70: The Smart Way to Start Your Side Hustle
Have you been pouring time into social media but not seeing the results you hoped for? This week's episode might just change the way you think about growing your business.
I sat down with email marketing expert Melissa Seideman, CEO of Not Another VA, who shared something surprising: she built not one, but TWO successful businesses using email marketing before she even touched social media. And now she's revealing exactly how she did it.
In this value-packed episode, you'll discover:
- Why email marketing could be the game-changer your business needs (and why starting sooner rather than later matters)
- The essential first steps to setting up your email marketing system the right way
- How to grow your list even if you're starting from zero
- Simple strategies that work even when you only have a handful of subscribers
- Common mistakes to avoid (including one that could be costing you customers right now)
The best part? Melissa breaks everything down into practical, doable steps that won't overwhelm you.
She even shares how she succeeded with just five subscribers - proof that you don't need a massive list to start seeing results.
Whether you're just starting your business journey or looking to strengthen your existing marketing strategy, this episode delivers insights you can implement right away.
Plus, Melissa shares a special offer for listeners who want to take their email marketing to the next level.
Ready to learn the smart way to grow your business? Listen in today!
Mentioned in this episode:
Where to find Melissa: www.notanotherva.com/everything and https://www.instagram.com/notanotherva/ Melissa's free gift: https://bit.ly/NAVAemail
Key Takeaways:
[00:03:00] Why email marketing beats social media: You own your list and can reach customers directly without dealing with algorithms
[00:05:00] Getting started: Essential steps including setting up a paid business email address and choosing an email service provider
[00:08:00] The importance of consistency: Send regular emails even with a small list - quality relationships matter more than quantity
[00:09:00] Growing your list: Strategic tips for finding and attracting your ideal customers through various channels
[00:10:00] Common mistakes to avoid: Including the crucial step of testing emails on mobile devices
Why Email Marketing Should Be Your Business Growth Priority
In a world dominated by flashy social media platforms and ever-changing algorithms, it's easy for new business owners to overlook one of the most powerful tools at their disposal: email marketing.
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Melissa Seideman, CEO of Not Another VA, for an enlightening discussion about the untapped potential of email marketing for business growth. Her insights reveal why this often-underutilized strategy could be the game-changer your business needs.
The Hidden Power of Email vs. Social Media
Social media might seem like the obvious choice for growing a business in today's digital age, but Melissa shares a compelling perspective that might make you think twice. Unlike social platforms where your content is at the mercy of algorithms and your account could be suspended without warning, email marketing gives you direct access to your audience.
"I actually built two businesses with email marketing before I even threw social media in the mix," Melissa reveals. This approach provides something invaluable that social media can't guarantee: ownership of your contact list and complete control over when and how you communicate with your audience.
Consider this: while social media posts might reach only a fraction of your followers, emails land directly in your customers' inboxes. As Melissa points out, most people check their email first thing in the morning, making it prime real estate for your business communications.
Plus, you can download and backup your email list, switch providers if needed, and maintain direct contact with your audience regardless of platform changes or algorithm updates.
Getting Started with Email Marketing: The Essential Steps
For those convinced about the power of email marketing but unsure where to begin, Melissa outlines several crucial first steps. Gone are the days of managing customer emails in Excel spreadsheets or sending from free Gmail accounts. Today's successful email marketing strategy requires a more professional approach:
Set up a paid business email address (e.g., yourname@yourbusiness.com instead of yourbusiness@gmail.com)
Choose a reliable email service provider like MailChimp, ConvertKit, or Active Campaign
Create an attractive opt-in offer (like a discount code or valuable free resource)
Develop a consistent email sending schedule
Building Your List: Quality Over Quantity
One of the most valuable insights Melissa shares is about the importance of consistency and quality over quantity. "Even when I had five people on my list, I still made sure I emailed those five because they don't know if they're five people or 500,000," she explains. This approach emphasizes the importance of treating every subscriber as valuable from day one.
