Email Marketing Strategies to Grow Your List in the Age of AI

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI.

Allea Grummert (00:12.066)
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 Allie Grimmert, 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.

Allea Grummert (00:59.886)
So today’s podcast episode is a little bit different. It’s actually a guest interview where I was a guest on Tracy Beaver’s podcast. Now, Tracy was on Happy Subscribers in 2025, and then I got to be on her podcast. And I just thought this conversation was so helpful and insightful, especially looking at the year ahead and…

the changes in AI and what that’s doing for our businesses, for or against our businesses. And so I wanted to be able to share this conversation with you because I thought it was really valuable. And so I hope you enjoy this interview. And if you have any questions or thoughts about it, you’re always welcome to reach out to me on Instagram at Ali Grimmert or if you go to duet.co.uk. You can also opt in to get any of my free resources and hop on a call with me there.

Tracy Beaver (01:49.986)
Welcome in, Allie. I am so excited to have you here with me today. I just told my audience what to expect in this podcast episode, but I would love for you to share more about yourself with my listeners, because they always want to know, these people that I’m listening to? So tell us all the stuff, who you are, who you serve, and give us some fun facts about where you grew up.

Allea Grummert (02:12.3)
Yeah, would you guys like to know who you’re listening to? Who am I taking advice from? Who is this? Yes, so like Tracy mentioned, my name is Allie Grummer. I’m an email marketing strategist, copywriter, agency owner as well. I have a small team. We do done for you email marketing largely around welcome and nurture sequences and automations for our clients who are creators. So either they’re on Instagram or they have blogs.

Most of my clients have been food bloggers for the last seven years since starting my business back in 2018. And I absolutely love it. So we work in that space with creators whose biggest goal is to get traffic back to their website. And I am the host of a podcast called Happy Subscribers. And I love it. It’s so much fun being a podcast host. I can see why you do it. Just get to talk all the time.

Tracy Beaver (03:10.08)
and you’re a talker, it’s a good thing.

Allea Grummert (03:11.95)
Yappers, baby. The Yappers just unite. And so as far as some credentials, I mean, I’ve worked with over 120 clients one-on-one. I’m a recommended expert through NerdPress, a kit approved expert, and a Mediavine partner. So I’ve been doing this for a while, know a lot of people, and have seen a lot of scenarios played out over email. And yes, we’re going to see something.

Tracy Beaver (03:38.062)
You could probably write a book with some of the stuff you’ve heard.

Allea Grummert (03:41.934)
Probably could. mean, at this point, it’s just all on the podcast. So I just think about it. But then as far as fun facts go, I am actually from rural Nebraska, from a hometown that is 100 people. Well, it was when I left when I was 99. But then it’s actually like grown a little, you know, but that was back like 20 years ago when I left it was teeny tiny. And then I guess some people moved into town. So now it’s like 143.

Unless the sign has not been updated, probably not. is the last The last census. So yeah, I actually grew up next door to my dad’s parents, my grandma and grandpa and grandmothers. Oh my gosh. is just so rightful. If you’re using video, you are. Can I show you a photo of me? Yes.

Tracy Beaver (04:28.994)
Yes, please. Yeah, we’re to put this video on my YouTube channel.

Allea Grummert (04:31.566)
I’m this picture of my dad and I. Probably in 1991, something like that. And so it’s just for listeners, if you’re not able to see, it’s me as an itty bitty in my sweatshirt and sweatpants and tennis shoes on a tire swing. And my dad is wearing his work attire and he worked a blue collar job. And so he’s in his blue shirt. I don’t even know if it has his name on it. Of course, he’s got a pin and his button.

He’s got like the keys on his waist belt and all this. And then there’s a cool truck going by in the background. Lincoln. Yes. So somebody asked me today, like, did you have an idyllic childhood? I was like, I would not say so. But I do have a little love having little memories like that around. So I feel very privileged to have grown up in that lifestyle.

Tracy Beaver (05:20.396)
Yeah. mean, did you grow up? my, okay. So not to get too far off the topic at hand, but my husband, his grandparents, both sets lived like two on the same street, two doors down from each other. so growing up, he always thought everybody’s grandparents live on the same street, two doors down from each other. So living next door to your grandparents, did you think growing up that that’s just like how you do it?

Allea Grummert (05:47.566)
I think I knew it was a privilege. don’t think I knew it was everyone’s, because I have all these cousins and they don’t get to live next door to grandma and grandpa. Got it. And they walked to my birthday parties. They walked next door and we all ate at the picnic table some cake or whatnot. so my dad’s birthday is only two days after mine. And so we just had a little family gathering and grandma and grandpa are coming. And you can see them walk along. And we’ve got this tree line that separates our property, but you can see them.

