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In today’s Q&A, we are helping Guy figure out if he should stay in touch with his audience throughout the year or just when he’s selling his product seasonally.
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Resources Mentioned in this Episode
- Today’s expert is from Kate Erickson of entrepreneuronfire.com
- Today’s question is from Guy Hauptman of chemvideotutor.com
- Kate’s Podcast
- Free Podcast Course
Let’s dive into this week’s question!
JOCELYN: Hey y’all! You’re listening to an Expert Q&A with S&J. Today’s expert is Kate Erickson of Kate’s Take, the Entrepreneur on Fire audio blog.
Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us, each week, as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside-down, by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let’s get started.
SHANE: Hey y’all, welcome back to Flipped Lifestyle podcast; we have another Expert Q&A today, we are bringing back one of our favorite guests, it’s Kate Erickson from Kate’s Take, the Entrepreneur on Fire audio blog and entrepreneuronfire.com. Kate, welcome back to the show.
KATE: Thanks S&J, I’m fired; one of your favorites?
SHANE: Yes, definitely one of our favorites. 100%
JOCELYN: One of our favorites; you came to our live event so that puts you –
SHANE: That’s right; when you get on a yacht in San Diego Bay for four hours with somebody, you automatically got to be on the favorite list, know what I mean?
JOCELYN: That’s right. Well today, we have a question from Guy Hoppman of kimvideotutor.com and Guy says, “I sell seasonal, two-to-three-times-a-year product, which is an online video series geared to high school students. How do I target their parents, the ones with the credit cards, to buy without bombarding the parents with irrelevant emails? How often should I email my subscribers? Should I send them stuff all year around or only when it’s time to sell my product?”
SHANE: This is a really cool question, I’m really interested in your take on this Kate; did you get that? See what I did there? Kate’s Take.
KATE: Yeah, I like that.
SHANE: But because – you know Jocelyn and I have Flipped Lifestyle but we got a lot of other businesses in the education world and those are very seasonal. Pretty much the beginning of the year is where you hit that and I think that’s what he’s asking here. Does he just email those people those two or three times a year when they’ll buy his product or does he email them every week for 52 weeks out of the year? So what do you think that Guy should do?
KATE: Yeah, so that’s a great point and a great comparison Shane ‘cause I think there’s probably a lot of people who come out with launches or products or services that might only be relevant at certain times during the year trainings or whatever they might be. I think it’s really important to keep that touch point throughout the year because that’s when you are going to start building a relationship with your customer, and that’s when you’re going to be top of mind any time they think about any of your trainings or your products. So, I definitely think it’s important to keep that communication over the year. You know, outside of whatever you’re offering in this online video series, there’s certainly relevant tips and advice and things that you can continue talking about all year long. I’m positive of it, and I don’t even know what the topic is other than it serves students. But if you think about what a high school student goes through in an entire year, there are a lot of topics and a lot of value that you could be providing them that’s gonna get to know, like and trust you even more, so that when it does come time for you to pitch your product, it’s not gonna be like ‘Who is this person in my inbox all of a sudden? Why do they only contact me when they are trying to sell me something?’
SHANE: Right, exactly, yeah. That’s exactly how football works. Like really football coaches only – there’s two times a year that football coaches will buy something. Usually it’s in February when they are getting ready to start weightlifting, or they’re going to football clinics ‘cause that’s when all the – it’s called clinic season, that’s when you go learn more about football. And then usually around June and July when coaches are getting ready to practice, a bunch of coaches are usually like, ‘Oh crap, I didn’t plan anything for practice next week’ so they start really looking for stuff to go. But what I do is, I have – in some parts of the year, it’s only once a month but I’ll send them like a calendar of ‘Hey coach, these are the things you should be taking care of this month’ And it might be just like a ten-point list of ‘Get your helmets painted and reconditioned, order your equipment for spring football, don’t forget to order new footballs ‘cause last years’ got ruined.’ And it’s just like you said, I just touch base with them once a month or so, maybe every two weeks to keep them saying, ‘Oh, he gave me something free, he gave me value.’ So I’ve given them so much eight to ten months out of the year when it’s time to launch a paid product, how much more valuable is that and sure, I’ll give you money ‘cause you’ve helped me so much all year along. And Jocelyn does some similar stuff with her librarians.
