Turn Down The Hustle: Empowering Online T-Shirt Sellers

29 | Save Your T-Shirt Business From These 5 Email Marketing Mistakes

• Sun Kissed Virtual Assistant • Episode 29

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What if your email marketing strategy is costing you more customers than it's gaining? This episode of Turn Down the Hustle is a must-listen for T-Shirt business owners who want to avoid common pitfalls and maximize their email campaigns. Learn why sending marketing emails from Gmail is a big mistake and how using an Email Service Provider (ESP) can help you maintain professionalism and comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, ensuring your emails don't end up in the spam folder.

You'll also discover the right balance between sales-focused content and engaging storytelling. Ever wondered if you're overusing images in your emails? I'll explain how too many graphics can negatively impact your email performance, particularly on mobile devices. Plus, I tackle the emotional side of email marketing by discussing why obsessing over unsubscribes is counterproductive and how understanding the reasons behind them can help you build a more effective mailing list.

Finally, I share actionable steps and best practices to refine your email marketing strategy. From creating captivating email templates to allowing uninterested subscribers to opt-out, you'll gain valuable insights to boost your engagement metrics and reputation with your ESP. Join me for a deep dive into email marketing that will set yourT-Shirt business up for long-term success.

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Speaker 1:

Today we're diving into a topic that's close to my heart and essential for your business. If you've been with me for a little while now, you know I'm talking about email marketing. I know what you're thinking. Email marketing isn't that for the big brands with massive budgets and teams of marketing gurus. Let me tell you, it's not just for the big guys. In fact, it's one of the most powerful tools at your disposal and it's perfect for small business owners like you, ann. But here's the thing there are some big common mistakes I see t-shirt makers make when they're just starting out with email marketing, and these mistakes, believe it or not, can really hold you back. But don't worry, we're going to talk about them today. Today, we're going to discuss mistakes that range from using Gmail for your email marketing, violating the canned spam act why maybe your strategy is not working for you the amount of images you use and, finally, the dreaded unsubscribes.

Speaker 2:

You're listening to Turn Down the Hustle, the podcast dedicated to transforming how you run your creative online t-shirt business by working smarter, not harder, so you can spend more time with your why, people and passions that matter most in your life. So throw on your favorite graphic tee and turn up the heat. Press, because it's time to turn down the hustle. Here's your host digital marketer. Cold brew lover, t-shirt maker, freckled hype girl and owner of Sunkist Virtual Assistant, amy.

Speaker 1:

Mistake number one is sending email marketing from your Gmail.

Speaker 1:

So I'm talking like you're logging into your Gmail on your computer, checking your emails, and then you're thinking, hey, I need to send out my new offer. So you click new email, you drop in all of these email addresses you've pulled from your website into the to field, type out your offer and hit send. Cannot do that. That is a violation of the CanSpan Mac for the number one reason that you're not giving anyone who received that email an option to opt out or unsubscribe. They are stuck in that email chain. You know what I'm talking about. If you're in any of those group texts with Android users and you can't leave the chat, it is quite frustrating at times. So you maybe just mute it or you start to ignore it. The best practice for sending email marketing and to help you ensure that you're following all the legal guidelines is to sign up for an ESP email service provider, something like Flowdesk, MailChimp, convertkit. Any ESP will help set you up for success. Okay, now you know, do not send email blasts directly from Gmail. But what about that Gmail email address that you have? I think that is a part two of this mistake and that it detracts from the professionalism with having that personal email address, why Anyone can just go create a Gmail or Yahoo email and start sending it from their business, whereas if you take the time to get a custom domain branded email address, it definitely boosts up those professional brownie points. If you need more resources on creating one of those, check out the episode prior to this one episode 28, to learn more about that specifically and go more into depth. Also, if you are using an ESP and you have just a plain personal Gmail email address, there's a high likelihood that one your ESP may not even accept that as an email that you're allowed to send email marketing from. But two, there's a very high chance that all of those emails you send are actually just going to land in the spam folder or promotions folder anyways, or worse off, is that your subscribers actually just mark your emails as spam.

