, and you really have to work at it.
Brett (04:13):
To be fair, community has been around since the dawn of
mankind, basically because wealways needed each other to survive.
So funny part is communityis a bigger dinosaur than the
email marketing is right now.
'cause it's the oldestthing you could ever do.
Do you change that mindset?
Because I, a lot of people, a lot ofmarketers don't think about that as well.
We just think about we need theseshiny graphics, we need a video,
(04:34):
we need something to consume.
So they'll consume.
So they may open our actual email becausewe think in that like type of way, we
don't think about a two-way communication.
So how do you retrain yourthoughts just on that?
Paul Gowder (04:48):
You asked me earlier, tell you a little bit about my background.
So yes, I worked with powwowsfor more than 20 years now.
I'm adding on and not shifting, butadding on the, helping some people
achieve their business goals with emailmarketing and building community and
so many people that I'm working withright now and over the last few months.
That is their struggle, right?
And so one of the things I like tostart with, and I think is an, it
(05:11):
takes a little bit of work, but isreally easy way to build community
with email, is to stop worrying aboutwhat you're gonna send out every week.
Stop worrying about those broadcastmessages and let's figure out what
your audience wants from you, right?
So if you are a a travel blogger, right?
Maybe some people are coming toyou because you have really great
content about . Paris, right?
(05:34):
Maybe you've got several posts on therestaurants and the attractions visiting
Disneyland, Paris, or whatever it is.
You've got some really greatcontent and people want that.
So let's figure out a way to develop anemail series about that group of content,
and let's write it in a way that you'retalking to people, not just shouting at
them, but giving them that informationin a really direct, conversational way.
(05:57):
Asking questions alongthe, through the emails.
Having this, exchange with peopleand thus create those kind of email
series that will build communityfaster than these broadcast messages
that we're sending out every week.
And, if you're somebody who's depending onyour ad revenue, you need the clicks back,
it's, you're gonna get lots and lots ofclicks from this kind of stuff because you
are delivering the information they want.
(06:19):
So that, that's where I start peopleand get them to see those email shifts.
So many people, start with . Figure,trying to figure out like, what
am I gonna send every week?
And maybe they . Tie it to their RSS feedand it just automatically sends out the
latest podcast or the latest article.
That's not the way you do email, right?
You've got to put a little time into it.
You gotta put yourself into it.
(06:39):
Just what people tell you, if you'regoing to be posting on Instagram or
TikTok, you gotta be your authentic self.
And sometimes that meanswriting your authentic self, if
not just showing up on video.
Brett (06:49):
So it could almost be like splitting up the email marketing kind
of campaign in different buckets likea . Almost like one is like a problem
solution for your community type of thing.
So you're talking to your community,not at or a little bit at them,
but you're still talking to thembecause you're solving a problem.
They may or may not have a communityspotlight, like something that
makes them feel connected, and thenyou could broadcast maybe another
(07:12):
week and then you can do somethingelse the next week after that.
Paul Gowder (07:15):
And, look at your stats or look at the questions you're getting
on social media or in your comments.
What are people asking for If you're, ifthey're asking those same questions over
and over again, then build that as anemail series and answer those questions
to deliver that content that they wantin a conversational, direct way, and
that's gonna build your community, right?
You could be, you're going to be givingthem what they want instead of just
(07:39):
shouting these weekly broadcasts at them.
You're gonna deliver the informationthey want when they want it.
Brett (07:44):
And you can still like form templates around that too.
Once you figure it out, 'cause it's,everything's new, but once you figure
it out, you can build a template aroundlike which ones you're gonna send out.
Plus it helps them go, oh,someone's actually listening to me.
The person that I'm watchingis actually listening.
Paul Gowder (08:01):
Yeah, exactly.
And it's, it's so repeatable because I'mworking with some recipe bloggers and.
If you've got different buckets of,whether it's your grilling recipes or
your holiday recipes, all of those canbe little email series that you can get
people to opt into it in different waysand you, and they come to your website
because they're looking for your Turkeyrecipe for Thanksgiving and you're able
(08:24):
to deliver them a five email series onhere are my best holiday cooking tips
that's going to get them to reallyengage with you and, It's gonna perform
better than just getting that next weeklyemail of, Hey, here's my new recipe.
Because yeah, that's good, but you'renot really in, you're not gonna get
them to engage and open with it andreally wanna read it because they ne
(08:45):
maybe didn't want your newest recipe.
They wanted this specificgrouping of recipes.
Brett (08:50):
Yeah, and like for coffee shops, you could do one thing about what's the
different types of brews, like which oneshave more caffeine than the other one.
Like you could build that communityaround just coffee or if you have
a product, maybe someone, maybeyou keep on seeing the reoccurring
questions or issues they may be having.
And then your email blast is, we'rejust gonna go through these and step
by step if we have to through an email.
(09:13):
But it is still some talking to them.
Yes, exactly.
And so how do you get started?
Because it seems like a lot of timeswhen people start this, they don't
really get a lot of community feedbackand they're like this is a failure.
I shouldn't do this anymore.
Nobody's listening.
Like I.
W what type of encouragement couldyou give people that are just
starting out or maybe want to do this?
(09:33):
Because like I said, a lot of times youstart something and you get no responses.
Paul Gowder (09:38):
Oh, for sure.
And email marketing.
I is a lot slower to see success and tosee results than posting on social media.
And, if we post, a TikTok, we're gonna getviews and comments right away, probably.
Email's a little different.
First thing you're gonna have to dois be a little bit patient, right?
You're gonna have to setsome realistic goals.
(09:58):
And look, if you have 10 people subscribedto your list and you're getting a 50,
60% open rate, that's really good.
Now let's just get more people onthe list and keep performing it.
It's not about havingthe big, huge numbers.
It's . Whoever, whatever numbersyou have, it's making sure
you're delivering value to them.
And then as you grow, you'rejust going to, it's just gonna
(10:21):
scale up from there, right?
So it's really concentrate ongetting value to the people you do
have, and it'll build from there.
