Hyping Honey: How South Mountain Bees uses email to build buzz before the holiday season

Adriana: So I had made my first batch of soaps and I said, this is going to take me a year to consume, right? 

 0:06: So I posted this picture of 8 soaps, and then I got 47 orders in 3 days. 

 Nikki: Welcome to email swipes, where we peek behind the scenes at the emails that catch your attention and earn their place in your swipe file. 

 0:19: Every other week, we’ll talk to an email expert about an experiment they ran, and in the following episode, We’ll dive into the strategies and methods used in the email so you can inform and inspire your own email work. 

 0:30: I’m Mikki Elvas, the copywriter behind winning emails for 8 and 9 figure sassin e-commerce brands like Shopify, For Sigmatic, and Sprout Social. 

 0:37: And I know that hearing the background stories to these emails will help you turn pie in the sky insights into plug and play actions. 

 0:43: Ready to make inspiration tactical? 

 0:45: Let’s go. 

 0:47: First, let’s read today’s email. 

 0:50: Hi, Adriana. 

 0:51: Is it frustrating to buy something and find out a few days later that it’s gone on sale just after you bought it? 

 0:57: That’s why I’m here to tell you not to buy anything from us today. 

 1:00: That’s because our biggest sale of the year starts in just 2 days. 

 1:03: We decided to run an early holiday sale again this year because the holidays are meant to be with people that we love or doing whatever we want and not elbowing her way in a store or in cyberspace to grab a deal. 

 1:13: Did you ever have products disappear from your online cart? 

 1:16: I hate that. 

 1:17: For Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and pesky sister’s birthday, you’ve come to us to get presents. 

 1:22: So we thought the best way to show our gratitude was through giving directly back to you. 

 1:26: That’s why on Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be offering up to 20% off storewide. 

 1:30: Three things you should know. 

 1:31: One, this is the largest promotion of the year. 

 1:34: Two, we won’t offer it again anytime soon. 

 1:36: Three, our Black Friday Cyber Monday sale is not going to be anywhere near as good. 

 1:41: If you wait until Black Friday, you’ll miss out. 

 1:43: Trust me on this. 

 1:44: If you are thinking about giving gifts from South Mountain bees this holiday season, do it Saturday, November 11th and Sunday, November 12th. 

 1:50: If you do so, you’ll be saving 20% of your gift budget that you can spend on yourself. 

 1:54: That means that for every 5 presents that you buy, one is on us and for you. 

 1:58: In the meantime, check out our website to start thinking about what you are going to get. 

 2:02: We’ll be in touch soon. 

 2:03: In the meantime, thank you for your unwavering support of our crazy beekeeping adventure, Adriana and the bees. 

 2:11: Adriana, thank you so much for joining. 

 2:13: Tell us who you are and what you do. 

 2:16: I am a beekeeper, used to be a college professor, and I make bath and body products with honey and beeswas from our bees. 

 2:25: It is the coolest thing ever. 

 2:27: I love it. 

 2:27: I actually, when I saw the PhD in your email signature, I was like, wow, you can get like a doctorate in bee science. 

 2:33: That’s so cool. 

 2:34: So that’s no, no, doctor, yeah, the doctor is in computer science. 

 2:39: This is my. 

 2:39: On life. 

 2:40: That is so, so cool. 

 2:41: Have you always been interested in bees? 

 2:43: Not so much. 

 2:45: Maybe in the, what was it? 

 2:48: Must have been the early 90s. 

 2:50: We visited a friend in the south of France and the lavender country, you know, when you see those fields of lavender and then they had bees. 

 2:59: They gave us a bee suit and that was the first time that somebody went with a smoker in front. 

 3:03: Of me and showed us a frame of bees. 

 3:06: I felt protected. 

 3:07: I wasn’t afraid, but that was my first connection with it. 

 3:10: I always wanted to have a vegetable garden, so this was a house where we could actually do it, and then the bees were like a natural partner to the vegetable garden because there’s no flower that goes and pollinated if you have an army of half a million bees next to them. 

 3:29: So your vegetables must be amazing. 

