Marketing Mondays Will Transform Your Business Strategy with Melissa Arlena and Alison Bell

Colie: Hello, hello and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. Today is a real treat. And guys, we have two guests and you know, I’ve only done this one other time and we’re gonna try not to talk over each other, but really we all like to talk and so just fucking deal with it for today.

Melissa Alison welcome to the podcast.

Alison: thanks for having us. I’m Alison

Melissa: I’m Melissa. Thanks for having me back ’cause I’ve been on once before,

so yay.

Colie: she has, they are the women behind the Keep It Moving podcast. I recently recorded with them and immediately was like, um, are you gonna come on my podcast? I don’t even care what we talk

Alison: Yes. Easy. Yes.

Colie: today we literally picked a topic guy. So this is really something that we are doing. Off the cuff, you guys know I don’t do notes, but there are no notes, there are no questions.

We’re just gonna see what they say and roll with it.

Alison: I am so excited to see where this goes.

Colie: So on their podcast, guys, I was listening to an episode that literally I pulled, I think I pulled over, I was going to get Chloe from school or something. I know it was, it was called Marketing Monday. And so that’s what we’re gonna talk about today because for,

Melissa: me a screenshot and when she sent it to me, I was like, wait, did we do something wrong? Like

Alison: She immediately forwarded it to me and I was like, what did we do wrong?

Colie: nothing, nothing. It was fabulous. So both of these ladies really need to focus on marketing for different reasons. And so while I haven’t introduced each of them, I am going to let them do it now.

And then we’re gonna jump right into marketing. And Alison your name begins with a, so you go first.

Alison: Well thank you. Hey, um, that was really lovely. okay, so who am I? I’m Alison Bell. I am a family photographer of, I think 14 years. Depends on when you start counting, like when I was legal or when I first got paid for it. I don’t know, but I’ve been a photographer since I was like in eighth grade it was for a Girl Scout badge actually. but I’ve also been married to the Marine Corps for. The summer’s gonna be 16 years. Dang. and so I have had to move my business all around the world. I remember the moment I sat in my aunt’s kitchen saying I could be a photographer anywhere,

Colie: You didn’t mean that.

Alison: 22, 23. Like, you can do this anywhere. You can teach anywhere, you can be a nurse anywhere. Totally naive about the pain of ripping out a business that you’ve built up and then starting all over where you don’t know anybody. and so I’ve actually now moved my business seven times. Now I’m currently in the state of Hawaii, which is fabulous. Never thought we’d ever be here, but we have lived in Virginia, Alabama, Missouri, Okinawa, Japan, two places in Virginia actually, and North Carolina.

And then I’ve traveled back to South Carolina a ton. And so I like to keep my, my foot in the door there. So I have relocated a dozen times every time more successfully than the last. And I, but I remember when we left Okinawa, Japan, this was 20 summer of 2019, I saw it coming from a year out, right?

I knew in 2018, like this was the last season. This was the last Christmas season, this was the last spring season, this was the last festival, et cetera. And I knew we were going to Quantico. And so I was just looking left and right at all of these other photographers who didn’t have to move with the military, who didn’t have the burden of restarting and doing the same thing over and over ad nauseum. I got mad, I got, I got mad, like, why, why can’t I have that kind of success? Why can’t that be for me? I’m like, well, I can tell you easy. Like it’s ’cause I’m moving all the damn time. and so I got real angry for a little bit. I got really like, you know, temper tantrum and then I got motivated. Um, and I just channeled all of that anger and frustration into there’s gotta be a better way. There is, now if you were to Google how to move a business right now, you’re gonna get things like how to relocate your office into a different office space in the same city. If you really dig deep about moving your business with a military, you’re gonna get a really vague blog post. That’s completely unhelpful, probably from military OneSource who means well, but nothing about how to launch in a different city with an in-person service business.

Right? That’s the other part of this. Like, I’m not online. Everything has to be done in person. So I just dug deep into social media, SEO, email marketing, email campaigns, all those things. Basically starting two businesses, running two businesses from one place so that I can have clients when I got there.

And so with every successive move, it’s gotten better and better, and Hawaii has actually been by far the best. I was booked up within nine months of being here at the top of Google, within similar rankings, our similar timeframe. And yeah, so now I’m just trying to help other spouses do the same thing because quite frankly, photographers are a dime a dozen in the military because we can do it anywhere, right? And, and so I just know I want other military spouses to not feel the same way I did, or actually do feel that way and then do something about it

Colie: Yeah, get angry,

Alison: Get angry and get motivated, right? So that’s my story in a nutshell.

Colie: Melissa. I mean, yours is kind of similar, but it has a different twist, so let’s go.

Melissa: yeah. So I’m Melissa Alina and I have been a photographer for 17 years this year. And I started off in weddings and then decided to pivot to lifestyle newborn. But you know, when I first started in weddings, um, I did not have friends who were getting married, so I didn’t have like a steady stream of referrals coming in. And I actually came before that from 10 years in it. And so basically I kind of was like, all right, well, I don’t know people. Who are getting married, so I have to find people who are getting married or get them to find me. And I kind of discovered SEO around that timeframe. And I think it really spoke to just my IT background that I was comfortable with it.

So I started learning it, using it to book weddings. And then my oldest, you know, started kindergarten and I was like, I don’t wanna work weekends anymore. I’m never gonna see him. So then I had to pivot to lifestyle newborn and it was almost like restarting a business because now I had to target all new stuff with SEOI had to rebuild everything from there.

And then kind of like Alison said, once I got everything going, we actually picked up and moved to South Florida because, my husband is military, but he’s a reservist, so it wasn’t a military move. But it was a job move. And we got down to South Florida and I had, I luckily at that point I kind of felt like I’ve learned this once with starting weddings, then I’ve learned it a second time with moving to newborns. So I’m just gonna do all the things I need to do to get going down here. And I was doing actually great in south Florida, like similar to Alison Like it didn’t take that long to rebuild and everything. I hated South Florida. I’m not a summer all the time, girl. So

Alison: are quite opposite in that way.

Melissa: yeah, yeah, I was very much, um, like, I wanna go home, I wanna go back to Virginia.

And so we, uh, we picked up and we, we’ve moved back up to Virginia, but we’re in a whole different area, so I have to find new clients again and all of that. But within all of that work and learning, SEO, I actually went on a mutual friend of ours, anes podcast. This can’t be that hard. And I was talking about my story and about SEO and then I started getting like, you know, I’d helped friends with SEO and then people started reaching out. And so then that just kind of ballooned over the last couple years where now we, I have a whole separate agency, which is why talking about marketing with like two different businesses. I have the photography side of marketing and then I have the SEO agency side of marketing and we help photographers with their SEO through done for you services, group coaching and courses and stuff.

So it’s a lot to market and like keep straight.

Alison: And different people.