Brett (10:27):
And what would be some of the key elements to put in with
this community focused email?
Paul Gowder (10:33):
Yeah.
So some of the things I loveto do is, I have a email series
on what to expect to powwow.
'cause people are a little apprehensivethat, if they're wanting to go
this, they have a lot of questions.
And in the first email I sayhere's what a powwow is and here
are the things you're gonna see.
And over the next few daysI'm going to give you this.
But before we get to any of that.
I have a question for you, andso I ask 'em a little question
(10:54):
and I get responses, and here's. Here's the thing, people forget.
Another thing people forget in emailmarketing, you put that question in
there and you get a reply in your inbox.
You gotta answer it.
That's where you build the community.
Don't just let those sit thereand pile up and don't answer 'em.
You've gotta follow up with it.
What, whether or not, as you scale, youmaybe you template that or you, maybe you
(11:16):
have a response or whatever, that's fine.
But just make sure you're replying tothose emails and responding to people.
I had a good example today.
I had somebody write me and they werenot happy with something on the website.
They were frustrated.
And after about five or six emails,they were like, you delivered.
Thank you.
You actually listenedto what I had to say.
(11:36):
We had this nice conversationand now she's okay, I get it.
Thank you.
That's what you can dowith community, right?
Because you're gonna respond topeople and you're gonna have these
conversations and it will build.
Brett (11:47):
And if you are actually busy, just actually reply, Hey, I'm a little busy.
Lemme gimme a few hoursand I'll get back to you.
Paul Gowder (11:53):
Sure.
People understand that, right?
Nobody, if somebody replies to you attwo o'clock in the morning, they don't
expect you to respond right away, butyou respond within a day or two, right?
And I think it's gonna be, you'regonna see huge results when you start
actually engaging with your readers.
Same thing, if you're posting onFacebook and you're not responding
or not engaging in the comments.
Your page may feel a littleempty and not active.
(12:17):
Same thing with email.
You've got to, you got toengage and keep talking to 'em.
Brett (12:21):
And is there a way to maybe dealing with some of the spam?
Because for example, socialmedia, there's always spam.
If I post something on LinkedIn, Istill get the podcast promoters trying
to say, look, I'll offer you this.
I have to block.
And I'm like, that's not what I want.
Paul Gowder (12:35):
Yes.
You're gonna get some of that.
You're gonna get
Bot sign up for your email.
All of that's gonna happen.
I, there's and you're gonna getsome people that are gonna just
send you things that are out there.
I've got a couple people now thatrespond to me almost daily, and
it's, screens and screens of texts.
Some of those, I don't know, , I don'tknow what I'm supposed to do with it.
(12:56):
It's just lots and lots of texts.
Usually I'll just respond with,Hey, thanks for writing me back.
I appreciate you being on the list.
Thank you.
And they list, they feel heard, right?
You don't have to go through and answerevery concern if they posted some kind
of political treatise or whatever,you're gonna have some of that, right?
But it's okay.
You keep providing the contentand the value that you project and
(13:16):
you'll attract the right of peopleeventually, the, those people always.
One of the things people getreally scared of is unsubscribes.
And people get really caught up onhow many people are unsubscribing.
If you get a high number of unsubscribes,maybe there's an issue or whatever
but generally speaking, if peopleare unsubscribing, it's good, right?
Because they weren't your people.
So just keep delivering yourmessage and the right people
(13:37):
will get there eventually, andyou'll snowball from there.
But yeah it's okay.
They'll eventually go away.
Brett (13:42):
It'll help with your numbers too.
If they unsubscribe, then your numbersof open rates goes up because, 'cause
if they're never actually opening youremails, they're just help, they just don't
help your open rates as it is anyway.
Paul Gowder (13:52):
Yeah, exactly.
And it can cost you more, beginningof this week, I purged my email list.
I, I do it about once a quarter andI unsubscribe to about 16,000 people.
That's a big number, but yeah, it's,it's gonna help with my open rates.
They hadn't opened anythingin more than 30 days.
Get 'em off the list, stop paying for 'em.
Brett (14:10):
Got you.
And moving on to like the list breakdown,maybe just do that too with a list
of super users or super communityor whatever you wanna put it like.
Put them in different lists, and thenyou can highlight maybe eventually
in one email, like the ones that arethe super users, and then build even
more of a collective through that.
Because again, if this is allcommunity, you want to highlight
those that actually care the most.
Paul Gowder (14:32):
Exactly.
And I've got several people that respond.
Every time I send an email, they respond.
And you get to know them, you canactually, respond and call them by name.
. Like one guy, he responds all the time.
I know what he does for a living.
I know where he works and wherehe, he goes and hangs out in his,
so when he replied with somethingtoday, I was like, Hey man, I know
you're busy doing your job here.
Hope to see you at thenext event, whatever.
(14:53):
And because you start forming thoserelationships and you're able to.
To actually have conversations.
It's amazing.
It, because it's not this big facelessvoid that sometimes it feels like
when you're on social media andyou're just talking to nobody you're
actually talking to people on email.
It's really cool.
I love, I've loved that part of it.
Brett (15:10):
And have you found different types of content help with the community?
Not just the broadcasting,but the community based thing?
Have you seen that, you said text,does video, maybe personalize one for
that specific email work could work?
Is there a way to varyit up a little bit too?
Paul Gowder (15:24):
Yeah, I think it, I think everybody should test
all of those kinds of contents.
It, for my emails, the things thatwork best are pictures and links.
Other than me just, being directwith text my users like video, but
they're just gonna go to my YouTubechannel and watch my videos there.
They're sending, I.
Videos and email doesn'talways perform well.
So try everything right?
Try sending out an email,try or a video in the email.
(15:46):
Try sending out some photos, maybe,try all kinds of different things and
see what your audience responds to.
Everybody's audience can be slightlydifferent and just find out what it is
and again, just keep delivering thatvalue to them, the content they want.
You keep delivering on that.
Listen to their feedback.
Keep revising.
I, I was working with a client theother day and . She's oh my God,
I, I don't know if this is the,this opt-in is the right thing.