Grandma bringing her dessert and yeah, so it was really, really sweet.

Tracy Beaver (06:19.874)
That is sweet. OK, I have to ask you this. How old were you when you got on your first airplane ride?

Allea Grummert (06:26.958)
15? 15. You got to the 4-H trip to DC.

Tracy Beaver (06:28.142)
Okay.

Okay, well, just growing up in a small town like that, I grew up in a small town, it wasn’t nearly as small as yours, but it was a small town in Arkansas, Fort Smith, it might’ve been 80,000 people. But I did not get on an airplane until I I had graduated college and I was going to work for my first big girl job and they were sending me to a training.

Allea Grummert (06:50.734)
I got to go with a bunch of other first-timers because we had probably like 30 or so of us late high school age going to DC for like a 10-day citizenship tour for with all four-agers. So we’re all like farming rural kids. Just being like, we’re being in the hotel watching the news from DC. And it’s so interesting watching local news when you’re not local. Can I tell you, not only that, but we’re watching the news.

and the news anchors were reporting on what they called a black ongoose loose on the interstate. And you have all these bomb kids going, mm-hmm, that’s a black angus. So we’re so far from home. I’m dying. True story. Ongoose, a black ongoose.

Tracy Beaver (07:38.37)
They called it an ongoose.

Which begs the question, how did that thing get there in the first place? But we’ve got to move on to the topic.

Allea Grummert (07:46.594)
So there you go. Just to whet your appetite. I got a lot of stories, you’re right.

Tracy Beaver (07:50.19)
I love it. And okay, and this is a fun fact, another fun fact. Y’all, her name, her first name is spelled, if you look at my show notes, you’re gonna think I spelled it wrong, A-L-L-E-A, but it’s pronounced Ali. What were your parents thinking?

Allea Grummert (08:03.694)
Correct. Like an alley cat. So actually, my mom had a plan. So my full name is Allison Lee. So it’s just A-L-L-I-S-O-N. And then my middle name is Ellie A. And my mom pulled my dad. If you get this wrong on the birth certificate, it’s going to really screw up how I want to spell her nickname. So I’ve been going, like, my family all calls me Allison. But that’s odd for people to find out, people who’ve known me for years or whatever. And I’m like, oh, I should probably tell you.

I just have a government name as well. so I go by Ali, have since like high school and then Facebook going into college is how I had it spelled. And I have to explain it all the time. It’s not my favorite hobby. So the more we can talk about it, tell your friends, correct your friends. I would appreciate it.

Tracy Beaver (08:52.652)
favorite hobby? know my my unfavorite hobby about my name is it’s it’s plain Jane t-r-a-c-y. Yes. Do you know how many people want to stick an E between the C and the Y or a C-I-E or a C-E-E and I’m over here going for the love. I mean could you look before you email me?

Allea Grummert (09:13.134)
Oh Oh, I get Alan. And I just like can’t be mad about it. can’t be like, look at the details. You called me a man’s name. And I’m like, whatever. It’s autocorrect. I’m like, they’ll catch it. They’ll be embarrassed. I hope that there’s a little bit of healthy amounts of reflection and shame.

Tracy Beaver (09:37.526)
Oh my gosh, you all, this is a prime example of when you get two extroverted talkers in a room together. Okay, let’s get, let me get into the topic that the listeners seem to hear otherwise that are going to shut this whole thing off. So let’s dive in though, because you have some really, really good stuff to share. I want to know what you think are the most effective ways to grow your list in a time of AI, especially because as of the time of this recording, Allie and I are recording this December, 2025. We are headed into

2026 like a mad dash. So like if you could give us your perspective from 2025, but then also does the same things will the same things hold true in 2026?

Allea Grummert (10:18.985)
I love it. So there are just all sorts of tools for list growth today. I just want to make sure listers know about because I think that they will be continued to be used in 2026. Okay. One second, have to cough. Okay. One of those tools is from Mediavine and it’s called Grow. So if you haven’t used a tool like that, it’s cool.

It’s something where you can actually create different forms that you can show up on different categories on your WordPress site to be able to promote individual types of freebies or reasons why somebody would want to get on your list. So what? Yeah, and it’s free. Let’s start there. What’s cool about it is that as you’re scrolling, it makes a little light box. So everything on the page goes lightly dark.

Tracy Beaver (10:55.971)
Interesting.