To grow your list effectively, Melissa recommends focusing on finding where your ideal customers spend their time online. This might mean joining relevant Facebook groups, creating valuable blog content, using Pinterest strategically, or leveraging your existing social media presence to promote your email opt-in offers.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Email Marketing
Even experienced business owners can fall into common email marketing traps. Melissa highlights several key areas to watch out for:
The most critical mistake is failing to test emails on mobile devices. With most users reading emails on their phones, ensuring your messages render properly on mobile is essential. This includes checking that:
Colors display correctly
Links are easily clickable
Images load properly
Text is readable without zooming
Additionally, maintaining brand consistency in your emails is crucial. This means using consistent colors, logos, and formatting that align with your overall brand identity.
The Long Game: Building Lasting Customer Relationships
Perhaps the most important takeaway from our conversation with Melissa is that email marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. "Email marketing is a long-term game," she emphasizes. "You play it and build rapport with your customers and your business over time. It will pay off."
Success in email marketing comes from consistently providing value to your subscribers, whether through exclusive offers, behind-the-scenes content, or valuable insights about your products or services. The key is to focus on building genuine relationships with your subscribers rather than just growing your list numbers.
Remember, the goal isn't just to collect email addresses – it's to create meaningful connections with people who are genuinely interested in what your business offers. By following Melissa's advice and approaching email marketing with patience and authenticity, you can build a valuable asset that will serve your business for years to come.
Ready to start your email marketing journey? Remember Melissa's words: "It does take time. People often get frustrated... but you got to stick with it. Power through the hard times and it will pay off." Your future self will thank you for starting today.
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to the HobbyScool podcast. Whether you're a seasoned hobbyist or just getting started, HobbyScool is the perfect place to learn something new. My name is Dr. Destini Copp and I'm your host of the podcast. But before we jump into our episode for today, The only thing I ask is that if you enjoyed the episode, please share with a friend and give us an honest review on your favorite podcast platform.
This helps us get out the content to more people. I also want to invite you to get on our wait list for our next HobbyScool online learning summit. These are free to attend and you can find the link to join at HobbyScool.com, which is also in our podcast show notes. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode.
And my special guest today is Melissa Seideman. [00:01:00] Melissa is a former teacher and the CEO of Not Another VA. At a Not Another VA, they are passionate about email marketing. They write and automate nurturing emails for small businesses that help you build relationships and increase revenue while working less.
Now, Melissa, we're going to be talking about one of my most favorite topics, which is email marketing. And I have built several different online brands in businesses, almost solely through email. So I am super passionate about it. But before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the good audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people?
Yeah, so we help clients take their existing businesses and automate the process for emails to generate leads and generate sales. If you're interested in using email marketing for your business, we would love to help you build your email marketing [00:02:00] to sell your brand and your business.
So Melissa, let's just have a chat for somebody who is, obviously we're all familiar with emails, right? We know what emails are and how we use them to communicate with people, but some folks listening might not realize exactly how it's used in a business. So first of all, let's talk about why email versus other ways you can build businesses like Social media, because I know a lot of new business owners when they're first just starting out, they think, Oh, I'm going to grow my business on social media.
I actually took a very different approach and I think it has served me well over the years. And I made the decision to grow my business. through email marketing. So from your perspective, and I know you work with a lot of clients, so you've seen, you know, a lot of different types of businesses. Can you walk [00:03:00] us through why email versus some of the other ways people can grow businesses?
So when you grow your business, email marketing is the number one way that you can get directly in front of someone's emails. And people often, the first thing they check in the morning is their email. I actually built two businesses with email marketing also before I even threw in social media in the mix.
And often people do the opposite. And then you realize I started email too late and I almost wish I started email sooner. It's one of those things that you don't think about starting until you realize that I need to be sending direct marketing to my customers. And the only way you're going to reach them is directly into their inbox.
