The Most Insanely Valuable Content Wins with Chenell Basilio

Allea Grummert (00:12)
Hey there, welcome to Happy Subscribers, a podcast that explores how bloggers and content creators can create more purposeful relationships with your audience through email marketing. I’m Ali Grimert, email marketing strategist, copywriter, email platform expert, and founder of the Done For You Email Marketing Agency, Duet. I started as a personal finance blogger in 2016 and have since helped hundreds of bloggers and creators like you maximize your email marketing for more impact, more traffic, and a better connection with your subscribers. Be prepared for some advanced email talk as well.

as tactical tips to help get your valuable content into the hands of your audience faster and easier. I’m excited you’re here, so let’s do it. We can create a deeper, more meaningful connection with the community you love and serve through email.

Today I get to bring on my friend Chanel Basilio as our guest. If you’ve never met Chanel, this is going to be a big day for you. Chanel started her newsletter, Growth in Reverse, after spending 60 hours studying one creator online, his growth towards growing and monetizing his newsletter to $300,000 in one year. She was like, I need to know more about this guy. And since then, she has been sharing all sorts of strategies that she’s been researching about other creators.

Through her newsletter and her own list has grown to over fifty thousand subscribers, where she says shares these same growth and reverse breakdowns on how different creators are growing and earning revenue from their newsletters. I met Chanel years ago and she and I were just talking, and we’re not exactly sure when we met. So it was probably it was either FinCon or Craft and Commerce, but it was definitely in person. And I’ve spoken her mastermind. I’ve heard her speak on stage and in workshops in person over the last few years, and it has

been such a joy to get to know her and now I’m excited to share her with you guys today. Welcome Chanel.

Chenell Basilio (02:05)
thanks for having me on the show, Allie.

Allea Grummert (02:07)
Yes, you’re so welcome. you guys are gonna learn. We have very different volumes. I feel like we should just call that what it is. Chanel’s so like sweet and quiet and I’m like, hello, welcome to the party. anything else, Chanel, about yourself that you wanna share with listeners before we dive in?

Chenell Basilio (02:24)
No, but when you were explaining how I got into this whole newsletter thing and spending sixty hours researching someone, I was like, Yeah, that sounds a little crazy when you say it that way

Allea Grummert (02:33)
You know what? I studied history in college. I have two degrees. One in advertising. So like super fun and like campaigns. And the other was like go read some old documents and write an essay about it. So like I loved r writing an essay about stuff and doing all that research. So it d it didn’t faze me at all. I’m just great. Yeah. And maybe I’m not neurotypical and maybe that’s why. I will watch all the documentaries on this one topic. those are my

There were days like Saturdays I would just sit and watch YouTube documentaries, like, I had twenty minutes of this and that and this. I’m like, tell me more about Queen Victoria’s cousin Arnold. Like, I wanna know everything.

Chenell Basilio (03:10)
You say used to, you don’t still do that? ‘Cause I do.

Allea Grummert (03:12)
I love that you still do. I’m kind of sad that I miss it. I don’t know what happened. I got really tired. I basically spend my Saturday mornings just like sipping coffee, staring out a window. I

Chenell Basilio (03:22)
That’s good. Yeah.

Allea Grummert (03:24)
love that you do that. And I’m sure that your readers, your newsletter readers, are super grateful for this as well. man, I just want to hit you with a question that’s not even on the list. That’s so mean. That’s so mean. No, I wanna say like of all the things in your years of doing this.

What do you feel like are the kind of the capstone things that you see in most, you know, high growth, high performing newsletters? Just like what are some of the like your biggest takeaways?

Chenell Basilio (03:54)
Yeah, I think the one that’s probably going to surprise you, or maybe not, is the people who have the most insanely valuable content win hands down every time. Like that is it. Like it’s the content. It’s not the growth tactics. It’s not the the new quiz that you’re gonna implement on Instagram, trial reels or anything. It’s actually just having insanely valuable content for your readers because they are going to then think it’s so good. They share it with other people.

And then they come back to it time and time again. They’re gonna reply to your newsletter, get all those good metrics going, and they will share it with their friends and all of the other growth stuff stuff just works better because the content is that good.

Allea Grummert (04:33)
my goodness, how do you define insanely valuable content?

Chenell Basilio (04:36)
I’ve tried to come up with a framework around it, but in short, it’s just like it’s the stuff that you see getting shared, saved, r forwarded to other people. They’re replying to your emails. That’s like the big one that is probably the easiest to see. I’ve tried to quantify these and like create zaps for if someone replies to a specific subject line, but it gets really messy fast. So in s in a sense, it’s just like qualitative and like, hey, I think that one did well because more people replied. But

Yeah, those are the things you really want to go after is like the actual connection, not just, I don’t know, hoping someone opens it and your open rate goes up because that metric is not very reliable anymore.

Allea Grummert (05:17)
Well, and I’m still newer to like how do we call it the content that’s very hook worthy, like Instagram and stuff, is and that’s hard for me ’cause it’s always kinda feels like I have this really valuable content, but now I need to make it sexy. And that’s where I feel like it breaks down and I’m like, Can y’all just read the article? It’s so helpful. Like is there kind of an element to making it hooky and intriguing in the email to get people to click through or to read the email?

Chenell Basilio (05:45)
Yeah.