Allea Grummert (11:08.748)
And then it kind of pops and you’re like, yeah, I do want to subscribe to get your five daily tips to whatever. And so that’s a tool that I think is really, really helpful. I see that all the time with my blogging clients. And then I was like, non-bloggers can use it. You don’t even have to be a Mediavine publisher. So Mediavine is a big ad network. It’s one of the two primary ways that food bloggers earn money. There’s two major ad networks and Mediavine is one of them. This tool is available for everyone.

Tracy Beaver (11:34.168)
I love that, but it’s just for WordPress people.

Allea Grummert (11:37.16)
You have to have WordPress in order to use the plugin. Then it’s great because then you can connect it to Kit, to Flowdesk, or whatever to actually go send the email. The one downside is that you can’t see the conversion rate within Grow. You can’t see how many people saw it and how many people signed up. You can just see the number of people who signed up. There’s also just a default option if you just want that to show everywhere. You can as well. That’s a big one.

the Kit Creator Network. If you’re using Kit as an email platform and you’re not using the Creator Network, you’re kind of missing out. And I want to encourage you to go check it out. I have a blog post about this, but it’s a way that you can build relationships with other creators. as much as you can kind of go shopping and figure out like, who do I want to recommend? Who do I want to have recommend me? Like who’s all out there and add them to your portfolio. You can also go reach out.

people and say, hey, I actually think our audience might overlap. Do you want to hop on a call? Do you want to chat? I’d love to get to know you in order to refer people to you. It’s also a great way to get to know people that way. So I love the Creator Network. They join my list. They go into my welcome sequence, just like if somebody came in through a general opt-in. So with that, thinking about who do you know, how are you connecting,

Tracy Beaver (12:40.109)
Yeah!

Tracy Beaver (12:49.411)
Uh-huh.

Allea Grummert (12:57.228)
You can also maybe find a pod of three or four other craters.

Tracy Beaver (13:06.99)
that I was like, I mute myself? I don’t even know what to do right now. So anyway, we are in real time people.

Allea Grummert (13:14.186)
my goodness, I love it. So if you have peers, these don’t have to be on the creator network. You don’t all have to be on kit. But if you, this is more grassroots. And I think that this is something that’s going to have to happen even in the time of AI. We can’t just rely on all the machines doing things for us or taking everything away from us. If that’s kind of your half glass empty kind of vibe. But what you do is you find other peers who serve a relatively close audience and you talk about their content as well.

What if at the end of your email over the month, you’re like, hey, my friend Melissa just published this. Go check it out. Or if friend Tracy has this new freebie, here you go. And you’re all promoting one another. It’s grassroots, which I know is like, oh my gosh, that’s like work. And it’s like, well, yeah, you’re trying to find the best people ever. You’re making an awesome email list.

Tracy Beaver (14:05.43)
If one more person says to me, I can’t just create an offer and put it out there and people are going to buy it. I’m like, no, this is not what one more person says the words passive income. I’m going to lose it because there is no such thing as passive income. There’s not.

Allea Grummert (14:24.024)
No, it’s a different business model. just we’ll do a little sidebar here for your business is built. So Tracy and I, have like, we have service based businesses. You have courses and whatnot. Like your mastermind. Right. Group coaching. I’m like, where are the words? And so, and I have one-on-one services. So I can just go to a conference and meet a bunch of people and they become clients. That’s awesome. But if I need to sell lots and lots of things, my business model has to change.

Me going to a conference as a person of one and meeting 50 people isn’t going to pay the bills. I have to go show up on social media. I have to play around with ads. The number of the masses that you can get in front of really matters. So it’s just, it’s a different problem and solution. And there’s a reason why I don’t have courses. I don’t want to have to show up on social media all the time in order to my funnel full. So little soap box.

Tracy Beaver (15:12.078)
Love it. But you’re talking about what I call Bopa, borrowing other people’s audiences. And I love what you were saying because I personally have made a goal and it’s I’ve already exceeded the goal. But I said to myself in twenty twenty six, I want to have at least twenty six Bopa opportunities being on somebody’s podcast or having, know, obviously having them on mine in return, sharing a freebie by email.

being a part of their mastermind as a group expert. mean, whatever it is. And I think I have a list now of 60 people and you’re on it by the way.

Allea Grummert (15:44.62)
love it. Thank you. Come back to my podcast. I do have an episode of Tracy if you all want to go check it out. No. So, I mean, that’s another opportunity, especially for service providers. Set a goal like that. Set how many podcasts do I want to be on. What’s so great is that once you start doing it, the rejection is easy. It’s fine. You move on. It’s kind of a numbers game, but you also want to have a quality pitch. I’m not here to tell you how to pitch podcasts.

