The Power of Adapting: Turning Challenges into Opportunities
Life's Unexpected Turns and Business Decisions
As entrepreneurs, many of us have faced moments where personal and professional life collide, creating an overwhelming whirlwind of decisions. Amy, the host of The Motivated CEO Podcast, shares an intimate glimpse into one such moment. In the midst of launching a new business challenge, Amy confronted a significant family health crisis. Her initial reaction was one many can relate to – a desire to quit. However, she chose curiosity over defeat, using the situation to experiment with her business approach.
Viewing Your Business as an Experiment
Amy advocates for a mindset shift, urging us to see our businesses as experiments rather than a series of fixed outcomes. When life threw a curveball, she decided to test and observe rather than adhering strictly to her initial plans. This mindset allowed her to adapt and find a new path forward, demonstrating that flexibility and curiosity can unlock new opportunities even when circumstances seem dire.
The Decision to Focus on Email Marketing
Faced with limited energy and resources, Amy decided to pivot her promotional strategy for her new challenge – The Unplugged Challenge. Traditionally, much of her business engagement came through social media channels. However, social media’s constant noise and decreasing engagement rates motivated her to shift focus to her email list. Amazingly, this change yielded double the usual conversion rate, revealing key insights about her audience and marketing effectiveness.
The Hidden Potential of Email Marketing
Amy’s experience shed light on a crucial yet often underappreciated channel: email marketing. Her findings corroborate industry statistics which show that email engagement rates are substantially higher than social media. Here’s what makes email marketing so potent:
1. Direct Connection to a Warm Audience
Unlike the transient nature of social media scrolling, email goes directly to recipients who have shown prior interest. Amy noted that her email list had a 60% open rate, reflecting a highly engaged audience. These individuals are already warm leads, more inclined to interact with well-crafted content tailored to their needs.
2. Higher Conversion Rates
Email marketing allows for targeted, personalized communication that enhances conversion rates. Amy’s experiment resulted in a conversion rate significantly above industry standards. By focusing her limited energy on crafting compelling email content, she saw better results compared to social media posts, which often get lost in the noise.
3. Better Data Analytics
Email marketing platforms provide robust analytics that help fine-tune strategies. Amy utilized A/B testing with different subject lines to optimize open rates and engagement. Such detailed data allows for iterative improvements, paving the way for informed business decisions.
Social Media: A Portfolio, Not the Cornerstone
Amy’s reflection that social media should be viewed more as a portfolio than a primary marketing tool is a game-changer. Social media does play a crucial role in establishing brand presence and legitimacy, but it need not be the focal point of your marketing efforts. Think of it as a digital business card – it’s valuable for conveying legitimacy and creative work, but engagement and conversions are driven more powerfully through other channels, like email.
Balancing Life and Business: Embrace the Ripple Effect
Importantly, Amy’s story inspires a broader reflection on the interplay between life and business. When life happens, as it inevitably will, viewing setbacks as experimental opportunities can lead to unexpected victories. This adaptable mindset not only benefits your business but also creates a ripple effect – by solving your problems effectively, you enable others to solve theirs, contributing to a larger cycle of positive impact.
Conclusion: Cheers to Adapting and Succeeding
In conclusion, Amy’s narrative from The Motivated CEO Podcast highlights the importance of adaptability, curiosity, and strategic pivots. By leveraging her email list amid personal challenges, she discovered a more effective marketing channel and highlighted a crucial lesson: life’s lemons can indeed be transformed into lemonade through strategic experimentation and a positive mindset.
So, the next time life throws you off course, remember Amy’s story. Embrace the curveballs, pivot strategically, and leverage the quiet power of email marketing. Cheers to making the money you want so you can create the impact you desire!
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Transcript for Episode 349. Launching an Offer Without Social Media
Amy [00:00:03]:
Last week, I almost completely pulled the plug, threw in the towel, all of the things life gave us, a bushel full of lemons. But as the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade out of it, right? And that's what we did. So little backstory. I am in the middle of a launch. I was launching a brand new three day challenge for you to help you regain control of your business.
Amy [00:00:46]:
The unplugged challenge. Well, in the midst of this launch, my daughter was dealing with some health issues. So we end up having to go in, get biopsies done. And then last week it was confirmed and we got the diagnosis and it was life changing. She was just diagnosed with something that literally she will have for the rest of her life and there is no cure for. Luckily, it is not life threatening, but it's still a major change. And I found myself overwhelmed. I found myself frustrated.
