30. Do Podcasters Need an Email List? Podcasting Tips to Level Up Your Community with Robbin Kent

Email marketing and podcasting can go hand in hand to build a community of loyal fans. In today's episode, I'm joined by my biz bestie, Robbin Kent. She's an expert in email marketing and she shares some of her best tips for engagement, storytelling, and subject lines.

Connect with Robbin:
www.RobbinKent.com
Online Courses Made Easy Podcast

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This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

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Transcript

Julia Levine:
Hey. Hey. And welcome back. Today, you have the sweet treat of hearing from my good friend and biz bestie, Robbin Kent. Robbin and I met a couple of years ago when we both enrolled in Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy or DCA for short. Amy encourages students to find accountability partners for the duration of the program, and Robbin and I connected thanks to our shared background in elementary education. We soon discovered that we have a lot of complimentary skills, and we've continued to support each other and collaborate while building our online businesses long after we finished DCA. Robbin was actually my very first podcast Startup Academy student and success story with her podcast, Online Courses Made Easy. She specializes in the early stages of creating an online course, especially audience building. And she joins me on the show today to talk about email marketing and how, as podcasters, we can use our email list to strengthen the connection with our listeners. 

Julia Levine:
Hey, Robbin. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Robbin Kent:
Oh, I am so thrilled. I've been waiting for this day to get to be here talking with you and and all the things podcasting. So, yes, thank you so, so

Julia Levine:
much. Yay. I'm so glad we're finally making it happen. I know we've talked about it for quite some time. And I'd love to just kick things off today by having you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Robbin Kent:
Oh, okay. Awesome. Well, I'm Robbin Kent, and I'm a podcaster myself for online courses made easy. And Julia was the queen who helped me put it together and kinda kicked me through all of my excuses. So I help course creators deal with the actual initial phases of course creation to actually build their offense and build their email list and build their courses that will be sold as they get it out there. And I just love this world I've been in in about 7 years, and it's just so much fun to see the creative brains all come together. So, yeah, that's that's like the short snippet of what I do.

Julia Levine:
Yes. Absolutely. And you are certainly gonna be a repeat guest on the podcast because we have so many things that we could talk about. But today we're focusing on email marketing and an email list. And so my first question for you is, you know, my audience, they're made up of podcasters or aspiring podcasters. And so tell us why does a podcaster need an email list?

Robbin Kent:
Well, you know, with our podcast, it's one of the best places. It's my favorite place to build that know, like, and trust factor because I get to be myself and be my quirkiness and really get to talk, and I love to talk. So podcasting really lets me create those connections. The next best place is building that email list because what I have found being a course creator is that so many people like to either listen or they like to read or they like to watch, and so when you are taking someone from the podcast world and taking it to the emails, then that's just even another level of area that you can create that connection, and that's easier to sell in your emails so after you build that connection. And so having those 2 as your top platforms to really build that know, like, and trust factor, it's such a win win situation.

Julia Levine:
All excellent points. Thank you so much for kind of breaking that down for us as to why podcasters need an email list. And so there are lots of ways to build the email list and certainly through the podcast is just one of many ways. But since we're here focusing on the podcast today, we're going to just steer down that avenue. And so once we have people on our email list, then we most likely if we've been list building for a while, we most likely have a combination of people on our list. People who know us well, listen to our podcast regularly, and people who don't. Maybe we've put out a lead magnet or we've made a connection in a Facebook group. They're Levine new to our world, and we want to get them to go listen to our podcast because that's the best way to build that know, like, and trust and have them get to know us.

Julia Levine:
So I'm thinking that it's probably a good idea for podcasters to send out kind of a weekly email, weekly newsletter, something and in that email, tell them specifically about the new podcast episode and give them a call to action to go listen to it. Am I on the right track with that?

Robbin Kent:
Absolutely. You are so right. It is it's like a cycle that goes through. You wanna take your podcasters to get on the email list, but then you, like you said, you have these email people that came in maybe from other situations and other things, and you wanna make sure they get to your podcast. So yes, yes, yes. You so want to drive your traffic back to your podcast. You are so right.

Julia Levine:
Okay, great. So then the next question becomes, how exactly do we tell people about the new episode without repeating or giving away all the value that's within the episode. We wanna save that because we want them to go listen to it there. But we also need to give them kind of enough of a tease, enough context to make them go listen. How do we find that balance?