 3:32: We get a really good crop this year is particularly warm, but I’m still harvesting tomatoes. 

 3:39: Oh, that’s incredible. 

 3:40: So like, talk me through the evolution of your business where you brought these bees in. 

 3:44: Were they always going to be a business or were they more hobby? 

 3:48: And then when did you start doing sales of the products versus just the honey? 

 3:53: Right, it started like a hobby. 

 3:55: It started because we visited friends in the this for other friends many years later in Italy in the, you know, the Barolo Neviolo regional wine in the outskirts of Turin, and they had in their summer home in the hills, they had two hives with honeybees. 

 4:17: So, our kids were little, so we went with baskets to harvest wild berries. 

 4:23: We whipped some cream and then we drizzle the whole thing with honey from their bees there. 

 4:29: We were sitting under the chestnut trees and they had also acacia. 

 4:33: We had two kinds of honey, acacia and chestnut, and then you could taste the difference, and I said, I’m ready to retire. 

 4:42: That is it. 

 4:43: So I told my husband we’re having bees, although they had a beekeeper who took care of them. 

 4:49: So that’s when it started and then I had no idea how to sell. 

 4:55: And then after that trip, which I think it was 2011, so I took a course on beekeeping because as I always say, it’s a lot less romantic than it looks. 

 5:07: It does sound so idyllic. 

 5:10: So then it was Thanksgiving of 2014. 

 5:14: The kids were old enough that I said I may try making soap every time you harvest, you accumulate beeswax because you have to shave off the top layer of beeswax to reveal the honey. 

 5:27: So you shave off that layer of. 

 5:30: Beeswax and then you can use that to make soap. 

 5:35: We started making that soap and we never bought soap again, but I had no idea how to sell. 

 5:40: So it was, you know, it was the early days of the swap meet communities where you would post something online and sell it for a couple bucks, right? 

 5:50: So. 

 5:51: I had made my first batch of soaps and I said this is gonna take me a year to consume, right? 

 5:57: So I posted this picture of 8 soaps and then I got 47 orders in 3 days and I said, I have a business. 

 6:06: I didn’t know. 

 6:08: Wow. 

 6:08: And you’re like, wait, now I have no soap for myself. 

 6:12: Right, then I was running up and down the basement, making more, right? 

 6:17: So then I said, once I hit, I can’t remember what the threshold was if it was 500 $600 I need to register a business, we’re doing all this legal, right? 

 6:27: So then I registered an LLC and it was the weekend of Thanksgiving. 

 6:32: I went to the bank and I made a business plan. 

 6:35: I had no idea, right? 

 6:37: I was. 

 6:37: Learning on the go. 

 6:39: So then it all became word of mouth and I wasn’t selling the honey at the time. 

 6:45: I didn’t know how even how to advertise. 

 6:47: I wasn’t on social media much and so it was through that swap meet group that the business group because I started advertising there then in February, this was Thanksgiving 2014 in February 20. 

 7:03: 15, I opened my Shopify store. 

 7:06: First I said, I’m a techie, I can do that. 

 7:09: So at the time there was still i web. 

 7:12: At the time people use websites more as a presence, but not as an e-commerce space. 

 7:19: It’s incredible how much things have changed in 10 years, right? 

 7:23: So I was starting to look at well, what kind of check out can I put in and then that. 

 7:28: The time PayPal wasn’t an option. 

 7:31: And then pretty soon I said keeping it up to date and fresh is going to be a job in itself. 

 7:38: So if I have to make advertise and deliver and sell and also maintain the website, this is not going to work. 

 7:47: And at the time my husband helped me look around and then Shopify was just starting. 

 7:53: So I was Very early on in there and I think I still have some screenshots of the early web page with the logo at the top, right? 

 8:02: It was all very naive, right, very innocent and look. 

 8:07: So that’s how it started. 

 8:09: Then I’m so grateful that I said I’m not gonna do it all because this is me. 

 8:15: This is South Mountain bees and there’s all the help I get is from. 

 8:20: Either courses I take or things that I outsource digitally like I have Clavie for email and well Shopify, that’s my business and I have a very small presence of fear, but I don’t have other people working for me. 