Because if you're using Facebook or Instagram or any kind of social media, you're subject to an algorithm and you don't own your list. Someone could hack your social media anytime. Whereas email, if you own your list, you can download it every month to make sure it's backed up. You can switch providers.
You own your list and I think that's what makes a big difference. And you can decide when you throw a sale, you can [00:04:00] decide when you teach them about your product line or your service, you can decide when you send emails. I think that's a good point. And just kind of comparing email to social media. A couple of things that I have heard, I've heard a lot of horror stories about social media all over the years.
Some people grow these, Instagram accounts to a few hundred thousand followers, and then their account gets shut down and they can't figure out why, and they can't get anybody from that organization to contact them, so that's an issue
and only, a very, very small percentage of their followers see that particular post. So it's almost like they're posting to no one, honestly, unless they're doing some paid advertising there. Email, on the other hand, as you mentioned, You own that, right? You own that email list.
You can send out an email anytime that you want to. So I think you had some really, really good points there. Now, I'd like to kind of switch gears a little bit. And for people who are like, you know, [00:05:00] destiny and Melissa, you've sold me I am ready to learn a little bit more about this, but how to walk us through how a new business owner would get started.
Okay. In email marketing and, you know, basically starting that email list. Yeah, you need to not often. I see clients come to me. I have a whole list of emails in an excel spreadsheet and I realized that's actually wrong. You can't be doing that anymore. You can't be emailing them from a free gmail account or a free yahoo account You need to go with an email provider such as flow desk convert kit active campaign mailchimp mailer light There's a bunch of programs you could go with constant contact Go with an email provider and you need to have a paid email address.
So that's a new change that happened last year. You need to have a paid email address. You can't be using a free Gmail or free Yahoo email to send emails. And then you start building your list. So you essentially create an opt in that someone wants for your list. So for example, if I sell jewelry.
Maybe I'm going to give them 10 percent off their first jewelry purchase, or if I [00:06:00] have a skincare line, maybe I'll send them a free bar of soap. You offer some kind of incentive that they want to join, whether it's tips or valuable information about your product or service.
And then they give you their email, they give you their name and then they get the freebie right away. And then they're now on your list that you can market to them in the future. So you mentioned a paid email address. Can you explain to folks exactly what that means versus like a free Gmail account? I still have clients that still use their free Gmail account.
And I'm like, it doesn't look like a legit business. You want to make sure you're paid email. So you go through either Google or GoDaddy or something and get a paid email. So for example, I used to be not another virtual assistant at gmail. com. And then as soon as I realized I want to be more of a business, and I am a business.
I need to send emails from a paid email. So now I'm Melissa at non other VA. com. So I own the domain, the email address at the end of the address that is connected to my website. That's connected to my email list.
You can go and get that [00:07:00] set up through like a Google workspace account. So you first purchase your domain and then you can go in and set up. you know, through Google or wherever you have purchased your domain, you can get that real business email account. So you will need that before you go in and set up your, or, you know, basically set up your email service provider account, whether you're using like MailChimp or ConvertKit or, or one of those.
All right, so let's assume we have all that set up. We have our business domain, we have our real business email account, we've selected our email service provider, and we have basically gone through the process to Get, get out that free gift, whether it's like 10 percent off of your first order or some type of lead magnet PDF type download.
What are some of the next steps you would recommend? The most important thing I recommend doing is sending consistent emails. So even when I had five [00:08:00] people on my list, I still made sure I emailed those five because they don't know if they're five people or 500, 000 people on your list. So the most important thing you can do is send emails.
Teach them about the product or service you offer. Give them value. So you can say, here's a sale only for my email list and promote them or give them insider tips about how the product or service is created. You can do anything like that. Take them behind the scenes. You could link your social media, come watch a reel that I made.
about this product, how I made this product. You can link all kinds of different things, but send consistent emails really makes a difference and will lead to more sales and more nurtured relationships over time. People love seeing behind the scenes of businesses and emails like that are definitely very engaging to them.
