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How To Build your Email List to Grow your Income with Andrea Palten

On this episode, Jacob talks with one of the truly great marketers out there, Andrea Palten. They talk about being good in business, building an email list, marketing during a pandemic, data and privacy, and more.

Show Notes

On this episode, Jacob talks with one of the truly great marketers out there, Andrea Palten. They talk about being good in business, building an email list, marketing during a pandemic, data and privacy, and more.

Again, Be Good in Business

  • Don’t ghost people.
  • Communicate!
  • Create a trustworthy brand.
  • We’re all humans. Your clients will understand. Just communicate with them.
  • Tell the truth.

Building an email list

  • The bigger your list, the bigger your income.
  • When someone gives you their email address, they are telling you that they trust you.
  • You own your email list. Not the people, but the list.
  • You don’t own social media channels, but you do own your email list.
  • Email marketing is a great way to keep yourself top-of-mind.
  • Create a weekly big piece of content.
  • This could be a blog post, podcast, YouTube video…
  • You can then repurpose that piece of content in your email list each week.
  • When you’re consistent, people will trust that you’re always there and that you aren’t going away.
  • Create a lead magnet - a free piece of content that requires that people give you their email address.

Don’t Spam or Ghost!

  • There are two extremes.
  • Sometimes, you sign up for an email list and get WAY too many emails.
  • Other times, you sign up and never get an email. Then out of the blue you get a sales email.
  • Don’t do either! There’s a happy medium here.
  • Send emails at least every two weeks. Weekly is the best.
  • Some unsubscribing is okay. Shoot for an unsubscribe rate of 2% or less.
  • GIVE VALUE. Give 4 times before you get.
  • Send 4 emails giving tips and ideas and then 1 email selling your product or service.

How has marketing changed during the pandemic?

  • Andrea is moving to more storytelling in her email marketing.
  • Consumer behavior is changing. People are more interested in brands and want to connect with the people and businesses they work with.
  • We are more lonely than ever.
  • We’ve all been burned with politics and social issues.
  • Be real. Show up as you. Be authentic.

Data and Privacy

  • Make sure you have a privacy policy on your website.
  • Make sure you have terms and conditions and disclaimers.
  • Be transparent in the way that you use customer data.
  • Only collect the data that you actually need.
  • Pay attention to laws like GDPR. Stay on top of the news and be aware of what’s happening.

Show up

  • Show up on social media and in your newsletter
  • Be real and authentic.
  • Respond quickly when people reach out.
  • Give a lot of grace and patience. We all need it.

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Transcript

Again, Be Good in Business [00:01:03]

Jacob Harmon: Okay, welcome back to another episode of trust cast. As you know, I love having guests on here that I believe are doing good in business and building trust. And today's guest is one of those. In fact, I listened to her podcast every single week and we've,  been on podcasts in the past before we've done a little bit of collaboration, but I haven't talked to her in a long time.

So I'm really excited to have her here today. How are you doing today, Andrea? 

Andrea Palten: I'm so good. And I love being back, and this is my first time on this podcast. So I'm super stoked about it. 

And Andrea is, she's a marketing coach. Um, she has the marketing guide to grow your business podcast, which I already mentioned.

Jacob Harmon: I listened to. And really at the end of the day, I think Andrea just does a good job at doing exactly what we talk about on this show. At building trust in business, I feel like I trust her and she is the type of person that if I have a question about marketing, she's one of those people I'm going to reach out to.

So you do a great job of that, Andrea. And we're going to dive into that a little bit today, but thank you for just being a good business person. 

Andrea Palten: Oh, thank you. And I really liked that you have this podcast because, you know, having been around for a long time and marketing for 18 years and having been a consultant, worked for corporate America.

And now I have my own business. There's a lot of people out there that are not that trustworthy. And I get this all the time. I get clients come to me and say, Oh man, I worked with this website person and they completely left me high and dry. Now I can't get ahold of them. And they took my money. Or, you know, I hired somebody to do my , Facebook ads, and I've gotten zero out of it and I've spent $5,000 and they're not telling me what's going on.