(16:08):
I was like, okay let's let it runfor a week and we can adjust it.
Nothing in email is permanent, right?
You can adjust what you're saying.
You can adjust youropt-ins, all this stuff.
You can make adjustments along the way.
Just listen to your users andtake their feedback and adjust.
Brett (16:22):
And what specific metrics should markers be looking at?
We know, we talked about unsubscribeand open rates, but what specifically?
'cause open rates have changed largelybecause of Apple, but it's changed
where open rates are inconsistentabout specifically what's going on.
So any community based emails aregonna be different because you're not
really sending them to sell something.
(16:42):
You may have a link for it, but it's notspecifically about selling something.
Paul Gowder (16:46):
For me, the things I'm looking at is I want to continue to
see people subscribing every day.
Even if there are days whereI have more unsubscribed and I
have new subscribed, that's okay.
As long as I'm still seeing new peoplecoming and opting into my email series,
like we have several different ones.
So as long as I'm continuingto see that and, again, my most
(17:08):
valuable feedback is that I continuegetting . Messages in my inbox.
If I go, if I stop, there's oneparticular email going back to the
what to Expect, the Traverse powwow.
If I stopped getting responses to thatfirst email, then I would know something
is wrong and I need to go and look.
But as long as I'm getting, 10or 15 or 20 of those a week, I.
It's working right?
(17:28):
That's the metric that mattersto me is that people are actually
reading it and responding to it.
And if they're doing that, then yourclick through rates and your open
rates and all these other metricsthat we like to look at will be good.
But for me it's, I wanna makesure that they're actually
engaging and responding to me.
'cause then I know they read it.
Brett (17:43):
Yeah, so like community based stuff, you should really
just focus in on the reply rate, Iguess is the best way of saying it.
And not the open, open ratestoo, but the reply rate is more
important than the open rates.
But even though they gohand in a lot of ways.
Paul Gowder (17:58):
Yeah.
Mean, yeah.
Think about it, the emails youget every day it, how many emails
do you get a day from Amazon?
And you probably open them and look at'em, but did you really engage with it?
Probably not.
You just glanced at it.
So for me, when I see people areresponding to certain emails, I was
like, I'm, it's one, yes, they opened it.
Two, they were looking at it, butthree, they were actually reading
(18:20):
it enough to see that I ask aquestion and hit the reply button.
That's when I know that I'm,I've got something working.
Brett (18:26):
And how does automation play in with the community
management of this, because.
Usually it's gonna be markersin a small or one man team.
So how do you like, utilize beingauthentic or actually caring about
your community, but still automatingit so you're not overwhelmed?
Paul Gowder (18:42):
Yeah, there's a couple things I do.
Like I do send a broadcast message everyTuesday that is here is all the new
content we published this week, right?
Whether sometimes it's five articlesor tens, sometimes maybe two.
The bulk of that email, which is, here'sthe headline, here's the picture from
it, and here's an excerpt of the article.
Click here to read more.
The bulk of that email is written by ava, and so the VA comes every Monday.
(19:07):
He writes it, it'sready for me on Tuesday.
Tuesday I go in and I add,I write the introduction.
I write my piece at the topagain to make it personable.
It's talking to them directlyand then I can send it.
So that saves me a lot of time.
Yeah, that's something I coulddo, but that's an hour that I
can . Be doing something else.
So that helps a lot.
And then of course, like I said, Ithink the most important thing with
(19:29):
especially establish establishing yourselfin email marketing is building these
series and building some automationaround getting people into these series.
And then they get a set number of emails.
You spend the time upfront to do that, andthen it just becomes a more passive thing.
And it's just, your focus then is justgetting people into those sequences and
(19:49):
then they'll just churn through 'em.
Brett (19:51):
Is there any effective way use turning the casual subscribers
into the community member?
Because I'm pretty sure you get a lyou're gonna always get more casual than
you are gonna get your actual community.
So is there any way of plucking someof those into it, or is it just gonna
be persistence and just the slow, likeyou're the tortoise, not the hare.
Paul Gowder (20:11):
So again I think the value is really in these email series.
So one of the things I do isoccasionally in a broadcast message,
I may say something like, Hey areyou interested in going to a powwow?
Have you never been before?
I've got a whole series aboutgoing to your first powwow.
Click here and I'll send you all that.
And so it's again, figuring out.
(20:32):
Maybe they came into your email listthrough another way, but if I can
get them into that series and answerall their questions, alleviate their
fears or whatever, then I know thatthey're going to really be more
engaged because I deliver the content.
Like we dig a little bit deeper.
So if somebody comes tomy page and there are.
They've never been to a powwow, right?
And they, but they're interested and theydidn't come through that what to expect.
(20:54):
They're gonna get this broadcastmessage that's gonna be all this
jargon and stuff about powwows.
It's just gonna go over their head, right?
So if I can get them in that othersequence first or even later,
then the broadcast messages becomea little bit more relatable.
They understand what's going on once Igive them some background information.
So it's still getting people,getting them going through all the
(21:16):
The same, onboarding task,getting everybody to have kind
of that same base of knowledge.
Then I find that they stay around.
Brett (21:24):
And is there any like common mistakes to avoid?
Because like I said, if people are new tothis, everybody's gonna make a mistake.
But is there some things that theycan help avoid making mistakes?
'cause everybody's gonna makea mistake once in a while.
Paul Gowder (21:36):
I just put out a YouTube video of my three most common mistakes
I see people make with email marketing.
First thing I can't tell you I didan I spoke at a conference last year
and afterwards I audited a bunch ofpeople that were at the conference.
I did an audit on their websiteabout how they were what their
strategy for email marketing was.
And almost every person who's Hey,I want you to look at my website.
I really wanna grow my list.
(21:58):
And you look at their website andtheir offer for, join my email
list is down in the footer and it'sjust a form that says name, email.
It doesn't say why they should subscribe.
It doesn't, and it's down in the footer.
Nobody's gonna see that.
Or worse if people areputting it in the sidebar.
So users looking at it onphones, miss it completely.