And I think I think you can kind of think of it like a subject line, right? Like how do you get someone to open an email? Okay. You have some kind of format for a subject line that you think either works or your people just know that the stuff is so good they’re gonna open it because you’re the one sending it. And the subject line could be like dot dot dot, right? Yeah. So you if you build up that reputation, I think that can serve you super well. But also like if you can figure out a a specific subject line or format for that.

that helps. And then I guess we’re talking about most bloggers will send out an email with a bunch of links to different articles and stuff, right? So you might not have a bunch of the actual article inside of the email, which does change things a little bit. However, you can think of it just like giving them like the the what behind it and the why it’s gonna be important and maybe like, hey, I bet you weren’t thinking about it this way kind of sentence. Just to get them to click through.

Allea Grummert (06:42)
Yeah, that bit of intrigue is what I call it. Yeah. I love a good subject line. And I will say, like, one of the coolest things is being like, Well, I hope my list understands that this is from me. Like that the subject line isn’t so descriptive that it really is like, Ali only sends valuable things. This must be a teaser for something. like I had one that just said, Did you hear? And it’s like back I was like, What the folly

Chenell Basilio (07:08)
Like that one.

Allea Grummert (07:08)
did you hear? And it was about

My podcast. I was just like, hey, if you haven’t if you haven’t seen this or in the last six months, I started a podcast and I eventually added that to my welcome sequence. But the whole thing has the bits from Portlandia of like, did you read? Did you read? And then I of course had to explain the joke because no one’s, you know, I can’t peg their ages and be like, Were you in college around the time of Portlandia? but yeah, just like, did you read? And you’re like, What? or like three weeks three weeks back from vacation, zero meltdowns.

And just being like, What what does that mean? And then yeah, and then it goes into my podcast episode with my recap and all that claimant.

Chenell Basilio (07:49)
And the did you hear is like a double meaning too. I like it.

Allea Grummert (07:52)
What did you mean? What do you like into

Chenell Basilio (07:54)
Did you hear cause you listened?

Allea Grummert (07:55)
a podcast? I let it

Chenell Basilio (07:59)
Do you

Allea Grummert (07:59)
you know what? I think I knew that subconsciously. But thank you for explaining.

Chenell Basilio (08:04)
You got it. That’s why it works so well. Not just good.

Allea Grummert (08:07)
my gosh. yes. So I love that. So we have like there’s the relationship building piece where then when people receive an email from you, they’re like, I know you, I like you, I trust you enough. And there’s an I don’t need a whole I I don’t need you to spill it out for me why I need to open this email. I always like to kind of toe the line between descriptive and intrigue. probably to the dismay of my team. Sometimes they’re like, Is that that’s unclear? And I’m like,

So what if it is? That’s the point. Ship it. I’m just curious like how people respond to this. But other times, like I always say, like, I don’t want to give away the farm either in the subject line, but you don’t want to be so vague, or at least not vague all the time. I’m not like cryptic messages every Thursday I send an email. But it’s fun to play around with that because I think, yeah, that intrigue in an inbox can mean a lot.

Chenell Basilio (08:57)
Totally. And so usually I’m not either, but one I guess a couple of months ago, I was feeling like, I don’t know, whatever on a Friday and I was like, I’m just gonna send this email out. I had no plans for it. And the subject line was just like quick question. And it just said like, I really wanna know like what you wanna hear from me. And it was just l a legit question. There was nothing to click. And it was one of my highest reply days ever. And it was also one of my highest unsubscribed days ever ’cause I think people thought it was AI. They thought it was just like

Making something up and sending it.

Allea Grummert (09:30)
Not just like a person with curiosity who wants to serve you.

Chenell Basilio (09:33)
I know.

Wasn’t expecting that one, but also see ya.

Allea Grummert (09:38)
Yeah. man. I do have questions about unsubscribes here. I want to ask you shortly. but dear listener, we know you’re still there, even though Chanel and I are on our own little friendship high. But but Chanel and I were talking about beforehand because she teaches on how to build newsletters that basically the newsletter itself is your content. Like so this is where you’re producing content, this is where you have sponsorships. Chanel, you can correct me if I’m wrong.

Chenell Basilio (10:03)
Yeah, totally. It yeah.

Allea Grummert (10:04)
Okay. and how that differs from if you if you’re creating content elsewhere and email is being used as like a way to drive traffic to those places. And we’re not saying like obviously both work. Chanel herself, I mean, has her own newsletter. There are plenty of people like the newsletter is their business. And then I often work with content creators where a newsletter supports their business. But when I say newsletter, it’s more just like content driving. I don’t know.

There’s so many different ways to explain newsletter. Chanel, do you wanna take it from here? I’m sweating. I’m not doing a good job.

Chenell Basilio (10:38)
Well, and the best part is like it can be both. Like, if you look at the bones of my newsletter, yes, it’s something new every week, but I’m also linking out to my WordPress site. So technically it’s going to a blog as well. So

Allea Grummert (10:52)
Yeah.

Chenell Basilio (10:53)
but yeah, I I just I like the newsletter piece of it because it’s like, I don’t know, giving people new ish content. Now, that said, if you are a

Food blogger and you have 9,000 recipes, like you probably don’t need to necessarily create anything new. But you can have a mix of this. Like you can have maybe every other week it’s a new piece of content where you’re just sharing a new thing. Or in each email, you have like, here’s a recipe that didn’t make the cut on my site. Or I don’t know, like a funny Pinterest versus reality type thing.

I think that could be an interesting way to kind of keep it fresh and not just have it be like, here’s a thing that’s already living on my site and I’m just gonna send you there again. Yes. so I don’t know if that helps at all.

Allea Grummert (11:38)
Well, and I think about a few examples, like Gina from the Full Helping every weekend does like a week weekend recap, which is really just like her journaling, like old school blog style. And it goes onto her website and it gets sent out as an RSS email. But it’s this very like, I’m sitting down to write to my people kind of thing. And what’s crazy is that often it’s linking back to other people’s websites and their recipes, not even her own. And so it’s just this very value forward.