I hear those all the time. And I hear it more and more, to be honest. So when you started doing this podcast, I got super excited because that's what it's all about because it's. You have to do a little bit to diligence and research nowadays to find someone that's trustworthy like you, like, I would give you my website and all my logins and trust you with anything.

And I could just walk away from it and I would be feeling fine about it. And that's rare, unfortunately, in this field, um, because it's so big. Yeah, 

literally this morning I had I'm in a, I'm in a bunch of Facebook groups, but there was a Facebook group where someone posted, Hey, I need a website designer because my website designer just disappeared off the face of the earth and I can't get ahold of them.

Jacob Harmon: And I was like, Oh my gosh. And so, uh, I didn't even post on that post. Someone else tagged me and said, Hey, talk to Jacob Harman. He's your guy. And I was just like, Why do people do that? Like, I can't, I can't even fathom just dropping someone and ghosting them. I mean, I understand if something comes up, but communication is, is so big.

How, how can you just disappear? I just don't get 

Andrea Palten: it's so crazy. I had a consultant and that disappeared. She got really sick, but instead of talking about it and telling. The clients, she just disappeared. She turned off all of her social media, all of her email. And I was like, how do you, like, why, why can't you just at least send an email and say, I'm really sick.

I can't come on the phone. I'm closing everything down. Here's your money back. Or don't send me any more money. It was the most bizarre thing. And I ended up talking to her about it. I got ahold of her later and she just said she was sick. And she was too embarrassed to tell people. Yeah, you shouldn't have be a 

consultant.

Jacob Harmon: Communication is key and it's, it's really not that hard and people understand, right? We're all people, we're all humans. We understand when things come up, whether you get sick or, or you have a family tragedy or whatever happens, we get it. So just communicate. 

Andrea Palten: Yeah. And, and, you know, I still do some consulting and my client asked me the other day, The other day, it was like two weeks ago to do something.

And I at first said yes. And then I thought about it and I was like, I can't, I'm not good at this. I can't do this part. I'm, it's a writing piece that they wanted me to do. And I don't like to write, and I'm not very good at writing and bike because I said, yes, I was really embarrassed to tell him, like, you know what I thought about it.

I actually can't do this, but I did. I put, put on my big girl pants and I said, you know what? I'm just going to have an open dialogue and say at first I thought this was a great thing, but to be honest, that's not my strength, my strength. Yeah. I can help you find another consultant to do that. And he was so nice and he was like, don't worry about it.

Yeah. Let's look for another consultant. And that was the end of that. And it was something I made into a big deal, but you don't need to, it's just be honest, communicate, be trustworthy and be, you know, be nice about it. And you'll 

Jacob Harmon: be fine. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Uh, 

Building an email list [00:05:37]

and one of your expertise, Andrea is.

Building and building an email list and I will be completely transparent here and say, this is probably one of my weak spots as a marketer. And as an entrepreneur is. I don't have a very big email list and I don't do very much to grow that email list. And I don't nurture that email list as good as I should, but because you're the expert, I want to talk a little bit about email marketing list building and how you can use that as a tool to build trust in your business.

Let's start with building the list. Uh, what are some things that we can do to, to build an email list? And why is it important? 

Andrea Palten: Yeah, it honestly is true. It doesn't matter what size company you have. The bigger year, less. And the better you list, the bigger your income. I worked for billion dollar companies like Transamerica.

I worked for startups. I worked for nonprofits like the American humane association. Now I help coaches and consultants and all of us, it doesn't matter what size company. The bigger, the list, the bigger, the income. So it is so vital. It will for you to have that. Um, if you're a service, um, professional, like you, or you saw courses like me, we have to have a list because we own this list.

We don't own the people, we own the list. And that means we have these people that trusted us to give us their email address. And now we're having this dialogue with them. You don't have this anywhere else. Facebook Instagram. It could go down. It could get taken away, could get to see disabled. They actually never really opted in.

They might see you sometimes what 2% of your posts gets seen. so small of amount of people where you can really touch them and get to them podcasts. It's different because you're in their ear, you're in their car and they're trusting you. They're listening to you. So I love podcasts for that reason.