Melissa: yeah. But that, so that’s kind of my background and everything.

Colie: I mean, all of that is fascinating. And you guys know, I feel like I always talk about writing emails and not just email marketing, but like writing emails in general. I think none of us thought that we would write so many damn emails when we started our business, but that ends up being like a bulk of the things that you do.

And so along with that, I feel like marketing as a whole is like no one really prepared you for opening a business and then trying to figure out how to get booked. Like everybody used to think it was as easy as, well, let me hang a shingle, or in this case publish my website online as like my, my place of business and people are just gonna find me and they’re just gonna book me and it’s gonna be awesome.

And all three of us know that is absolute bullshit.

Alison: it is, yeah. Getting found is the worst part. It’s the hardest part. Mm-hmm.

Melissa: and I’m like, your work is amazing, but no one is finding you

Colie: Yeah.

Melissa: have anything going on your

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: anybody where you are.

Alison: And on the opposite side of that, I don’t know that I’ve ever said this on the podcast, but I had a pretty big book publishing company from London, find me here in Hawaii. Because they needed somebody to take photos of a girl that lived here in town, for one of their books.

My, so I, I am not a studio photographer. They wanted very specific stuff. They wanted it on a white background for this, this, and this and these end purposes. And this was their budget and this was very well known publisher, y’all. And only reason they hired me to do these photos was because they were able to find me, was

Colie: I mean, getting found is that’s what it’s about.

Alison: getting found. And then not ghosting your leads. That’s another thing. Like

Colie: Oh, that’s another thing. Eventually we’re gonna talk about systems. I’m sure we’re gonna hit that. I mean, I feel like everybody thinks that they’re gonna be like the unicorn that, you know, they open their business and all of a sudden they’re booked. And I will say, as a photographer, educator of like 13 years, I have had a couple of students that were like that.

I had one person in particular when she decided to open her business. She had that kind of circle that we all kind of dream of. Like you said, Melissa, you didn’t have any friends that were getting married, but like she had people that would just hire her for anything. So she in particular, was completely booked three months after she opened her business.

And I’m not talking about at like $75 rates. I mean, she wasn’t like the highest, but I mean, it was, it was livable, it was profitable, it was sustainable. And so I always say, yes, that is possible, but is that gonna happen for most of us? No. And I’m kind of like you guys in that. I opened my business here in Colorado and I’ve only had a business here in Colorado, but when I started my business I knew no one,

I mean, I had been here for three years, but I had spent most of that time at home with Chloe.

Like the first year I was still going back and forth between here and Michigan, working on that PhD that I just never quite got. But then two years after that, when I had the kid, I just stayed home with her.

So when I opened my business, yes I was here. Yes, I was local, but like I didn’t really have a lot of friends and no family here.

And the friends that I had, guess what they wear guys? They were photographers.

Alison: Uh, of course, naturally,

Colie: That doesn’t help. So let’s kind of swing this conversation into like some, you know, act. ’cause I know that we’re all very strategic, we wanna get at it. So let’s start by saying. What each of us does to market our business on a weekly basis, and we’ll go from there.

Alison you start?

Alison: Well, so this is a big question because what I did to start in Hawaii is very different from what I’m doing now because it’s, it’s just two phases of your

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Alison: What I’m doing right now. I don’t blog every week. I send emails every week,

Colie: Okay.

Alison: at least one email every week. Um, no, I have different, types of lists.

I have a global list for that’s everybody that’s ever been or done any sort of work with me where regardless of where they live, so that, that goes out one week. And then I have other lists that is specific people to, people that live in Hawaii. So they might be military, they might be local and then I have traveling to Oahu list, so people who are my potential clients, but they don’t live here. So some things don’t matter to them, but how to travel with kids

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Alison: to them. So I’m emailing somebody every week, right?

Colie: Yeah.

Alison: necessarily always the same audience. I’m on Instagram almost daily just because I like it.

I think it’s fun. And then I have retargeting ads going in the background, and I have SEO in the background and I do that on maybe a monthly basis at this point. I had it right where I wanted it, and then I got real content with it, and it took a small dip. And then I went, I can’t have this, can’t do this.

Um, and so got my act together and I’m doing things a little bit more consistently with the blogging. And so that’s what I do. And it’s, it’s a lot of automation at this point, and I love it

Colie: Okay, but like as with Melissa, as your partner, how is it that you slack on the blogging? I don’t, I don’t quite understand that. I need you to explain it to me, but you said that you maybe do it, you know, monthly. But my question is, does that mean you’re only post one blog a month, or does it mean that you are setting time aside once a month to crank out a few blog posts so that you have something to post?

Alison: So back in January when things were really slow, I, I wrote three or four blog posts. I got the photos named, I files renamed. I got the everything pulled together, alt text format, keyword research, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. I did all that on like three or four posts. And so like this month I think is like the last month that, that

Colie: Okay,

Alison: go out, right? So I have a post going out monthly at least, and then every maybe four to six weeks as I have time to, I write down, I do a bunch. So that’s part of that batching, kind of marketing Monday kind of thing. And so, yeah, how did I let it go? I just got really content and I was like, huh, like got a little full of myself, like, no need, no need, we’re number one, no big deal. And then it dropped. But, you know, everybody’s going after that first position. So myself included.

Colie: but why do you think it dropped? Is it because Google didn’t see you as consistent anymore, or do you think that other people got hit to the blogging game and they were blogging more than you were? Or is it a combination? I mean, it could be any.

Alison: of everything. Because one of those higher rankings was an Instagram profile.

Colie: Hmm.

Melissa: yeah. And that’s

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: like put, yeah.

Alison: some of it’s Google, some of it’s me just not posting anything for months. Not just skipping a month of posting, but not posting anything new content for like six months.

Colie: Okay.

Alison: it, it took a while to dip. and then other people kind of getting hip and like seeing like, oh, hey, I’m not, you know, just everybody buy-in for that same position.

Colie: Yeah.

Alison: And then I think also some consistency with my click traffic. So I had done some seasonal, posts that gared a ton of organic and organic and social media traffic.

Colie: Okay.

Alison: And then time went on. I didn’t have that, you know, that a really big spike. have another really big spike for probably six months or so, and I think that contributed as well. So just that that traffic and that click, that click rate went down and so probably dipped my authority

Melissa: Mm-hmm.

Alison: a little of everything.

Colie: There’s a couple more things that I’m gonna ask you, but I want Melissa to tell us about her marketing. ’cause I have the feeling that she’s gonna say something that’s gonna make me compare and contrast the two of you. So Melissa.

Alison: this is be interesting.

Melissa: it’s email marketing. Yeah, I mean, because kinda like Alison said, when you’re moving and stuff and you’re getting set up in a new location, like that’s when like you’re writing all these blog posts and then you kind of at

Alison: It is.