But also so intentional of how she sits down to write it that like is not just churning out another way to distribute content. It’s does that make sense?

Chenell Basilio (12:17)
It does. Yeah. I love when people do stuff like that.

Allea Grummert (12:20)
Yeah. And so and I Tony Okamoto from Plant Based on a Budget, she’s she’s been on the podcast before. We can link to it, but she talks about like her Friday emails are like where she shares her most vulnerable like personal stuff. Like you won’t find anything about her personal life on Instagram or whatever. So like that’s something that can be set apart and looked forward to by subscribers. So

Chenell Basilio (12:40)
Totally. Yep. Exactly.

Allea Grummert (12:42)
I am curious because

Oftentimes, like, right, we have our different league magnets to get people onto our newsletter to send them all this content. How do you see people positioning, like, say like that Friday email or that Sunday email? How do you if we were to say that that was their core newsletter offering, how do you promote that in a way that’s like shows why it matters, why you would even follow along with that person? Cause I feel like that’s what you’re an expert at of like, why would anybody sign up for just this newsletter? How are you selling it, if you will?

Chenell Basilio (13:14)
Yeah, and I almost wonder if that’s not the thing you sell to people when they sign up. And like so they come for the recipe or the lead magnet and then they stick around for that kind of thing. So like I don’t know that you necessarily need to be like, sign up to learn more about my personal life but

Allea Grummert (13:31)
You know what? Fair. Bucket holes in my theory.

Chenell Basilio (13:35)
But people love that stuff, as you were just saying. And I agree. Like it just it makes the the creator and the person that you’re following so much more human instead of just like this content that they keep pumping out and you’re like, I could never read all of this even if I wanted to. so I think it just kind of adds that extra personal touch and probably keeps people sticking around longer for the other stuff.

Allea Grummert (13:55)
Yeah. How do you determine what goes into that kind of hearty handwritten email once a week?

Chenell Basilio (14:05)
It’s a good question. And I I think you can also just have it be a piece of the email too. Like you can have your evergreen sequ like I I know somebody who has an email sequence that’s like eighty five emails long or even longer. And so it’s just like constant, like or eighty five weeks, I’m sorry. So like just consistent over and over again. And she can just like reuse that. and I’m sure you have ones that are even longer.

Allea Grummert (14:30)
Moments in my in the eighties as well. I was like, What at me? I’m right here.

Chenell Basilio (14:36)
But you can go back into those and add in like a kit snippet, right? That every week you just update that snippet. So you could say, Hey, this week on the podcast we talked to this person about this thing. And then it’s still bringing back kind of a more present day feel versus just having it be the same the whole time.

Allea Grummert (14:56)
Yes. We actually did that. And so somebody on my team just swaps out the title for it, but even the link to the podlink page is the same. So it’s like a really easy swap. I was just thinking we could probably do a little bit more of like painting the picture of why to listen to that episode. but you know

Chenell Basilio (15:16)
Do that.

Allea Grummert (15:18)
In the London th I mean scating on thin ice mentally and emotionally.

We all. I’m like, wow, yeah, no, there’s no way I could think more than the title episode of the episode. And you

Chenell Basilio (15:28)
No, you did it.

Allea Grummert (15:29)
We did it. Now we can dial it up. But yeah, I love that. So if y’all aren’t familiar with snippets in kit, it’s one my favorite advanced strategies. But you build this block, if you will, like think WordPress block, and if you change it in one place, it changes everywhere. So once a week my team just goes in and swaps out literally the title of the podcast. We’re not changing the album art or anything.

It’s just photo of me, my little podcast art, and then the title with a button to go listen. But it’s nice because I can update it one place and it changes in all eighty five emails that are going to go out that Tuesday with my evergreen content.

Chenell Basilio (16:05)
Brilliant.

Allea Grummert (16:06)
Snaps for snippets. Snaps for snippets. We love it. okay, so when I asked you like what all goes in that email, because I haven’t talked about this in ages. So in fifth grade, we had a computer lab, right? And we got Microsoft Publisher, I think that’s what it was, and we made a newsletter for the school. It was like the literal, like you print it out, it’s like a little newspaper, if you will. So you have a section on like sports, which is nothing in fifth grade. I don’t know what they did.

I remember being on like the feature. I was like, we get to interview the new principal. And it was Mr. Kuya. And I think we only did this one time. I don’t remember. Like it’s such a core memory. But you have all these kind of different sections. And that’s when I see these like really hearty newsletters. It’s like, here’s what’s happening here and here’s what’s happening here. And that’s oftentimes why it feels really overwhelming for people to like pick up a newsletter. but maybe even similar to like what we just talked about. What is kind of the bare minimum? And then six months later be like, maybe I could elaborate on that.

Or maybe I’d cho choose a different menu item if this feels like it’s being forced this week. But how are you how are you determining what is valuable for the reader, what’s valuable for your brand, what those different kind of sections and elements of a of a newsletter might be?

Chenell Basilio (17:21)
Yeah, I think this is a good point and I think a lot of people when they get started with their newsletter, they go way too hard, too fast. It’s like going to the gym, right? You think like I’m gonna just pick up the the heaviest weight and do the most things I can and then the next day you’re like, I’m never going back to the gym ’cause I feel horrible.

Allea Grummert (17:34)
Or

bad choices.