And that's why I have a podcast that also helps with list-building. And then getting those people on your email list is. Really a must because that's the way that you stay on top of mind in front of them. But only if you're consistent, you got to consistently nurture them and consistently show up and give some service and give them a little bit of yourself, your personal story, your success stories.

Um, from other clients that you've helped and letting them, giving them tips and tricks for whatever that they're working on and whatever your business is. So that way they can get to know you, they get to like you and they get to trust you because you've already been hooking them up with like really good information and good nuggets for their business.

And so it's absolutely vital. So you need to start your Les building. The second we stop this podcast. 

Jacob Harmon: Yes, it is, it has been online to do lists. And one of the, one of the things that I know too is I always recommend podcasting to people because you need to have some sort of medium that you own. And you, you touched on that, uh, Facebook.

They could change anything at any time. And they do all the time, their algorithms are changing. Um, they can deemphasize business pages or deemphasize groups, or do whatever. And we're just at their whim, right? Uh, same with LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram or any of these social platforms. We don't control them.

So we can throw our content on there, but that doesn't mean we have any control over the audience that we've built. And so I always recommend to people, that's why you need a website. That's why you need a podcast. And that's why you need an email list. Not that I'm, like I said, not very good at that, but these are things that you own and that you control a hundred percent of and.

Really at the end of the day, you need to push as many people onto these platforms that you own, because it gives you a lot more control over the future of your business too. 

Andrea Palten: Yeah. In my list, that convert program, I make a huge point out of exactly what you said. You need to have one big piece of content.

And I do, um, I don't just say podcasts. I prefer podcasts, but I don't just say that because some people just don't like that. And this, it seems very daunting to do that. So I tell them like either have a blog on your website or you could do a Facebook lives or Instagram lives, just to make sure that those lives get recorded and put on your blog or on your website or on your YouTube channel.

So you still own them. You can do, um, a podcast you could do, um, you know, have that YouTube channel and that's showing, but I want you to do something big, one big piece of content every week. That way you automatically have that big piece of content that you can email to your list every week. So you have this consistency of this big piece of content that you repurpose because of when I do a podcast.

Um, I have a social media manager. She listens to my podcast and gets like seven or eight, um, different social posts. So she repurposes it and then we can send an email, every purpose email on it, and then I can even do repurpose Facebook live on it. So I do only do one content piece, but every purpose. So many different ways.

And then I always always email my people at least once a week with some kind of information about that big content piece that I have, and that nurturing and keeping in front of your people and keeping at the front of their mind. And they see you show up over and over again, and you're not going away.

That automatically gives that trust feeling that you really need people won't buy from you until they trust you. And there's a handful of people that might throw some money your way, but very few people really want to trust you and know who you are and know that you're not going to disappear on them.

Like we talked about earlier, and that's what email's for because you're always there. Um, and the list building. A lot of people are like, Oh, okay, I'm going to take you course, Andrea. And then I'll just get a list. I'm like, yeah, but there's still work. You have to do, you still have to show up consistently in this podcast, in this blog or whatever, big content piece that you chose.

And then you have to actually do the emails and then show up and then every single time on your podcast, for example, You can drop your lead magnet. I have a lead magnet. I drop it, maybe every second, third podcast episode that I record sometimes when I'm a guest on a podcast like this I'll drop the lead magnet.

Um, and all the lead magnet is it's a freebie, right? So it's a PDF, a checklist, maybe a free course or a free recording of a video that you made. But the whole point of it is it sits behind. An, um, an email form. So you have to give the email address in order to get this freebie or this lead magnet. And if you have one, you don't need more than that.

One's enough. If you have one and you always talking about it on your content and every time that your guests blogger guests, You know, podcast, um, guest, anything that, where you're showing up, that's when you give it out and you would list does grow that way organically. 

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense.

I really love when you talked about repurposing content, because one of the big problems that I have is I'm like, well, shoot, what I, what would I even write in my email newsletter? Like, I don't know what to say, but I'm sitting here recording a podcast. I obviously have things to say, right. And I've already done that work.

