00:00:00
00:00:01
Jimbo Edition #178- Cat Valverde
6 Plays2 days ago
Cat Valverde With an MBA, a Harvard Organizational Psychology Master's in progress, and over $5 million in direct revenue created for her clients, she’s the real deal. Cat’s here to connect with all the OGs in the digital business space. 🌐
She’s carved out a pragmatic approach to email marketing—no more doom and gloom or last-ditch efforts. Cat’s process is clear, straightforward, and best of all, she’s ready to share it at no charge so YOU can implement it.
Her insights are specifically designed for Course Creators, SaaS Founders, Agency Leaders, and eComm Owners who are ready to level up. 💥
Her goal? To help you deliver unprecedented value to clients, engage with your teams as true partners, and thrive financially in today’s wild landscape. 🌟
Cat brings a cash-focused, zero-hype, and super practical perspective that’s all about getting results.
Let’s get pragmatic and tactical with someone who believes there’s more than enough sunshine for everyone. ☀️
Website :https://profeshh.com/
Watch more here: jamesgaparris.com
Transcript
Introduction to Profesh
00:00:01
jamesparris
All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today we have our special guest today, Kat. And Kat, can you begin by telling me just who you are?
00:00:15
Cat Valverde
Sure. Yes. Thanks for having me. That's a big question. I am Kat. I founded Profesh, which is my digital marketing agency. I am in Austin, Texas, and my biggest focus on life, really, both professionally and personally, is to really add value where I can, which is kind of a big statement. But what I've done is I have found ways in my agency to focus on resources that I can share with other small businesses for free, know, not gatekeeping, sharing resources where I can, and then finding ways for us all to make more money.
Webinars for Small Business Engagement
00:01:03
Cat Valverde
Um, that's really my, my hook is, you know, what can we do for each other? How can we do it? And how can we survive in this post ad AI world? You know, things are changing so much.
00:01:19
jamesparris
What types of resources do you share?
00:01:22
Cat Valverde
Yeah. So I put on a, you know, several different webinars, but right now we're focusing on email lists. So any small businesses out there, I mean, it'll probably make you groan because it's a lot of work. But I help people go into their email lists that already exist and find ways to figure out who you're most profitable or most engaged. You know, maybe they haven't actually bought anything from you, but they're reading every single email you send, you know, they're gobbling up your content.
00:01:55
Cat Valverde
I help you find those people within that list and then reach out to them to see how they're really doing.
Email List Engagement Strategies
00:02:02
Cat Valverde
And I'm not talking like building bots and sending mass emails. I'm talking about finding that top 10% of your most engaged or most profitable people.
00:02:13
Cat Valverde
And seeing how their businesses are going, seeing what pain points they might be experiencing. 2024 is a perfect time for this because I feel like the key word is volatility. Everything is up and down. Everything is changing constantly. And from that, we go back to the table to brainstorm. We know what this handful of people, what they're struggling with. And we use that information to find what solutions we might be able to provide. And then we use that and say, hey, guys, you told us you what's hurting. Here are some solutions, some free, some not. And then we also offer those to the wider audience, that whole mailing list.
00:02:59
Cat Valverde
And what we're seeing is, you know, no surprise. We're talking to humans and humans are telling us their human problems and their businesses. We're seeing that that does apply to these entire mailing lists and it's increasing revenue by, you know, two, three, four, five times just by talking to people, just by asking in them, you know, it's a eureka moment of uh, go figure. And then from that we help build partnerships. So then you can go back to, you know, those most profitable people and say, Hey, do you know anybody else that maybe I haven't worked with yet? Or they're not aware of our service. Can we build some sort of a referral program, a partnership where you put me in contact with them and then let's build something together. Like let's help them and let's give you a chunk of that.
Resource Sharing vs. Sales Tactics
00:03:50
Cat Valverde
Yeah, so that's I mean, that's the webinar in a nutshell. I gave you like a two minute pitch. But we're providing that formula to small businesses, like actually genuinely for free. There's nothing I hate more than someone telling me Hey, I'm going to give you a freebie, but that's their sales tactic. This is actually a way for us to not gay keep to provide the resources. And then you we know how time consuming it is. So if you decide not to DIY it and you want to come work with us, you that's how I make the money is I say, here's how you can do it. By all means, please, if you can't afford to pay anybody, go for it.
00:04:33
Cat Valverde
if not, come back to me and then let's talk about how I can help you without taking, you know, any parts of your revenue until you start making money.
Success Story: Partnership with a Doctor
00:04:42
Cat Valverde
Like what kind of a partnership can we work out together as well?
00:04:48
jamesparris
Can you give an example of one of your successful partnerships?
00:04:52
Cat Valverde
Sure. Gosh.