(22:19):
So you've got to, you've gotta ask,actually ask people for their email and
tell them why they should subscribe.
That's huge.
And that's probably the most commonmistake I see is that people on,
they spend so much time makingtheir websites, the, these great
dynamic and beautiful things.
And then the email is their afterthoughtand it's just put somewhere down here.
I even saw one, I was work working withsomebody last week and I saw their, on
(22:43):
their website, they had, a popup, right?
And it said, I.
It was for getting people on their list.
It popped up and literally allit said was name and email.
Submit.
It didn't even say subscribe to my list.
There was nothing.
It was just two form fields.
Name and email address with a button.
Yeah.
Why am I gonna click that?
I'm just going to exit outof that and keep on moving.
Yeah, and so that's the other mistakeis a lot of people make is they then
(23:07):
their next step, is to try to figureout what the lead magnet's gonna be.
And people will spend hours andhundreds of dollars sometimes
building these fancy PDFs.
This a hundred page PDF withall their best tips and tricks
or recipes, whatever it is.
And those are great, and you can getpeople to subscribe to that, but I don't
think you need to, I think you can.
Like for me, hey.
Are you scared of goingto your first powwow?
(23:28):
Have you got lots of questions?
Click here and I'll answer all of 'em.
That's enough, right?
Because that's what they'recoming here for a question.
If I answer their questionin email, they're gonna gimme
their email address, right?
So that, that's another one.
Brett (23:41):
So it's almost like if you're gonna build a website, maybe go through
it yourself first and see if everythingworks correctly, because you're right.
If it just said, name,email, I'd be like, for what?
What?
Why do I need to do this?
. Paul Gowder: Right.
So are we gonna see email marketing become more community based in the future?
Is it gonna be more about that becausewe're all searching for community because
(24:05):
of the past four years and being lockedup and then missing that community
side of, because we're all humans,we all wanna be part of something.
Are we gonna see more emailmarketing become shift to that?
Because we have social media, we havealgorithms, and they don't . They don't
really form a community as well anymoreas they used to when they were new.
Are we gonna see email marketing or emailsin general, just I guess bridge that gap?
Paul Gowder (24:29):
I hope so.
What I'm afraid of and what I'm seeingsome people doing is using chat GPT
or some other AI to write their emailmessages, and yes, that's better than
the fancy, salesy . Graphic email, butat some point people can see past that
(24:51):
and it doesn't it doesn't always relateto people and talk to, it doesn't.
Get people to want to interact with the,so I'm afraid we're gonna see a lot more
of that first, I think if you want toreally stand out in email marketing,
if you can find your voice and yourpersonality and put that into emails, I
think you're going to kill it in emailbecause you're going to be doing something
(25:14):
that just not many people are doing.
Brett (25:16):
Gotcha.
And people are listening to this andwondering where can they find you online
to learn more about email marketing?
Paul Gowder (25:21):
Yeah, so please I'd love to help you out.
If you're looking to level upyour email marketing, you can
come over to paul gatter.com.
I have some coachingthere and some courses.
And if you're looking to just, learn someof the email tools that I'm using, I, I
got a video on that, my favorite emailtools, and that's paul gatter.com/email
tools and that'll get you startedwith some of the ti tips and
tricks I use to grow my email list.
Brett (25:43):
Alright, any final thoughts for listeners?
Paul Gowder (25:45):
Yeah.
Remember, . Community isnot just a Facebook group.
It's not just TikTok page.
Community is talking with people.
So use your email as community.
Brett (25:57):
All right.
Thank you Paul for joining DigitalCoffee Marketing Brew and sharing
your knowledge on email marketing.
Paul Gowder (26:03):
Thank you
Brett (26:04):
and thank you for listening.
As always, please subscribeto this podcast and all your
favorite podcasting apps.
Leave a five star review it reallyjust help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing and join me nextweek as I talk to another great thought
leader in the PR and marketing industry.
Alright guys, stay safe.
Get to understanding your email marketing,build that community as well as you
can, and see you next week later.
Community is not a Facebook group where it's many
people talking to many people.
Community is just, if you have a group ofpeople who have that sense of belonging,
and you can create that in email, but it,but you have to, there's a right way to
do it and you really have to work at it.
Brett (00:25):
Mm, that's good.
And welcome to a new episode ofDigital Coffee Market Getting Brew.
And I'm your host, Brett Deister.
And if you could please subscribe to thispodcast, all your favorite podcasting.
Absolutely.
A five star review.
It really just helped me, letme know how I'm doing as well.
But this week we'll be talking about
How to build your community through email,because community email, I mean it's
(00:49):
the two oldest things in marketing ever.
And so why not bridge 'em togetherand try to make a great community?
But with me is Paul and heis the owner of powwows.com
and the leading online communitycelebrating Native American and Col
arts and culture for the past 25 years.
And he is, had a wealth of experiencethrough email marketing emails in general.
(01:10):
So this is why he's on the show.
But welcome to show Paul.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate the time and you're welcome.
And the first question is all my guestis, are you coffee or tea drinker?
Paul Gowder (01:19):
So I'm I'm from the south, sweet tea.
Yes.
Coffee.
Only if it's in, like I don'tdo like straight coffee.
I'll do like a frappuccinoor a nitro cold bru.
Know something different.
Can't just have a coffee killer.
Brett (01:35):
Technically nitro cold brew's still black.
It's just nitro shot through the I
Paul Gowder (01:39):
put lots of sweet cream in it and yeah, some other,
Brett (01:41):
oh
Paul Gowder (01:41):
Yeah.
Brett (01:41):
Fair enough.
. . Anyways, I gave a briefsummary of your expertise.
Can your listeners a littlebit more about what you do?
Paul Gowder (01:49):
Yeah, appreciate it.
Pows.com
is a place for anybody to comelearn, experience and connect
with Native American culture.
And we serve a lot of native peoplewho are looking for ways to, stay
connected with their culture, findout about powwows happening across
North America, but then we also helpeducate people that are just interested
in the culture through articles andpodcasts, live videos, things like that.