And so that makes a lot of sense to me being able to repurpose content and use the work you've already done in creating your podcast or your YouTube channel or whatever you're doing. and using that for your email list. Uh, so one of the big questions I have then is. How, how do you make sure I'm taking someone's email address?

Don't Spam or Ghost! [00:13:16]

I see as a real act of trust because when I sign up for newsletter I'm always cautious about it. And I'm always like, Oh no, is this going to be another one of those newsletters? That's going to spam me like crazy. And I'm going to try to unsubscribe and it'll never work and they'll just keep sending me emails.

So how do we make sure when someone trusts us enough to give us their email address, that we treat that with the respect that it deserves and that we aren't spamming them. 

Andrea Palten: Yeah. You know, what's actually happened is more than spamming. A lot of times is ghosting. You collect an email address, you sent them an email.

Maybe you could give them the freebie and then nothing. And then three months later you emailed them like, Hey, I have a course, you need to buy it. Um, that it happens more often than spamming. When it comes to the entrepreneur, the small, small business, the solo printer, the big companies, they spam you in the small people are like, they just ghost you.

So don't do either. Um, you need to really figure out what people want from you. If you send them the right type of emails and they really enjoy them, you could actually email them more than once a week. There's a marketer. His name is Donald Miller. He's um, he wrote StoryBrand very, you know, big guy, a lot of people trust him.

He sends daily emails, daily, daily tips, which is cool for some people. So if you are going to do something like that, I recommend you have people, um, choose what they want. They could opt into your daily emails or your weekly emails or your monthly emails. Um, I send weekly emails. We've seen that since I've been doing this for 18 years, we've seen one week, one email a week.

People are okay with that. They don't feel spammed and they, there they stay on your list. So that's a good, safe, That I have seen a couple of companies do one email every two weeks and that's okay too. But at the second you drop off after two weeks and you do it once a month. It's too little. I mean, it might as well not send an email.

They don't see you. They, they they'll probably just delete it cause they don't even remember who you are. Um, so that's why I recommend once a week. Um, and I do more than once a week because I sell things every now and then. And when I do sell my people, they might get three emails a week. And at that point, The people that are, or okay with a sales pitch, because they know the rest of the year, they get good free nuggets and good advice.

They stay on. There are people that unsubscribed. And so at that point, what I want you to do is look at your metrics. When you get an unsubscribe rate of 2% or higher. You're making your people maybe mad. So you gotta pay attention to that. If it's 2% and lower, you're good to go. There's always people that are gonna unsubscribe.

Don't worry about it. They wouldn't have bought from you anyway. They weren't interested, or they were just busy and didn't want a clogged inbox. So don't take it personal. So look at those numbers 2% and higher, maybe you should slow down and do less emails or do better emails, 2% and lower. You're got to go.

Jacob Harmon: Okay. And. I've heard this related to social media posts. And I think it's probably relevant to email marketing too. And I just want to get your thoughts on it, but I always hear it said like give a lot of value and then every once in a while sell, and you mentioned that you, you give a lot of value and then every once in a while, you're going to have some big sell how.

What should that proportion be? And then also do you prep your people and say, Hey, by the way, like at the end of your value newsletter and say, by the way, next week I have a cell going on, you're going to receive some emails from me, but it's just for next week. Like, do you prep people or, or how do you, how do you manage that ratio between value and, and selling.

Andrea Palten: And I do want to preface if this is anybody that's listening, that, that, um, that has an e-commerce store or like, you know, like shoes or selling, something like that. This is not you because you sell all the time. Every email could be a sales email. I'm talking about the service-based people, just like what you do, what I do that type of thing.

Um, I have a rule of give four times before you get, so give, give, give, give, and then you ask them. For something. So if you do that, that would be every fifth email, right? Or you, um, you can ask something. I have my sales every two to three months is when I sell something. So my people get, you know, two to three months worth of value, value, value, and then I sell something.

But you know what, when I'm selling. I'm still giving value because I tell them like, here, this is why. So for example, my Facebook ads course, this is why Facebook ads is important. This is why in 2021, you want to run Facebook ads. So they're still learning. Even if they're not buying, I'm not just saying, buy me, buy me, buy me.