Melissa: like, I’m letting ’em coast a little bit more. And when I notice my rankings dip, then I might throw more, a few more out there. But I would say email marketing, and this is hard ’cause it’s two sides of the business. And at this point, I

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: this before, photography side’s about 25% for me. So when I think about my marketing efforts, only 25% of my efforts really need to go to the photography business.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: other 75 go to the SEO side of the business.

And so for that it is email marketing. And then honestly, my five minute audits, my homepage audits, like I will open up a list and I will just start grabbing people and I will do a quick free five minute homepage audit. Um, and those are probably my best marketing tool to be honest. I

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: to like. You know, make sure I blue, dry my hair, put on a little makeup so I look professional, you know, when I do them. Um, but I, for me, it’s definitely email marketing and getting consistent with that and constantly having

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Colie: Okay.

Alison: Constantly.

Colie: That is not what I thought she was gonna say, guys. So here’s what I’m gonna follow both of you up, because both of you kind of hinted or just flat out fucking said it, that you have a lot of focus on email marketing. And so I’m gonna ask more of like a big picture question and one of you can take it, both of you can take it.

This is so weird talking to two people at one time, but when it comes to email marketing, I heard, yes, I heard what you guys said about both of you are kind of slacking off in the producing new content for the Google gods. But how does your email marketing play in with the information that you’ve already published on your website?

If it does,

Alison: Workflows, automated workflows.

Colie: okay, say more about that.

Melissa: repurposing, like taking a blog post and repurposing

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: I always talk about on the photography side. Um, and then I would say I’m almost op, like I’m the worst

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: side. I will a hundred percent tell you all that. Um, I’ve been trying to figure out like a getting A-G-A-G-P-T setup to take like our podcast episodes and help me turn those into

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: like blog post.

Colie: I’ll give you one when we’re done. Continue.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: Perfect. Yeah, because that’s been one of the things of

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: you know, ’cause even when you’re publishing a blog post, you know, you wanna have a structure and a format.

Colie: Yeah.

Melissa: like, when it comes to photography stuff, I mean, that’s the whole thing in the blogging club is I’ve got the template all set up. I tell you what the different things need to be, but then I always laugh at myself.

’cause then on the SEO side, I’m like, if I, so I’m, I’m skipping that step that I tell people to start with. Like,

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: blog post and then use that to create all your marketing. And on the photography side, that a hundred percent is how like, I like doing things on the SEO side. I’m like opposite.

Like the blog post is the last thing that happens because the podcast happens and all of

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: think if I could get better about taking that podcast and, and putting that then, and we do use podcast stuff

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: for social media. And then like Instagram, I have a lot of, you know, short reel videos with like tips and stuff.

And so we rely on that a lot.

Alison: Yeah.

Colie: So before Alison kicks in, I’m gonna talk a little bit about this because I think that this is very important to like highlight email marketing is like consent based marketing. Those are the people that have like agreed to get your email on the back. But we talked a little bit before we hit record about discoverability.

And while podcasting itself doesn’t have high discoverability, because the thing is if you’re a podcast listener, you are always looking for new podcasts. So that’s when it’s really helpful. If you go guest on someone else’s podcast and they listen to you and they’re like, uh, she was fucking awesome. Let me go listen to her podcast.

But if you aren’t taking your podcast material, whatever it is, and putting it somewhere that has higher discoverability, the podcast is not doing the marketing for you. And even though your podcast. Has like a different spin. It is not an SEO show. You talk about SEO on there enough and blogging and all of the things that are related to your services to where, yes, I really do think you need to be putting the things on the blog.

You need to be repurposing them as YouTube videos, which by the time this airs, y’all are gonna have started to do that. Even if I have to harass you like every week until you do it.

Melissa: a light. So

Alison: We’ve,

Colie: Yeah.

Melissa: nicely.

Alison: talked about doing it for.

Melissa: Yeah,

Alison: a year at this point. At least a year. Yeah. Six months after you start.

Melissa: today’s the day we’re doing it.

Colie: Well, and you have Melissa. I think that’s the thing that kills me is that you have Melissa, the SEO expert. There are things that she’s gonna be able to do to put it on YouTube and get it found just like she makes things found on Google.

Alison: the tipping point is the time,

Melissa: Yes.

Alison: the tipping point is the time. Do we have the time to do it and get it going? No, not at the moment. And do we want to pay somebody else to do it also? No.

Colie: Okay, so I’m just gonna tell you, so the thing about, ’cause before, I mean everybody, we, we actually chatted, I think this was the longest prerecord conversation that I’ve had. It was pretty long. And I’m sorry we didn’t record it. I know, but so one of the things that script, which is what I told you that I edit in and I record in Riverside, both of those actually have AI editing.

So, and I don’t think that what you put on YouTube needs to be perfect. So if you guys did nothing but record the video like you have been and throw it into either script, or if you recorded it in Riverside, you could do it natively. You can do an AI edit on your YouTube and throw it up there. And Melissa can write you some really awesome descriptions for YouTube and a title that’ll, you know, catch people’s attention.

And honestly, I have a GPT that’ll do that too.

Alison: Yeah,

Colie: if you do those things, it is really going to help your discoverability for the podcast and then also for the actual topics that you guys are discussing on your podcast.

Alison: Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. That’s been my biggest issue is like, I feel like we are almost over, I feel overwhelmed with the and sheer volume of episodes. We’ve already recorded the type of content we’re producing. Like it’s, it feels like a mountain. Right. And I just, I can’t blog every episode.

Can I? Well,

Colie: Oh, you can.

Alison: I could. do I have the time? I don’t know, but it’s, it’s like, where do you start? It’s, it’s, it feels like a mountain to overcome and it’s, it’s hard to wade through.

Colie: And it’s funny because everybody looks at the podcast, and I will admit, ’cause I, I mean I’ve said it on my podcast and I think you guys know this, but maybe not. Podcasting is my, my new long form content. Like the blog is not it. Every single podcast episode gets blogged, whether it’s a guest episode or one of these solos.

’cause I don’t know if you guys notice, but I’ve done like nine solo episodes in a row and I still have more in the can. And those are all about me, me, me, me, like what I sell, what I talk about, what I do. And so it’s great, but I have to make sure that those get blogged. And my podcast manager, hello Haylee is amazing, but she is mostly editing like the main episode that comes out each week.

So she’ll, she’ll edit this episode if for no other reason than there are two of you. And I don’t have the bandwidth to go through and like do all the editing for three people. I just don’t. I love you Haylee. I love you. But when it comes to my solo episodes. Sometimes I’ll just throw ’em up and I’ll blog ’em later.

But what I’ve done in the last week is I’ve been slowly but shortly working on A GPT and I finally got it to where it is giving me the show notes in the structure that I want. I’m having it tell me the SEO at the bottom. If I don’t like it, I’m going back and forth. But like today, guys, I blogged three different solo episodes and it took me 25 minutes.