 8:39: So it’s everything’s on your shoulders. 

 8:41: That’s amazing. 

 8:42: It’s really true how much has changed in the past 10 years and It feels like you were timed perfectly right, that everything worked out really nicely according to how you were growing, which is very, very cool. 

 8:52: My son says, Mom, you’re so cool. 

 8:54: You were doing this with nobody else. 

 8:55: Yeah, it’s really true. 

 8:58: OK, so how did you get into email after all this? 

 9:02: So I was taking a mastermind because I figured very quickly that making and selling were very different things. 

 9:09: So I was in this mastermind course that doesn’t exist anymore. 

 9:13: There there was a coach that taught us about at the time Clayo was a platform of choice. 

 9:19: So I created a free account and the free account maxed out quickly and I begrudgingly bought the subscription, but once you buy a subscription, you say I need to make it worth it. 

 9:29: Yes, right. 

 9:31: So then I started inviting people that were buying from me in those Facebook groups to join the list. 

 9:38: And then anybody who bought in the website was invited to become a member of the list. 

 9:45: So most of the people on my list are people who have bought before. 

 9:49: And I think that’s true of many businesses that it’s hard to keep those who you get by give. 

 9:56: I, I haven’t gotten much. 

 9:58: I do have a pop up on my side that appears you have to scroll pretty far down for it to gently slide through the side and say, hey, right, because I personally don’t like it when I go to a page and say, boom, turn my mailing. 

 10:16: Let’s wait. 

 10:16: I don’t even know what you do. 

 10:18: Let me see if I want to change your mailing list. 

 10:21: So that and then at market. 

 10:24: I created a QR code and some people will join. 

 10:28: That’s another thing that appeared a few years ago, right? 

 10:32: QR codes, yeah. 

 10:34: So I have about 1000 people in my list and I segment seriously, like I don’t send more than 500 emails at the time to 500 people, right? 

 10:47: So I tried to send to people who bought in the last 3 months or people who have engaged with, I send it to the people who really want to receive something. 

 10:57: But I also don’t purchase the list every so often I will send an email to everybody just to show up in their inbox again because I’ve had people who joined two years ago and then come and say, oh, I saw you in this fair and I’d like you to come talk to our kids about beekeeping. 

 11:19: I said, well, I’m not approaching the list, or people who were there for a long time and then all of a sudden they have one of those one in a lifetime events that like their single daughter is marrying and they want favors for their bridal shower. 

 11:34: OK, so you started doing email and we talked about building your list, but how did you start building your email strategy? 

 11:41: Was it through this mastermind? 

 11:42: Like, how did you start learning because your emails are so good. 

 11:45: It seems like you’ve been Doing email for a long time. 

 11:47: So how did you learn email? 

 11:49: Or was it just felt natural to share the different stories and the different, because I think that’s what’s so great about them is that everyone has a story of the product or the background of how you decided to start the product or or the harvest, the specific harvest, so they do feel very personal and just storytelling, but then you also do sell, it’s not just stories, so it’s a very nice balance. 

 12:13: So how I learn email. 

 12:15: Well, in this mastermind, one of the things they made us do was marketing calendar. 

 12:21: So what we had was I had this cycle of email, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. 

 12:29: I wasn’t doing YouTube at the time. 

 12:32: So I would create the same content and then cycle it through. 

 12:38: And I had a blog. 

 12:39: I didn’t understand what blogs were, so I would put my email content in a blog. 

 12:43: So my very early blog post make absolutely no sense. 

 12:48: Nowadays, it’s a throwback where people have these newsletters that are online, email newsletters. 

 12:54: So it’s kind of just a blog of the emails. 

 12:57: So it’s interesting that you knew what you were doing before anybody else was doing it. 

 13:02: Consistency has never been my forte and then when later on I discovered other groups, and then it was when that thing of you have to be on social media constantly, you have to post 5 times a day and then everything is content, your story should always have the red circle around it. 

 13:22: right? 

 13:24: And I said, I can’t do this. 

 13:25: So I’m going to do it at my best. 