So powwows are open to the public and weencourage everybody to go and attend one.
(02:12):
And that's what we want to do, is justto help everybody experience the culture.
Brett (02:16):
Got you.
So email marketing, I always call itthe dinosaur of marketing because it's
one of the older things in digitalmarket, I should say, because we
have traditional marketing as well.
So how do you build a communitythrough emails specifically?
'cause people don't really associatethose two together a lot of times.
Paul Gowder (02:34):
Yeah.
And I think that's a big mistake.
And right now I hear so manypeople say, email's been around
forever, it's, it, like you said,this is the dinosaur, right?
But I think now more than ever, it's soimportant with the algorithm changes on
social media, Pinterest and YouTube andall these things are changing so fast.
And then YouTube is just killing peoplewith their helpful content update and the
(02:56):
AI overview and all this stuff, right?
You cannot depend on all thesetra traditional marketing channels
that we've used for years.
It's time to, if you haven't been to lookback at email and e 'cause when you send
an email, you know they're gonna get it.
They may not open it right every time,it's gonna at least be delivered.
And for me it was buildingcommunity and email is something,
(03:19):
I didn't always do well.
It was something I discovered probablyabout five or six years ago when
I made a real shift in my email.
I.
Instead of what I see so many peopledoing, and I was doing the same thing as
just shouting at our users and sendingthese nice, fancy, laid out graphical
emails and just blasting them with it.
I changed my approach and now I'msending text-based emails where
I'm talking directly to people.
(03:40):
I'm still putting links andencouraging people to click on
things and go read other things, the.
First part of my emails are mejust talking to people, asking
questions, and it is so fantastic.
I just, I'm just telling my wife, I gota really cool email a few minutes ago
because somebody replied to my message.
We've had four or five email exchangestoday that is building community.
It's getting those responses.
Community is not always aFacebook group where it's many
(04:02):
people talking to many people.
Community is just, if you have a group ofpeople who have that sense of belonging,
and you can create that in email, but it,but you have to, there's a right way to
do it, and you really have to work at it.
Brett (04:13):
To be fair, community has been around since the dawn of
mankind, basically because wealways needed each other to survive.
So funny part is communityis a bigger dinosaur than the
email marketing is right now.
'cause it's the oldestthing you could ever do.
Do you change that mindset?
Because I, a lot of people, a lot ofmarketers don't think about that as well.
We just think about we need theseshiny graphics, we need a video,
(04:34):
we need something to consume.
So they'll consume.
So they may open our actual email becausewe think in that like type of way, we
don't think about a two-way communication.
So how do you retrain yourthoughts just on that?
Paul Gowder (04:48):
You asked me earlier, tell you a little bit about my background.
So yes, I worked with powwowsfor more than 20 years now.
I'm adding on and not shifting, butadding on the, helping some people
achieve their business goals with emailmarketing and building community and
so many people that I'm working withright now and over the last few months.
That is their struggle, right?
And so one of the things I like tostart with, and I think is an, it
(05:11):
takes a little bit of work, but isreally easy way to build community
with email, is to stop worrying aboutwhat you're gonna send out every week.
Stop worrying about those broadcastmessages and let's figure out what
your audience wants from you, right?
So if you are a a travel blogger, right?
Maybe some people are coming toyou because you have really great
content about . Paris, right?
(05:34):
Maybe you've got several posts on therestaurants and the attractions visiting
Disneyland, Paris, or whatever it is.
You've got some really greatcontent and people want that.
So let's figure out a way to develop anemail series about that group of content,
and let's write it in a way that you'retalking to people, not just shouting at
them, but giving them that informationin a really direct, conversational way.
(05:57):
Asking questions alongthe, through the emails.
Having this, exchange with peopleand thus create those kind of email
series that will build communityfaster than these broadcast messages
that we're sending out every week.
And, if you're somebody who's depending onyour ad revenue, you need the clicks back,
it's, you're gonna get lots and lots ofclicks from this kind of stuff because you
are delivering the information they want.
(06:19):
So that, that's where I start peopleand get them to see those email shifts.
So many people, start with . Figure,trying to figure out like, what
am I gonna send every week?
And maybe they . Tie it to their RSS feedand it just automatically sends out the
latest podcast or the latest article.
That's not the way you do email, right?
You've got to put a little time into it.
You gotta put yourself into it.
(06:39):
Just what people tell you, if you'regoing to be posting on Instagram or
TikTok, you gotta be your authentic self.
And sometimes that meanswriting your authentic self, if
not just showing up on video.
Brett (06:49):
So it could almost be like splitting up the email marketing kind
of campaign in different buckets likea . Almost like one is like a problem
solution for your community type of thing.
So you're talking to your community,not at or a little bit at them,
but you're still talking to thembecause you're solving a problem.
They may or may not have a communityspotlight, like something that
makes them feel connected, and thenyou could broadcast maybe another
(07:12):
week and then you can do somethingelse the next week after that.
Paul Gowder (07:15):
And, look at your stats or look at the questions you're getting
on social media or in your comments.
What are people asking for If you're, ifthey're asking those same questions over
and over again, then build that as anemail series and answer those questions
to deliver that content that they wantin a conversational, direct way, and
that's gonna build your community, right?
You could be, you're going to be givingthem what they want instead of just
(07:39):
shouting these weekly broadcasts at them.
You're gonna deliver the informationthey want when they want it.
Brett (07:44):
And you can still like form templates around that too.
Once you figure it out, 'cause it's,everything's new, but once you figure
it out, you can build a template aroundlike which ones you're gonna send out.
Plus it helps them go, oh,someone's actually listening to me.
The person that I'm watchingis actually listening.
Paul Gowder (08:01):
Yeah, exactly.
And it's, it's so repeatable because I'mworking with some recipe bloggers and.
If you've got different buckets of,whether it's your grilling recipes or
your holiday recipes, all of those canbe little email series that you can get
people to opt into it in different waysand you, and they come to your website
because they're looking for your Turkeyrecipe for Thanksgiving and you're able
(08:24):
to deliver them a five email series onhere are my best holiday cooking tips
that's going to get them to reallyengage with you and, It's gonna perform
better than just getting that next weeklyemail of, Hey, here's my new recipe.