I'm giving value in the buying process. Um, and then a lot of the people that are on my email list, for example, they also learning how to write emails. So they learn and, you know, I had somebody write me back and they said, you know, Andrea, I'm getting so many sales emails for this. PA program that you're pushing, but I don't want to buy it.

And I wrote back and I'm like, why are you learning from myself emails? You were like, Oh totally. Oh yeah. Okay. Keeps sending them. I want to see that. I'm like, yeah, save them. You can borrow the same kind of copy and, you know, rewrite it in your own language, but you can actually use that and you can learn from it too.

Um, so I think that people are used to it and that they're used to the selling part. Um, as long as you don't. Every single thing is a sales thing. And if you know, 40, 80% of it is value people, people will understand that you're going to be selling to them as well. 

Jacob Harmon: Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.

How has marketing changed during the pandemic? [00:19:05]

Uh, And have you noticed any changes in your email marketing strategy or, um, building trust through an email list since, since the pandemic started? I'm just trying to think. I think consumer behavior has definitely changed. And so I assume that marketing needs to change too. I'd like to understand a little bit of how, how you're adjusting your business for that.

Andrea Palten: Yes. I have a huge change in my business for that. And I've been talking to my students about that. I'm actually writing 52 emails right now as we speak, because there are 52 weeks in the year, which means I'm going to write 52 emails each week. I'm dropping an email. These emails are either going to be educational or they're going to be inspirational or storytelling a little bit about me.

So they get to know me. This is brand new. I have not really told my story about me as much. As I'm starting to now. And I would probably not have, if it wasn't for the demic, what happened was consumer behavior completely changed and people are more than ever looking behind the business. Who's that person behind it.

And they want to do business with people that they like and that they trust. And they also have similar values. So there are people that are, especially with politics, right there. They'll only buy from a certain type of politic party, you know, side to side and not the other side. Um, there are people that are really just taking things on a lot more personal.

And so now. They care if their shoe is made in China at a sweat shop, which before maybe they didn't. So as consumers, we're getting more sensitive and we're paying more attention and we really want to connect with the company part of it. I mean, psychology tells you this. People are, were, are very lonely.

A lot of us aren't leaving the house. A lot of us aren't hanging out with friends or coworkers and we're getting lonely. So she wanted to see people now and learn more about them. While before we were so busy, we would just bought anything. Now we're like, Oh, I have a little bit of time. I want it. I'm going to check out this person a little bit more.

And especially in the U S of politics and stuff, we've, we've, we've been burned and it doesn't matter what you believe in. We've been burned, you've been burned. And that is something that has changed our landscape quite a bit. And so before, while I was always servicing and always giving, giving, giving, and giving marketing nuggets and tips.

Now I'm putting myself in there. Um, just to give you an example, I did a, um, I did an Instagram live the other day, and I talked about showing up on Instagram as yourself. You don't need to have as girls. We don't need to have. You know, all this makeup on and pretty hair and totally done up and perfect outfits show up as you people want to see you.

They want to see the authentic you. Um, I don't know if you remember, but when I started my business two years ago, I had fake eyelashes. I had fake hair cause I thought I needed to. I thought I needed to look younger, prettier more done up that changed in 2020. Show up as you and half the time. No, 80% of the time I'm wearing a baseball hat and maybe I'll throw in some lipstick for some color, but I just show up as me.

And it's the real me, and I'm not going to be like this fake front of this perfection, cause that's not who I am. And it really connects with people differently. And in that. Life that I did on Instagram. I had more people watching that one than my marketing tips. Then my, um, older style kind of information.

It was the realness people are seeking. And so you need to actually have that in your emails and in your content that you push out every week. 

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. I mean, I know it's a buzzword, but it's all that authenticity, right? Uh, in fact, I've done an episode. I'm having to stay on this podcast before and really at the end of the day, that's one of the main reasons why I'm even doing this show at all is because.