That’s 25 minutes from putting it in the GPT. It spitting out the content, me going back and forth on each of them for like maybe three to six minutes, depending on which one it was. It gave me the thing, I opened up my thing, I pasted it in there. I grabbed the YouTube video, I grab the captivate, audio what gram or whatever that thing is called, put it all in there and hit publish.

So I did three in 25 minutes.

Melissa: Yeah. And the way you’re doing it is, one of the big things that I talk about, even when it comes to blogging and AI

Alison: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa: transcript of that. And now it’s creating with AI a blog post for it, which to me is exactly how you should be using ai.

You didn’t go out to AI and say, create me a podcast, and then

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: go like, record it. Like it’s

Colie: Well,

it is Melissa, but also, do you know what I did on the flip side? I think that I’ve told you this before, but I don’t like podcast scripts. I hate reading off a screen. It makes me feel very static. And, but no, I finally found the happy place. So now I give it stuff and I tell it make me a solo podcast script.

And I read it a few times and it’s up on the screen with the, with the headlines that are important to hit. And I’ll read the headline and then I’ll just, I’ll just go.

But I’ve already read the script that it told me so that I kind of have a flow in my mind. And now I am nailing those, like these solo episodes, 10 to 15 minutes, and I’m not feeling the need to rerecord it over and over again because did I get my point across?

Is it coming across right? I mean, it’s so annoying when that happens, but like. AI is my new favorite, best friend in my business.

And Melissa,

Alison: the month?

Colie: it, it is employee of the month. You know what? I haven’t published that episode, but I’m changing the title to employee of the Month. Thank you. That is an amazing title.

Uh, it is now the best $20 a month that I spend in my business. It has taken over Airtable spot. I use chat GPT, but it’s only because they have the custom gpt and I have made quite a few, AI tools for my course and my little templates. And so that’s really the only way that you can share them is with a custom GPT or I could do a micro tool, which is the next phase of honestly what I’m gonna do.

But

Alison: wow. Wow.

Melissa: use Claude. That’s why I was asking.

Colie: yeah, we’re gonna get you guys to where you are using this ai. It’s gonna crank out this material for you. It’s

Alison: I’m here for it.

Melissa: I do feel like when it comes to the podcast, there’s so much, like when Alison and I started it, we were like, we’re gonna be able to use this for so many other things. And then it’s just time. When we first started recording, I was like downloading the transcript and then I was sending it off to my VA and I was like, Hey, take a look at this and can you write a blog post from

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: before we had chat, GPT burst onto the scenes and it just was like, this is ridiculous. The amount I’m paying her to like do this. And then it’s just, we’re not getting, you know,

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: mean, what she was creating was fine and stuff, but it just felt like it was a lot of time on her end for it.

She also wasn’t like a, a blog person. Like she,

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: giving her this job to do on the side kind of thing.

Colie: Well, I’ve done it for my blog writer because I now have a blog writer and I joked around. I have an episode coming out. It’s gonna be before this episode goes live, so I will put the link to that episode in the show notes. But I did honestly make a joke at the end. I’m like, I’m telling you guys all the ways that I’m using AI, just so that you know it’s not gonna replace my humans, because at the end of the day, I still need somebody to put it on the blog.

I still need somebody to schedule the email. I still need somebody to make those damn graphics

that I hate making. So, I mean, my AI is not replacing my human team members, but it is making us so much more efficient and making sure that I am maximizing the content that I can get out of the time that it takes me to schedule an, an interview like this.

Alison: Yeah, a hundred percent. Mm-hmm.

Melissa: email, I will, I will get it, and I have like a, I have a template basically set up that I’m like, all right, this is kinda what we’re doing. Here’s the episode. Bam. And I think I told Alison the other week, I was like, oh, I scheduled out like seven weeks worth of podcast episode, like

Alison: Yeah,

Melissa: it was easy.

And then I think she got one. She was like, Ooh, this was good.

Alison: yeah, yeah.

Colie: I mean, that’s good.

Alison: like we send out the emails, I send out podcast emails to my mentoring subscribers, same thing, but like

Melissa: Mm-hmm.

Alison: four, six weeks at a dime. Like they’re getting one E every week,

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Alison: I don’t do that every week.

Melissa: Yeah.

Alison: Marketing Mondays.

Colie: Marketing Mondays. Uh, so now I want each of you to tell me what your marketing Monday looks like. And we’re gonna start with Melissa, since I keep on starting with Alison

Melissa: So it’s funny, this week my marketing Monday was actually my birthday, and I was like, I’m not gonna work today.

Colie: Happy birthday. I.

Melissa: my, social media girl, she was like, , hey, we’re out of videos for Instagram, which I knew we were gonna be out of an SEO tip, but I thought I had a blog post once.

So I was like, oh, I’ll record tomorrow. So when she did that, I was like, well, the good thing is I blow dried my hair and I put on makeup and I like the sweatshirt I’m wearing, so let’s just

Alison: Here we go.

Melissa: I knocked out, I think like 16 videos. Like I already had like a list that, ’cause I’ve sat down and I’ve batched out.

Like these are the lists of the SEO tips, these are the lists of the blog post topics. So I was able at that point just to pull up my list and just bam, bam,

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: knock ’em all out. And that’s, to me, that’s kind of the thing I may not be doing. Touching every marketing avenue, but like, so Monday to me now that Marketing Monday was batch recording, you know, content,

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: video content, which actually I also was telling Alison, I was like, I’m about to, I, I set a polo today.

I was like, I think I’m abandoning Instagram. Like,

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: I just wanna put these on YouTube

Colie: And you know, you know, that’s what I did. So you and I will chat. Yeah.

Alison: a hundred percent.

Melissa: I just, I mean, I’m like, I, we get like one follower a day and I’m like, that’s great. By next year we might have 500. I’m like, this is.

Alison: Maybe that’s more than one a day.

Melissa: And what’s funny is my photography account, I don’t barely do anything for, and we get a follower like every other day and I’m like, seriously, I do nothing over there.

But on this one where I pay someone, like we’re just not growing and it’s not, it’s not my girl’s fault. but, you know, so like it’s stuff like that that I’m like, these probably should go onto like

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: ’cause I do think they’re helpful information and I like doing them. And I do get people, I can see where they save them or they’ll tell me like, I binged all your blog post topic ideas. So I like it and stuff. But anyway, yeah. So that, that was my marketing Monday. This Monday. I think the previous Monday was probably like emails getting, you know, newsletters scheduled out, and all of that. And then even to like figuring out, I think my next marketing Monday is gonna be like, planning out the rest of the year on what are we actually needing to market for?

Like what launches are happening, what, you know, what sales are happening, that kind of stuff. So just setting aside a different Monday for different, different things.