00:04:56
Cat Valverde
I'm going to say the first one that you gave me that dopamine hit. We need them as entrepreneurs. You need something to keep you going. One of the first ones I found was my background is in tax and payroll, which is not a FinTech and it's not super sexy, but what I learned was there's something special and the ability to take really complicated topics and help the masses understand them. And, you know, I worked in that industry for 10 years and that was, you know, when I left doing a lot of reflection into, you know, what kind of niche am I going to pick if I'm doing marketing such a big industry? That's what I came up with. You know, I have this special skill that I've developed and I applied that to building profession.
00:05:50
Cat Valverde
And one of my first clients was a doctor, and he was providing specialty services as well for women's health care.
00:06:02
Cat Valverde
And he was providing providing um surgeries and specialty consultations a lot of women that often went underdiagnosed for several different diseases, some of them that I had suffered from, so it was pretty personal. And we partnered and still work together today. It's been years, both with you know, overhauling his website to make sure the content really found the right audience. Like how do you find women who are being underdiagnosed and don't know that they have these things? How do you tell them and how can they find you?
Scaling Small Businesses with Email Marketing
00:06:38
Cat Valverde
So there's this funny problem where you want to speak to them, but you have to really go out and find them without using keywords that they wouldn't know and you don't know what you don't know.
00:06:50
Cat Valverde
So I helped him do that first, and then for the first time, you he had a huge database from being in practice for over a decade, maybe over two decades even, a huge database of his clients, a huge email list that just wasn't being used.
00:07:09
Cat Valverde
and so i helped him build kind of from the ground up a newsletter that wasn't super pushy it wasn't really asking for any sales it was just keeping his prior patients updated on what was going on with the practice on what was new in the medical field that pertained to them directly like hey you have these you know, pretty specialty needs. So let me just make sure you're taking care of yourself and I'm giving you whatever I can. um And I mean, within months, it was a lot of work. So I would say it probably took us 90 days to get everything ready to launch. But within a quarter, so within three months from there, it was
00:07:53
Cat Valverde
Unbelievable. I mean we were seeing month over month and year over year huge growth and then not just that but you know for my non-marketing people there's a lot of internal data that we use to see if an email is successful. And generally, if you can get 30% of the people you send it to to open your email, that's really, really good. And so we were seeing well over that 50, 60, 75% on emails, people were getting them.
00:08:24
Cat Valverde
and they were opening them. So for me, that alone is really exciting, just that I'm doing my job. But to see the impact that that had directly on this client who, you know, I'd grown really close to is, I mean, it's the best. There's a lot that goes into cheerleading people and, you know, helping them understand their problems. But then when you see their problems kind of dissolve away and you get to participate in those solutions and then you see them make more money,
00:08:52
Cat Valverde
Like these are, you know, just families. That was like one of my very first really exciting stories kept me going for sure.
00:09:02
jamesparris
Okay, that's interesting. So what specific problems do you usually address?
Career Path Influenced by Ikigai
00:09:09
jamesparris
And what are usually the general solutions that you and your company provide?
00:09:16
Cat Valverde
Sure. So nine times out of 10, um, who I am working with are small businesses who are just kind of out of time in the day. So they they've been pretty successful. Maybe you've been, um, working for a year, a couple of years and your schedule is packed. You know, you have clients, you're comfortable. Um, but you know, the next step is to scale and you just don't have,
00:09:46
Cat Valverde
One more minute or one more dollar in your day or in your bank account and so, you know, I've been there and you know, it's still a struggle scaling takes years but You know What do you do when you know, you can't stay there forever even though you're comfortable good lifestyle paying your bills, but you know, this isn't like a retirement plan, you know, you can do this for a while, you know, what do you do?
00:10:11
Cat Valverde
And those are the people that are my favorite to help. And that's who I really focus on, especially with email marketing, because that's the biggest solution is to say, listen, I know you don't have another dollar for ads and ads are like more and more every month that goes by.
00:10:32
Cat Valverde
less effective and more expensive. Let's scrap them anyway. I know you probably can't afford a marketing service up front. Those are pretty hefty fees. Why don't we structure an agreement where I take away some of the risk for you and I'll build this with you and then we'll agree on a revenue share at the end. Taking away some of those barriers,
00:10:57
Cat Valverde
that we all face. And then finding a way for us all to win. And that is my my go to and especially for these small businesses that are in this like mid stage success, but a very unclear future and how to get there.
00:11:16
jamesparris
Why did you choose this specific career and industry and what were your motives for doing it?
00:11:26
Cat Valverde
Oh, well, I, there's this practice, um, it's called Ikigai. It's a Japanese practice that I came across reading a book years ago and it really stuck with me. And it's all about exploring, um, you know, what you're good at. Well, really what your passion is, you know, what keeps you going, um, what the world needs.