Speaker 1:

Mistake number two is not following the CanSpam Act. Probably even before that is not even being aware that there is a CanSpam Act. It helps provide guidance and protection governing marketing, whether it's emails or those physical mailings. We already talked about it in mistake number one, but if you want to ensure that you're on the right direction of following the canned spam act. It would be providing a clear way to unsubscribe. That means if somebody receives your email, they can quickly find that button and get out of that email thread or whatever they've signed up for. It doesn't mean you hide the unsubscribe button in the middle of your email text or you just delete it altogether. Or the option doesn't mean you hide the unsubscribe button in the middle of your email text or you just delete it altogether, or the option doesn't exist. That would not be adhering to the CAN-SPAM Act.

Speaker 1:

Also, in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act, you have to have a valid postal address included on all of your marketing emails. For many of us small business owners, our home is also where we're running our business, so that would mean we need to put our home address on all of our email blasts. Majority of us don't want to do that. Yes, if someone wants to figure out where we live, internet can probably do that for them, but we don't want to offer that information for them. But we don't want to offer that information willingly, especially when there are other alternatives. You can go open up a additional PO box, maybe at your local USPS or even UPS. I go through iPostal. It is a very helpful service. I'll link it in the show notes for you.

Speaker 1:

Another way t-shirt makers do not follow the canned spam back. It's having deceptive subject lines. Now there's a difference between creating a subject line that is a cliffhanger and it's like oh, what's in this email? What new feature could she possibly be talking about? Then you're interested and you click it right. But I have seen it used and I cringed when I saw it. Someone took like the exact subject line you would get, like if your order is delivered or your order is ready for pickup. They put that in the subject line as a deceptive tactic to make people think that they had an order ready or like, hey, wait, I didn't order something and then inside the email was actually marketing promotion material. You can't do that. That is a deceptive subject line and it is a violation of CanSpamAct. So that's mistake. Number two is that t-shirt makers are not following the CanSpamMac when they're running their email marketing program. If you haven't read through it before, I will link it in the show notes for you. And did I mention that, the CanSpamMac? You are subject to penalties of up to $52,000. So this is not something you should just scoff. I highly recommend, if you care about your pocketbooks and your business and your customers, that you take a look at this before you send another email.

Speaker 1:

Mistake number three is focusing solely on sales, meaning every email you send is to share about your new offer. Consistently pushing sales can turn off subscribers. Yes, I said subscribers, not customers. Many of your email subscribers may not be customers yet, so you're still trying to grow that like know and trust factor and nurture your audience to move them closer to a purchase. Your email marketing has the ability to land in your subscribers' personal inbox, like you are on their phone or device right when they wake up, potentially when they're scrolling. That's the power of your reach.

Speaker 1:

With email marketing, it's crucial that you focus on building relationships and providing value. This can range with just connecting with them through devotionals, if your audience is majority faith-based, or maybe connecting them to local events or other vendors they may be interested in. Maybe you have a local spotlight, or even something that recently came up is making sure they know all of the graduation dates in the area. You are a master at Canva and by using Canva you can really create some unique items that are of value to your audience, that are relevant to your local area. Don't be afraid to mix up your content either. You can share helpful tips or maybe stories about what you did this weekend and then somehow you've linked. You know the shirt you were wearing PS. If you want the shirt that I'm wearing this weekend, check it out here, or something similar, or create your own here. Think about offering them a behind the scenes look, or maybe, if they missed a live, you're emailing that out. Here's the live replay. Click here to watch. Just for my audience. I've recorded it for you, something to that effect.