Colie: And I don’t think most people do that. And I love that you do that. You’re like, okay, I have this set time. What needs to be done today? And honestly, I feel like sometimes you’re just like, what do I feel compelled to do today? Because if you hadn’t, you know, done your hair and put on a sweatshirt that you like, you probably wouldn’t have recorded those videos.

You might have chosen, you know, some other activity to do. That Monday. Alison what does your marketing Monday look like?

Alison: very similar. Very similar except I’ve had a lot of days off, uh, because of injuries. I had a broken kid that needed surgery recently and then holidays and random school days off, so it’s. a little bit more reactive than proactive, but, but in an ideal week, I take one to two hours on a Monday, I start my work at 10, and I sit down and I look at my Google tasks and I look at what I didn’t do the week before or what’s coming up. Because Google tasks is how I do it. All these, all these reoccurring events, whether it’s blogging, GMB updates, scheduling out more content for Instagram, like, oh, I’m at the end of what I had scheduled. You need to go redo things. I will do one of those, maybe two. But I will do it exactly, kinda like what Melissa did. for four to six weeks. Content for three, like posts, carousel posts, graphic posts, on Instagram. Maybe I maybe do two a week that I

Colie: Okay.

Alison: out and put those out. Or I’ll sit there and I’ll just blog for two hours. That, but every Monday it is a little something different. I’m an Enneagram seven, so I don’t like having to do the same thing all the time. Um, hence, hence being in business for myself, right? I want the freedom. And so I like that freedom to say, okay, this is what needs to be done. It’s recorded and reoccurring in Google tasks. This is, this is what’s available to you. Or I’ll do like Instagram reels, like, Hey, I’ve had, I found a few that I like that, match my photography or my mentoring.

I’ll just go ahead and record a few

Colie: Okay.

Alison: for a few. But yeah, it’s something different every week and it may not even be Monday. It might be whenever I get to it.

Colie: Oh, look at you changing up the days of the week.

Alison: Yeah. Anytime. It just, it just depends on what we’ve got going. Like if my clients, all my clients right now, I have several clients, photography clients that have artwork out, like I’m just waiting for them to approve designs, submit edits, or choose our photos for something. They’re all gonna come do it at the same time, I’m

Colie: Of course.

Alison: that’s how it works. And it’s probably gonna be on a Monday. So when I’m available to do it, I just pick what needs to be done according to what hasn’t been done most, and just do it when I can. And sometimes it’ll be on a Saturday, like if I had five days off in a row because of a surgery and Easter holiday, so it’ll get there. Try not

Colie: I wanna ask you about your content hubs. Tell me that you have one.

Melissa: I have the Colie James content Hub

Colie: Oh, okay. Actually, I was not, I actually forgot that you had that. That was not a plug. Alison do you have a content hub?

Alison: if you mean by like a Trello board of all my ever

Colie: Okay.

Alison: content in one place. Yes. I use the TR

Colie: Yes. Awesome. So I wanna ask you guys about ideation, because it seems to me that neither one of you actually talked about, oh, well, I sit down and I come up with ideas. When you guys talked about your marketing Monday, or just marketing in general, it was, I sat down to look at what needed to be done or create content.

As Melissa said that I was in a list of 16 videos that I’d already ideated. So what does it look like for you guys to actually think about the content before you’re creating it? Like what’s your process if you have a process?

Alison: To post-it as a, on the spur of a

Colie: Oh my God.

Alison: where I’m on Marco Polo, this is literally day in Kailua blog with some, with some financial transfer math on there

Melissa: say though she’s

Alison: that,

Melissa: though, those I, those ideas and stuff, there’s not a time that we set down, they just come

Alison: yeah.

Melissa: think I polled her earlier this week and I was like, by the way, I had this idea for, for podcast episodes where we’re gonna interview each other

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: done it.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: so I just popped into Trello and like dropped him in and literally it was one like, it’s like on the go, like that

Alison: Yeah,

Melissa: And

Colie: Yeah.

Alison: another one.

Melissa: able to. put it in a place while you’re on the go, while you’re thinking

Alison: Yeah. Marco?

Melissa: say for the podcast, we norm, we do try to do like a quarterly meeting, which we’re due again right now to like, I think we sat down at the beginning of the year and we said

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: be the quarterly meeting.

And we mapped out at that point, like four months worth of podcast

Colie: Nice.

Melissa: to the point where someone messaged and was like, Hey, can we get on the podcast like in the next couple weeks? And I was like, uh, yeah, sorry. We’re scheduled out till like April.

Alison: Yeah. Yeah. And.

Melissa: we did that for podcasts, but

Alison: And that, and that typically is useful for like both your SEO O side and my mentoring side because it’s topics that revolve around those things that are reoccurring. And so that’s what I mean when I feel like I have a mountain of, of content because we’ve got over a year’s worth of blogs that may or may not have been podcasted broken down and repurposed into all these other different avenues, right?

Like, I do everything. But at the same time, when it comes to the photography side, I feel like I’ve got my, my, these pillars really that I stand on. One, I’m a mom, two, I’m fun, three, I’m full service. You’re gonna get, you’re gonna get more than digital files. When you work with me, you’re gonna get printed heirloom quality artwork, right?

Like if that’s not cool,

Colie: As seen behind her on YouTube.

Alison: Right YouTube. If that’s not , your cup of tea, cool. You’re not for me. Like it’s just not a good match and I’m okay with that. And sunrise, I only do sunrise. Those are like the five photography things that I add nauseam, like. Say to everybody. And so I feel like those are it.

I mean, there’s other things that go around. Like, I bring tequila to my, my shoots at 7:00 AM Like there’s other little things that, but I basically just repeat I’m, I’m on repeat when it comes to the photography side, and that’s, we’re kind of on repeat with the mentoring side too. It’s just there’s so many different ways to, to repeat

Colie: Yeah, so my new goal is that Alison is gonna have one place, a repository where she can go put all of those Post-its Alison you wouldn’t know this, but I actually talk about where Post-Its Go to Die all the time. And I cannot believe that you literally held one up and you’re like, this is my latest idea.

I get ideas at the most random fucking places. I will be Dr. Well, last year I spent a lot of time in the car. And so me creating that content hub that Melissa mentioned was really,

I get the best ideas when I’m driving and how can I make sure that I don’t lose them?

Because in the past I would’ve remembered them, but now I, well, yeah. And now I don’t remember them. So I mean, I’m constantly listing my phone up and leaving myself a voice message. But then the problem is those are like in my notes. There wasn’t any really way, there wasn’t any real way for me to organize those.

So I mean, I just feel very strongly that it’s not necessarily that you need to have time on your calendar in order to ideate, but when you ideate, it has to go in one place so that when you have your marketing time on your calendar, that you protect just as hard as you protect your CEO time,

that you have a place where you can be like, okay, I have two hours to create content.