Amy [00:01:23]:
I found myself going, do I continue with the launch of this new challenge? What do I do? I'm trying to list, build right now. I'm trying to serve others. Meanwhile, on the inside, I'm crumbling. I'm barely surviving. I even showed up to a coffee chat with one of my friends and I'm like, listen, I just need a pep talk this week because life is lifeing. I'm just ready to throw my hands up in the air and say, I don't know what to do. I'm scared because I don't know how to navigate this. And amongst all of the chaos, the kids are starting at a completely new school.
Amy [00:02:04]:
So we have all of these changes happening all at once. So the temptation to quit was really, really strong. Like, okay, if I quit now, nobody will really know. Do the cute quit, right? So what I decided, I decided, you know what? I'm going to use this as an opportunity to get curious, to do something I preach about all the time on here, which is viewing your business as nothing more than an experiment. And so that's what I decided to do. I decided, okay, right now, I do not have the energy or the mental capacity to be on social media every single day promoting this challenge. But what I did have scheduled were the emails to go out to my email list. And I know on average, when I send out information about a free incentive, whether that be a challenge, whether it be a workshop, whether it be any of the things I have about a 2% conversion rate, which is really industry standard.
Amy [00:03:03]:
So I decided to get curious because my social media conversions are much lower than that. Even though I have more followers on social media than I have on my email list, those that are on my email list are much more engaged. I've got an open rate of over 60%. So I got to thinking. I'm like, okay, why don't I use this as an opportunity to market this free challenge solely via email? I had talked about it maybe one or two times over on Instagram. I think I did one post, I talked about it a couple of times in my stories. But I did not put any effort into the social media promotion of this program. And I just had to detach, I had to detach from the outcome and go, okay, I am going to use this purely for data and see what happens.
Amy [00:04:00]:
Can I tell you what? I had double the conversion rate that I normally do, and that was solely by marketing this free challenge via email. So this proves a very important point. What does this tell me? This is further affirmation that social media is just one way to market your business. Marketing your business through channels where your leads are already warm is much more effective in many circumstances. Granted, I have had this email list for a while. It's not like I just started it. I've been regularly emailing my list for quite some time now, but they have a very engaged audience. The fact that approximately 60% of people are opening the emails the first time they get signed, and that's not even factoring in like the resend campaign.
Amy [00:04:59]:
So if you don't open it once in a while, if it's a certain email, we'll retarget then and send it out again and test it with a different headline. Again, a to b testing. We're getting that beautiful data. But think about it this way. On social media, less than 10%, some statistics say it's even less than 5% of people are actually seeing your posts. So this is the data that really drove me to go, hmm, okay, do I want to pour my energy, this little bit of energy that I have left into marketing in a place I know on average 60% of people are going to see it, or do I want to put my time and energy into an avenue where on average five to 10% are going to see it? And it worked. It absolutely worked. And what does this tell us? It tells us information.
Amy [00:06:01]:
It gives us data as to where we can better focus our time, focus our energy. And it truly shows, hey, it doesn't always have to be social media all the time. It does not. Social media is such a noisy place and think about your own behaviors when you go on social media. What are you doing? A lot of times we're going on there because there's something else we're avoiding doing or we just need to get a laugh for the day. Right? I can't tell you how many just reels and memes and funny things my husband and I send back and forth that have nothing to do with business. For many consumers, social media is an escape. They're not looking to learn something.
Amy [00:06:56]:
They're not looking to, you know, use it as a source of knowledge. Oftentimes it's a, it's used for entertainment. Again, this depends on your platform. Yes, but think about email. Email is much more quiet. People are constantly scrolling. They're scrolling social media in their email. They're seeing oh, so and so wrote me an email.
Amy [00:07:22]:
Let me see what it's all about. Especially if you have a really compelling subject line in there. I think that's the key, is kind of getting that curiosity peaked. Hook them in. People will start getting curious. They want to hear what you have to say. Social is loud. Email is quiet.
Amy [00:07:42]:
So the next time you're finding yourself just overwhelmed with the social media world, with doing all of the things all of the time, just realize that you don't have to. That social media is just one piece of the puzzle. One of my friends, she put it perfectly. She's like, you know, for a lot of business types, social media is more so just your portfolio. It's there to show, yeah, I'm a legitimate business. I exist to serve. Here's an example of my work. You know, if I'm for you, great.
Amy [00:08:13]:
If I'm not, no big deal. Because again, you bring the solution that someone needs to the table. They have a problem, you have their solution. So we need to get you in front of them so that they can solve the problem that they have. And think about it. When you're helping them solve the problem they have, then they can help others solve the problems that they have. It creates this massive ripple effect, and it is absolutely beautiful. So I am here to encourage you.
Amy [00:08:52]:
Guess what? Life is going to life. Life is going to happen. But the next time that life throws you that big old bushel of lemons, get curious and make that lemonade out of it. I am here cheering for you. And until next time, cheers to making the money you want so you can create the impact you desire to.
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