Speaker 1:

Or then thinking about those above and beyond occasional promotions. Think about the old 80-20 rule 80% valuable content, 20% promotional. That doesn't mean that you're not selling anything, it's just your approach, versus having an email full of only products by here, by here, by here, by here, with no other texts. That's what we're trying to move away from if we want to build relationships with your audience. Think about styling tips. Or maybe has your business transitioned now into tank tops? Can you go into details about how to pick your perfect tank top size? Can you share photos of what it looks like with somebody in a medium versus a large, so you can help them work through that, or maybe a picture of that tank indoors with the lighting, versus outdoors, help them find their perfect fit.

Speaker 1:

Also, when we talk focusing solely on sales as a mistake, I would use that same mistake in a different light, in the sense of evaluating if your efforts are working or not. So let's say you've been sending emails for two months every week and you've been working on growing your subscriber lists. Again, you've been sending those emails, but then maybe your sales are not correlating like my sales. I thought they would double with sending all of these emails and it's not. So it's not working.

Speaker 1:

I think that is a mistake as well, to focus solely on sales. Why, if you are sending consistent emails and they're getting open and you are getting a higher click rate, like people are going to visit your website but they're not buying anything, that does not necessarily tie to causation, meaning it's your email list that is failing. Why? There could be a number of things on your website as a reason of why they're not buying. Is your offer not correct? Is your website confusing? Are you having a glitch? Is your pricing structure not adding up to what your subscriber wants to spend? Maybe there's not a perceived value there, so they don't want to trade their dollars for that product. Proceed with caution if you're focusing solely on sales to measure your email marketing effort success or lack thereof. Instead, I recommend you just look at your email marketing on its own, as a standalone. This is why an ESP is extremely helpful, because you can start to use that analytic feature to see, hey, which emails are getting open, which button resulted in the highest clicks? What subject lines were maybe not as successful? Focus on those versus focusing on your sales count.

Speaker 1:

Mistake number four I see t-shirt makers make when it comes to email email marketing is including an overwhelming amount of images to content, meaning you have way too many images and not enough content to support those images. There are a few downsides of overloading emails with images. Now, I'm not saying there's a certain amount of images you can or can't have. I'm talking about images in proportion to your content. So the majority of your email should be filled with content, written word over those images. And now, even if you're using like, an image block, like for a flow desk and image block, and you're like well, the graphic I'm uploading has text on it that's technically content. It's not, because whenever you load it into your email service provider. It is counted as an image if it's in the image block.

Speaker 1:

If you have way too many images in your emails in comparison with the content, this can get caught up in the spam filter. Emails with too many images are more likely to be flagged as spam. Why? Because your subscribers' inboxes are looking for emails from like friends, colleagues. Okay, yeah, that's probably something that belongs in the primary inbox, but an email with a lot of images is more than likely promotional content or maybe something that is unwanted. When was the last time you sent an email and attached tons of emails in the body of the email? Probably have never done that, but whenever you're sending your email marketing, you're probably doing that a lot.

Speaker 1:

Also, a lot of images can create loading issues, especially on mobile devices. I can't tell you how many times I've received emails. I go to open it up depending on where I'm at. Maybe I'm at work trying to load it with where I have not as good service and I can't even see the email because all of I can tell the image blocks are condensed or collapsed and the images are not loading and I just see shop now, shop now, shop now. And I don't know what any of those images were supposed to be and there's not any text to support what the image block was. So I just hit delete. I don't wait for all of those images to load.

Speaker 1:

The best practice is to use that balance of text and images. So you're going to have people that are drawn to images. A few images will support their reading style, whereas others like to read and they will skim, so that text supports those type of subscribers. If you're currently struggling with this mistake, what I want you to do before you send your next email is grab all of the photos you normally would put in an email, but if you have three, I want you to pick one. If you have six, I want you to get it down to two. Try to reduce how many images you're using, and then that will also push you to make sure you're only selecting or taking the most high quality photos possible, because you know you're not going to use them all. And then if you're like, well, I really want them to see all these images, though I want them to see the images too, but they just don't belong in your email. So focus on using a clear and compelling call to action to pique their curiosity to go see the rest of the images or your offer. Maybe you don't even reveal the full image, maybe you have it blurred a little bit so they have to click to go to your website to see the full product. Maybe it's one of those. The goal of your email marketing is to lead them to your website. If they can get all of the information from the email and delete, why would they ever visit your website?