Chenell Basilio (17:38)
So I think it’s similar to that. So people start way too they’re like, I’m gonna do a daily newsletter with all of these things or whatever it is, two times a week. And then they have to scale it back, which feels weird for their audience if their audience was enjoying that cadence. And now it’s like, well, I’m gonna pull back even more. So what I like to do instead is go like bare minimum first. Like, can you write one email a week? If yes, great. Maybe do one thing in it first and then you can add multiple sections. so just try and do something sustainable and then you can always scale it up.

based on replies or clicks or what people are actually excited about. I’m a big fan of like and I think you are too like welcome sequences, like ask them what they want. What kind of content are you looking for? What’s your biggest problem or your struggle? and go from there. So I think that’s a good place to get started. And then over time, hopefully you’re getting more replies and you can build your content based off that.

Allea Grummert (18:31)
Mm-hmm. And even so I’ve been sending a consistent weekly email since October of 2019. That’s

Chenell Basilio (18:39)
Well

Allea Grummert (18:40)
like ancient. That was a long time ago. That was pre pandemic. That’s so wild. And it’s wild. And like it’s funny going back and looking at my old emails. I’m like, what a weak little poor thing. Like you’re out here lifting the two pound barbell, you know? Yeah.

Chenell Basilio (18:55)
Like.

Allea Grummert (18:57)
And but at the I always like to remind people too that

But at the time, what I had to share was valuable and it honest also still is valuable. And even though it’s not this like hearty email with snippets or linking back to blog posts, I didn’t have a website at the time. I was just emailing. And then six months after emailing, I turned those into blog posts. And did I have the time to go back and like link to those blog posts from those emails? Absolutely not. So click rate is nil. And that’s also fine because it’s still just value and I already created it. So

That being said, like there is so much room for continual growth over time and also don’t don’t belittle yourself in the content that you sent before. yeah, because you didn’t need to do more than that at the time. You just needed to practice getting your muscles stronger and getting in the habit.

Chenell Basilio (19:43)
And that’s one of the biggest things that people ask is like, how do I make a success successful newsletter? And like, just keep sending, like, don’t stop. Even if it’s like horrible one week and you’re just sending out like five sentences where it’s like, hey, just curious what you’re thinking about this week, like that’s okay. You hit the button send, like it’s all right. But I think once people you fall off one day and then the next week you don’t send out and then over time it’s just done. So if you can continue that streak, I think that is such a key piece of it.

Allea Grummert (20:10)
Yeah, I will say, like I I don’t know if there were very many times I gave myself grace to skip a week or two. I was like, and not because I thought anybody would notice or anybody would be mad. It’s more just like, I need to know that I’m not being inconsistent. And so sometimes it’ll look like, well, here are three blog posts for beginners on my website. Go. And just send it. Is it my ideal audience for client work? No. Like, but the content already exists or I already have this resource, just send it out.

And so no yeah, not every week needs to be like, you know, creating the Mona Lisa.

Chenell Basilio (20:45)
Correct. And you’re allowed to repurpose content.

Allea Grummert (20:48)
Say it again. I love repurposing content. And so sometimes it is. And that’s like what’s really fun. And what I love about working with our clients is they’ll come to us with like a thousand blog posts. And you’re like, okay, how do we organize these into groups? Like, is it a menu where we provide like a variety of content, or is it like three chicken crock pot meals? Just pick one to make this week. And so I think that that’s really fun, like creating the patterns of how you group content.

That being said, let’s go back to the idea of the different sections of a newsletter. Do you kind of cause I know you have a mastermind, how are you teaching people? I was gonna get into your brain real quick. but like I know for me when I have my newsletter, I have kind of like a menu of ideas or options and things like add a PS or remind them to forward this email to a friend or ask for a reply. Cause I kind of have that menu of options. Do you kind of have like a menu of like what different sections could look like? Or does that just kind of come out of naturally emailing your list and hearing from them?

Chenell Basilio (21:47)
Yeah, I think it naturally comes out of hearing from your list. And some of those things that you mentioned are great examples. Like always have a PS if you can. I would say like ninety-eight percent of the time you probably should. just because people that’s what people read the most. Like I think PSs get more clicks oftentimes than the actual link in the middle of an email or above it. So it’s a ’cause sometimes people just scroll to the bottom. They’re like, What is what’s the T L Dr? I wanna know the ending.

so I think if you don’t put a PS, that’s probably missing a little bit of an opportunity there. And it could just be a question, it could just be something funny, like, hey, by the way, this was inspired this subject line was inspired by Portlandia. Like that’s fun. It builds relationships with your readers.

Allea Grummert (22:30)
Yeah. I like that. So it’s not really it’s not a wasted space, even if it’s just like reinforcing the personality behind the brand.

Chenell Basilio (22:38)
Yeah. And that’s where your most like engaged people are gonna be. So that’s where I would put all the good stuff is in the PS.

Allea Grummert (22:44)
My gosh, give me more. What else do you know? So guys, Chanel does this at conferences. She does like what do they call it? Like newsletter teardowns, but probably nicer. Is it for

Chenell Basilio (22:53)
Light roasts.

Allea Grummert (22:55)
roast? I’m like, show me what you got and I will because Chanel’s the nicest person on earth. She’s not gonna be like, Well, you suck. She’s like, Well, you could have tried this. but yeah, like what are you seeing tactically? It’s like similar to that, like a PS. Are there any like other types of consistency things?