Because yeah, that's good, but you'renot really in, you're not gonna get
them to engage and open with it andreally wanna read it because they ne
(08:45):
maybe didn't want your newest recipe.
They wanted this specificgrouping of recipes.
Brett (08:50):
Yeah, and like for coffee shops, you could do one thing about what's the
different types of brews, like which oneshave more caffeine than the other one.
Like you could build that communityaround just coffee or if you have
a product, maybe someone, maybeyou keep on seeing the reoccurring
questions or issues they may be having.
And then your email blast is, we'rejust gonna go through these and step
by step if we have to through an email.
(09:13):
But it is still some talking to them.
Yes, exactly.
And so how do you get started?
Because it seems like a lot of timeswhen people start this, they don't
really get a lot of community feedbackand they're like this is a failure.
I shouldn't do this anymore.
Nobody's listening.
Like I.
W what type of encouragement couldyou give people that are just
starting out or maybe want to do this?
(09:33):
Because like I said, a lot of times youstart something and you get no responses.
Paul Gowder (09:38):
Oh, for sure.
And email marketing.
I is a lot slower to see success and tosee results than posting on social media.
And, if we post, a TikTok, we're gonna getviews and comments right away, probably.
Email's a little different.
First thing you're gonna have to dois be a little bit patient, right?
You're gonna have to setsome realistic goals.
(09:58):
And look, if you have 10 people subscribedto your list and you're getting a 50,
60% open rate, that's really good.
Now let's just get more people onthe list and keep performing it.
It's not about havingthe big, huge numbers.
It's . Whoever, whatever numbersyou have, it's making sure
you're delivering value to them.
And then as you grow, you'rejust going to, it's just gonna
(10:21):
scale up from there, right?
So it's really concentrate ongetting value to the people you do
have, and it'll build from there.
Brett (10:27):
And what would be some of the key elements to put in with
this community focused email?
Paul Gowder (10:33):
Yeah.
So some of the things I loveto do is, I have a email series
on what to expect to powwow.
'cause people are a little apprehensivethat, if they're wanting to go
this, they have a lot of questions.
And in the first email I sayhere's what a powwow is and here
are the things you're gonna see.
And over the next few daysI'm going to give you this.
But before we get to any of that.
I have a question for you, andso I ask 'em a little question
(10:54):
and I get responses, and here's. Here's the thing, people forget.
Another thing people forget in emailmarketing, you put that question in
there and you get a reply in your inbox.
You gotta answer it.
That's where you build the community.
Don't just let those sit thereand pile up and don't answer 'em.
You've gotta follow up with it.
What, whether or not, as you scale, youmaybe you template that or you, maybe you
(11:16):
have a response or whatever, that's fine.
But just make sure you're replying tothose emails and responding to people.
I had a good example today.
I had somebody write me and they werenot happy with something on the website.
They were frustrated.
And after about five or six emails,they were like, you delivered.
Thank you.
You actually listenedto what I had to say.
(11:36):
We had this nice conversationand now she's okay, I get it.
Thank you.
That's what you can dowith community, right?
Because you're gonna respond topeople and you're gonna have these
conversations and it will build.
Brett (11:47):
And if you are actually busy, just actually reply, Hey, I'm a little busy.
Lemme gimme a few hoursand I'll get back to you.
Paul Gowder (11:53):
Sure.
People understand that, right?
Nobody, if somebody replies to you attwo o'clock in the morning, they don't
expect you to respond right away, butyou respond within a day or two, right?
And I think it's gonna be, you'regonna see huge results when you start
actually engaging with your readers.
Same thing, if you're posting onFacebook and you're not responding
or not engaging in the comments.
Your page may feel a littleempty and not active.
(12:17):
Same thing with email.
You've got to, you got toengage and keep talking to 'em.
Brett (12:21):
And is there a way to maybe dealing with some of the spam?
Because for example, socialmedia, there's always spam.
If I post something on LinkedIn, Istill get the podcast promoters trying
to say, look, I'll offer you this.
I have to block.
And I'm like, that's not what I want.
Paul Gowder (12:35):
Yes.
You're gonna get some of that.
You're gonna get
Bot sign up for your email.
All of that's gonna happen.
I, there's and you're gonna getsome people that are gonna just
send you things that are out there.
I've got a couple people now thatrespond to me almost daily, and
it's, screens and screens of texts.
Some of those, I don't know, , I don'tknow what I'm supposed to do with it.
(12:56):
It's just lots and lots of texts.
Usually I'll just respond with,Hey, thanks for writing me back.
I appreciate you being on the list.
Thank you.
And they list, they feel heard, right?
You don't have to go through and answerevery concern if they posted some kind
of political treatise or whatever,you're gonna have some of that, right?
But it's okay.
You keep providing the contentand the value that you project and
(13:16):
you'll attract the right of peopleeventually, the, those people always.
One of the things people getreally scared of is unsubscribes.
And people get really caught up onhow many people are unsubscribing.
If you get a high number of unsubscribes,maybe there's an issue or whatever
but generally speaking, if peopleare unsubscribing, it's good, right?
Because they weren't your people.
So just keep delivering yourmessage and the right people
(13:37):
will get there eventually, andyou'll snowball from there.
But yeah it's okay.
They'll eventually go away.
Brett (13:42):
It'll help with your numbers too.
If they unsubscribe, then your numbersof open rates goes up because, 'cause
if they're never actually opening youremails, they're just help, they just don't
help your open rates as it is anyway.
Paul Gowder (13:52):
Yeah, exactly.
And it can cost you more, beginningof this week, I purged my email list.
I, I do it about once a quarter andI unsubscribe to about 16,000 people.
That's a big number, but yeah, it's,it's gonna help with my open rates.
They hadn't opened anythingin more than 30 days.
Get 'em off the list, stop paying for 'em.