What am I going to create? Because if you are ideating and creating at the same time, that’s when you don’t get shit done. That’s when it’s two hours later and you’re like, oh my God, I wrote like half a blog post. Like, where did the two hours go?

Alison: because I have, I have struggled with that portion for a long time. Like years. Like I have a place in my planner. My planner used to go with me everywhere, right? And I have the note section and I had like little columns of like, what types of blog posts? Is it a travel one?

Is it a photography one? Is it a newborn one? If it, like, all that stuff evergreen. Um, and I would just go through that. But then I didn’t always have that planner with me, or like my big post-its, I had on the wall real life Trello boards, right?

Colie: mean, I think it’s awesome.

Alison: like I, it worked. But then had an issue. Either didn’t have it with me, it wasn’t online. Like I didn’t, I forgot I had it like legal pad. I used to live by legal pads. Then they’re not organized. Like they’re, I, you know, I’m taking notes on other things and I can’t see what I wrote. Like there I, I’ve tried a lot of little things because you’re right, it absolute, it absolutely is a necessary step that really is separate not to be.

Colie: Yes.

Alison: with other things or

Colie: I mean, I feel like every time that if I talk about failing at marketing, it’s because I try to do ideation and creation in the same hour. And granted, there are totally times when I wake up and I see a reel, which clearly this has been months. ’cause I haven’t personally posted on Instagram since in, in 2025.

I don’t think I have,

but I would see a reel. Oh, I know it’s that serious. I would see a reel and I would be like, oh my God, let me record that now. And then I would go and I record it. But I see that as like a one-off. That is not like my process for marketing my business, that’s all. Ooh, that was really interesting.

And you know what, if I record it right now, it can be in the bank to, you know, go live whenever I need it to go.

Alison: You know, another time that idea is, would be like doing my keyword research. So I might be doing keyword research for like my epi, like an episode of our blog, but then all these other long tail things are coming up. And so I have this whole spreadsheet on with all the sheets

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Alison: could be, you know, there’s, here’s, here’s the results, here’s the competition and the volume for like these different topics and then all the potential keywords that I may put in there.

So like that, that spawns a lot too. Keyword

Colie: goodness.

If you guys are actually doing keyword research for your podcast episodes before you record them, I am super angry that you guys are not

before you blog them. Okay? Thank you so much. I was like, wait, are you actually doing that for your podcast? ’cause if you are, all that needs to go published like yesterday.

Melissa: That’s the next step. I

Colie: Okay.

Melissa: for us, the podcast has been something that, I think the first, probably the first six months we did it, I, like I told Alison, I was like, I’m just kind of showing up. I know

Alison: yeah.

Melissa: of showing up. I’m not doing anything. And then after a while it was like, okay, I’m now in a head space where I can actually do more and I’m, you know, more than just showing up like, we can, we can plan

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: we can do whatever.

Colie: And you can be strategic.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: then this year we definitely got more strategic because now we only record twice a month, whereas we

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: Thursday.

Alison: Yep.

Melissa: able to get it down where we record twice a month. We do at least one to two episodes each time.

Alison: Yep. Sometimes three.

Colie: Woo.

Melissa: three. ’cause we’re also doing, like you said, like 15 minute episodes, you

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: great ’cause we could just cover a topic really quickly. I do feel like this year we’ve stepped it up more, which is why I think,

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: like she said, YouTube and stuff is something we’ve been talking about forever.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: then, yes, if I could start getting these things blogged, I mean, sometimes I’m like, man, there’s so many SEO keywords that I could be coming up for for photographers and stuff.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: get these things out here to blog. But, you know, between everything else that’s going on, it’s like, okay, well that one’s not necessary right now. And then as soon as I have a dip in clients, I promise that’s when it’s gonna become

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: I’m gonna be like, Ugh.

Colie: Man, I wish I had it. Yeah. So.

Alison: definitely been a gr The whole podcast experience has been a, an experience in growing, like getting our, our legs, feeling like a little baby draft and like getting to a running pace, I think.

Colie: Well, and I feel like I don’t wanna come across as I’m telling everyone that your podcast has to be like part of making you money in your business,

but for those of us that that’s the goal,

like you should make sure that you don’t lose the thread. Because what’s funny is I always think of you guys, like you guys are doing a podcast just so that you guys can see each other.

I mean, I make a joke all the time. Me and Brittany Herzberg need a podcast because literally we schedule to go on each other’s podcast just so we can see each other’s faces. Like we talk in boxer all the time. We, we talk in boxer all the time, but.

Melissa: Yeah,

Alison and I talked about. We were like, you know, we’re taking our polos public because

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: lot of this stuff we just talk about on

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: and so it was like, well, we might as well talk about this in front of other people

Alison: Yeah,

Melissa: pertinent to a lot of people.

Alison: because we connected that one year I was in Quantico and she, she was there, that, that was her hometown. And I was moving and she was moving, and she was like, I’ve never done this before. I was like, no worries, I got

Colie: I gotcha.

Alison: Like, and she failed me because of all my work I had done from Japan before I even moved to Quantico.

Melissa: Mm-hmm.

Alison: and so that one made me feel really good. And then two, she actually said hi to me at a photo session location. She was like, I recognize you. And I was like, huh,

Melissa: did,

Alison: huh.

Melissa: and she walked by and I was photographing the best man

Colie: Alison

Melissa: and I

Colie: Bell.

Melissa: said, I think that’s the photographer. I’ve been stalking and DMing on Instagram. And he was like, and I’m not normally a like person like that, that just,

Alison: No, you’re not.

Melissa: he’s like, okay.

And uh, whatever. And then after our session, I was chatting with him and she walked back up and I was like, oh, she’s there. I gotta go. I just like walked off. He’s like, bye.

Alison: And we’re still, we’re still talking,

Melissa: Yeah.

Colie: I mean, but,

Alison: was on.

Melissa: the same location at the, on

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Colie: but that’s so fabulous. Okay. I, I wanna ask, but Melissa already started with her, so I’m gonna ask her for more details, but Alison what has been like the best marketing activity that you have ever done? One, one, and I don’t care what side of your business it’s for, like, which one? Like when, when I would say this is a marketing activity that you should shout from the rooftops.

What comes to mind?

Alison: I think it’s, it’s for the photography side, and this is pretty loaded, so I hope I’m answering your question the way you intended, but I might not be. But when you’re moving your business starting over, learning, like pivoting your genres, what have you, faking it till you make it. Um, so when I, we came out to, from Virginia to Hawaii on Collins, a scouting trip. I had never been to Hawaii, didn’t know anybody in Hawaii, used Facebook, did free mini sessions while I was here, got content, did research, um, and it, it skyrocketed. All my blogs had relevant photos. I had people in the, in the hopper. I had an email list. I had a wait list I had, and I did make a little money off of it, even though they were free.

I did make money. I upsell several people.

Colie: Of course you did.