Chenell Basilio (23:13)
Yeah, I think the PS is good. what else? That’s probably like the big one that I’m seeing. other than that, like the pieces of your actual email can fluctuate as we were mentioning, based on like what you’re seeing. But I always like to recommend people put in links to like fun resources, like you were mentioning the woman before where she puts in links to other people’s recipes or other people’s content. I think that’s so good.

there’s a this is totally different than bloggers, but there’s a daily newsletter called 1440. And it’s essentially the news and like politics of what’s happening without any bias. But at the end, they have a section that says, it’s like fun links. So it’s like, did you know the octopus has X number of eyes or whatever? Or like, here’s where you could find out how the fall foliage schedule is looking this year. and they’ll just have like fun links that other people can click on that are just

lighthearted. You didn’t know you wanted to look at them, but it’s just like, I don’t know. And then side note, this helps your your click rate so you can see who’s actually like engaging with your content. So it’s selfish as well. And also gives people something fun to do.

Allea Grummert (24:24)
It’s like help me, help you, help me. Yes. I love it. I did recently start a snippet in the last six months just called like like basically like what’s on my radar. And so sometimes it can be like like there was an interview with Ben Sass earlier this year. And he’s so he’s a former congressman, state representative. You know what? I don’t know, but he’s from Nebraska and I knew his name. And but he’s dying of cancer and he had this really wonderful deep interview. And like while it’s not like on brand.

But he does talk about AI and stuff too. And I’m like, y’all go listen to this. Cause he’s also like, send your kids outside to play. We can’t just focus on development this way or else we’re gonna lose things this way. And I’m like, I just need a place to start sending those things. And sometimes it looks like MailChimp is running a special or kit is running a special if you move over from MailChimp. Things like that. Like I need a quick way to do it. But now I wanna drop the one with the pan Have you seen the polar bear who’s obsessed with the traffic cone?

Chenell Basilio (25:18)
No.

Allea Grummert (25:19)
yeah, he’s new on threads this week.

over the weekend. He’s like obsessed. I think it’s pink. It’s like a pink traffic cone. And he just keeps putting it on his head and you’re like, yeah, the world needs to see more of this. So that’s another Are you looking it up?

Chenell Basilio (25:29)
Awesome. Yeah. Yes.

Allea Grummert (25:33)
Yeah. we’ve got Jimothy the raccoon who’s a slightly

Chenell Basilio (25:40)
Okay.

Allea Grummert (25:40)
Jimothy. and then there was Pancho. Poncho, the the little monkey earlier this year. So

Chenell Basilio (25:47)
yes, yes, yes.

Allea Grummert (25:48)
yeah, maybe I need to make sure that my

My pop culture stuff. The the stuff showing up on my algorithm gets shared with my list ’cause it’s so delightful.

Chenell Basilio (25:55)
Yeah, you should definitely include those.

Allea Grummert (25:57)
Okay, I can do that. notes from a friend, and it’ll just be like, who which friend this week? I’ll be like, on his head today. Where’s the goon? cool. So okay, so I want to kind of tie in. We’ve thought it through like kind of the different pieces of an email. We want it to be insanely valuable content. What do you what’s the mindset for sitting down to write that content, Chanel? Because if you want it to be insanely valuable, what’s like what’s the

What’s the focal point when you sit down to write?

Chenell Basilio (26:30)
Yeah, I think it this is gonna be different for everybody, but for me it’s like what like I know somebody has this specific problem, like how can I explain it to them like they were my best friend? Like if I was sitting there trying to give them all the answers that they needed and was trying to help the help them with this specific thing, like how could I do that? And for me, my content is usually like super in-depth. I have screenshots, there’s charts, like research, et cetera. Yes. so I will include those things. And

It but in the beginning, like when I was starting this, as you mentioned, I was just super curious. And thankfully I found a lot of other people who are super curious about this too. And so what I send out generally is what they are excited about. Not always, but sometimes. and so I think you can kind of lean into like the people follow you for your taste. And so if you’re excited about what you’re creating, that’s a big piece of this. Like just lean into having fun and being curious and

doing what you were excited to do and I think a lot of people are gonna follow you for that.

Allea Grummert (27:32)
That’s a soundbite if I ever heard one. I’m like sitting on that still. I’m like, I don’t know, I missed the end of your sentence. People follow you for your taste. That means so much though, because we are each, we’re each individuals, you know. And I’ve I’ve had to think about this with AI. And like, I run a copywriting business, right? We’re like, yeah, AI could write your emails, but it can’t can’t substitute for taste. Even just like what we allow to say, this is quality enough to even go to a client.

taste or how we frame our structure of the email sequences we do. So I think that that’s really encouraging because no one else is exactly like you online, even if there are fifteen hundred other sourdough breadmakers totally with the blog.

Chenell Basilio (28:15)
Yeah. And they might not all talk about Momota, the polar bear with his cone on his head, right? But you know that’s happening. AI’s not gonna pull that thread together.

Allea Grummert (28:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I this kind of this all goes back to being human. Like people want to know that you’re a person. You know, I think about like even my sourdough breakers to have examples like ones in New Zealand. You know, like your life in New Zealand is gonna be totally different than someone’s in California. And your Andrew

Chenell Basilio (28:40)
Nixon is awesome.

Allea Grummert (28:42)
Ax and you do more videos. Kate, this one’s for you. We wanna hear it. And so yeah, like this is like these are different elements of who you are that need to be shared with the world.

Joshua Becker, the minimalist for I can’t remember the name of his actual website.

Chenell Basilio (29:01)
Minimalist something.

Allea Grummert (29:02)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so sorry, Joshua.

Chenell Basilio (29:05)
Becoming minimalist.

Allea Grummert (29:08)
I met him at FinCon in twenty sixteen when I was a wee blogger with five blog posts. And then my question was, why would anybody listen to me? And I think that we maybe still have that same question over time. Or especially when we’re shifting gears and we’re not just doing the same old, same old. And you’re like, but why would anybody care about this part of my life or this part of my business? And it’s him saying, Allie, nobody else is just like you with your experience and your perspective. So go share it. And it was like, don’t mind if I do. Just needed a little bit of permission.