Speaker 1:

The final mistake, mistake number five, makes me sad when I read comments like this. And it is obsessing over unsubscribes. Why? Because many of us learned long ago to not obsess over our group member count and our Facebook groups dropping. We figured out how to do it from a desktop. You can go in and search former members to see even who's left the group. But when we first started it felt like a gut punch, like I worked so hard to get a group of 63 people and you best believe I'm going to notice if next time I come and the group's down to 61, it's like did I do something wrong? Are they not liking my products? It's really easy for you to start to internalize those group members that have left one by one. Maybe what you didn't realize is maybe they just wanted to take a social media break so they actually deactivated their profile. Or maybe they're trying to cut back on spending and they love all your items, but they are just not exercising self-control, so they're trying to work on their budget. Maybe others accepted the group request to come join your group but they actually realized these products aren't for me. I actually don't wear graphic tees or I don't need a custom tumbler, so this group is not serving me, so I'm just going to leave.

Speaker 1:

That says nothing about you as a business owner and it says nothing about your products. It is all about the members and their own personal situations. We are very selfish creatures by nature in that we assume the world revolves around us, so if something does not go in our favor, it has to be something that maybe I have done, but that is not always the case. Everyone is all on their own journey and maybe their journey just isn't aligning with your present journey, and that is okay. So we've come a long way to accept that mindset for our Facebook group. So, as you start to venture out into email marketing, that is no different.

Speaker 1:

If you get an unsubscribe or two, that is okay. Or in proportion to your email list size. Presently, a current unsubscribe rate that is healthy is less than 0.5%. So if you have an email list of 500 people that you are emailing on a weekly basis, you hit that email and anywhere from two to three people unsubscribe. That is a healthy amount. It's going to happen. Every time you send an email, you're reminding people that you exist, so it's another opportunity for them to decide is this still serving me or is it not? The good news is is if you have that unsubscribe button clearly identified in the body of your email, they'll hit unsubscribe versus marking you as spam, which we absolutely do not want to happen.

Speaker 1:

However, if you send an email and you do see a spike in unsubscribes, maybe for that 500 email list, one email gets 15 unsubscribes. That's okay. This is a great opportunity to evaluate why. Is this an email where maybe you took maybe more of an edgier approach in your opinion on something which is okay? Sometimes, being more one way or the other can help you create an audience of loyal followers versus just a lukewarm in the middle trying to please everyone. But take a look at that. Or did you try to take a leap in trying out a new product offering or announcing that something in your business is going to change, or maybe did you change up your email marketing style that potentially did not get the response that you were hoping for.

Speaker 1:

Those unsubscribes, when they come in a large bulk, can really teach you a lot about it. I actually had this happen one time and I uh funny enough it was an email Maybe you've gotten this one from me. It was over a year ago now but I sent an email about my eyebrow appointment fail like the tenting of my eyebrows and it was just so dark and I put the picture in there. I mean it was terrible. And so I got an uptick in unsubscribes on that particular email. That I have never seen happen before. So I went back and I went into the content to figure out like where was the disconnect? Why was someone unsubscribing from this email? And I found that in that email writing copy I didn't do a good job of getting to the punch soon enough. I felt like I was a little bit wordy about telling about my eyebrow experience. So for my subscribers it's like what does that have to do with me? So I found and I took a lesson learned that if I'm going to have some kind of antidote or story or share something personal. I needed to get to the punch faster, so, again, you can learn from those kinds of events.

Speaker 1:

Let's go back to the Facebook group example. Many of us have been in business for years now, so potentially the customers we started with may have trickled down. I have no doubt you still have some of the most loyal customers that are still with you, that were there when you first started, but some have kind of disappeared into the distance. Maybe that's no longer their style. Maybe they've kind of outgrown Tees. Maybe they have 20 of your Tumblr cups so maybe they're not in a point to buy right now. Or, if you sell B2B, maybe your audience isn't making shirts anymore.