00:11:55
Cat Valverde
And then you start thinking about what you're good at and then what can you actually get paid for. And it really resonated with me. was all about know the Japanese culture. They have the oldest workforce.
00:12:11
Cat Valverde
because they're so large a percentage of the population that is just happy to keep working. They're retirement age, they have retirement benefits, but they're cool. They're enjoying it, which is just not something I can identify with, especially at that time. That's the practice that they explain.
00:12:32
Cat Valverde
After COVID, so I was working in corporate for about 10 years after grad school, and I was in a leadership position. And I would say, I mean, you know, 2020 and 2021 were a blur for all of us. I was too busy to even think about, you know, what I'm going to have for dinner, let alone, you know, what do I want in life?
00:12:55
Cat Valverde
And once that dust slowly started to settle, I realized how burnt out I was, how underpaid I was, and just how generally unhappy I had become.
Transition from Corporate to Entrepreneurship
00:13:07
Cat Valverde
I started digging back into that and just really thinking about all of those things. Those are big questions. you am I to say the world needs? But really focusing on, okay, well then what would make me happy and I'm good at and I can get paid for? um And it actually started out as writing. writing. i In my undergrad, I studied government and English.
00:13:34
Cat Valverde
And I started thinking, okay, well, if I'm gonna be a writer, what does that mean? Am I gonna write books? Am I gonna write for other people? And I just started playing around you with that avenue and ended up copywriting on the side, just started the side hustle, copywriting for different businesses. And then that's slowly what became profesh when I started really focusing on copywriting.
00:14:01
Cat Valverde
writing webpages. The doctor I mentioned before, he was one of my earlier clients where I was writing blogs for him just on the side, developing some relationships. And then, um, about a year of that and getting some word of mouth clients slowly. Um, it was a really nice culmination of, um, while I'm making money doing this, you know, not life changing money, but slowly I was seeing it grow and realizing I might be able to, you know, at least match my salary doing this. And.
00:14:38
Cat Valverde
At the same time, that burnout, i as it does going unaddressed, continued to grow. I think it was a quarterly review or a raise or you something very corporate that just pissed me off.
00:14:55
Cat Valverde
Like I had to hit my line and that was it, you know, whatever it was ah You know, I left on good terms and and certainly don't recommend ah Letting yourself get to that line because it's not really fun and it's you know, not the best way but that's what happened and Kind of trial by fire after that. I had left my job. I was very lucky that you know, I have a husband who, you know, has a full-time job, has health insurance. didn't have to worry about a lot of things like that that that many of us do. um And after that, it just evolved and evolved and evolved. It became a, I don't know if you've seen the movie with Jim Carrey, Yes Man, where he's just, you know, made, he joined some sort of a cult.
00:15:43
Cat Valverde
And they say, like, your job in your very unhappy life is to start saying yes to everything. Like, you're not allowed to say no. And, you know, it becomes a mess for him, of course, but he has a lot of adventures and he meets people he never would have met and he's not a hermit anymore.
00:15:58
Cat Valverde
And it was a lot like that. I was out finding clients and networking and getting word of mouth referrals. And whatever they needed, I said yes to. Like, oh, you need a ghostwriter? Yep, I got you. Oh, you need an editor? Yep, I'm here. You need some website design? Got it. It was all on the fly. And then that helped me really find my niche. What am I actually enjoying?
00:16:26
Cat Valverde
there's enough demand for, and can get paid for it.
Writing's Impact on Communication and Marketing
00:16:32
Cat Valverde
And building on that is what brought me to today, and you hopefully will continue to carry me on to the next phase.
00:16:40
jamesparris
So you mentioned a lot of different things. I think the main question I have now is how did this Japanese concept that you mentioned called Ikigai, how did this sort of apply to your passion with writing?
00:16:59
Cat Valverde
Yeah, that's a good question. I think I am learning more and more about that actually. It was one of those things I was always good at. know, heavy on the English classes, my government degree was actually really focused on political philosophy. So it's a lot of Socrates and Aristotle and John Locke and a lot of you heavy research, heavy writing all kind of went hand in hand.
00:17:25
Cat Valverde
And that was, it just came naturally for me um and I really enjoyed it. So I knew I was good at it and I knew I didn't have to try very hard at it, you know, as a natural skill. But I'm learning now even more as I grow in my career that it's the appreciation for the power of words. There's just so much you can do as a communicator, but also, you know, with marketing, let's say your message is everything. And I can't tell you how many emails I unsubscribe from because they're poorly written and they're not written to me. I don't know who they think they're emailing, but I'm not your audience.