And sometimes.

Chenell Basilio (29:37)
Yeah. Sometimes

we forget, like you said. And so just giving yourself that permission again to do it again is

Allea Grummert (29:43)
Good.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. let’s talk about some of the biggest questions that I get. The two that came to mind that I think you’d be the most suitable to answer for me. Chanel, how do people grow their lists when they’re growing a newsletter? You know, so it’s not just like, hey, come join my newsletter, I share all this wonderful, valuable stuff. They’re probably coming in through a lead magnet, perhaps? Is that what you’re kind of?

Chenell Basilio (30:08)
Could

be. yeah. And this changes over time, but it also stays the same. Like lead magnets work. It’s just like, how are you doing the lead magnet? So what I’m seeing a lot right now is like quizzes are doing really well again, like they did and then kind of fell off and now they’re back.

Allea Grummert (30:24)
Yes.

Chenell Basilio (30:25)
and the beauty of it is like if you wanna use the dreaded AI, you could build your own, which I did last week, which is super fun.

And then it automatically like ports into kit custom fields. And now I can email those people specifically and super fun. but yeah, so you can build a quiz is a great lead magnet and it’s a great jumping off point to then have like different segments on the back end if you wanted to get crazy with your emails, which I love doing. So quizzes

Allea Grummert (30:52)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio (30:54)
mixed with Instagram video is like awesome right now because many chat is just like unmatched.

Allea Grummert (31:01)
Like it’s just popping off. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio (31:03)
I don’t even use many chat, but I should.

Allea Grummert (31:06)
Yeah. Well, have you heard of Grocers List, which is now goes by Grow? It’s really similar. but they have a DM strategy and it’s even easier from what I understand is that you don’t even have to go in and set up an automation each time. It just reads the link and sends the link based on your stuff. So you don’t need like a different word. Like you could use recipe all of the time and just it’s associated with the link that’s in the caption.

Chenell Basilio (31:29)
Yes, okay, I did hear about this.

Allea Grummert (31:31)
Yep, super easy. So yeah, so having some sort of DM strategy. I also have a friend who she did a DM strategy with them and included a carousel. So like when they replied, got a link to like the resource, a link to her cookbook, and a link to the digital cookbook, just all in the DM.

Chenell Basilio (31:48)
Yeah.

Allea Grummert (31:49)
Right. I mean it’s that’s sexy stuff.

Chenell Basilio (31:51)
It is

I’m excited to go dig in. Can we get off this call signally?

Allea Grummert (31:55)
So

I’m like I have one other tool I want to share with you. This is a sidebar. It has nothing to do with growth necessarily. But you know what? It might have to do with our next question. anything else you want to share about with list growth?

Chenell Basilio (32:07)
There’s so much here. I mean, we could spend an hour. It’s just like one of my favorite things is looking at someone’s newsletter and being like, you should try this thing. Cause I’ve seen some like there are hundreds of ways I’ve seen people grow a newsletter. And so I’m like, go do that. That’s like perfect for your news. It’s just hard to give a specific one, but quizzes seem to be like overarching doing well. I talked about this at a conference recently and I was like, guys, they’re still working. Here are three examples.

And then somebody who was in the audience went, made a quiz and their first week with their quiz, they had like thirty nine hundred subscribers join their lists. And I was like, Yep, told you, still working. It was from threads. It wasn’t even like Instagram. Yeah.

Allea Grummert (32:47)
Love that. I actually worked up a quiz for myself last week. I was using AI, I was developing like getting all my brand thoughts and everything into it. And the way it generated this perfect quiz was like insane. And it was on brand because it has all my brand colors. And I was like, how quickly can I ship this? Like, this would be so fun. So I love hearing that quizzes work. And there’s just something about people wanting to know more about themselves or and or I’d say probably more about getting.

To know themselves. Like, do you know who I am? I don’t know if you know who to wait, you know who how did you know? Is like the response we want them to have. But also like if you can simplify the types of resources and direction that they want to go, that’s also a huge plus.

Chenell Basilio (33:29)
Yeah. And it could be something simple. And you could build the quiz inside of ManyChat or Grow or whatever and say like, Hey, what which of these four things are you looking to do? And it’s like, I want to learn more about welcome sequences. And you’re like, Great, here are my top four podcast episodes on welcome sequences.

Allea Grummert (33:46)
Yes.

Chenell Basilio (33:47)
And you can just send them those links. And yeah. So it doesn’t have to be like a full blown quiz either. It could just be a couple of questions.

Allea Grummert (33:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love it. okay. So the other big question is how to sustain your list. So a lot of folks have, you know, I’ve seen this over the last like nine months or so, or folks are like, My list isn’t really growing. If anything, it grows a little bit, but then I get unsubscribed. And so it’s just kind of staying stagnant. Have you seen that? Any diagnoses for that? Or is that like across the board? What have you what have you to say?

Chenell Basilio (34:21)
Yeah.

Well, I honestly it’s just like it’s math, right? So if you have 0.2% of your people are unsubscribing every time you send an email, if you’re not growing by that, every time you send an email, you’re gonna go your list is gonna shrink. but that is normal. I also think like it’s just one of those things as you get larger, you kind of have to keep the growth train moving if you want. this is often like after a few tens of thousands of subscribers, you probably wanna incorporate like

Facebook ads or some other way to, you know, get new people into your ecosystem. Don’t recommend paid ads for new people, but as you’re like building out something and you already have a proven process, like I think that’s a great way to go. But but yeah, I mean it happens. And I think if you can just I mean, people are gonna unsubscribe, emails are gonna bounce, someone’s gonna change their email and not update it in your in your email list and they’re gonna leave. So like it just happens.