Alison: so yeah, I say a scouting trip. Like if you’re already in your own town, you, you do the same thing. If you’re gonna pivot your genre or you’re gonna relaunch or you’re gonna restart, you’re gonna come back or you’re gonna do it for the first time. it’s all that same stuff. It took me weeks, weeks and weeks to, get it prepped for that one week, right? Like it was months of, of prep. Finding people locations, where am I gonna shoot? What time? How am I gonna get there? Rent in the car, da da da. All the things. But it was having that deadline of time, having physical people in front of me, like connecting with people, getting those emails, um, money on the line, money on the line.

For me, having the deadline of physically being there was the best thing I’ve done.

Colie: I mean, it’s funny. So I currently am running a done with You program, which I’m only telling you this because one of the participants literally told me that’s what he did yesterday or two days ago rather. He was doing like these kind of pop-up mini sessions where they were free and they were to gather emails and all this stuff.

I mean, I think it’s absolutely fascinating that you’re the second person to mention to me this week. But I also feel like, and granted I am getting further and further away from like what I would call photographer education, whereas I’m teaching people how to use their camera and actually, you know, be in front of people instead of like the backend systems of their business.

But I. Used to preach all the time. No. If you want to sell something, you have to show it. And if you don’t have anything to show, I need you to shoot it for free. Like, I need you to get the people in front of you because it needs to be on your terms, not theirs. And the moment that you take money from someone upfront, they are your client, you are beholden to them.

At the end of the day, making them happy is more important than making you happy and getting, you know, those marketing materials that you need. So, no, I love your answer. I mean, I don’t, I didn’t, I didn’t know what to expect when you said it, but I love it.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: mean, along that thread, when I switched from weddings to newborns, I didn’t have any pictures of newborns and

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: any friends who were having babies, and so I put out a model call and I was very specific. I’m like, this is free, but you have to submit pictures of your nursery because I did not want a nursery that looked like it came out of a Winnie the Poo bag from Toys R Us or something, and threw up all over the nursery walls.

I am judgy. I’m sorry for my

Alison: No, do not apologize. Do not.

Melissa: was like, no. Uh, because we’ve all seen the nurseries and stuff

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: now. I mean, they’re gorgeous. They look like interior designers came in. That was what I wanted because that was the type of client I wanted.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: was very much show what you wanna sell.

You know, sometimes I do get the nurseries that have Winnie the poo on them and stuff like that. I don’t necessarily show them on my blog, but

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: not show that. I may show other parts of the session, but I was very specific and I was like, you had to submit pictures of your nursery. And then I picked the ones that I felt like, okay, this is gonna be good.

But I

Colie: aesthetic.

Melissa: limit on the baby or anything. Like I did a lot, a couple, like

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: sessions and stuff

Colie: Those are the best.

Melissa: And so, but I got the portfolio images I needed, and then it was like, if you wanna purchase more, you can. I think most of them didn’t, which,

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: I, I, I was in it for what I

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: know, and you’re right, because then at that point, if I was like, well, it’s a discounted, then they, you know, and I, you know, told them what to wear, all of that kind of stuff. I was very, I am very

Colie: Very clear.

Melissa: a

Alison: A model session.

Melissa: that is free, then you get to dictate everything, the location, what they’re wearing, all of that kind of stuff.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: wanna do a discounted session, well now you’ve just, you might get to pick the location, you know, but they’re probably

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: they wanna wear. You’re not gonna be able to hold onto all of those

Colie: Yeah.

Melissa, I do want you to tell me about your five minute audits because, uh, I’ve con, I’ve contemplated this a few times. My problem is I can’t do a five minute workflow audit, like it takes more than five minutes. But I’m interested to hear what you get from your mm-hmm.

Melissa: You have to audit one thing. I only audit the homepage

Colie: Okay.

Melissa: because you’re absolutely right. If I’m, I do charge for like a full site

Colie: I know I paid you for one. That was a forever ago though.

Melissa: go. Yeah. So I do have that, but my free one is only the homepage. And typically though, I can tell from the homepage if the rest of the site is gonna be a hot mess

Colie: Yeah.

Melissa: because if I run through that homepage and they’ve hit all the marks, then, then I can pop over to a blog post and a portfolio page real quick and just, I know that they’re good. Nine times outta 10, though that homepage is not hitting all of the marks or any of the marks, and so I don’t need to go to the rest because I know if the homepage is a hot mess, then the rest of the website’s gonna be a hot mess too. SEO wise, y’all,

Alison: Yeah,

Melissa: just

Alison: I mean, maybe.

Melissa: designs and

Colie: I mean, there are website designers that do that too. But I mean, so I’m just curious from like the backend, so you’re, you got a list, like you said, people give you their emails, you do it, and then what does your delivery look like? Because I have something in my mind of what I think you do when you deliver the audit, but what do you actually do?

Melissa: It is a loom video.

Colie: Okay.

Melissa: a Loom video, it’s probably closer. I, I try to tighten it up now, sometimes it’ll be closer to like 10 minutes. But yeah, I have a checklist that I just pull up and I pull up their website and it’s a Loom video, and I’m like, Hey Melissa, you sign up for a free five minute audit.

Here we go. And then I start running through all the things and then, you know, obviously it’s a sales pitch type of thing. So I mean, I’m giving them information they can go fix it on their own. But I do let ’em know too, like, if you don’t want to fix this or if you want to learn to fix this, these are the services we have.

And I keep that short and sweet. You know, I’m

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: to like do a 15 minute webinar to them to book us, but I’m at least mentioning like, you know, we have these different offerings and

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa: the email to them, I just include a link. I’m like, Hey, if you are interested in group coaching or you are interested and are done for you, here’s the links for those.

And then I always invite ’em like, if you have any questions, like follow up. And sometimes I get people who don’t necessarily book right away, but they might book later, you know, and so it’s. It’s probably, that I will say is like my number one conversion. My, uh, my business coach is always like, how many audits have you done this month?

And I’m like, I know. I know.

Colie: I mean, when those bookings get low, it’s like, hmm, what can I go do? It’s really helpful when you get in there and you see where things are at because it gives you ideas for content. And also, I have this rule, if you are struggling with something in your systems, you should just ask me, because if it takes me less than five minutes and I don’t have to be in the back end of your business and order to like check all these things, like if it’s just a question, I feel really bad for people that are like, oh my gosh, I ser, I searched on YouTube for like two hours, and then your YouTube video told me what it was in five minutes.

Yeah. I mean, you should just ask me because I will just tell you.

Melissa: after Colie was on our podcast and

Alison: yeah.

Melissa: five minute offer. I was like, good. And I messaged her about a problem I was having with Kajabi and Zapier and Stripe. And then I was like so proud because I did finally get it all fixed and I wanted to send you like a whole walkthrough video of everything.

’cause

Colie: I mean, I would’ve watched it. It would’ve been fascinating.