Brett (14:10):
Got you.
And moving on to like the list breakdown,maybe just do that too with a list
of super users or super communityor whatever you wanna put it like.
Put them in different lists, and thenyou can highlight maybe eventually
in one email, like the ones that arethe super users, and then build even
more of a collective through that.
Because again, if this is allcommunity, you want to highlight
those that actually care the most.
Paul Gowder (14:32):
Exactly.
And I've got several people that respond.
Every time I send an email, they respond.
And you get to know them, you canactually, respond and call them by name.
. Like one guy, he responds all the time.
I know what he does for a living.
I know where he works and wherehe, he goes and hangs out in his,
so when he replied with somethingtoday, I was like, Hey man, I know
you're busy doing your job here.
Hope to see you at thenext event, whatever.
(14:53):
And because you start forming thoserelationships and you're able to.
To actually have conversations.
It's amazing.
It, because it's not this big facelessvoid that sometimes it feels like
when you're on social media andyou're just talking to nobody you're
actually talking to people on email.
It's really cool.
I love, I've loved that part of it.
Brett (15:10):
And have you found different types of content help with the community?
Not just the broadcasting,but the community based thing?
Have you seen that, you said text,does video, maybe personalize one for
that specific email work could work?
Is there a way to varyit up a little bit too?
Paul Gowder (15:24):
Yeah, I think it, I think everybody should test
all of those kinds of contents.
It, for my emails, the things thatwork best are pictures and links.
Other than me just, being directwith text my users like video, but
they're just gonna go to my YouTubechannel and watch my videos there.
They're sending, I.
Videos and email doesn'talways perform well.
So try everything right?
Try sending out an email,try or a video in the email.
(15:46):
Try sending out some photos, maybe,try all kinds of different things and
see what your audience responds to.
Everybody's audience can be slightlydifferent and just find out what it is
and again, just keep delivering thatvalue to them, the content they want.
You keep delivering on that.
Listen to their feedback.
Keep revising.
I, I was working with a client theother day and . She's oh my God,
I, I don't know if this is the,this opt-in is the right thing.
(16:08):
I was like, okay let's let it runfor a week and we can adjust it.
Nothing in email is permanent, right?
You can adjust what you're saying.
You can adjust youropt-ins, all this stuff.
You can make adjustments along the way.
Just listen to your users andtake their feedback and adjust.
Brett (16:22):
And what specific metrics should markers be looking at?
We know, we talked about unsubscribeand open rates, but what specifically?
'cause open rates have changed largelybecause of Apple, but it's changed
where open rates are inconsistentabout specifically what's going on.
So any community based emails aregonna be different because you're not
really sending them to sell something.
(16:42):
You may have a link for it, but it's notspecifically about selling something.
Paul Gowder (16:46):
For me, the things I'm looking at is I want to continue to
see people subscribing every day.
Even if there are days whereI have more unsubscribed and I
have new subscribed, that's okay.
As long as I'm still seeing new peoplecoming and opting into my email series,
like we have several different ones.
So as long as I'm continuingto see that and, again, my most
(17:08):
valuable feedback is that I continuegetting . Messages in my inbox.
If I go, if I stop, there's oneparticular email going back to the
what to Expect, the Traverse powwow.
If I stopped getting responses to thatfirst email, then I would know something
is wrong and I need to go and look.
But as long as I'm getting, 10or 15 or 20 of those a week, I.
It's working right?
(17:28):
That's the metric that mattersto me is that people are actually
reading it and responding to it.
And if they're doing that, then yourclick through rates and your open
rates and all these other metricsthat we like to look at will be good.
But for me it's, I wanna makesure that they're actually
engaging and responding to me.
'cause then I know they read it.
Brett (17:43):
Yeah, so like community based stuff, you should really
just focus in on the reply rate, Iguess is the best way of saying it.
And not the open, open ratestoo, but the reply rate is more
important than the open rates.
But even though they gohand in a lot of ways.
Paul Gowder (17:58):
Yeah.
Mean, yeah.
Think about it, the emails youget every day it, how many emails
do you get a day from Amazon?
And you probably open them and look at'em, but did you really engage with it?
Probably not.
You just glanced at it.
So for me, when I see people areresponding to certain emails, I was
like, I'm, it's one, yes, they opened it.
Two, they were looking at it, butthree, they were actually reading
(18:20):
it enough to see that I ask aquestion and hit the reply button.
That's when I know that I'm,I've got something working.
Brett (18:26):
And how does automation play in with the community
management of this, because.
Usually it's gonna be markersin a small or one man team.
So how do you like, utilize beingauthentic or actually caring about
your community, but still automatingit so you're not overwhelmed?
Paul Gowder (18:42):
Yeah, there's a couple things I do.
Like I do send a broadcast message everyTuesday that is here is all the new
content we published this week, right?
Whether sometimes it's five articlesor tens, sometimes maybe two.
The bulk of that email, which is, here'sthe headline, here's the picture from
it, and here's an excerpt of the article.
Click here to read more.
The bulk of that email is written by ava, and so the VA comes every Monday.
(19:07):
He writes it, it'sready for me on Tuesday.
Tuesday I go in and I add,I write the introduction.
I write my piece at the topagain to make it personable.
It's talking to them directlyand then I can send it.
So that saves me a lot of time.
Yeah, that's something I coulddo, but that's an hour that I
can . Be doing something else.
So that helps a lot.
And then of course, like I said, Ithink the most important thing with
(19:29):
especially establish establishing yourselfin email marketing is building these
series and building some automationaround getting people into these series.
And then they get a set number of emails.
You spend the time upfront to do that, andthen it just becomes a more passive thing.
And it's just, your focus then is justgetting people into those sequences and
(19:49):
then they'll just churn through 'em.
Brett (19:51):
Is there any effective way use turning the casual subscribers
into the community member?
Because I'm pretty sure you get a lyou're gonna always get more casual than
you are gonna get your actual community.
So is there any way of plucking someof those into it, or is it just gonna
be persistence and just the slow, likeyou're the tortoise, not the hare.