But like being on podcasts is what I did when I first started for years. That’s how I got clients. I’d be on one podcast and I would get leads for eight months. And so that’s definitely another strategy. And it might not look like list growth. It might look like sales leads.

Tracy Beaver (16:25.42)
Yep. Yep.

Allea Grummert (16:27.032)
So that means they still can call or they’ve requested or applied for a free coaching session or something.

Tracy Beaver (16:33.902)
I love that. How can we make more money with our emails?

Allea Grummert (16:39.876)
I have a couple more strategies for listing. At least one more, one more because I think it’s really important. So in the food blogging space, there’s a tool called Grocers List. And you can see it around where it’s like people comment recipe and the recipe gets sent to your DMs. There’s also mini chat. So if you’re not using either of those, you’re really missing out on getting people back to your website from social media. There’s also the option.

at least with a grocers list, and I think you can do it in many chat as well, is saying like, hey, drop me your email and I’ll send you the post to your inbox. That’s a really great strategy for people who are scrolling and busy, but they do want the thing. And then along with those lines on social media is posting to your stories. I have clients, but they’ll go dark on stories for a few days, kind of hit the reset on it for the algorithm. And then they go live, they post saying, hey, if you want my free thing.

Comment here and it’s using like Grocery List or ManyChat. then so much traffic. So like, yes, it’s manual. It’s not passive. You can’t really schedule it, but it gets my clients really great results.

Tracy Beaver (17:48.494)
I love that. Love it.

Allea Grummert (17:50.2)
There you go. That’s it for list growth for now. And then as far as making money in the time of AI, I mean, it’s how you make money with email in general is really deciding what’s my goal here? Am I selling a course? Am I selling a service? Am I promoting affiliates? And do I need to make sure that I’m diversified and how I’m promoting all of those things? So understanding your goal is most important because sure,

Like I could run ads in my emails, but that’s not like, is that worth it for me for $150 a month? Or do I want to not do that? And then instead use email to ask people to hop on a free strategy call.

Tracy Beaver (18:31.042)
Yeah.

Allea Grummert (18:32.994)
So that’s first things first. But then with making money, it’s kind of like, I started calling it email math. So like the ways you earn more. And this comes from the context of, like I mentioned, my audience earns revenue from site traffic, people going back to their website. So we’re not over here telling our lives stories so much in their emails. It’s like, and if you want the recipe, click here. So when it comes to getting more people to click through to the website,

The math equation looks like that means you either send more emails, that you get people more opportunities to click, you grow your list. So the number of people receiving that email increases, or you improve your click rate. So the percentage of the subscribers already on your list means like the percentage goes up, which means the total clicks goes up. So, and so, but even if you’re not in the content creation ad revenue space,

Tracy Beaver (19:26.199)
like it.

Allea Grummert (19:31.448)
There’s so much you can do to differentiate yourself in the time of AI. And I mentioned that I work in welcome sequences. This is the prime time people are joining our list. They’re the most excited about your content that they’re going to be all freaking year. And so what does that mean for creating a relationship with those brand new subscribers in a way that they feel like they are seen and heard and they also like.

enjoy you and want to stick around because they like your perspective or they like that you’ve helped them. So you craft that experience. And that’s not something that you get when you get like an AI overview when you Google something. So we have this opportunity to like onboard them into your ecosystem, your space and direct them to the places where they want to go, segment them if you need to or want to. And then that’s how you can really differentiate yourself in the time of AI.

slash make yourself more money because as you grow your list, you’re going to build and you continue to email them. Yeah. Build consistency and loyalty and clicks through to your services page, your sales page, and then your products when you actually do run promotions.

Tracy Beaver (20:40.66)
I it. I love it. So I love what you’re saying about loyalty and helping them see who you are and get to know you. How do we create more of a not just a one way street with our subscribers, like an actual meaningful relationship where they feel obviously they feel like they know me because they’ve got my welcome sequence and my emails and all of that. But I want to feel like I know them also. So how do we do that?

And is there truly an AI way to do that?