I, I see that trend of people caring more about their brands and being way more selective, uh, especially, I mean, millennials, but also gen Z is they're coming into this, this age where they they're now consumers and they're starting to buy. They really care. I have a little brother and he will not buy it.

Anything that he doesn't have some sort of brand affinity to I'm just like, Whoa, like this is, this is new to me because I don't know. I I'm the type of guy that I'll go to the dollar store and I'll just buy something because it's, and then there's other things, but he's just, he's so selective. And he's like any wants to research these companies and he wants to see, well, who's the CEO and how are they treating the environment?

How are they treating this? How are they treating that? Like, he really cares about these brands and he only wants to support brands that he. That he cares about, and I'm just, things are changing and that's why, that's why it's so important to build trust. Sorry, I cut you off there. 

Andrea Palten: That age group. Wow.

There's they're so good. I actually had the same thing happened with my niece, a 24 year old niece. I bought this, I don't know if you know what they are, ballerina flats. Um, and there were 11 and they were leather and she says, you know, you can get the same stuff in pleather or in even better recycled plastic.

And I was like, Yeah, I hadn't didn't even think about it. Like, it wasn't even like you like to go to the dollar store. I just went to Nordstrom's and bought some shoes that were cute, but she then proceeded to send me five different links of the same shoe that were recycled, or they were a pleather or, or something that no animal died for it.

And I was like, wow, that's so cool that she even thinks like that. And that this was a while ago. This was before the pandemic. But what happened was the millennials were kind of like EMPA gen, gen Z, gen X, gen Z, gen Z. You know, they're, they're like that. And then now we are at my I'm gen X. My generation is starting to do that.

And because of the pandemic, it really people are just looking into behind things and is my donations really going to the right place where they're say, they're going to give it to, um, and then you also have all these privacy laws and data laws now because of so much corruption with Facebook and all this stuff they got in trouble with.

So that's something as. Entrepreneurs, we've got to pay attention to too. And so one of the things that I also teach my people is like, you have to have a privacy policy on your website, got to have something about, you know, terms and conditions. If you're selling something, um, if you're selling something like even you, right?

When you create websites for other people, you really could have an earnings disclaimer, in there, in there saying just because I created you a website doesn't mean you're going to be a millionaire. Mm. Um, I have an earnings disclaimer, because I sell education on my website. And so these legal things now are creeping up to that.

Didn't really use to be there, you know, five years, six years ago as much. So a lot has changed and it will continue to change. 

Jacob Harmon: Yeah, you have to be really, really careful as a brand. And especially if you, if you care about branding, which I do and care about building something that people are going to trust you, you just have to be very intentional about it.

Data and Privacy [00:26:25]

and I, wasn't going to dive down this rabbit hole, but since you mentioned it, and since I know you were talking about it a couple of weeks ago, I do kind of want to talk a little bit about, uh, data privacy. I know that Apple is coming out with a new update and a lot of businesses and Facebook is definitely leading the charge is very, very upset about it.

Um, but I, I kind of want to get your thoughts on, on how companies should. Use data and personal information, but then also maybe a little bit of your opinion on the current battle that's going on. Yeah. 

Andrea Palten: So what happened was Apple released their new iOS and it, um, in, in the, in that people can. Decide to opt out of receiving ads.

This is especially big for mobile apps. So if you will, if you sell an app, um, it's really hard for you to switch to do ads right now. And what happened was, was Facebook. They went crazy about it, to be honest. My opinion, they went overboard and they actually fibbed a little bit in what was happening. They made it more extreme than it really is.

But these data laws, they really are starting in Europe. Um, I think it was five years ago as a saw or something. They rolled out GDPR, which is one of the data laws. And it's slowly creeping here right now. California is taking lead. They're doing a California privacy policy. I think it's going to go into effect in 2023.

Um, so now you have to be careful if you're taking email addresses from California versus Europe versus the rest of America versus Canada. So this is just going to get bigger. And I think this is normal. It's something that is uncharted territory, right? When we first started with the internet, we didn't know it was going to blow up this, this, this big wheat we didn't know.