Robbin Kent:
Oh, such a great question too because, honestly, I had my email list before I started my podcast. And so I had one method of how I would create my emails with my value in it, and as I transitioned to actually have my emails direct them to my podcast, it was kind of a juggling act at first. And I was like, okay. Exactly like what you said. How do I intrigue them enough to know, oh my goodness, I need to know more, so how do I go there? And, honestly, I started off with some of the ways of just, you know, like, if I had the top five reasons, maybe I gave them the top 2 in the email, and then I drove them to go finish listening to the others on the podcast. But I didn't feel like that was working quite how I wanted it to work. So what I found has worked for me is and my clients is that you actually start with a micro story. You actually start with a conversation.

Robbin Kent:
And the funny thing is is that I would have never dreamed that I would be teaching people how to write emails. But when I figured out that it's a conversation that you have back and forth, so it's a conversation, like, if you're sitting down with your biz bestie on a Zoom or at a coffee shop or having a conversation, then that's how you do it in the email. And so I love teaching my clients about micro stories of how to introduce it at the very top of your email and then guide them into your podcast of what you're going to actually be talking about and that you give stories in there and you give the actual value in the podcast. It's almost like dangling that carrot in front of them to get them to go, wait a second. Oh my gosh. I need to know more. And so using micro stories in my email is one of the main ways that I actually then get people to go and listen to my podcast.

Julia Levine:
That is amazing. And I'm chuckling a little bit because Robbin and I are so very different. And we have some very complimentary skills. And Robbin is just so good at telling stories and just making small talk with people and chatting. And I am not. And so I'm sitting here listening to her say, you know, we need to tell stories in our emails, these little micro stories kind of draw people in. And me as the introvert who doesn't like small talk, I like to get straight to the point, tell people what they need to know. And I'm, you know, all business.

Julia Levine:
I'm sitting here wondering, okay, so how how do I tell these micro stories? Do you have any tips for those of us that aren't naturally as gifted in the social area. And we have a little bit more trouble kind of just striking up a conversation with a stranger, which is kinda what it feels like doing on our email list?

Robbin Kent:
That is such a great question. Point and I stay organized because I can because Levine point and I stay organized because I can because I am the storyteller that I can go to the left field and the right field and not stay down the stay down center field. But with storytelling, one of the best ways that I love working with my clients to actually get them to see how to describe it. The story, think about this, whether you're reading a novel or you are watching a movie, they make you feel like you are in the movie or that you're in the novel. And so they use lots of visualization. They use sounds. They use emotions. They use those kind of different things to draw you in and help you connect with either that character or with that person of like, oh, okay.

Robbin Kent:
Well, now what's gonna happen? Woah. You get in what that is. So if you want to think about like your, you know, your favorite TV show or maybe Friends, the show Friends that I know is one of Julia's favorites, and that is at a coffee shop. Right? You're at a coffee shop. You're with your friends. You're having conversation. You can talk about the door slamming. You can talk about the silly conversations going on among the group of friends and so painting that visual picture.

Robbin Kent:
So the very first thing is thinking about what story connects to this, and I'm a back up just a little bit and say one of the things is come up with your value first. When you're putting your email together and you are trying to create the micro story, create the value first. What is the podcast about? What can you talk about that made you even think about that podcast? Was it a client story that had you thinking about why you needed to create that podcast episode? Was it a moment that you had that helped you create that podcast story? Think about what originated for you to get there, and that cannot give you a clue of how to lead in to talking about what is going on. So that would be some of my top ways that, you know, to bring them in and not give it all so that they push the button and they go listen to your episode.

Julia Levine:
That is so, so helpful, and I love the nugget about thinking about what helped you come up with the idea for the episode in the first place. That I think is a game changer for me in particular. Yeah, because I just want to tell them to go listen to the episode. And I'm like, what story can I tell that goes along with this, and I'm just kind of stumped? So that tip, think about what prompted you to create the content for the episode in the first place and tell that story. That that is so super helpful. That's a game changer for sure. So why one last question for you in this area and that is about subject lines because doesn't really matter what we write in our email, how good of our story we're telling, it doesn't matter if no one opens it. So what tips do you have for creating subject lines that get people to open the email?

