The Friday Emails That Built Toni Okamoto’s Most Loyal Audience

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 Allea Grummert email marketing strategist, copywriter, email platform expert, and founder of the Dumb4U 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 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. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Foodie Email Series. This is week three and I get to introduce you to Toni Okamoto. She is a leading voice in making healthier, eating accessible, affordable and enjoyable for millions. She is the founder of the website Plant Based on a Budget and she is the author of multiple acclaimed cookbooks, including the publisher weekly’s bestseller Plant Based on a Budget, Quick and Easy. And she also co-hosts a podcast called the Plant Powered People Podcast. Y’all, she creates so many great resources. She’s showing up with cookbooks. She’s showing up in the media. And she does all of this in order to help individuals take charge of their health, one budget-friendly, plant-filled meal at a time. Tony and I met years ago, and I genuinely can’t remember exactly how we met Tony. Do you remember? Yeah. So at this point, we’re just, we’ve been friends long enough that we see each other at conferences. so…

Toni Okamoto (01:48)
I don’t.

Yes.

Allea Grummert (01:57)
I was telling her how much I’m looking forward to this conversation. Before we get into any like tactical, I would love to hear or have you share with the listeners your relationship with EMA Marketing.

Toni Okamoto (02:09)
Okay, so I, well first of all, thank you for having me. It’s such a pleasure to see your face and to chat with you. But I have had a blog for a really long time. I started my blog in early 2012 and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was sort of just like flailing out in open water not having the ability to swim or anything. So I started as a passion project. I didn’t know any bloggers. I didn’t know the potential. And I met someone from a different industry in 2018 or 2019. And he was like, what do mean you don’t have an email list? And I was like, oh, yeah, it’s just like one more thing. I don’t know. He’s like, that’s the thing that you’ll own. And I was like, it seems just like so hard. And at the time, I didn’t have a team. So it was a big deal to start doing email. But there are simple things that you can do, like putting a pop-up on your website or ⁓ on your LinkedIn bio or like a few things that are so low effort that you don’t even have to think twice. And I did that and I started getting some followers or subscribers. I guess I had maybe like a thousand and I was like, my gosh.

Allea Grummert (03:28)
That’s so cool.

Toni Okamoto (03:31)
And then from there, as things started changing in our world of digital creatorship, I started leaning toward more strategies instead of just putting stuff out there. One big mistake that I made off the bat was I started putting my own recipes, the full recipes in my Meatless Monday series. And then I wasn’t getting any money. I wasn’t getting people back to my website to look at other recipes. And so I started making chips like that. ⁓ from there, I just continued focusing on it.

Allea Grummert (04:13)
Yeah, well, I mean, you only know by trying and if nobody has told you like, hey, reminder, if you send them to your website, you actually make more money. I mean, it makes sense. You’re like, I want to deliver the recipe. Here’s the whole recipe in an email. But yeah, that’s a simple fix as well. Once you realize.

Toni Okamoto (04:29)
Yes. And the funny thing is, is that when I was doing that, I didn’t even have ads on my website because I didn’t know ads existed in 2018, 2019. I don’t believe so. I just I was solely to the game, not having connection in the space and not knowing anyone who’s doing this really leaves you out there not knowing what to do. So I’m very grateful for this community now and how information like this, like on your podcast, is so easily available now.

Allea Grummert (04:59)
Yeah. What, what, were you earning any revenue any other ways on your website at that time?

Toni Okamoto (05:05)
Yes, I started these meal plans quite a while ago and they were $5 meal plans and they changed my whole life. They helped me pay off my school debt, all my debt, save a lot of money. And I did things backwards. And I think that puts me in a different position now as Google’s changing is that I’m not reliant on ad revenue. I sell products a lot, which is another great tool that email provides. Yeah. Is to help launch products, sell products long-term.