Allea Grummert (21:13.346)
I mean, in the time of AI, I don’t always use it for things. Sometimes it’s just like, what’s the human thing to do? So we have the benefit of not being computers. What do know? And so it could look like a few things. So for our clients, for our signature service, we do audience research through a survey. And we’ve got an incentive. People complete it by a due date. They get entered to win something. We get the

who is feedback. And then we get to hand deliver it to our clients and be like, do you see how much they love you? Do you, but do you see it? Do you feel it? So we get to present that back to them. And then it gives them the confidence that they’re like, I actually do know who I’m talking to. Or they’re like, I had a client years ago say, so we’ve been making it more difficult than we needed to. And I was like, yeah, if you have, she’s like, okay, just checking. So, and that’s cool. We also had one client, her

audience was like, I didn’t know you had a cookbook. Like we’re asking for feedback about it. And they’re like, had no idea. we didn’t know you had one. And on the review call, goes, my client goes, we should probably tell them I have a cookbook.

Tracy Beaver (22:25.006)
You know what? I hear that from my clients and students too because they’ll they’ll say I need to create a new free lead magnet and I’m like What’s wrong with the one you’ve got? Nobody wants it. I’m like, do they know about it? I mean and they’ll go well I posted about it on social media. I’m like how many times once when was that two weeks ago? even and I’m They don’t know it exists or like also the paid offers. Oh, nobody wants my $97 offer and I’m like

I need to create a new one. And I’m like, well, hold on, tell me about this offer. And the offer is amazing. Like, again, how many times did you promote it to your list, to your social media? And they’re like, once, two weeks ago? And I’m like, no.

Allea Grummert (22:59.852)
Yes, and I’m

Allea Grummert (23:08.492)
Yes, a lot of it is visibility. It’s how many people have actually seen your form? Correct. In the last 90 days, you’re like three. I’m like, okay. So you have a, your forms visibility is the problem, not the conventionally.

Tracy Beaver (23:20.866)
Yeah, they can’t buy the cookbook if they can’t see the cookbook.

Allea Grummert (23:23.31)
Nope. And so then that’s what we incorporate in the welcome sequence. Even if they’re not buying it right away or not offering a discount, it’s just like, hey, this exists. Just that you should know, which also lends to your credibility. Like, oh, this person teaches on this and people have really raved about it. I’ll put that, I’ll put a pin in that, in the back of my mind. As far as other relationship building things with email, people can reply back. Just ask them to.

Tracy Beaver (23:38.115)
Yeah.

Tracy Beaver (23:45.395)
back. Tell us some of the fun ways you’ve gotten people to reply back to yours because I’ve done some about this year too and it’s been amazing.

Allea Grummert (23:53.688)
So I’ve done a poll. I’m like, hey, which of these is your biggest, your next goal? And so I don’t use that information for anything more than just data collection. Like a snapshot of where my subscribers are right now. I actually just sent out an email this morning and I’ve already gotten a reply asking like, something about my podcast. Like, what do you hope, like what’s the one thing you’re kind of stuck on that you want to fix for 2026? Nice. So when you ask a specific question, you’re going to get

it’s easier to get results. Right. Like a slew of questions. This is coming off of somebody who last week, the week before, I actually sent out a survey to my list about the podcast, including this question among a few. included no incentive. Let me tell you how this worked. Zero. Nobody. I have some really attentive listeners, but ain’t nobody filling out a survey unless you give them a reason. And this is proof. So it’s like,

I’m not running any promotions before Christmas. So was like, what if I just use these next couple emails to ask questions? Yeah. And so that’s definitely one way to do it as well. And you can include that in your welcome sequence. But as people are joining, they’re flying right away and then they get a response from you. I mean, come on. I have people going, my gosh, you really replied to me? Yeah. You’re real person. I was like, hello, it went to my inbox.

Tracy Beaver (25:06.306)
Yeah, that’s cool.

Tracy Beaver (25:14.616)
Right.

Allea Grummert (25:15.086)
see things in inbox and I reply to them. And so, I mean, I’m not so busy that I want to shut off all replies. Exactly. That’s one way to do it. And then I did something during the pandemic-ish beginning of 2021. I was getting the itch to have conversations with people in real time. So I started hosting a monthly roundtable called People are Getting Answers with Ally.

Tracy Beaver (25:32.046)
Shhh!

Allea Grummert (25:43.982)
I did it monthly for two and a half years. It gave me something to promote that wasn’t my services. I was like, come to my free thing. Come to my free thing. Come and attend. Then I was able to make friends that way. They are the people that are still on my email list. Referring people my way, whether it’s for free resources or services. I did that and I recorded it and I sent out a recap with the replay and a tiny little pitch or offer for like, if you need help with this, here you go.

Tracy Beaver (25:49.795)
Yeah.

Allea Grummert (26:13.07)
For an hour a month, I was sitting in real time with the people in my community. That’s something AI cannot do.