Speaker 1:

No matter what has changed, many of you are trying to find a way to make sure those in your Facebook group are actually wanting to be there. Long gone are the days of where we were asking people to invite 200 people to get a $5 gift card. We learned that that was not a good approach. So you're trying to whittle down your audience to make sure that those that want to be there are there to help increase that those that are seeing your posts with a very low reach that social media provides. It is hitting those that actually are interested in what you provide. So if we're using that same kind of approach with our Facebook group, the same should also be true with email marketing.

Speaker 1:

First things first. We only want to get people on our email list that we know are a good fit. But maybe some hopped on our email list that were not a good fit or later have evolved and maybe changed or maybe they're no longer interested. So they hit that unsubscribe. That is good. They are weeding themselves out and telling you I am not interested in your offer or this offer is not the best offer for me. This is good news. What if the same people did the same thing in our Facebook group that they're doing on our email list? Those one to two unsubscribes every time we send. That's great. Why? It's going to help increase your reputation with your ESP, because you're going to have people that are active on your email list so you're not getting these bounces or delivering to closed inboxes. It's also helping your open rates and, eventually, your click-through rates as well.

Speaker 1:

Quality over quantity An engaged audience is way more valuable than a large audience, but they're not as engaged. So for those of you just starting out with 20 people on your email list and you're at like an 82% open rate, enjoy that while you can, because the bigger your audience grows, the more likely it is that you're going to start getting people on your email list that aren't actually interested and then you're going to start following more into those average open rates of like 35%, plus or minus just a bit. So, again, if you're starting off just now, enjoy that while you can. And if you're finding that your engagement rates are lower, or maybe your open rates are lower, this is where you can apply a cold subscriber type of funnel and you can start to work to identify those. Hey, do you actually want to be on this email list or are you no longer interested? If you're no longer interested, here's an unsubscribe. You can take yourself off. No harm, no foul. Or if you are interested, go ahead and click this button to tell me you still want to be here and then, after a period of time or a few emails, then you can decide who still has not opened or taken the action I've asked of them, and then you can remove them from your email list. Again, that will help keep your email list healthy.

Speaker 1:

It's time to wrap up this episode and I just want to recap all of those mistakes and the best practices for them, the first mistake being sending email blasts from Gmail. Your best practice is going to be signing up for an email service provider to help guide you through the appropriate way to send out your email marketing. Mistake number two is not adhering or following the can spam act. Your best practice there is to just look in the show notes and just read it to begin with and make sure you understand Mist. Best practice there is to just look in the show notes and just read it to begin with and make sure you understand. Mistake number three is focusing solely on sales whenever you send your email. That best practice is to follow the 80-20 rule 80% valuable content and 20% promotional. Mistake number four is having way too many images in your emails. The best practice is to use a balance of text and images. However, I highly recommend using majority content and very few images, and think about those compelling call to actions to get them to take action.

Speaker 1:

Mistake number five is obsessing over unsubscribes. The best practice to alleviate this is to, quite frankly, shift your mindsets. Unsubscribes is the name of the game. It may happen. Actually, check that it's going to happen, but take a note to see if your unsubscribed rates are on par with the average, roughly 0.5%. If it is, no worries. If it is higher than that consistently, then that's something you want to take a look at and dive deeper into your email marketing strategy and figure out which part is your audience not responding to the way you want them to.

Speaker 1:

If you're ready to take the next steps for email marketing whether it's to get started with email marketing, or maybe you just need to fine tune your current processes Maybe you need some help with some templates on what should you be sending, what should you be saying? I'd love to help you out with that. Check out the show notes, because I will link all of my best resources down below. Thank you for taking the time to tune into another episode. Your support means everything to me. If you do have an extra second today and you would like to rate and review the podcast, that would be greatly appreciated. It helps future perspective listeners decide if this is the podcast they want to tune into or not.

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