00:18:09
Cat Valverde
there's power in that, you know, getting your message to the right people in the right way. But it also has real power for change. I mean, that's been one of the really cool things is working with people that have projects that they don't know how to get off the ground. You know, I've helped few politicians write books, like I've ghostwritten for them and edited for them. And it's a different kind of Impact where you don't necessarily have to be running for office, for example, but you can help get these really important impactful messages out there and meet some interesting people along the way. And I think that's the common thread that has
00:18:49
Cat Valverde
just grown stronger as I've you know moved deeper and deeper into this entrepreneur life and worried a little bit because it is something that I love so much. Once you commoditize it and demand it to pay your rent or your mortgage, that can be scary because you don't want to start hating it. I think that's because there's so much value behind it and there's so much potential for the good that the right words can do.
Commercialization's Impact on Creativity
00:19:16
Cat Valverde
It's remained interesting and, you know, magical to me. It's another good book, actually, Big Magic by, oh my gosh, what's her name? Elizabeth.
00:19:28
Cat Valverde
Oh my gosh, I cannot remember her last name. She's the writer of Eat, Pray, Love. She writes about that, about keeping that big magic. If you're a writer or creative, it can be really, really easy to demand value from it and then you kind of ruin that magic. And so, you know, I was a fear of mine and so far I've been able to keep it safe and, you know, pay my mortgage with it, which is lovely.
00:19:55
jamesparris
It's fascinating that you said that because that's actually happening a lot now in the entertainment industry in a lot of different areas.
00:20:00
Cat Valverde
mmm like uh like their own projects like demanding things from it or
00:20:08
jamesparris
Well, it's the big magic thing you mentioned about how sort of the quality is beginning to dip if you notice with a lot of movies and a lot of content nowadays.
00:20:18
Cat Valverde
Yeah. That makes sense. Like the commercialization of it. It's just, it's losing its charm. You know, it's so funny you say that. I feel like I just, I don't know who put it out, but I did see an article about Disney specifically, like is Disney losing its magic and losing its touch a bit, especially with all these like recreations. And that's such a good example. ah ah And it sounds kind of silly at first, but actually, I mean, nothing rings more true than that. These things that we hold so close to us as children and then rewatching the Lion King, that recreation, it just had no soul. was nothing there. I totally get that. It's so true.
00:21:00
jamesparris
Are you a massive Disney fan?
00:21:03
Cat Valverde
Ah, I mean, of the classics for sure. I am a really big Marvels fan. I love Marvels. Um, that was a COVID discovery I found about myself. I never knew that it was just so much available and so much time, um, that I got really, really into the Marvels franchise and all the shows, all the movies, seeing them. It's embarrassing to admit how, how many times I've seen them all. What about you?
00:21:33
jamesparris
Yeah, I'm a fan of them too. I've looked at a few of them. I do think a lot of writers and creatives like yourself might gain influence. Am I wrong?
00:21:44
Cat Valverde
know for sure. I think it's really similar. You know, I'm really into Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon. I really, really like Lord of the Rings and the Rings of Power. And I think what is common and all of those is the world building. Again, it goes back to the power that your words have, the power of the pen to build something new and big.
00:22:13
Cat Valverde
I totally agree. It makes sense why I would identify with all of those.
Storytelling in Marketing
00:22:19
jamesparris
How do you incorporate world building into your entrepreneurship and career?
00:22:26
Cat Valverde
Yeah, I mean, I don't even, I don't think this is specific even to my industry. I think when you're working as a service, you you know, B2B or directly with individuals, it's all about storytelling, which is really heavy in marketing. Like what is the story? Looking at data, like, okay, what story is this telling? and It makes it more accessible if you can understand what you're looking at or what the problem is. you What story are we are telling and story do we want to keep telling? What are we overcoming? you We have to be able to communicate that to ourselves and to each other and these partnerships. and and I think that's the big thing is, okay, if I don't understand one my own story and where I'm going,
00:23:17
Cat Valverde
Um, how can I expect anyone else to? And that's huge. I mean, huge for marketing, but huge for, uh, developing relationships with your clients and building trust and being able to, you know, competently tell them and believe yourself like, okay, I'm going to get you where you need to go. Like that's really, really step one is, you know, knowing what that is.
00:23:41
jamesparris
So, what would you consider step two then?
00:23:45
Cat Valverde
Oh, my gosh, I would say step two. Let's say, okay, so let's say step one is understanding the story. I'll say if I have a client and onboarding, that's really like the takeaway I want is I would need to make sure we're a good fit and I need to make sure that I understand your story and where you want to go. Step two from that would be, okay, let's put together a plan. Like what are our goals?
00:24:15
Cat Valverde
what's reasonable. It basically comes with a lot more questions. Now we have a million other things to answer to make sure we're aligning with that. And then figuring out how to get there. So what are the goals? How long will they take? What can we do to get there? And then making sure we're aligned. It's really tricky, this line that I have to walk. And I think a lot of coaches would agree with this, where you are a cheerleader in trying to encourage and really show value to your clients and to their brands.