Tracy Beaver (26:21.942)
Yes, I love it because one of the things that I have discovered is that same thing in the last six months I have thought to myself I’ve got to build deeper trust with people because as you know It started for from what I saw it started in mid 2024 the trust recession the trust deficit You know people are slower to buy there and in my world It’s because they’ve purchased a lot of expensive things from a lot of big names

that did not actually help them. And so now they’re gun shy to buy from people like you and I that really know what we’re doing that really care. Okay. So box moment, sorry. But I said to myself, okay, I’ve got to, I want to talk to them. I want to meet them. I want to have, like you’re saying, human conversation. And so I started offering a free networking session once a month. All you have to do is be a member of my free Facebook group and you can come and you can attend. I think we had close to 50 people last Friday.

for December’s, it was incredible. But it gives me an opportunity to talk to them, to hear who they are, support them, cheer them on. And it’s been so fun. And then the other thing I’m doing is exactly what you said, although now I’m thinking about it, I should have a better name. Mine is just a live Q &A, ask me anything. I could say, come talk to Tracy. And I do a monthly topic. Like the first one I did was on lead magnets. Do you need one?

Or do you have one that you think stinks? you need, know, come talk to me. And then this one we’re doing on Monday, December 17 is ask me anything about launching. Are you launching a book, a podcast, of course, or whatever. And so it’s been, not only has it been so fun, but I think to your point, it really helps solidify. It feels like a give back, but it also feels like something that’s going to help grow my business because my audience is really going to get to know me and if they like me or not.

Right?

Allea Grummert (28:14.978)
Yes. And then it’s also like it’s real time audience research. What are their questions? What are they? What are they have issues with? And so I did the same thing. I presented on a topic. Love it. And then anybody in the Zoom room could chime in. I was like, it’s not the only grammar show. Like, I mean, yeah, I’ll teach for a little bit. But if you have input, if you’ve tried this, speak up.

Tracy Beaver (28:34.06)
Love it. I love it.

Allea Grummert (28:35.928)
And I really encourage everybody in the group to go follow one another on social media. you know, like have your private conversations, like how often do you get to do this in the online space? And so I love that you’re already doing that. And that’s something that I just kind of ran out of capacity for and it wasn’t converting into sales. It was like, okay, well after a while this just becomes a very social environment with no return. And so, yeah, but at the time.

Not only did I kind of want to solve the connection issue, especially because it was during the pandemic. I was living alone, in cold Nebraska. I started in January 2021 and from my tiny little apartment before I had a cat, I was lonely. And then the other benefit was though, I just knew that if I could answer one question for like each subscriber on my list, they’d be able to move forward. I was like, this is it. This will come and ask your question. I will give you a definitive answer. And then you have no more excuses. And now you have to do things.

Tracy Beaver (29:24.098)
Yeah!

Tracy Beaver (29:32.262)
I love that so much. Okay. Listeners, you have to do this. You have to do this. Think of a way that you can establish deeper trust with your audience and how can you make that switch this year? Okay. Let me ask you this question. So what is one surprising thing that most of us get wrong about email marketing and it actually ends up hurting our list growth and our engagement?

Allea Grummert (29:55.758)
easy. You think you’re burdening people? You’re not sending emails. So I hear this all the time. I just heard this on a call yesterday. He was like, I hate getting emails. Why would I send emails? I’m like, you realize you’re talking to an email expert, right? your email list for your blog. Okay. So I was like, you know that you’re not your audience. Your audience comes to your website because they can’t get enough of your content and they have signed up and they want more. Full stop.

And so that’s the huge thing that I, the huge burden that people put on themselves. And like, you don’t really know because you’re not your ideal reader in most cases. And there’s an age difference too. Like he’s an older gentleman. He’s like, I don’t want that many emails. I’m like, I could, I personally love the content on your website. If I really wanted to binge it, I’d be like, email me every day.

Tracy Beaver (30:50.466)
Love it!

Allea Grummert (30:51.488)
What helps with that though is if you can properly segment your list to allow them to get what they want and not get what they don’t want, then you know you’re not burdening them. If you’ve given them the option to say, I just want one email a week. Perfect. They’re only going to get one email a week. You get to pick what it is. But then it takes away the shyness of it. You’re like, everybody else is on the list. They have the option. Still 90 % of my list wants three emails a week.

Tracy Beaver (31:19.245)
Yeah!

Allea Grummert (31:20.034)
So then you get to do the email math where you’re like, am sending more emails. I’m actually not burdening people. I’m allowing them to choose their preferences and remain, you know, what I call happy subscriber because they feel heard and listened to and they have a little bit of control.