And we started doing all this stuff and it was the wild West where there were no laws. And now we're sophisticated enough and we've seen how this can hurt the consumer. Now we're putting this privacy in place. So now they're going to be worried about nothing to be upset about. This was normal. Um, we've had that before, when we used to do ads on park benches or.

Ads on a billboard. There are certain kinds of billboard ads that were not allowed because it might make people crash their cars by seeing it. So there's this, this has been around forever. It's just now coming online. Um, did you have to pay attention to it though? So for example, if you're running Facebook ads, one of the big things that has happening is that if you're running custom conversion ads, your tracking will be off and we've seen it.

I've seen it on my own ads and my student ads, and then it's not, so we're not so happy about it, but. That's okay. Things change. Um, but there's things you can do. So right now, one of the big things is, um, on Facebook ads, you want to make sure that your domain, your website domain is actually in the tool and it's, um, and it's verified.

That's the only thing you need to do. That's one little thing. And that's okay. And this is going to continue. So you do have to stay on top of it, pay attention, you know, work with marketing consultants like me or business coaches out there that give you that information, listening to podcasts like yours or mine.

And so you can hear what's happening. Um, that is part of what you have to do as an entrepreneur to stay on top of the latest laws. 

Jacob Harmon: Yeah, for sure. I think once again, this goes back to the conversation that started this episode, but it's all about transparency and communication, right? Um, if your business model is damaged by being transparent about your business model, you might be in trouble when queen Facebook, I think like you just need to tell people what you're doing and there are companies out there, and obviously there's a lot of people on all sides of the fence here, but I would argue that Google.

It takes just as much data as Facebook, but they're a lot better at saying, Hey, look, this is all the stuff we're giving you for that unlimited photo storage or, or whatever. Like they, they give those incentives and. I think as long as you're transparent about it, you just say, Hey, this is the data we're requesting.

This is what we're doing with that data. And this is the benefit that you're getting for having us use that data. You're getting Facebook. I mean, you get to communicate with your friends and family in a way that was unprecedented before Facebook came out, right? Like if you're, if you're transparent about why you're using that data, this is our business model.

This is how we make money. We're we're building personalized ads, whatever it is. I think things are a lot better, but if you try to hide it and you try to say, Oh, well, we don't want people to know that we're using their data or Apple. How dare you give a notification about it? Uh, you're probably not in the right business if you, if you, if you don't want to be transparent about your business model.

Andrea Palten: Yeah. And, and people will leave and that's very normal. Like for example, my husband, he left Facebook awhile ago. He'll never get on that platform again, he won't get on Instagram because Facebook bought Instagram and that happens, but there's billions of other people that are still out there. So if you lose a couple of.

Leads or customers, not a big deal, but there's a bunch of them standing behind that. Don't care about that stuff. I know this data is being collected. I know how it gets collected. I am on every single app and social media site. And my email address is like everywhere. I don't care. I just it's normal for me.

And there's a lot of people like me that will buy from you. So don't, don't worry about it. Um, This changes have always happened again. I've been doing this for 20 years now. Um, they, they happen all the time. They used to happen in newspaper ads than on bench ads, billboard ads. Now on Facebook ads, normal, don't worry about it.

We're going to continue to see those. Just make sure you make those changes. GDPR, for example. Is that European law that, um, that you have to like opt in and double opt into emails. Um, we're not pushing that in America right now. So there's a lot of us that have websites that don't have that on there yet.

And we're fine. Cause he, they usually, usually don't go after us little people right away, but they will eventually. So you, you do have some time, so you don't need to like do it right away if you, you know, if you're like a small business like me, it's okay. If you do it a little slower, they'll give you a little bit of grace.

Um, but if you're living in California right now telling you 2023, you better be ready. They give you a new two years. So you have enough time. Um, so there's no need to freak out about it. It's changed as normal, especially in digital, in the digital 

Jacob Harmon: world. Yep. Yep, totally. Uh, and so

Show up [00:33:02]

before we kind of wrap things up, Andrea, I mean, you are the marketing guru, you know, everything about marketing.

What's, what's something that we haven't talked about on this episode, as it pertains to building trust that you think is an absolutely essential thing  that we mentioned. 