Now, The next question I think folks may be asking is all of that sounds great. I can, you know, set this up. I can send out my weekly consistent emails. But how do I get people on my email list? Where do I [00:09:00] find these people? So you got to look where those people are. Let's say you're in a jewelry niche.
Let's say there's jewelry Facebook groups that you can join and promote. Maybe you make a blog post about making certain types of jewelry, and then you have an email opt in on that. You can create pins to the blog post to the email list also. You can go on social media and talk about your email opt in or your lead magnet that you're promoting, whether it's the coupon discount or a PDF download, and then get them to join the list by clicking the link or DM me the word email list and I'll send you my link.
There's a lot of ways to do it, and it does take time. People often who are just starting out get really frustrated. They're like, my email list is not growing. It just takes time. And I often say it's not about the number of subscribers you have, but it's about the relationships and the right subscriber you have.
So Amy Porterfield talked about this customer avatar. You want to have the ideal customer avatar in mind when you're advertising your email list. I love that. So go to where they [00:10:00] are. I like the suggestion you gave regarding like pinning you. So you're talking about Pinterest. Now, Pinterest, for those of you who may be a little bit new, is kind of like social media, but it's really more like SEO.
So you might be pinning to a blog post that you have on your website. And then on your website, that's when you can drive them. To your email list. And like Melissa said, it definitely does take time, but if you're, you know, consistent with it, your email list will grow now, Melissa, you work with a lot of different businesses and a lot of different types of niches.
Can you walk us through some of the biggest mistakes you see business owners making with their email? Yeah. So the number one thing I see often is people don't test their emails on mobile because most users are actually reading their emails on their phones. So you want to make sure it renders properly on mobile than it does on the desktop also.
So often when I send an email for a client, I'll look at it on my phone and I'll also look at it on the desktop to make sure it looks proper, [00:11:00] properly, because sometimes it doesn't always render. The colors don't always look right. You want to make sure it's very on brand. So if your logos are particular colors, make sure your links are that color.
Make sure the colors matter and the aesthetics matter. You don't want to have too many links and too many colors, but there's a right, there's a fine line between too many and not enough. Well, Melissa, before we hang it up here, any last minute tips for the audience on email marketing?
I think over time, it does take time. People often get frustrated. I often say email marketing is a long term game. You play it and build rapport with your customers and your business over time. It will pay off. Email marketing has done wonders for myself and for my clients, and it really will work.
It does work for your business, but you got to stick with it. Power through the hard times and it will pay off. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you let folks know where they can find you and also tell them a little bit more about your free gift? Yeah. So you can find [00:12:00] me at nonanotherva.
com. So you can search me at nonanotherva on Instagram, nonanotherva on Facebook. Nonanotherva, I'm all over the internet. If you search nonanotherva, you can find me on my Pinterest page. And, my free offer is for emails done for you for email club. Email club is a service we offer for people who want to DIY their email list.
And if they want email templates done each month for you, you can take the templates and modify it for your own business and build your own business and brand and voice into the templates. But we save you time. We give you ideas of this will be a sales email, this will be a nurture email, that type of thing.
Perfect. And I know that that is especially important for new business owners who are like, Melissa, what do I write each week? You told me to send out these weekly consistent emails, but I don't know what to say. So that is the perfect solution for them. So Melissa, thank you so much for joining us. I will make sure all of those links are in the show notes guys.
So you can go down there, find Melissa and connect with her. Thank you, Moslem. [00:13:00] Thanks for having me. Have a good day.
Thank you so much for listening today. Don't forget to sign up for the waitlist so you'll be the first to know when our next free HobbyScool online learning summit launches. The link is in the show notes for this episode or you can go to HobbyScool.com and that's HobbyScool with school without an H in it.
Talk soon.