 13:27: Then I found other people who have basically no social media presence. 

 13:33: They use their email and then they have a successful business. 

 13:39: So that’s how it grew. 

 13:40: And then over time I found my boss, first I didn’t. 

 13:43: know how to talk and then I, I studied the Jungian categories. 

 13:49: I’m a sage in that category. 

 13:52: So you can be the intuitive, so there are categories to classify personalities. 

 13:58: I think there’s the innocent, the sage. 

 14:01: I can’t remember them all now. 

 14:04: And so you can also use them to characterize your business and that helped me stay within a frame because I needed some constraints because you know when you wrap a baby so that they’re not all upsetting themselves and scratching their face, so I needed something to keep me focused so that I wasn’t all over the place. 

 14:30: That’s such a good analogy for limitations because it really does help you be more creative and just focus. 

 14:37: Well, I’m a mom, so you try to find examples your kids will understand, right? 

 14:42: First, I was very afraid, like, oh no, I sent this wrong, or I had to write a noobs email to correct the mistake and then over time, meditation also helped me say it’s OK. 

 14:56: Nobody’s going to die. 

 14:57: Because there’s a mistake in an email, right? 

 15:00: Or because I have to apologize or say it again, or then I found like this year I had to take a lot of time off because of family problems with my dad and when I don’t feel that oh it’s been more than a month since I wrote to my list, I can’t write to them again. 

 15:21: I said, no, I’m back. 

 15:22: Hi. 

 15:23: So if you’re still here. 

 15:24: Here I have something to tell you. 

 15:27: And then one thing I do sometimes is I test an idea with a short social media post, right? 

 15:34: Like the most recent one about, I don’t know if you saw that one of the queen being made, yeah, that’s when you reach that, right? 

 15:42: So the thing at the beginning, I didn’t know what I was talking about and I thought I was stuck in this very academic delivery of information. 

 15:51: And like I was following the BBC or WNYC or the New York Times to see what font they use, what words they choose, right? 

 16:01: And it was all very academic, but trust that I had just left. 

 16:07: Then I discovered often when people came to pick up, they still do it. 

 16:11: When people come to pick up some products from our house, I invite them if they want to see the bees sometimes. 

 16:17: They ask if they can see the beast and then I realized that I was explaining something and it was going way over their head. 

 16:25: I said, oh, I need to talk in a language my people can understand because I already know what I know. 

 16:32: So what’s the point of talking if people are not understanding? 

 16:34: So you transferred that understanding of wow, OK, I need to tone this down to your email voice. 

 16:42: Right, right, so I, what I was saying I test. 

 16:44: it with a short post story on Facebook. 

 16:48: Most of my people are on Facebook, but I do copy to Instagram too. 

 16:52: Then one of the members of our choir, I sing in a church choir. 

 16:56: One of the members of the choir said that story is fascinating. 

 17:00: Tell me more, right? 

 17:02: So I grew up that snippet into explaining to her. 

 17:06: So while I was writing that email, I recall that conversation. 

 17:11: And I was talking to Carol about what happened to the bees again while I was writing the email. 

 17:18: So I think that people like hearing stories, right? 

 17:21: We like storybooks, we like hearing where things come from and how did that happen or what didn’t work or I don’t know, where did you start? 

 17:32: And also some people can make a story out of nothing. 

 17:36: I come from a culture where people tell jokes, so you go to any gathering and then somebody will start telling jokes. 

 17:43: Give us Your best, right? 

 17:45: So the best joke tellers were the storytellers, the one that suck you into the setting, and then you’re on the edge of your chair. 

 17:53: Tell me more. 

 17:54: What does it lead, right? 

 17:55: What’s the punch line? 

 17:57: The other thing is I tried to set a timer and then first do a first draft where I type I don’t edit because what I discovered also in my academic life. 

 18:09: I would spend literally an hour honing in the message of a paragraph to have to cut it down because it didn’t fit, right? 

 18:18: So then do the writing first and then maybe you say, oh, I like this actual last paragraph to be the whole story, and then you throw away all the rest. 