Melissa: like, she’s probably be like, okay Melissa, I got it. You fixed it. Good job.

Colie: But the funny thing was when you came to me, it was not something I, I, it was something that I couldn’t have fixed for you and lit. Literally. I just told you, listen, you are banging your head against a wall. That is not, there is no solution. You need to move on. You need to tell them to pick a different software or you’re gonna have to do this in a different way.

’cause what you are trying to do is not possible. But it made me feel good that I saved you. Like that mental anguish of continuing to try to find a solution where there literally was none.

Melissa: Yes. Yes. And I was able at that point, to pivot to just Zapier and Stripe to get

Colie: Yeah,

Melissa: we needed with Airtable instead of, if you guys are on Kajabi, it sucks.

Colie: it sucks. I mean, it’s, it’s nice on the front end. It’s nice as a student, but on the back end of, you know, being in someone’s business and trying to grab the data that you leave, yeah, it absolutely sucks now. But there is also no, like one perfect, one Member Vault is actually pretty decent in what you get off the backend.

I mean, thrive Cart. The problem is like, even though you can get stuff off the backend, like it doesn’t show you, like, I don’t know how much of any lesson any of my students do. I mean, if they click the complete button, I get that, but I don’t get any other kind of data from it. So,

I mean, no system is perfect,

but there are certainly somes that play well with Zapier and, Airtable and some that don’t.

\ You know what, maybe we should just troubleshoot each other problems one of these podcast episodes.

I think that would be great. Y’all are laughing at me. I’m laughing at myself also, but I think that that would be great.

Alison: I think that’s great. Yeah. I need, I need more people on my email

Colie: Great. Yeah. I mean, don’t we all, although I will admit,

so I think I am a little, we, well, I’m still under a thousand, well, actually I’m right over a thousand now, but this year alone, I have kicked 300 people off my list.

Melissa: Oh, nice.

Alison: That’s hard.

Colie: So I’m harsh if, especially in 2024, I felt like I did too many bundles where it was not a good fit for me.

Like, and so those people like, and it’s funny ’cause people are like, oh, did you do a cold subscriber? No, they’re not opening my shit out. I don’t care if they click it when I say I am gonna kick you off my list. Bye. I mean, because honestly, under a thousand, over a thousand, like you’re costing me money. So no, if you’re not, if you’re not opening my emails, I will unsubscribe you for you.

And I always tag them with something that says, um, unsubscribed manually so that I know that I did it and not them in case I ever look at it. But no, I mean, if you’re just getting my emails and you’re not even curious enough to open them, there is no reason to keep you on my list. The

Alison: literally dead weight, like Melissa said,

Colie: yes,

Alison: you’re, they’re weighing your percentages

Colie: yes.

Alison: goes back into

Colie: Yeah.

Alison: and like all the things Google does

Colie: I will say I’ve noticed like now with Kit, kit, are either one of you guys on Kit or are you guys both Flow desks?

Alison: Flow desk.

Melissa: desk.

Colie: Okay, so Kit has this network, it’s called Creator Network. And if someone like Subscribe, OMY, we all know Omy. When someone gets on on ME’S list, I am presented to them as someone that they might also want to follow.

And so yes, so you can do that. And while of course the people that I get from Omy are great because, you know, we’re, we’re like the same person.

Not really, but you know what I mean.

Um, I have recently been getting referrals from people that I know are not a good fit because none of them are opening my emails or you know, this, that and the other. So no, I am also really quick to unsubscribe those people for my email list because you just clicked on me.

I don’t know, maybe I looked fun in my picture on Convert the, I don’t know, but like, you’re clearly not interested in what it is that I’m talking about because you’re not opening any of my emails and so I say goodbye to you, you know, in private and then I unsubscribe you.

Melissa: Yeah,

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: I think we were, we did a podcast episode with Shannon Vondi and we were gonna have her come back and talk about, like, cleaning your list and things like that. And I

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa: people don’t like doing it, but

Colie: No.

Melissa: like they’re like, sick, dead weight over here. Just go ahead and kill ’em now.

Like,

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Alison: Yep.

Melissa: and keep the rest of the herd healthy.

Colie: Well, and especially like, it’s really weird when someone signs up for your freebie and they don’t, if it’s a download and they don’t actually click,

no, why am I gonna keep you on my email list? Like you didn’t want the thing that you signed up for. I mean, and I shouldn’t say I don’t kick you off immediately if you didn’t download the thing.

That’s not what I’m saying. But if you open that email, you didn’t download it, and then you didn’t open the next eight emails that I gave you. Yeah, no. I don’t know why you’re on my email list, but I don’t need to be in your inbox. I just don’t.

Melissa: Yeah, and especially if it’s something like that where maybe it’s being delivered to a spam or trash folder that they don’t see, then it’s like, okay, well, you’re not seeing it anyway, and

Alison: Yeah.

Colie: You won’t miss me.

Melissa: spam, Google’s like, well, nobody interacted with that,

Alison: And, and y’all know that every email provider, Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft Outlook, they report opens differently. So like. I think it’s Microsoft. And this might be, this might be old, but I bet it’s still the same. Like you don’t actually have to click open for it to be read as open. ’cause

Colie: Correct.

And there are also some that are blocking your ability to see if they open. So the the other thing that I look at is sometimes I will get people where the email does not show as opened, but it has, it has been clicked. And this is not one of those bot things. And I mean, since we’re just talking about these things, there’s also the people who now, I mean it’s not necessarily a bot, and I’ve noticed it more with Hotmail Outlook and like college emails, they are currently scanning to look for malware.

And so they are clicking on every link in your email. And no, I mean, if anybody listening is one of those people, I’m so sorry, but if you have an email that’s clicking everything, I’m unsubscribing you. And the reason that I’m doing it

is because sometimes it’s not just my rates. If the link that you click has an action.

I am now sending you something that you did not ask for. Like I am sending you additional trainings or opting you into a particular segment that does not fit you. And so to me, you are more likely to mark me a spam or unsubscribe if I’m all of a sudden sending you emails that are just for photographers.

And you didn’t actually click,

I’m a photographer in one of my emails.

Melissa: Oh, that’s interesting. I hadn’t

Alison: Yeah. That’s really far down the line. That’s

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Alison: like forward thinking.

Colie: Alright,

so guys, this was amazing and I feel like if we just sit here, we’ll talk forever.

So I just wanna let everybody know that I love both of these ladies and that they will be back. And so if you have any like questions for either of them, you know, send them over in an email, send it over on Instagram, and the next time that they come on, I will be sure to ask.

Alison: I’m on Instagram, Alison is on Instagram. I will be the only one who doesn’t ghost you on the gram.

Colie: There you go. Alright, ladies, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was a blast.

Alison: Thanks for having us. Can’t wait.

Colie: All right everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.