Robbin Kent:
Oh, this is a this is a probably one of the hardest to explain, but I'm gonna give it a go here. Okay. So when you're creating an email, like I said, you're gonna start with what is the point of the email? What is the value that you're gonna give? You're gonna create the micro story, and actually, the subject line is the very last thing I do. It's the very last thing. It's not the first thing. It's the very last thing because when I write the email, depending on how it flows, I'm like, okay. What nugget in here can I pull out of what I've just wrote? What can I pull out that's gonna make them go, wait a second? What is she talking? It's like you want to give it where you make it vague enough, but clear enough that it's interesting. So you have to know who your audience is.

Robbin Kent:
So for mine, it's a course creator, and so I know that maybe, you know, their pain points that they want are to make sure people buy their course. They need to make sure that their messaging is right. They need to I think about what are their pain points and what questions are they asking in their head. And then I look back at my email content, and I'm like, what problem does this solve, and how can I word this so that they know that they need to read this to learn more? So it is it's definitely something that just kinda comes with practice, along with the storytelling. But the number one thing I would say is save it for last and think about your client's pain points to exactly what are they looking for. Why do they want to go into this? And one other thing that I would love to add just to let you know other than kind of figuring out what your subject line is, but if you want to have a great open rate is that you want to build that know, like, and trust factor inside your email. So what do I mean by that? So you're building the know, like, and trust factor through your podcast, and they keep coming back because they love you as a podcaster. And they wanna see what else are you gonna teach me? What else are you gonna tell me.

Robbin Kent:
You wanna create that same scenario, that same situation with your email. That when your name comes up on their email list and it says the podcast teacher on there, then they're gonna be like, oh, yeah. She's got great content. So they might not even pay attention to your subject line because you have built that know, like, and trust factor with them, and they're gonna open it to see what juicy information you have for them now. So it's kinda like the whole podcast. After people start following you, they are gonna start following you because they want to on the podcast world because they want to know anything and everything that you're teaching. And so you wanna do that same type of relationship and that same type of miss fear on your email list.

Julia Levine:
So it takes some pressure off of the subject line being so good because it's all about that authentic connection, those relationships. And so they might not even look at the subject Levine. That takes some pressure off that they can just see my name and be like, Oh, yeah, I like her stuff. Let me click on this email. And, of course, I'm still gonna give some attention to the subject lines for those people that haven't quite, you know, gotten through the whole know, like and trust cycle yet. And they're not we're not quite besties. But I love the tip of doing the subject line last, I will sit down and you know, it's at the top of your top of your draft. So it's so easy to think that you have to do that first, but I love the tip about doing that last.

Julia Levine:
I am going to start doing that. That is a golden nugget there. Thank you so much.

Robbin Kent:
You are so welcome. Yeah. It just makes it all come together when you're able to do that. And and, yes, it does take the pressure off of that that subject Levine. Like, there's importance, but it's not as important as what's inside the email as it is on the actual open after you build that. So, yes, you are so right.

Julia Levine:
Well, it has been such a valuable conversation today, and you are certainly going to be coming back for other conversations. You and I talk about so many different aspects of business and podcasting that, you know, our listeners can just be little birdies on our shoulder listening to everything, they would get so much value. So you're definitely coming back. I'm not gonna let you get out of it.

Robbin Kent:
Yay. Awesome. But as we wrap up today, for anyone who wants to connect with you further and learn more, where can they go to do that? Okay. Yes. Please come on over to I'm robbinkent.com. So, Robbin is with 2 b's, robbinkent.com, or you can type in online courses made easy.com, and you will find me there as well. And I just love helping course creators, wanna be course creators, to actually get their god given skills and talents out there in the world. So, yes, come on over there and find me, but also I would love for you to come on over to my podcast as well, online courses made easy.

Robbin Kent:
That is my favorite place to hang out, and I'm so thankful every day that Julia has gotten me to the point you make it a real deal and out there in the world.

Julia Levine:
Thank you so much for being here today, Robbin. And absolutely, dear listener, please go check out Robbin's podcast. It is absolutely amazing. You will not regret spending your time over there. Thank you so much, Robbin, and we will be sure to have you back.

Robbin Kent:
Thank you. I look forward to it.

Julia Levine:
Thanks for listening. If something in this episode resonated with you and you're thinking about starting your own podcast, I have a free resource that will help you. It's called the podcast road map, 10 simple steps to launch your own podcast. No fancy tech required. Just head to the podcast teacher.com/roadmap to grab it.