Allea Grummert (05:38)
Yeah, because I know that you have like a bundle that you promote every year. But in general, like a launch strategy in order to like get these meal plans from like zero to paying off your student loans. Like, how did you learn how to do that? Was it a book? Was it a mastermind? Did you just kind of wing it?

Toni Okamoto (05:54)
I just winged it. Everything so far, I’ve just threw spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck. And I still do that. I feel like every week I am thinking of something like, will this work? And sometimes I abandoned ship way too soon. I’m like, no, didn’t work. I tried it one time, didn’t work. But I am very quick to pivot. I’m very quick to try the same like there’s something new that I learned somewhere, heard on a podcast or watched on a webinar. And I think that that mindset has helped me stay pretty steady during this turbulent time that creators are experiencing as AI comes into center view and as Google is really making lives harder for creators.

Allea Grummert (06:50)
Yeah. Well, with can you walk me through like, are you still selling the meal plans? How are you selling them? I know that I’ve heard from people, you know, who maybe have a list of like 5,000. The volume of meal plans isn’t all that much like they have 5,000 subscribers. So like, how do you how do you make it worth your time? Were you sending them weekly? I have so many questions, Tony. I’m going to stop asking.

Toni Okamoto (07:12)
I started with these meal plans and I told people about them. I created affiliate links. I tried to be in media opportunities talking about them. And at the time there was like a freemium situation happening where I created these meal plans that showed at the time, was $25. So you’d eat 21 meals and only spend $25 the grocery store. Now with inflation, I’d say it’s more like $40. So one person, I would show you how to use 100 % of your groceries exactly what to buy. And then after that, I had these $5 meal plans that you could continue on with. And then there were different offshoots, like if you wanted to add a $5 snack, here are these options that you could use or if you wanted to add in five dollar desserts, those were other, that was another ebook. And I had a whole range of ebooks that people could buy to build their grocery list. And, and so that’s where the initial sales came from.

Allea Grummert (08:32)
Okay, and so they are product-based, not recurring subscriptions.

Toni Okamoto (08:36)
Correct. Correct. You can bundle them though. And it’s funny because we did not discount the bundle. It was the bundle was you pay $5 or you pay $30. ⁓ And the people didn’t mind they still bundled all of them even though we didn’t offer a bundle discount.

Allea Grummert (08:56)
Yeah, well the convenience of it, for sure. Just get it all at once. ⁓ Why do you think your audience took to that so well?

Toni Okamoto (09:07)
I think because we had a free option that they could test it out and then decide that they liked it. I also think that niching down is so important because I became an expert on budget eating and I shared my experience with budget eating. I demonstrated credibility by talking about how I too was on a budget and these were very helpful for me. And over time, people associated me with my niche. And now when they’re thinking about budget, investing in budget products, they know that my resources are going to be really helpful to them and high quality.

Allea Grummert (09:50)
Absolutely. did you get like, do people reply back that they’re excited? Like, what is some of the verbiage that you heard from your audience, the people who were buying?

Toni Okamoto (10:01)
Well, we created ⁓ a Facebook community so we could hear from people all the time and they can engage with each other. And then once a year at the beginning of the year. for us as plant based creators, ⁓ January is such a big month. It’s called Veganuary to us. It’s our go time. It’s tax season. And we just get everyone really excited participate with the meal plan, using the meal plans with them and video share photos and get really active in that Facebook community. And so we hear what people are thinking in real time and see the photos of their food and see their families reactions and their commiserating as their meat loving, pizza loving children didn’t like the bean chili or whatever it was. So they’re like, my kid hated it too. So it’s it’s fun to create that kind of a community and it’s free.

Allea Grummert (11:07)
That’s awesome. What do you feel like that has lent to your brand overall by having that Facebook group?

Toni Okamoto (11:15)
I think that it helped build, again, credibility. They know that I’m doing this. They know that I’ve eaten the food personally. They build connection with me. And I think that that’s, again, another thing that email provides is that I do now I do a Friday newsletter that’s more personal and every opportunity that I can be personal in a long form way helps me build credibility with my audience and helps them know that I’m a real person who they like and who they relate to.