Tracy Beaver (31:35.5)
that. I love what you said about you. You might not be your audience because that makes me think, you know, I this may be a mindset thing for me. I am not. I’ve never been one of those people that can charge you like ten thousand dollars to coach with me, primarily because I’m not going to pay anybody else ten thousand dollars. But what you said was you’re not your audience. So maybe Tracy Bevers needs to do a little thinking on that.

Allea Grummert (32:04.142)
Tracy, I will tell you when you do pay someone $10,000 and it pays off, you’re like, it’s awesome. I can tell you that I have spent that with my business coach. And then people do pay me $9,000 for six months of coaching with me. But I also know I’ve seen the benefit of that. So it’s also a little bit mindset as far as like, but what if? And part of it is I can’t go charging $9,000 for six months if I wasn’t willing to pay for it. So it’s a little hand in hand type. I know the benefit of hiring an expert.

And therefore, I will hire an expert. Or then I can expect people would hire me for the expert that I am.

Tracy Beaver (32:40.098)
Yeah, nice. All right. If you had to rebuild an email list from zero.

Allea Grummert (32:46.062)
See you

Tracy Beaver (32:47.692)
using only simple organic strategies, what’s the first thing you would do?

Allea Grummert (32:54.382)
love this question. You guys can tell which questions Tracy didn’t give me before. Let me think in front of you.

Allea Grummert (33:03.726)
podcast guesting. I think that’s the easy, like because the result is, and this is what I did. You get to be in front of somebody else’s audience. You create a list and even if it’s tiny, especially if you’re a service provider, you send them an individual email with a loom video saying, hey, thanks so much for listening to me on Tracy’s podcast. I’d love to learn more about what you’re doing. Let me know. 30 second video.

Tracy Beaver (33:05.004)
Love it.

Tracy Beaver (33:28.632)
amazing.

Allea Grummert (33:30.518)
And so that’s where it kind of goes from marketing to sales, especially when you’re first starting out and you need clients. But then you also have the podcast itself to then send back out to your email list. So I’ve actually stopped sending out every podcast I’ve been on to my list. But that was my strategy of just like a feedback loop of like, see how involved I am? See the people want me on their podcast? And I actually have a whole…

Spotify playlist of all the podcasts that I’ve been on and I’ve linked to that now.

Tracy Beaver (34:01.55)
Nice. That’s gold. I may need to do that myself because the podcast hosts appreciate it. You know, that’s amazing. All right. One more thing and then we’re going to land the plane. Yes. I love to ask my guests this question. It’s just a fun question. If you could tell your younger self one thing about business, what would it be?

Allea Grummert (34:23.906)
Hmm.

Allea Grummert (34:27.82)
you’re going to have to change in order to grow into a business owner that you are proud of.

Tracy Beaver (34:35.138)
Hey.

Allea Grummert (34:36.428)
can unfold that. I’m in therapy right now. It’s fine. But really, nobody warns you, tells you about how much being a business owner requires personal growth. yes. You cannot stay where you are and be the kind of leader you actually want to be in your own space. I operate a team. You know how humbling it is when everybody tells you, actually, Ali, it’s you. You’re the problem.

I’m going to go take that feedback gladly because you kindly told it to me. And I’m a safe space that you feel like you can tell me that stuff. And I’m going to look in the mirror and say, oh, wow, I’m really confusing my team members. Or I’m actually not giving full instructions because I’m not really clear on what I need. There’s so much personal growth and humility and control issues. my goodness. I remember the first time I sent out a proposal on a Friday afternoon, it was $850 and I cried.

all weekend. And part of it is like when you’re that desperate as a new business owner. But now I send out proposals and I’m like, yeah, if you don’t want to work with me, it’s not a hard feeling. That’s okay. There’s a good number of people who don’t accept my proposals. And so, but that doesn’t happen overnight. And so, but I would say to younger Ali, girl, I am so proud of how well you faced what was in front of you and chose to grow into the person that you are now.

Tracy Beaver (35:49.261)
Right.

Allea Grummert (36:05.186)
I’m pretty proud of myself. If I had to go talk to little Ali, I’d be like, girl, you didn’t know it. You didn’t know you would need to develop to be this person, but I’m proud of where I’m at.

Tracy Beaver (36:16.366)
I love that. my gosh, that’s beautiful. Where can everybody find you to connect with you?

Allea Grummert (36:21.3)
Yeah. So first of all, can I share a little freebie option? I have these free like email strategy boost calls. They’re like a 15 minute free coaching call with me. And I have three of them just for Tracy’s audience. My calendar is filling up. So I have three spots saved for y’all that you can apply for at duet.co.