00:24:58
Cat Valverde
and you know hype them up like yeah we can get there we can get there but then you also don't want to over promise because there's a lot of learnings along the way like sure we can implement these strategies and let's do that quickly and then let's just bake in the understanding that some of these might fail and that's okay that's part of the journey um so also preparing them for that so that there isn't uh you know a lot of emotions and frustrations and like we need to set those expectations early.
00:25:33
Cat Valverde
And then I would say following all of that, it's a lot of execution and iterating.
00:25:38
jamesparris
And then on the third, eight, eight, nine, or eight, nine.
00:25:41
Cat Valverde
That's what it is from now until forever, until we have reached our goals and our milestones and then set new goals and new
Importance of Data Metrics
00:25:48
Cat Valverde
milestones. It's kind of a rinse and repeat after that while also maintaining what you know works.
00:25:54
Cat Valverde
you know, making sure you're, if you find the ah ah magic bullet for getting people to open your emails and to buy something from you to spend some sort of money, like let's make sure we protect that and keep doing that while we, you know, push forward.
00:26:15
Cat Valverde
mean, it'll be different for everybody. I would say the thing that's the same is how we measure it. So let's say you have a revenue goal and we outline Here's your revenue goal, and we want to make sure that we're hitting that after all of your expenses, after you pay me, after you pay of your employees, after you're paying all of your bills, your website, you any memberships, all your business costs, you want to hit a certain amount. And then we kind of work backwards from that. So I think the thing that would be the same is
00:26:54
Cat Valverde
that you're agreeing on certain metrics. If storytelling is like overarching thing, data is everything else, making sure. you understand how you're going to measure this, and then sticking with those measurements so that you can always compare in the future. Like, okay, in the last quarter, this is what the number was versus the quarter following. That's going to be the key. I would say trying to find some specifics, using the open rates, for example, like a 30% open rate is fantastic. Finding things like that that align with your brand.
00:27:28
Cat Valverde
And making sure that we're tracking them, you know, weekly and then monthly and then quarterly so that then we can look long term annually at how we're doing and compare. are going to be the things that apply to everyone. You know, that's what I have to use and and it helps me.
00:27:45
Cat Valverde
Forcing function most of the time to hold myself accountable to how I'm doing I think the the other Tricky part is when you're comfortable It's easy to not push ahead You know whenever you have enough clients whenever you are bringing in enough to pay your bills and feeling okay. That's the sweet poison because it's going to be uncomfortable, really like keep you from forging ahead on those goals. And that data really does keep you accountable. Once you set it, it's easy to see, okay, I got three months left in the year and I'm 75% away from my goal. Like where did I go wrong? And what can I do now?
Key Performance Indicators for Email Marketing
00:28:26
Cat Valverde
Right.
00:28:28
jamesparris
So how do you measure that? Like what metrics do you look for, et cetera?
00:28:35
Cat Valverde
Yeah, so a lot of times clients will come to us with what they want, like they'll have their own ah ah KPIs, so key performance indicators. For example, for me, what I like to do is if I'm looking at, let's just keep it with emails.
00:28:53
Cat Valverde
there's several different things. So you'll send out, let's say you have 100 people that you're sending an email to. And the email itself is asking you to click a link. And when you click it, it's going to take you to a video that I want you to watch.
00:29:09
Cat Valverde
Maybe that's because it's on YouTube and you've monetized YouTube, or maybe it's a video that's, you know, I had a client that was talking about how he provides a guided meditation master class, so he wasn't sure.
00:29:24
Cat Valverde
what he should give away for free? Like should he give away the entire class for free in order to get people to then buy a a a larger course? Should he give away like a video a day or a week? there's a lot of different asks that you can put in there. But let's just say you're asking in to click a link to go watch a video on YouTube. So what I would do is ahead of time I would decide what my numbers are but the categories are generally the same. So I would send the email. I like to check my data pretty often because I just get anxious and ready to see what's going on, but you do want to give it some time. I usually check it after a day and then you I'm checking it daily, but then I look back after about four days.
00:30:08
Cat Valverde
you just to let people see their emails. So then you want to see one, how many people opened it at all? Out of those 100, if 30 did, great. If 50 did, amazing. um And then you want to see, they it's called a click-through rate. So you want to see if they clicked through the flow you wanted them to click through and see what that percentage is.
00:30:33
Cat Valverde
And then that will take you to YouTube. And then you can go and see, okay, how many people from this specific link came to my YouTube video? Did it get me a return that I'm happy with? And that usually is, you know, depends on the business and what they're looking for. Um, you know, a hundred versus a thousand, those percentages will, will change. Um, but those are the sorts of things that are usually always lumped together to figure out if the email is successful.