Allea Grummert (11:54)
Yeah, because I remember ⁓ full disclosure, listener didn’t tell you Tony and I work together. But yeah, I remember when we were working together on setting up your automations and hearing about your Friday emails and how much like you just get a massive amount of engagement from those.

Toni Okamoto (12:11)
Yes, I actually had to have someone help me manage my inbox. We created a separate inbox because I was getting so many responses from people. And it’s nice because I encourage people to respond with their week too. So I say, ⁓ this is my week. Here are some photos. Sometimes it’s like sad. Like sometimes people have unfollowed me. They’re like, I’m just not interested in hearing about how you didn’t have a good week. Then some people are like, you’re too happy. I don’t want to see that either. But then they they tell me about their dog who’s sick or if I’m celebrating an anniversary, whether that’s at work or in my marriage, then they share wedding photos from 52 years ago when they got married. I’ve seen so many dogs and cats and grandchildren and wedding photos. It’s so nice to be connected in that way with my community.

Allea Grummert (13:11)
Yes. Like I just know people are listening being like, wait, how do you get people to reply? And I guess how would you answer that? How is what’s the journey been like from building these relationships with strangers into people who really like know you and love you?

Toni Okamoto (13:27)
Like anything, think consistency really matters. I have not been doing it for five weeks or every three weeks. I do it every Friday, unless something major is happening in my life. And then people are like, Hey, are you okay? didn’t send out your Friday newsletter. And for, I think I’m on year three. And I think you just have people who become more invested and I care about them too. know my regulars who are always going to respond even though I don’t manage that inbox. I read every email that comes through and if there’s something really special, then I will respond to that one where someone is being extra kind or telling me something that’s very personal to me or to them.

Allea Grummert (14:22)
Yes. ⁓ that’s so sweet. I mean, yeah, they’re replying back and that’s what nobody sees. Like that connection within the inbox, like that you’re actually replying back to the people who have shared something heartfelt and that they’ve taken the time to show you that. It just, guess, like in comparison to like vanity metrics of how many people are following you on Instagram or even how big your list size is versus these kind of untapped stats, if you will.

Toni Okamoto (14:50)
Yes, actually. It really matters about your 1000 true followers, and I see that in sales. I know a lot of people who’ve created really. Big social media platforms with viral videos, but with viral video content, you may not be building that connection long term with your audience and have a hard time selling products because they followed you because they saw one video that might not be like the rest of your content or they may not engage with your other videos or like the other videos as much. Whereas if someone’s reading an essay that I’ve written every Friday for years or ⁓ being part of my social media, Facebook groups or groups, long form especially, then they become more invested.

Allea Grummert (15:45)
Yeah. Well, and I have been thinking about this lately. I haven’t dug into like exactly how to name this, but the idea that you also are taking the time to write an essay to your list. Like, can you explain how that makes you feel connected to your people? Because a lot of people don’t do that, Tony. They’re just like, here’s an email, here’s an email, here’s an email. But for you to sit down and write a letter, what does that do for you in this environment of this part of your audience?

Toni Okamoto (16:14)
Well, I will say it keeps me sharp as a writer and it keeps me how to it keeps me familiar with what it’s like to be a human and to communicate with other humans. Like there’s this very strong human connection. I don’t use AI and I write with my brain. And I think people are very hesitant to engage with content that is AI focused. if you, I use AI on some of my, some of my emails, cause I have a strong segmentation as you know. And so what some of them that are like, here are five recipes for your picnic this weekend. Um, that I don’t mind if it’s AI and it puts together two sentences for me, but for my Friday newsletter, I think people can tell by the. Raising by the words that I choose by the structure of it that it’s me writing. I mean, sometimes people are like, you spelled that wrong. ⁓ yeah, I did. My bad. Yeah, and they’re totally fine. They’re just like, FYI, I know you probably were very busy. Everyone’s so nice. And so yeah. yeah. It keeps me sharp and it keeps me like, okay, this is the other thing. I think I’m a negative thinker in general.