 18:29: But if you invested so much time making it perfect, it’s a lot harder to throw it away. 

 18:35: I guess I learned to be more forgiving. 

 18:38: I find that I’m my hardest judge, and most people are nicer to me than I am to myself. 

 18:47: Email in itself is very forgiving and social posts as well because they’re there and then people move on. 

 18:52: So it’s a nice place to test things and tell stories and be a little more forgiving. 

 18:58: I’m in a group that is about storytelling and we had prompt that was, think of something, just a little slice of life and write it down in 3 minutes. 

 19:10: And I did, and it was great. 

 19:12: And then I recorded it, but I still haven’t sent it to the list yet. 

 19:15: I’ll look out for it. 

 19:17: Sometimes to say write it down in 3 minutes. 

 19:22: I remember when I was a PhD student, I took this drawing class and then you had to do 32nd sketch. 

 19:29: What can you do in 30 seconds, right? 

 19:31: But it just got you out of your head. 

 19:33: The next one was a minute. 

 19:35: I mean, I have a lot of time now because I did something in 30 seconds, right? 

 19:39: And then by the time we got to 3 minutes, I had time to make a note and. 

 19:44: Fingers and so I think if you find that trick to get yourself out of your head and then talk to a friend and then those people who are not interested in that kind of email, they’re naturally gonna live so make it easy for them to unfollow. 

 20:01: I don’t feel offended by unfollowers. 

 20:04: Well, first it costs me money to have people in my list if they’re there and if you’re not gonna. 

 20:11: Go through check out at any given point. 

 20:14: You can follow me on social media, but I’m not paying for you, right? 

 20:19: That’s such a great tip about moving from 30 seconds to 1 minute to 3 minutes. 

 20:23: It really expands your abilities because you feel like you have so much time, but it just gets you out of your head. 

 20:28: I love that idea. 

 20:29: That’s very cool. 

 20:30: Right. 

 20:30: And the other thing is make many drafts. 

 20:33: Remember the old days of the holiday cards where you had to write them down? 

 20:37: Yes. 

 20:39: So I said, what do I write? 

 20:41: So then I said, well, I’m gonna write 10 drafts. 

 20:44: So I got a page and I wrote 10, and I said, Oh, I like number 6. 

 20:48: OK, number 6 it is. 

 20:50: You can tell I’m a perfectionist, so I would sweat every word otherwise. 

 20:55: And that I learned also from my watercolor teacher when I was a PhD student. 

 21:00: You make different drafts because in watercolors you can’t correct. 

 21:04: Your mistakes, the things that you don’t like in the page, you can’t take it out easily. 

 21:09: It’s not like oils that you could cover over and then restart watercolors stay there. 

 21:14: So then what you do, you say, well, I have this version. 

 21:18: I want to remove this tree because although it’s in front of me, I don’t like it in the picture. 

 21:23: So then you make the next one without that tree and then you have something you like and then you try the next one maybe. 

 21:29: I usually don’t take the last one because I went overboard. 

 21:33: It’s always a previous to the last one. 

 21:36: That’s so funny. 

 21:37: Take off the pressure of having to get it right the first time. 

 21:41: 100%. 

 21:43: OK, so let’s get into this email because I love this email. 

 21:45: This is such a funny email. 

 21:46: There’s so many little pieces into it. 

 21:48: So if I remember correctly, you got my playbook, and this is one of the examples, yes. 

 21:55: Yes, I met you in one of those events where there are lots of speakers and you, not because I’m here, you invited me, but you know, you were my favorite and you are my favorite, and I recommend you to anybody who’s asking about email, I give them your site. 

 22:12: Thank you. 

 22:13: I appreciate that. 

 22:14: Thank you. 

 22:15: Yeah, no, it was golden and have the exam. 

 22:18: to follow, yeah. 

 22:19: And I love how you followed it. 

 22:21: You took the idea of it, but it’s so your own. 

 22:24: It does not at all look like the other one. 

 22:27: It has the basic strategy underlying, but it’s your email. 

 22:31: It’s not his email, it’s your email, which is exactly what it’s meant to do, which is so great. 