Paul Gowder (20:11):
So again I think the value is really in these email series.
So one of the things I do isoccasionally in a broadcast message,
I may say something like, Hey areyou interested in going to a powwow?
Have you never been before?
I've got a whole series aboutgoing to your first powwow.
Click here and I'll send you all that.
And so it's again, figuring out.
(20:32):
Maybe they came into your email listthrough another way, but if I can
get them into that series and answerall their questions, alleviate their
fears or whatever, then I know thatthey're going to really be more
engaged because I deliver the content.
Like we dig a little bit deeper.
So if somebody comes tomy page and there are.
They've never been to a powwow, right?
And they, but they're interested and theydidn't come through that what to expect.
(20:54):
They're gonna get this broadcastmessage that's gonna be all this
jargon and stuff about powwows.
It's just gonna go over their head, right?
So if I can get them in that othersequence first or even later,
then the broadcast messages becomea little bit more relatable.
They understand what's going on once Igive them some background information.
So it's still getting people,getting them going through all the
(21:16):
The same, onboarding task,getting everybody to have kind
of that same base of knowledge.
Then I find that they stay around.
Brett (21:24):
And is there any like common mistakes to avoid?
Because like I said, if people are new tothis, everybody's gonna make a mistake.
But is there some things that theycan help avoid making mistakes?
'cause everybody's gonna makea mistake once in a while.
Paul Gowder (21:36):
I just put out a YouTube video of my three most common mistakes
I see people make with email marketing.
First thing I can't tell you I didan I spoke at a conference last year
and afterwards I audited a bunch ofpeople that were at the conference.
I did an audit on their websiteabout how they were what their
strategy for email marketing was.
And almost every person who's Hey,I want you to look at my website.
I really wanna grow my list.
(21:58):
And you look at their website andtheir offer for, join my email
list is down in the footer and it'sjust a form that says name, email.
It doesn't say why they should subscribe.
It doesn't, and it's down in the footer.
Nobody's gonna see that.
Or worse if people areputting it in the sidebar.
So users looking at it onphones, miss it completely.
(22:19):
So you've got to, you've gotta ask,actually ask people for their email and
tell them why they should subscribe.
That's huge.
And that's probably the most commonmistake I see is that people on,
they spend so much time makingtheir websites, the, these great
dynamic and beautiful things.
And then the email is their afterthoughtand it's just put somewhere down here.
I even saw one, I was work working withsomebody last week and I saw their, on
(22:43):
their website, they had, a popup, right?
And it said, I.
It was for getting people on their list.
It popped up and literally allit said was name and email.
Submit.
It didn't even say subscribe to my list.
There was nothing.
It was just two form fields.
Name and email address with a button.
Yeah.
Why am I gonna click that?
I'm just going to exit outof that and keep on moving.
Yeah, and so that's the other mistakeis a lot of people make is they then
(23:07):
their next step, is to try to figureout what the lead magnet's gonna be.
And people will spend hours andhundreds of dollars sometimes
building these fancy PDFs.
This a hundred page PDF withall their best tips and tricks
or recipes, whatever it is.
And those are great, and you can getpeople to subscribe to that, but I don't
think you need to, I think you can.
Like for me, hey.
Are you scared of goingto your first powwow?
(23:28):
Have you got lots of questions?
Click here and I'll answer all of 'em.
That's enough, right?
Because that's what they'recoming here for a question.
If I answer their questionin email, they're gonna gimme
their email address, right?
So that, that's another one.
Brett (23:41):
So it's almost like if you're gonna build a website, maybe go through
it yourself first and see if everythingworks correctly, because you're right.
If it just said, name,email, I'd be like, for what?
What?
Why do I need to do this?
. Paul Gowder: Right.
So are we gonna see email marketing become more community based in the future?
Is it gonna be more about that becausewe're all searching for community because
(24:05):
of the past four years and being lockedup and then missing that community
side of, because we're all humans,we all wanna be part of something.
Are we gonna see more emailmarketing become shift to that?
Because we have social media, we havealgorithms, and they don't . They don't
really form a community as well anymoreas they used to when they were new.
Are we gonna see email marketing or emailsin general, just I guess bridge that gap?
Paul Gowder (24:29):
I hope so.
What I'm afraid of and what I'm seeingsome people doing is using chat GPT
or some other AI to write their emailmessages, and yes, that's better than
the fancy, salesy . Graphic email, butat some point people can see past that
(24:51):
and it doesn't it doesn't always relateto people and talk to, it doesn't.
Get people to want to interact with the,so I'm afraid we're gonna see a lot more
of that first, I think if you want toreally stand out in email marketing,
if you can find your voice and yourpersonality and put that into emails, I
think you're going to kill it in emailbecause you're going to be doing something
(25:14):
that just not many people are doing.
Brett (25:16):
Gotcha.
And people are listening to this andwondering where can they find you online
to learn more about email marketing?
Paul Gowder (25:21):
Yeah, so please I'd love to help you out.
If you're looking to level upyour email marketing, you can
come over to paul gatter.com.
I have some coachingthere and some courses.
And if you're looking to just, learn someof the email tools that I'm using, I, I
got a video on that, my favorite emailtools, and that's paul gatter.com/email
tools and that'll get you startedwith some of the ti tips and
tricks I use to grow my email list.
Brett (25:43):
Alright, any final thoughts for listeners?
Paul Gowder (25:45):
Yeah.
Remember, . Community isnot just a Facebook group.
It's not just TikTok page.
Community is talking with people.
So use your email as community.
Brett (25:57):
All right.
Thank you Paul for joining DigitalCoffee Marketing Brew and sharing
your knowledge on email marketing.
Paul Gowder (26:03):
Thank you
Brett (26:04):
and thank you for listening.
As always, please subscribeto this podcast and all your
favorite podcasting apps.
Leave a five star review it reallyjust help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing and join me nextweek as I talk to another great thought
leader in the PR and marketing industry.
Alright guys, stay safe.
Get to understanding your email marketing,build that community as well as you
can, and see you next week later.
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