Allea Grummert (17:25)
that.

Toni Okamoto (17:48)
always trying to be better. And I’ll reflect as I’m going throughout my day and my week, my month. When you’re trying to remember the good things that you want to share with someone, because I really care about every person who’s reading. I’m thinking, ⁓ that’s a good thing. I’m going to keep that in my mind. And it helps you find the beautiful parts of life that you want to share with the people that you care about.

Allea Grummert (18:16)
Absolutely. I love that you used the word care. Where else do you feel like in your business, the caring part of you, the caring about your audience, where do you feel like that also flourishes?

Toni Okamoto (18:30)
I have been focusing on short form content. Again, I took a big break and I think now with AI, I wanna come back and be a resource who is human. And that means I’m back in videos, I’m back in my Instagram stories, I’m telling people, hey, look at me, I’m real. And I know what you’re dealing with personally. And I think that when it comes to budget recipes, I really care that people are having a good experience with my food and not wasting their hard earned money. I want to make sure that everything is tested multiple times by multiple people and that people who especially are not vegetarians or whose families are not on board with eating more plants are going to have a good experience and want to make the recipe again and come back to the website and subscribe to my newsletter and be part of my community.

Allea Grummert (19:39)
If you are interested in getting my help to grow your email list, send traffic back to your website and create a more meaningful relationship with your subscribers through email marketing, visit duet.co slash happy to book a free call with me. I promise you’ll learn a lot, even in the process, just about your own business, your own goals, and what could potentially be next for you and the growth of your email marketing strategy. Go ahead and book a call with me. I can’t wait to meet you. Man, I love that. I want you to have such a clear picture of who you’re helping and how you are specifically helping them. Because sometimes, you know, with recipe creators, it’s like, I’m bringing inspiration or I’m bringing whatever. And you’re like, you’re giving them so much peace of mind as well. Like you mentioned in the Facebook group, like we know Toni’s also making these recipes.

Toni Okamoto (20:35)
Yeah, yeah. And I also I think as I’m learning, relearning how to show up on short form content, I’m using what’s popular in my email. I’m saying, OK, people are really engaging with this type of content or vice versa. I will see that something’s doing really well on social media. And I’ll be like, this has to go out to my newsletter list because they’re very different audiences. And if it’s doing well in one place, I could turn it into something that could do well for my other audience ⁓ who subscribes to my email and make it in photos and in writing instead of a fast paced video.

Allea Grummert (21:20)
Yeah, well, that’s great in order to glean data from both audiences. That’s so fun. Well, and you have mentioned segmentation. you want to? I was telling Tony before we hit record, I’m like, use your segmentation options as every example, everywhere. can you explain how you segment your list and how often you’re emailing your list?

Toni Okamoto (21:43)
Yes, I have ⁓ four major segmentations that are the big ones. But then in addition to that, Ali has helped me do like, ⁓ what is that when you click a link and it sends it like tags you? Link triggers. Yeah, I have like link triggers and all those types of different things. But like the four main ones are my meatless Monday emails and on

Allea Grummert (22:02)
Yeah, a link trigger.

Toni Okamoto (22:11)
On Monday, you will get a recipe. You’ll be able to pin it. You’ll be able to watch the video, the YouTube video, and then have three suggested similar recipes. And that’s always on a Monday. Then on Tuesday, I will resend my Friday newsletter. On Wednesdays, this is the other part that you can see that’s segmented, is ⁓ I have the seasonal roundup. Thursday’s the meal plan. Friday is the personal email. And then I do resends of the other two on Saturday and Sunday. So I have an email going out every day, but not to people who are my regular openers. So if you open the if you open the email, you only get four emails. And if you don’t want to be on all of those emails and you only like my Friday newsletter, you can go to the bottom and opt out of what you don’t want to see. And I really like that because there are people who don’t care at all about the recipes. They just want my Friday newsletter. But there are a lot of people who don’t care about me and they just want my recipes. So everyone can get what they want and be happy and I make it so easy for them.