Tracy Beaver (36:27.15)
for sure.

Allea Grummert (36:46.958)
And so just tell me a little bit about your business. Make sure it’s a good fit to hop on one of those calls. Make sure it’s worth your time and that I can support you. And then you can find me on Instagram at Ali Grimmert in all of its unique spelling. A-L-E-A-G-R-U-N-M-E-R-T. I’m sure if you’re… I don’t know what is it like when you can see things and memorize them right away? If you can do it audibly and you just saved all those letters. Congratulations.

So yeah, you can find me on Instagram. there. And then the happy subscribers podcast. You can find us on Apple as well as Spotify.

Tracy Beaver (37:22.764)
I love that. And we’re going to have the links to all of that stuff in the show notes, my friends. So don’t worry. The, the three spots she’s got available, the application form will be in the show notes. I’ve got her website, I’ve got her social media handles and a link to the podcast as well. Cause the podcast is really fun.

Allea Grummert (37:38.936)
Thank you. is really, it’s fun to be a host. I just get to be nerdy about email marketing all the time.

Tracy Beaver (37:44.248)
I know, I could talk about it all day myself. Okay friends, you know the importance of your email list because I tell you about it all the time on this show. And I have a free training for you also for you to grab to help you create email topics and grow your list. So you can go to tracybeebers.com forward slash list building and grab that. It will also be in the show notes. And before I wrap this up with our conclusion, Allie, anything you wanna share with our listeners.

Allea Grummert (38:13.832)
I mean, I’m proud of you for what you’re doing. What you’re doing is already so beneficial to the world. And the one I love about email marketing is that you get to share that even more.

Tracy Beaver (38:23.042)
Thank you. And I’m proud of you too. I am. This is not easy. In fact, I was just on a call this morning with the alums that are in my mastermind from my business visibility made easy program. Once the students go through the eight weeks, they get into the alumni mastermind and a couple of the gals were like, my gosh, I am a business owner. And we were so proud of them because it’s taken them until now to realize that. from what it goes back to what you and I are saying.

This road is not easy. is a freaking roller coaster. And I say that every single week on this podcast, being entrepreneur is hard and we can feel alone. And I don’t want anybody ever feeling like they’re the only ones that feel that way.

Allea Grummert (39:05.998)
Oh gosh, Yeah. And honestly, like look at getting therapy. Honestly. I mean, I’ve really, I’ve gotten back into it this year. I took a couple, like a year and a half or so hiatus, but I’m back into it. And this idea of like, even just being able to regulate your nerves and your anxiety, like that’s not normal. I learned that, um, what is it like, Oh, overthinking is a, is a symptom of anxiety. And I was like,

Tracy Beaver (39:07.662)
or I’ll feel that way.

Tracy Beaver (39:24.994)
Yes.

Allea Grummert (39:36.034)
Wait, not everybody has that? What do mean? Not everybody over thinks everything? And so it’s like, what did it mean for me to level that out? So I’m preparing for a big conference. I’m going be a sponsor. I’m going to be a speaker. I’m applying in a team member. And my friend today was like, are you excited? And I was like, I’m fine. I don’t have room to get excited, but I’m also not nervous. I just have a big to-do list. And I am going to commit to getting it done. So that’s

Tracy Beaver (40:04.398)
Fighting!

Allea Grummert (40:05.23)
Big props to therapy for… There’s a lot of holding tension and needing to be tolerant in times of unknown when you’re a business owner. If that’s literally the only reason you go and talk to a therapist, you’re going to get some really great resources for how to freak the crap out of yourself every time your sales are super low or your to-be list is super long.

Tracy Beaver (40:26.252)
Yeah, I love that. That is really great. There’s no shame in that and seeking help. And I just want to invite listeners again, I know I say this every single week, come join my free Facebook group. Speaking of being in a community of support, building alongside other people that are doing the same thing you’re doing, it’s called Be a Confident Entrepreneur, Get Visible, Grow Your Email List and Your Income. We have those free networking events that I talked about once a month. We have the live Q &A, Ask Me Anythings that we do once a month.

and come in and get some support. I want you guys to have a great balance of the week and weekend. And I want you to remember that when one of us rises, we all rise. So that is why we’ve got to keep cheering each other on. Allie, thank you so much for being here.

Allea Grummert (41:07.17)
Thank you for having me Tracy, I appreciate it. You’re welcome.

Allea Grummert (41:14.83)
Thanks so much for listening to happy subscribers and 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 do it.