00:31:01
Cat Valverde
And then, of course, there'll be things like unsubscribe rates. So if I sent this email and I saw 50 people unsubscribed and they don't want my emails anymore, I probably made some people a little upset. Let's figure out what happened. And then more just specifics, there's bounce rates. So how many of these emails bounce back to me? That means my data is probably a little outdated.
00:31:28
Cat Valverde
So I need to take care of my email list and keep it fresh. And then there's things like how many of my emails went to spam. Like it didn't even make it, in which case that's a me problem. I need to figure out like what I need to do with my email provider and making sure that Google Outlook, that they're not marking me as a spammer or a bot. So there's things in the back end you can do for that.
00:31:52
Cat Valverde
But all of those things kind of together help you figure out if it was successful or not, apart you from how much revenue you brought in. So there's the revenue and there's all those other things behind the scenes.
00:32:04
jamesparris
So you've actually made clients or audience members upset?
00:32:10
Cat Valverde
I mean, I haven't, not yet, knock on wood, but it happens a lot. um And it's not always the way you think. like It's not going to necessarily be that they're replying with something angry. It's more so that you are sending emails to people that don't really want your emails. It'd be you know like you're sending emails about you know college basketball to a group that couldn't care less about college basketball and they're getting an email every single week about this and they're annoyed so they're gonna unsubscribe. I have noticed too you know
00:32:46
Cat Valverde
Typically people don't unsubscribe the first time I tend to ignore it or market a spam or you know, whatever it takes a couple of times, but once it does That I mean you don't want to see 50 out of your 100 people and and subscribe Because then you got to do a lot of digging to figure out you know, is my list totally off? You know, I have to go back to the drawing board and figure out, like, what have I done? Where did this start? Um, a handful is normal, but, um, so it's not necessarily that you've upset them, but it is a upsetting number to see. Um, and also goes hand in hand with, uh, another metric, you know, if 30% is a good open rate, that's wonderful, but then
00:33:34
Cat Valverde
let's say you're sending an email once a week and you have a group of people that haven't opened your last three emails, or maybe they've never opened one of your emails.
Engagement in Email Marketing
00:33:45
Cat Valverde
That's another question you have to start asking like, okay, how do I handle this? Do I reach out to them directly and say like, Hey, I noticed you haven't opened any of my emails. Um, you know, feel free to unsubscribe if this isn't for you or, you know, is there something else that I can offer you?
00:34:03
Cat Valverde
That isn't being offered like I love your your feedback. That's something that I don't think enough of us as business owners do and Can be really refreshing to hear like me as a human if I got an email like that. I would be impressed like thanks for paying attention no unsubscribe me or No, actually yes, I have these other questions and you haven't touched on them. You know, what do you think like those personal touches? Can be a really nice way to respond to some of those issues
00:34:32
jamesparris
How important is engagement to you and your business?
00:34:37
Cat Valverde
Yeah. Um, I mean, it's interesting because engagement in your email lists, I think is huge. I mean, it's everything. Um, you know, it's not worth your time to be spending, you know, hours on drafting the right emails for them to not work, um, to be putting together, you know, it's not even just about copy. Oftentimes it's, you know, what are we offering?
00:35:01
Cat Valverde
it a discount? Is it a new service? And you can't learn much about those things that take a lot of prep, a lot of financial planning. There's a lot of things that can go on behind the scenes for a lot of businesses when they're deciding on this, right? So if you spend all these resources figuring these things out and then have no engagement, I mean, what a waste of time and I've learned nothing about any of it. But then outside of that, I would say it is really interesting thinking about engagement on socials, for example.
00:35:36
Cat Valverde
It's so different than when we're talking specifically about email marketing, but a lot of us lump all of those together, like ads, social channels, email marketing. We kind of think about it all in the same bucket, and it's really not. The example I've been using lately is if you think about 100 people,
00:35:58
Cat Valverde
That doesn't feel like a lot on Instagram. Like, oh, I have a hundred followers or, um, a hundred views on my reel. Like that can be, it feels kind of low, right? Low engagement. Um, but if you think about standing in front of a hundred people, that's really different, right? Like I would have stage fright, I think at at first talking in front of a hundred people. Um, and so.
00:36:25
Cat Valverde
When we think about engagement, it is really interesting to think about how our social channels have distorted our perception about what's possible and what's meaningful a little bit. And it really is, you know, per channel makes all the difference. And it is actually for me personally outside of you know, working around AI and working around, um, Google ads and how expensive they become an
Balancing AI and Personalization in Marketing
00:36:52
Cat Valverde
inaccessible. They become like outside of all of that. It's one of the things I like the most about email marketing and my focus on it so much is because that engagement feels so much more personal. And, um, you know, I don't need 10,000 followers to make a big difference in my client's revenue.