Allea Grummert (23:38)
Yeah, do you have, I’m so curious, do you have anybody who’s on your list who’s unsubscribed from all of them? By any reason?

Toni Okamoto (23:47)
I’m sure.

Allea Grummert (23:50)
I guess they would probably get cleared off as a cold subscriber with time as well. typically I have set a default. So if they unsubscribe from everything, they’re still getting this particular email.

Toni Okamoto (24:02)
They’ll still get my launch emails because my launch emails go to everybody. don’t have a tag for those people and then they go to everybody. So if I’m selling something and it’s go time, everybody gets a lot of emails from me.

Allea Grummert (24:21)
Are you pausing then your regularly scheduled emails to just focus on the launch? ⁓ Tony’s like, no. Everybody gets everything. ⁓ Love that. Couple questions. Do you automatically, like when somebody joins as a subscriber, do they get all the segments unless they opt out? Is that correct? Yeah. OK.

Toni Okamoto (24:43)
Yes, and they start with the series. And in that series, that’s right, like the Welcome series, in that Welcome series that you and I worked on together. That’s where there are link triggers to get me knowing which products that they might be interested in. So we have my books tagged with link triggers, my meal plan. So if you click meal plan and maybe that takes you to my meal plan landing page with my free meal plans I’ll know that when I have a meal plan going out that’s new for sale, I can reach out to that group a little bit more because they’re interested in meal plans. Thank you. That’s all you helped me with with that big time.

Allea Grummert (25:22)
Look at you segmenting like a boss. Well, and so much of it though comes with the confidence of like when you say it’s go time and you know, I know who I’m going to like really hit hard with this and maybe who I just need to make sure that people on my list know that this is an option.

Toni Okamoto (25:42)
Yes, I also feel like once you are able to be a human to your audience and they know you and they care about you and they know there’s a launch, they may be slightly annoyed that you’re spamming. They may feel like you’re spamming, but they understand and they want you to reach your goal. And so I feel like maybe some people will unsubscribe, some people might send an unkind email, which just they’re not they’re not your people anyway. Just let it go. ⁓ I’ve during my last book launch, I received maybe the most vile emails. They were like calling me the not some not nice names because I emailed them like twice in a day or every day. But those are my people and I had a goal. So I was just like, bye, like see you later. Yeah, that it wasn’t it wasn’t anything to me. I mostly took a screenshot and shared it to all my friends being like, this is my life.

Allea Grummert (26:52)
I’ve made it! People feel like they can verbalize their frustrations at me!

Toni Okamoto (26:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so I feel like you’re going back to those like true community members, community members, they are patient and they understand that you are trying to reach your sales goals.

Allea Grummert (27:19)
Yeah. ⁓ Can we talk a little bit about launching? Because I’m so curious, like when you say it’s go time, what does that mean? Like, what’s your process? What’s your build up? And how often are you launching?