 22:37: There’s just like so many fun little lines like the pesky sister’s birthday. 

 22:40: I love that one. 

 22:41: So fun. 

 22:42: I got called out for that one. 

 22:46: That’s so great. 

 22:48: But I love this line of where you tell them that they’re getting 20% off. 

 22:51: You say that means for every 5 presents that you buy, one is on us and for you. 

 22:55: It’s such a great visualization of the benefit that they’re getting. 

 22:59: It’s not just like, 0, 20% off, it really illustrates for them what they are gaining, which is such a beautiful illustration. 

 23:06: I see your PhD there, you know. 

 23:09: I’ve been doing this email for 3 years in a row now since 2021 when I saw you do it, and I could see the evolution. 

 23:17: Maybe I should send you the three versions. 

 23:19: Yeah, that would be great. 

 23:21: I could see like the funds in the first one were all jammed together, right? 

 23:25: Like how I from the way it looks to the content, how I refine it over time, and that’s something I like. 

 23:32: About email that the first time you get into it, it’s overwhelming because it’s all new, everything is done for the first time. 

 23:40: But then the next Black Fridays our Monday comes around, you have your previous drafts, so you can work from those, so you can start from scratch if you didn’t like them. 

 23:51: I remember feeling that sense of relief of saying. 

 23:55: Oh, this is a lot easier the second time around, yeah, off the top of your head, is there anything that you would like, yeah, I changed that because it didn’t work for some reason or I got feedback of something or other. 

 24:06: In one of the versions I wasn’t clear on. 

 24:10: Because if you say storewide, people think it’s absolutely everything, and then I was always reluctant to put that store saying restrictions apply, but you have to. 

 24:22: Otherwise it’s, I find that it’s not honest enough because you’re trying to attract people with a larger offer and when they get there it’s not there. 

 24:30: So the times where I didn’t include honey in the sale, I said honey is not included because Honey is so expensive for me to produce because I have a small operation, right? 

 24:42: My overhead costs are ridiculous and because I do it everything as it should be, I don’t cut any corners. 

 24:51: It’s a food product. 

 24:53: I don’t want to be in on the news for recalling my honey, right? 

 24:59: I remember not being clear and then I got a couple of people who were. 

 25:03: pointed that honey wasn’t included, so then I became more explicit. 

 25:08: Then then in this last year I said, well, it’s only a short amount of time and I don’t have a huge amount of stock because most of it is already sold out so I’m happy to give people an extra discount on that or you can always manage your inventory and say I’m willing to give everybody a discount, but there’s a limited amount that I can’t afford. 

 25:30: to sell for less. 

 25:32: And also I think, why would you discount something that you sell out at full price, right? 

 25:38: In the end, you’re here for the business, so you have to protect your bottom line. 

 25:43: Exactly. 

 25:43: That’s something that’s very much important to keep in mind with all the discounting strategies is you have to keep the business in mind. 

 25:50: Yes, the customer comes first, but really the business comes first, right? 

 25:54: If I disappear, then I can’t serve them anymore. 

 25:57: Yes, that’s true. 

 25:59: Did you send this out because you wanted to kind of preempt the holiday rush? 

 26:03: Was that part of the idea with this email, or it was a combination of things. 

 26:08: One is that my dad has his birthday on November 30th, which falls right back into the Black Friday or Monday. 

 26:19: So that helps me keep a balance of saying I want to spend time with my family. 

 26:24: And also if I’m not here, I can’t ship because this is Ariana in shipping and Ana in marketing and Emma, right? 

 26:34: So my husband said I should sign my emails with all the different names. 

 26:40: I start with A as the different capacities I interact with. 

 26:46: So I, it’s mostly so that I can buy. 

 26:49: Myself time to be away and then also by offering a larger discount earlier on, I encourage those early sales. 

 27:00: Then you end up having two Black Fridays in the same month. 

 27:04: So then I get instead of 20% off, I can do 15% off for the actual Black Friday Cyber Monday, but know that I’m not back till this. 

 27:15: in December and I won’t be able to ship before that. 

 27:19: Speaking of 20% off, Adriana has 20% off for you. 