00:37:14
jamesparris
How do you incorporate AI into your business?
00:37:18
Cat Valverde
Yeah, I mean, for me personally, I actually think it's a pretty nice tool. You know, I pay for the chat GPT premium. I really, really like it. I think it's a good and helpful tool when I'm trying to find really good keywords or writing really catchy headlines and landing page, you know, subheadings and helps me optimize that copy and it saves a lot of time. What I don't use it for is you creating any sort of bot or sending out mass emails, drafting copy to send to you thousands of people. I mean, it can do that, obviously.
00:37:59
Cat Valverde
It's just not really in my model what I recommend because, you know, sure, it's wonderful time savings to be able to do that, to, you know, blast off an email that will apply to everybody. But it actually, you know, doesn't help you very much if you're not segmenting your audiences properly. Like if you have something that you think applies to 10,000 people, let's say. I'm going to send this one email to all of them. For some things like a product, that might work. If I have subscribed to a you Sephora makeup line of some kind and they want to blast out a ah ah sale,
00:38:43
Cat Valverde
Hell yeah that's great that will work but if you're trying to build something. From the ground up and trying to really like cultivate high value clients it's a much slower build because you need those personal touches where i say okay you know i'm gonna segment these out to you these twenty five people i know.
00:39:02
Cat Valverde
on what I know about them or how I've worked with them in the past, I know this offer over here or this service will really, really apply. And maybe that wouldn't apply to a smaller business or a solo preneur rather than like a B2B service. So that's where it's a little different and kind of a choose your own adventure situation, but that's how I've decided to use it and certainly makes me less fearful of what's to come. You know, a lot of people have this AI fear and I don't really have that, at least for my business. I haven't, you know, I haven't relied on it too much and it can't replace me, you know, it won't be able to replace a human. At least for me.
00:39:45
jamesparris
How do you balance the personal touch with the AI?
00:39:50
Cat Valverde
Yeah, it is a funny balance, isn't it? Because your time is valuable. And if it can save you time, great. So for me, it's a good starting point for almost anything. It's also so certainly for me as an entrepreneur helped me learn a lot more quickly, you know, finding answers and solutions to things. Like I build my own website and not a developer. So when I have a a glitch, I can go, you know, search chat GPT instead of having to hire someone to fix whatever this is. So, you know, on a personal note, there's that. But then when it comes to actually, you know, creating content, creating things.
00:40:34
Cat Valverde
like I'll use Instagram as an example. I'm not using AI to generate the image. It's so obvious when people do that. Maybe someday it won't be, and I'll jump on that wagon. Like, sure, let's ask AI to generate whatever this image is. But I do use it to help me write a really catchy title, a really catchy caption to go along with it, and my hashtags. It's a very good data machine. If you think about it as just scraping the internet, like, hey, help me. Give me the 10 hashtags that are trending right now for this industry or for this type of post. Those are some real time savers because it'll help me get it right. Maybe not the first time, but it'll help me get it right. Certainly not the sixth or seventh time if I was doing that myself trying to
00:41:23
Cat Valverde
scout out the perfect hashtags. Um, so I've had found that really helpful ah ah for me and for the work that I do for my clients. And then for just actual content, if I know what I want to say, I know what the topic is. Um, you know, I've, I haven't put an outline together just yet that I find it really helpful. I can throw in like, Hey, this is,
00:41:49
Cat Valverde
what I want to say, here's the topic and here's the keywords I want to use, give me an outline. It's a very, very good starting point. And sometimes even blogs, you know, it can write some really, really good blogs that are great for SEO for your search engine optimization on your website.
00:42:06
Cat Valverde
Um, but it's still, I mean, it needs a one over to really read it and make sure it doesn't sound crazy and that it hasn't said anything that's untrue because it's, it definitely throws in some things that are not true. So it's not there yet. It's not imperfect, but a very good tool for kind of direction and saving some time.
00:42:30
jamesparris
What other tools do you use for direction and saving time besides AI and chat GPT?
00:42:38
Cat Valverde
Um, you know, some things I really like that can be handy for a lot of us are, it's the same kind of idea as, you know, chat GPT and these other copy bots. Um, you can use different scrapers, you know, cause that's what chat GPT is doing, right? Is scraping the internet for the information and then.
00:42:59
Cat Valverde
putting it all together for you in a way that makes sense. Hunter.io is a really handy one. It's been around for quite a while and it's a really helpful tool when you're looking for a specific contact. Let's say you're trying to get in touch with the you head of marketing at some company. One, you can plug in the company and who you're looking for, and it might just spit out exactly the email address, which is great. Um, it doesn't do that. It does help you gauge what their email format is. If it's, you know, your first dot last name at, you know, profession.com, it'll tell you that so that then you can go find the name of the person on LinkedIn or whatever and put, you know, cat dot Val Verde at profession.com.