Allea Grummert (35:19)
Yeah.

Chenell Basilio (35:19)
Yeah.

But it’s okay. Like the number is not everything. It’s really like the revenue you’re bringing in, like how many people are you impacting and getting to reply. But it can be disheartening to see that number go down for sure.

Allea Grummert (35:30)
Sure.

It really can. And you know, and I just met with a new client sh and she’s just like, I have how many page views a year? Like how how do I only have a list of four thousand? And so while I have you, I mean, do you have any resources for like list growth from website traffic?

Chenell Basilio (35:46)
Yeah, I think just thinking through off the top of my head, page speed is huge. like I think if somebody is not able to load the page fast and then this probably comes like with the whole old the whole SEO thing, which I don’t know, RIP, not RIP, but it’s it’s getting worse. so people are probably already doing that, but if you haven’t checked your page speed page speed in a while, probably want to check that out.

and then just making sure you actually have forms for people to fill out. Like I think oftentimes we were like, yeah, I have a form on the sidebar or and in the footer and it’s like, Cool, if you’re on mobile, where does somebody see that? Is it

Allea Grummert (36:25)
Anywhere end. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio (36:27)
So you want to kind of keep those things in mind and like go through your site as a user who has no context of what you do. And so, okay, I’m on the homepage. Do I have an email subscribe box at the top? If you don’t, that’s a huge missed opportunity. And so many people come to me and they’re Chanel, I want to grow my email list. And I go to their homepage. I’m like, Do you really though? Because it’s not anywhere on your page. so put it in the menu bar, like free recipes every week or whatever the.

the call to action is. so I think just like having these opportunities for people to join your list is number one. And then prioritizing that and making it feel like exciting for them to actually join is probably number two.

Allea Grummert (37:11)
Yeah. I will say so I audit we audit clients kind of setups all the time. And we’re looking inside their kit or flow desk or whatever. And then we’re also looking at their website with these fresh eyes. And, you know, I think that they’re it’s safe to say there’s a conflict, right? Because they’re creating this website to be content forward and then we’re coming and saying, Yeah, but you need some s way some way of capturing it. So we can they kinda have to go back and work with their developers. And like there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s part of the thought process of like, okay, so the next time when you redesign your website, can you do both? Can you

also prioritize having your email boxes on your top of the fold at the very bottom of the website anywhere because you know that’s where people scroll too. They’re like, how do I subscribe? And just like have a box. Have a box. It’s gonna be yeah. And so like it’s it’s not how many times I’ve gone looking and I’m like, I can’t find your forms for nothing. Like get in there. which is

Chenell Basilio (38:03)
Like

Allea Grummert (38:03)
change you can make quickly. Go ahead.

Chenell Basilio (38:05)
Totally. And if you think about it, like as Google takes traffic away from people and stuff, like you want to do this now. Like don’t wait for a full website redesign. Like make sure you have these opportunities for people to sign up because once they’re on your email list, you can talk to them again. You can reach out to them every week or twice a week or whatever your cadence is and like build that relationship. But if they’re coming to your site for one thing and then they’re leaving right away, like that’s you you’re not able to go back and talk to them again. So it’s kind of frustrating when you think about it.

but if you can capture those emails then you can start that conversation, build more content for them and and that kind of thing.

Allea Grummert (38:41)
Yeah. And see if you agree with this, Janelle, because I always like, if I had to answer the question, which one do you do first? List growth or email, like start emailing your list, I always say start emailing your list because it’s way more fun to grow your email list when you know they’re going to get something valuable. It’s super hard to be like, I’m growing all the like now. I have a thousand people and I haven’t sent them an email or I’m sending them one email a month. Would you agree with that? Email then grow?

Chenell Basilio (39:07)
I would agree with that unless you haven’t started sending anything yet. I have there’s a guy named Tom Alder and now he has over a hundred thousand email subscribers on his list. But for a long time on he was on LinkedIn publishing content every day on LinkedIn, just like posting. And he was after a while he’s like, I’m gonna start a newsletter, but I’m not gonna do it yet. If you wanna get on the wait list, join here. So then when he launched, he had five thousand email subscribers. He knew immediately what was working.

He wasn’t feeling like, I have to send this email out to my three subscribers next week. so there’s a couple ways to do it and whatever feels more comfortable for you. But I don’t know, thinking about it, I’d probably personally rather have like the five thousand email subscribers than start sending and like slow down growth. Yeah. For too long.

Allea Grummert (39:53)
I like it. Yeah.

okay, so I want to go back to deliverability and then I’ll wrap up because I know you have you have other things to do with your time. but it’s really fun. I learned about a new tool. my friend Alyssa created it called SendGain. Okay,

Chenell Basilio (40:07)
Yeah.

Allea Grummert (40:08)
so there’s did you know there’s a new feature on there that you can set up to say if you if they reply to this email, they can get a tag added in kit?

Chenell Basilio (40:16)
no I did not.

Allea Grummert (40:17)
And it’s set up through your Gmail. You can also say like reply gift.

And I’ll email you the gift. So when they reply, and then it’s set up through the autoresponder, like to send it, will send them a separate email. So it really encourages people to reply back, and you can keep track if you want of who those people are. So it could be around a campaign, it could just be in general. so you actually know who those engaged people are.

Chenell Basilio (40:41)
This is almost like many chat for email. Yes.

Allea Grummert (40:45)
Yes. She just told me about this like at the beginning of the summer and I was like, we’re gonna need that ASAP.

Chenell Basilio (40:51)
interesting.