Toni Okamoto (27:31)
We’ll talk about books since I have a lot of experience selling books. I usually tease it for a while at during the pre-order like season. So usually there’s like a three to six month pre-order for books that your publisher is trying to get you to sell a lot of copies. And so I’ll be teasing it weekly. It’ll be in my newsletter. ⁓ It’ll be in my welcome series. I’ll have it everywhere and people will become quite familiar. And I’ll send maybe a designated email every couple of weeks. But then once the weekend before your book comes out, books come out on a Tuesday. So maybe the weekend before, like Friday or Saturday, Sunday, I’ll start really ramping it up and say maybe one email per day. And then when it’s time for the week, that first week is really important to authors, especially if they’re trying to make the best sellers list and you’ve got until the following Saturday to get your first week of sales. And I’m sending emails like two times minimum, sometimes three times. And that is aggressive. There are authors who don’t do that. And I respect that. But maybe they have really strong audiences and they feel like so confident that they don’t even need to but I think for me, what happened with the first couple books and then with the last book is that I knew that this was the whole, like all of the effort that I’ve put in for years and years and years giving free content away. This was my moment to use what I’ve built. And I had to let go of how. Like any insecurities that I was having about bothering people and I had to reframe it as like if I were Macy’s or like and I was having a sale or if I were some other company, they they don’t think twice about emailing twice a day. I think people are used to that. And this is the reason like this is the reason I’ve been working so hard on this. Vehicle of communication. Because I want to be able to sell my books and share something that I worked so passionately on and so hard and like blood, sweat and tears into with my audience. And they recognize that and I recognize that. And that’s a new thing for me is that I am much more uninhibited with my email now than I was in the past.

Allea Grummert (30:23)
I love it. Well, and like how much time and energy and blood, sweat and tears you’re putting into the emails, but also what you just put into a cookbook. Everything I hear about creating a cookbook is like, that’s easy. And that’s so mentally taxing. And so what I’m hearing is that, you know, you’re building this long term relationship with people based in care, like of them and of their expectations of the meals that they have with their family. And it sounds like that’s kind of what’s keeping you going as well. But then would you say that’s true? with the- Yeah.

Toni Okamoto (30:57)
Yes, I think that if nobody was reading it, and I had already I try to do everything now for one year. I tried to invest for one year. And I always pick a one year project and the year I worked with you, that was my email. ⁓ And if it doesn’t, if it doesn’t hit after a year, then maybe I’ll reconsider but it did for me and it takes some time people would be like, who are you? And that’s another thing. It’s a little bit of a challenge and it requires consistency is if someone signed up for your newsletter through the creator network, like they followed someone else and now they’re on your list. How do you get them from being someone who’s there for the plant based recipes to someone who cares about you and wants to support you and your work financially? That’s a that’s a big jump and it requires a lot of time and effort and reciprocity with the care.

Allea Grummert (32:05)
Absolutely. And then when it comes to launching something, I love that you’re more uninhibited because oftentimes, especially as women, we’re not really our first hype people. I remember when I found out about affirmations, I knew what they were. But when I heard them in the voice of my friends, I was like, I do believe this. It’s harder to tell it to ourselves. I’m like, you are strong and confident and courageous, as if a friend is telling me that. But yeah, like for you to be courageous with that, to be proud of your work, to provide an option for people to have delicious recipes, but also support you and the person that you have been so vulnerable with them. I just love seeing that come full circle and knowing like, right, this is the end of the podcast. We’re just now hearing about you setting these like sales goals, whereas everything else has like been rooted in how much you care about your

Toni Okamoto (33:01)
Yes, and I think at the end of the day, that’s what I really care about it. I want as I mentioned when you asked what brings me that kind of care and connection is just making sure that people have a really good experience with my recipes and that they want to come back and that I believe in the power of connecting people through food and sharing love through food and it feels nice knowing that my recipes are at their table as that connection for them is happening.

Allea Grummert (33:43)
I love it. Yeah, what a grounded way to build your work on, Yeah. Well, as we wrap up, where can people connect with you and learn more about your work, your content? Where would you send them?

Toni Okamoto (33:49)
Thank You can find me at PlantBasedOnABudget.com. If anybody has any questions, feel free to shoot me an email, toni@PlantBasedOnABudget.com and I’m on socials at PlantBasedOnABudget.

Allea Grummert (34:10)
Yes, we love consistency. Get that. that. We will include links to Toni in the show notes, y’all, so you can go follow along with her. Clearly, you know that she has a deep well of care for you. And so if you would go try out her recipes and follow along, I’m sure she would love that. And you would benefit from it too.

Toni Okamoto (34:30)
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you.

Allea Grummert (34:33)
Ditto! So glad that you were able to come on.

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.

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