 27:23: Use coupon code Nikki20 and you can get an exclusive discount on her amazing beautiful bee products, honey, soaps, lip balm, bath and body products. 

 27:35: You can’t see her, but behind her are like 500 award winning ribbons. 

 27:40: For all her amazing awards. 

 27:42: Yeah, this is my Hall of Fame, but the one I’m most proud of, let me, you tell the audience. 

 27:48: It’s this one. 

 27:50: Oh, wow. 

 27:50: OK. 

 27:51: With gratitude, this award is presented to Adriana Compagnoni. 

 27:56: Is that how you pronounce your last name? 

 27:57: OK, cool. 

 27:58: A grateful recognition of your enduring commitment to the Elizabeth Coalition to house the homeless. 

 28:03: It’s pretty impressive. 

 28:05: So when I started building my business, I said, I want to add a giveback component to it. 

 28:13: So I said, well, I’m gonna do the the Giving Tuesday campaign. 

 28:18: So after you get all those don’t buy from me now, blah blah blah, right, then I do about a week, at least 5 days of Giving Tuesday where I do 100% match. 

 28:30: Like if you buy a lip balm, I give them a lip balm. 

 28:32: If you buy a soap, I give them a soap. 

 28:34: Sometimes I do soap, sometimes I do lip balms, sometimes I do both myself, and I give them exactly the same one. 

 28:40: I don’t give them the discards, the badge. 

 28:44: I didn’t turn out the way I wanted. 

 28:46: I give them the same one you buy. 

 28:48: So my family consumes the discards. 

 28:52: I was gonna say, what do you do with them? 

 28:55: And I got really beautiful feedback from the coalition, right, like because I have this feeling that Anybody can become homeless because this is not the homeless, the closure that you see in a corner that there’s a mental issue behind. 

 29:11: This is families who, because of whatever turn of events in life, they are a paycheck away from becoming homeless, right? 

 29:23: Or a rent check away from becoming homeless. 

 29:26: Once you lose your address, you lose everything. 

 29:29: So Linda, the director of the coalition was sharing is that they say that when you’re homeless you become invisible. 

 29:37: People don’t even make eye contact with you. 

 29:40: They find them shelter and then they find them permanent homes. 

 29:46: And I’ve been, when they gave me this award, there was a speaker. 

 29:51: He was a grown man in his 40s, but he was crying again like the 10 year old that the coalition helped. 

 29:59: They were living in their car and the coalition helped them find them a home and they ran after school programs and they helped the kids do their homework and to me that’s my easiest pitch when I’m not asking for myself. 

 30:15: When I say we’re doing it half, basically I’m selling it half price, right? 

 30:20: So I pay my expenses and we give them that. 

 30:25: Although a soap is not going to change whether they’re homeless or not, they make them feel seen that they deserve an expensive soap, that they deserve that moment of pampering themselves, even if it’s brief. 

 30:42: Wow, that’s amazing. 

 30:43: OK, what were the results of this email, you know, like, I know you loved it, but did people respond well to it? 

 30:48: Well, I don’t get a lot of sales because I’m telling people don’t buy from me. 

 30:54: That’s true, yeah. 

 30:55: So how did you measure? 

 30:56: I mean, I guess by people not buying that day, right, right, but then I tell them the day after there’s a mail that says not yet, and it pretty much the same thing again. 

 31:07: And then the last one is now go, right, or something like that. 

 31:11: And now there’s all this AI engines to help you, right, but for a while I was using a headline analyzer. 

 31:19: It’s mostly used for titles, but I used to use that and I would split the title between the part that you see and the rest. 

 31:27: In fact, I learned that from your course, how you make your emails stand out in the headlines. 

 31:33: She had a screenshot of the emails and the previouss and yours, how do you get that turning wheel? 

 31:41: Oh, that’s funny. 

 31:42: It’s just that I uploaded a GIF file instead of PNG or JPEG file. 

 31:47: That’s all it is for your icon. 

 31:49: Yep, it’s a good one. 

 31:50: I’m trying to remember where I got it from because somebody else had one and I’m like, wait, how did you do that? 