Allea Grummert (40:52)
I know, I’m excited. yeah. And she’s working on making that even easier to get set up with Google. Right now, when you’re logging in, it looks a little scary because it has to give you like you have to give it all this access. but she’s like, trust the process, that’s part of it. You know. but yeah, so then you can you can mark them as red in your email. Yeah, I’m really excited for that.

Chenell Basilio (41:13)
‘Cause right now I have this like Frankenstein zap setup where I’m like every time someone replies to this email that has this subject line, a zap fires and it tags them in kit and it’s just like a mess. Yeah. So this is way better.

Allea Grummert (41:28)
Yep. I I will then release you to go play with that this afternoon because it’s already ready for you. I know what you’re doing the rest of the day. If you do yeah, eliminating those zaps that can so easily break. Yes. Very cool. that’s awesome. Yeah. So my hope with that, by sharing that listener is that when you have people reply back to your emails, it means that they’re more likely to land in their the folks’ inboxes and it’s gonna give you a better sending do like domain re reputation, if you will.

And so getting replies back is like Alyssa has told me, she’s like getting replies back is like the number one way to start landing in the primary inbox. And so what’s super cool is you could build this into your welcome sequence. So if people reply back, if you just know that like you’re getting really good new subscriber engagement from the get go.

Chenell Basilio (42:18)
That’s like the number one thing I tell people in a welcome email. I’m like you could have nothing else in your welcome email and just say, Hey, thanks for signing up. Curious what what’s today? What color, what’s your favorite color? Like pick something to get them to reply so that you actually get that higher deliverability signal. Cause it is, it’s so important and it makes everything else down the line so much more impactful.

Allea Grummert (42:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like it kind of goes back to like if you have that set up in your welcome sequence and you go to grow your list, you’re no you’re growing your list with really active people. Those are the people who are sticking around. And then to have some sort of cold subscriber cleanup that happens automatically, you can do that in kit after so many days of them not opening an email or they don’t have that engaged click tag or reply tag, then you know that you can unsubscribe them and then your list stays clean and you’re not sending emails to people who aren’t opening it, therefore landing you back in the spam folder.

We don’t want that. We don’t want

Chenell Basilio (43:09)
Exactly.

Allea Grummert (43:11)
it. Chanel, any like soapbox statement, hot take you wanna say before we wrap up?

Chenell Basilio (43:21)
I would just just because it’s top of mind. Like AI is very good for some things, but don’t delegate your thinking and your creativity to AI because that is what people follow you for, and that’s what people keep coming back to your newsletter and your email list for. And so if you can hold strong and stay a human for just a little bit longer, I am almost certain that.

The pendulum is gonna swing back and the people who aren’t using AI to create their content are gonna be s in such a better place than the people who are just like hacking it together right now.

Allea Grummert (43:51)
A man. I love it. I’m like, yes, hold on to being human in your content as much as possible. Yeah. That doesn’t have to be the most efficient part of your business.

Yes. All right. Sizzle. Man, I came back from I came back from a a well rested weekend. Y’all are getting a fiery version of me. Love this. I should have watched you should know. I’ve only had one cup of coffee. I am firing. thank you, friend, so much for making time to get together and chat. It’s good to see you outside of a conference, but I look forward to seeing you in person again soon.

Chenell Basilio (44:27)
Thanks for having me on.

Allea Grummert (44:28)
My friend Alyssa is a deliverability expert. She knows everything about email and how to avoid being in a spam folder and how to actually show up in the inboxes of the subscribers that you’re wanting to email. And she said the number one way of showing up in the primary inbox is by getting people to reply back to your marketing emails. She also created a tool called Send Gauge, which helps with deliverability and making sure that you’re showing up.

Without too many spam complaints that cause issues. And one of the features in SendGage is that you can actually have your list reply back to different emails or different reply words that SendGage will be on the lookout for to send them a special gift or to tag them in kit. So there’s an incentive there for them to reply. You deliver it while SendGage delivers the resource. And then by doing that,

It’s helping to improve your sender reputation. So it’s kind of like a DM strategy like you see on Instagram, but for your email list. And when you work so hard to grow your email list, you want to engage those subscribers as much as you can.

Because you don’t want people on your list who are not opening, because it affects your sender reputation, and then your emails aren’t getting delivered to the people who do want them. SendGage gives you a way to provide an incentive for people to reply back to your emails, a way to track it, and overall help with your deliverability and ensure that you can email your list and show up in the primary inbox. So go check it out at sendgage.com. Go to the show notes and I’ll include my affiliate link that’ll get you a seven-day free trial and for a limited.

number of people you can also get ten dollars off each month forever. So go check that out now.

Thanks so much for listening to Happy Subscribers in our conversation about email marketing today. I hope you feel inspired to take action, even if it’s a small change, so you can more confidently share your valuable message with your community through email. Special thanks goes to my team who makes it possible to produce and share these episodes with you. Seriously, thank you guys. If you want to hear more email marketing tips, strategies, and success stories to help you develop deeper, more meaningful relationships with your email subscribers, be sure to subscribe to Happy Subscribers so you don’t.

miss an episode. If you have a few seconds, I invite you to share this episode link with a friend or post it on social media so your peers and community can benefit from it as well. And if you have a few minutes, I’d appreciate if you’d leave a written review of the podcast, since that helps more people hear about it. And I believe we need more creators sending more valuable emails to their audience with more confidence. If you want to reach out to me directly, the best way to do that is to join my email list through one of my top freebies listed in the show notes. You’ll get regular emails from me that are packed with value and if you hit

reply to any of those emails, it’ll land in my inbox and I can’t wait to chat with you there. Until next time, let’s Duett.