00:43:49
Cat Valverde
and get through to them. I've seen really, really great success and that's very helpful you don't want to pay for LinkedIn sales navigator or you these pretty expensive memberships. It saves a lot of time.
00:44:03
Cat Valverde
And then, you know, I know a lot of people pay for leads when they're looking for new clients and there can be some, you know, wins in that. There's a company called LeadScraper and you can download, it's for your desktop.
00:44:21
Cat Valverde
and plug in a city and an industry, and it'll scrape the internet for the company, for you who their website host is, if they're using certain marketing, if they're paying for ads somewhere. It can be really, really helpful to get information that's public, but I would never be able to find it on my own at a much higher level.
00:44:46
Cat Valverde
Um, and they're pretty cheap services. I think they, I know they both have free versions, but, um, I like them so much. I actually pay for both of those. Um, both of their like lower tiered options. And that has helped me a lot whenever I am trying to like find really targeted audiences, or maybe I just want to test something out. Um, but I maybe don't want to test it out on my current clients and want to test it out on some newbies.
Target Audience Identification
00:45:12
Cat Valverde
Um, it's a really good way to do that too.
00:45:18
jamesparris
How crucial is it to find your target audience?
00:45:21
Cat Valverde
I mean, gosh, it's everything. It's one of those things for anybody listening that has paid for ads in the past, it's really similar to that process where you're creating an ad, you don't get it right the first time certainly, but you're really trying to think Okay. Who is this for? Um, who's going to see this? Who do I want to see this? First of all, where are they at? Are they on YouTube? Are they on Instagram? Are they in Facebook groups? Are they following a certain blog? Are they at networking events? You know, maybe they're not even, um, you know, maybe it's not even on platform. Are they on LinkedIn? You know, where are they? Um, and what do I want to say? Like, what's my hook to actually get them to, uh, work with me or buy something from me.
00:46:08
Cat Valverde
It's the exact same thing, except you're not paying for an ad. So figuring out who your people are, like who is your audience, where are they, and what can I offer them that would be tempting enough that they are willing to give me their emma email address to get it. If I'm offering them, if I'm a baker and I'm offering them a free recipe book that you can download,
00:46:34
Cat Valverde
you know, where can I go to tell other bakers that I have this and they'll want it enough that they'll say, cool, yeah, here's my email, send it to me. Um, so that's really going to be everything. If that same Baker went in to the, you know, the group that was actually meant for college basketball, it's very unlikely that she'll get many email addresses from them because they might not be interested. Like they're not bakers.
00:47:01
Cat Valverde
Right? So it is truly everything. It's nice with email marketing or even, you know, social posts, anything that doesn't cost you money.
00:47:14
Cat Valverde
It is nice that you can play around a bit and and figure it out because it takes some time. Your time is still valuable, of course, like
Conclusion and Further Engagement
00:47:21
Cat Valverde
it's still going to take time.
00:47:22
jamesparris
Thank you.
00:47:23
Cat Valverde
But at least unlike paying for ads, you're not wasting money every single day while you're figuring that out and really like like honing in on what works, who your audience is, and how to really engage them in the way that gives you a return.
00:47:42
jamesparris
Excellent. So after closing off with, you know, target audiences and those things, thank you again for being on the show. And I'm just curious, are there any final or closing words you'd like to give to the audience before I let you off here today?
00:48:00
Cat Valverde
Sure. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. This is great. Um, I would say the number one takeaway is, you know, if you don't have the capital and you don't have the time, don't get discouraged. Like there are options, like go out and find the options. I'm one of them. I'm sure there's other people just like me doing the same thing. So go find those resources. Um,
00:48:26
Cat Valverde
If you do, if you are interested in learning more, hit me up on LinkedIn. I reply to all my DMs. I'm happy to chat. But also go to emailrevamp.com and sign up for the waitlist. The webinar, I'm recording a new one tomorrow with some updated information. You'll get ah an email with a link to that really quickly. um um And I promise when I say I'm not selling anything, I'm genuinely not. Like this is actually free. You're not going to see a gimmick. It's genuinely a recipe for how you can do this tomorrow, like very actionable steps. And then if you do want to work with me, then, you know, we can chat from there. That same link has a ah calendar that you can sign up to chat with me for a little bit and I'm happy to help.
00:49:14
jamesparris
All right. Thank you again for being on the show and thank you all for watching the show. I will see you next time on the Jimbo edition. Thanks again.
00:49:24
Cat Valverde
Awesome, thank you.