 31:55: And it’s the simplest thing ever and it really makes your email stand out in the inbox. 

 31:58: It’s so great, right when I started. 

 32:01: Experimenting with that I saw somebody else do it with a different icon is put a B, an actual bee emoji before the name. 

 32:12: That also stands out. 

 32:14: I’m going to have to go look at my inbox now because I don’t remember seeing that, but that’s really fun. 

 32:18: Right, because sometimes I sign Adriana and the bees with the word bes and sometimes I put Ariana and the three Bs, right? 

 32:25: Yes, I did notice that, which is so fun, yes. 

 32:28: Yeah. 

 32:29: What is your favorite brand to get emails from in your inbox that you the brands that you read their emails and enjoy their emails? 

 32:36: I was thinking of that question and I don’t have a favorite one. 

 32:42: Well, it’s gonna sound totally cheesy because I’m here, but I love your emails. 

 32:48: I don’t read all of them because sometimes I’m so overwhelmed that I don’t read any emails, so it’s not that I pick yours not to read. 

 32:56: Usually the ones I don’t miss is the ones that if I’m in a program doing that, I won’t miss those ones. 

 33:04: So I’m in two best programs at the moment, one for Pinterest and one for copy. 

 33:12: And those I stay, I try to stay on top of. 

 33:16: And what I do is I take bits and pieces that I like, but I don’t like those very long emails who keep telling you the same thing in different words. 

 33:28: Maybe I’m one of those people who would read till the end. 

 33:31: So it needs to be not repetitive. 

 33:34: Right, so I know some people click on the first time there’s a button, they click and they’re done. 

 33:39: Right now, I am the one who sees what, what else is done there, and it’s the same thing over and over. 

 33:46: And also I don’t like overuse of gifts, right? 

 33:50: So when they, they have the people jumping. 

 33:56: One every so often makes me laugh and that’s OK, but anything in moderation, but there’s some things that I find really impressive is there’s this company sticker mule, and they have this one-liners, stickers, 50% off this week click. 

 34:15: That’s all it is, it’s so fascinating. 

 34:17: Yes, I know, and it works for them. 

 34:21: So I write very short emails. 

 34:23: I know people are craving for the honey, especially late spring. 

 34:28: They say, when is your honey gonna be ready? 

 34:30: I said, Well, tell the bees I’m waiting here with you. 

 34:35: Have you tried, so in honey, when the honey is finally ready and everybody is really excited to buy, have you tried doing like a one liner, like honey’s ready, buy it here. 

 34:43: Yes, yeah, but not a one liner, but like I don’t want to stand between you and the honey, click here. 

 34:50: Yeah, that’s so great. 

 34:52: And those are like 70% open rate. 

 34:55: It’s insane. 

 34:56: Everybody’s waiting for those and then the conversion rate is ridiculous. 

 35:02: It’s in the double digits, for honey. 

 35:06: Everything else I have to sell, but the honey, I just need to tell people it’s here, it’s ready. 

 35:12: Take it. 

 35:13: That’s amazing. 

 35:14: Wow. 

 35:15: And also because I’m not trying to fake a limited supply, but it is a limited supply. 

 35:22: It’s real scarcity, right? 

 35:24: And I know our honey is good. 

 35:26: Well, my son’s totally biased. 

 35:28: He said we make the best honey in the world, but he will come to, we call this the B room and shop every time when he was still in college. 

 35:37: He said, Mom, I need one of this. 

 35:39: I want that, right? 

 35:40: So I said go shop, go shop. 

 35:43: Oh, that’s so great. 

 35:44: Good perk. 

 35:46: Yeah. 

 35:46: OK, thank you so much for your extended time. 

 35:49: This was so fascinating on so many levels. 

 35:52: Good luck with everything and we’ll be in touch. 

 35:54: Thanks so much. 

 35:55: Thank you. 

 35:56: Thanks for joining me for email story time. 

 35:58: If you enjoyed today’s story, give this podcast a review, so email marketers like you can have more fun with email. 

 36:04: See you next week when we dig into this story’s takeaways.