Andrea Palten: You got to show up. So what happened in last year for those of you guys that follow some of the big online gurus out there, like Amy Porterfield, Marie Forleo, and a lot of these people, they didn't show up the hid.

They hid. When the pandemic hit the head during black lives matter, they hid doing all these things. You have to show up. People want to know your opinion, our days. Besides that type of thing. You also want to show up in customer service. This is a huge change that we've seen. People are expecting you to give an answer quick.

So if  somebody who's writing in on, on Facebook messenger or a new email, and two days later, you're right back, that's all times too late, that person has already. Booked something with somebody else. So what I do is if I'm busy, I reply immediately and I say, Hey, got your email.

I will go take a look at it tomorrow and we'll, we'll write back. So they know I'm going to be there for them. I didn't ignore them. And then a lot of times then they don't need to reach out to somebody else. Cause they trust me that I'm going to come back for them the next day. But that kind of response rate.

Yeah. Unfortunately mixed a little bit of work for us, but it is vital. Um, if you have a huge amount of those kinds of emails or requests coming in, then you can do an automated one. And in the automation you just say, Hey, just want you to know I got your request. I'll get back to you within 48 hours or whatever your time limit is.

You have to have an immediate response. Um, that is really, really, really important right now. And people want, um, they don't want robots. They want personalization. So even if you have a robot like a chat bot or something on your website, give it a name, give it a, give it a personal spin to it. Um, they want, they want niceness.

They want peace. They want love. We are all in need of a lot. Grace and patience right now as humans because of the pandemic that you just want, whatever you have going, just make it a little bit nicer. Put something nicer in there, even just sign out, hope you're hanging in there, hope you're doing well. Or Hey, thinking of you and your family, those types of messages are really important.

And they go far because people need that right now. And you, and you know, that's part of as business owners, right? If people want to trust you, you want to make sure that you also care about them and giving that kind of messaging out there is something that really will help you and we'll go far. 

Jacob Harmon: Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, treat people like people treat them like humans, not a number, not just a dollar sign because Hey, that's where my money's coming from, but treat people like  people and. And it will make a world of a difference in your business. Um, thank you so much for that, Andrea.

And I want to give you an opportunity to plug all the amazing, awesome things you're working on. I hear about your impact membership and all these different courses and things you're doing. Although I hadn't let you explain it though, because you're doing a lot of things 

so where can we find you? 

Andrea Palten: Yeah. So the first thing that I noticed when I became an entrepreneur is that the list building piece was missing for a lot of us. We talked about this already, so you know how important it is. So I have a course called lists that convert it's a two month course, I help you less build a help.

You get out there on your website with lead magnets. And there's a lot of little nuances that we need to make sure that you establish to get really good organic feed lists and. That's number one. Then once you've got that covered, you need to have that covered before you jump into running ads. Because once you understand what, how this building works organically, the freeway, then you can do Facebook ads.

So I have a Facebook ads course that teaches you how to get more leads and clients for Facebook and Instagram ads. And then I also have an impact. Marketing membership. That membership is a monthly membership. You come and go whenever you need me. And what happens is I do consulting in there. So it's not, I just don't sit there and talk at you and teach it.

You actually look at your work. Like right now, one of my students, she just sent me her website. So I went through the entire website, what she needs to do better, how she can optimize it. I help with lead magnets with Facebook ads, with content, with blogs, with podcasts. With a lot of marketing. And so that way you never alone, I help you take action and I help you optimize your work.

So those are the three, the three ways that people can work with me. 

Jacob Harmon: Awesome. And they can find all of that more. It's Andrea paulton.com. I make sure I get that right. Yep. I'm looking my browser right now andreapalten.com. Awesome. Well, thank you, Andrea. It was great to see you again, to catch up with you a little bit, and I'm just.

So happy , that we have marketers like you out there  that are doing it the right way. So thank you again. 

Andrea Palten: Same here. I love what you do and I'm going to be addicted to this podcast. So I cannot wait to hear more episodes. 

Jacob Harmon: All right. Well, thank you. Have a good one. 

Andrea Palten: Bye-bye.