JOCELYN: Yeah, I love to send things out just throughout the year, sort of that same way, just to remind people that I’m still there, I’m still providing value for them, and that way when it is time to sell something, it’s just like Kate said, it’s not a complete stranger saying, ‘Hey, buy something from me.’
SHANE: Right and your all’s sales cycles are probably a little bit smaller because there’s always, I guess people wanting webinar and podcasting and things like that, but like how do you guys – how do you and John like touch base with people in between paid, you know, pitch emails or things like that. What do you do?
KATE: Well, yeah that’s a great point. I mean, your guys’ advice is so solid on this because you are so in this space where you only have something that you might offer once or twice a year. So I love that advice that you guys just gave, those touch points are so valuable. For us, when we have a community that’s more or less a revolving door, you know, people can come at any time they want, we started creating free courses, and we found that to be a really valuable entry point for people who might not know who we are. So just as same as somebody that you might reach out to and only talk to once a year, you know, that’s not going to be nearly as effective as somebody that you’ve been building a relationship with. So, we’ve taken that same idea and we’ve created evergreen, free courses so that somebody can opt-in to – as an example, we have a free podcast course. It’s a 15-day email and video series that’s absolutely free. All you need to do is opt in with your email address and we’ll send you content over 15 days on how to create, grow and monetize your podcast. Now at the end of those 15 days, we’re gonna tell you about Podcaster’s Paradise which is our 1200-dollar community that you can join where you get access to over 200 video tutorials, a community of over 2000 like-minded people that you can lean on for support and such, and that free course has given us that opportunity just like the ten months throughout the year that you’re touching, you know, your interest list.
SHANE: Right.
KATE: That 15 days is us being able to get in touch with those people who are interested in podcasting. So it’s just on a much tighter scale of course, to your point.
SHANE: But the great thing is though, if you really look at both strategies, they are exactly the same. Provide value, give-give-give-give-give, build relationships and then when you get people to that – when you’ve nurtured that relationship and you’ve got them to the point where they are like ‘I have got to go to the next level’, you have something there waiting for them. So it’s either you’re doing that over ten months or you’re doing that over two weeks. It doesn’t matter, it’s the same process: give-give-give, build relationships, and then help them get to the next level.
KATE: Yeah definitely; and did he mention something about targeting the parents instead of the students even though the product is actually for the student?
JOCELYN: Yes.
SHANE: Yeah, what do you think about that? When you got a product that reaches one audience but someone else is paying for it, like how do you go about that?
KATE: Yeah, that’s really interesting because typically we talk so much about knowing your avatar, who’s gonna be consuming your content, but when the person who is maybe handing over the money is different from that person, there’s a little bit of a wrench in it. I would definitely say that you know, knowing the students as well as Guy probably does, you know, he knows exactly what he’s offering them, what pain points do the parents have around that topic that you could hit on. So what’s keeping the parents up at night that your video series is solving the problem for it? Does that make sense?
SHANE: Yeah, it does totally. Basically it’s this; you know the product you want create and you know there’s a need for it, so basically it’s the copy of your product is relating to the kids, but the copy of your sales and marketing is relating to the parents. I think that’s what Guy’s got to do here, he’s just got to separate his messaging from his product and he’s got it pretty much down.
JOCELYN: Yeah, I think that that is –
SHANE: Great answer to that question.
JOCELYN: – spot on so yeah, I love it.
SHANE: Awesome.
JOCELYN: Kate, tell people where they can find you online and what you’re up to right now.
KATE: Yeah, I’m over at eofire.com and I love chatting with people via Twitter on @katelerickson.
SHANE: Well, thanks Kate for being on this show; that was a great answer to the question and for everybody out there listening, go out there, listen to what we talked about today, take action and flip your life. We’ll see you next time.
JOCELYN: Bye.
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