Newsletter & Email Growth: Growth In Reverse

Dylan Redekop
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Chenell Basilio: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to the Growth and Reverse Podcast. I'm Chenell,
and today we're gonna talk about the most important metric you should be paying attention to as a newsletter operator or someone who is running an email list that I guess we'll get there, but how are you doing,

Dylan Redekop: I'm doing well, I'm doing well. It's it's a Monday here on the wet to West Coast. We're fully entrenched in fall. It's raining, so

Chenell Basilio: Ooh

Dylan Redekop: not see the sun again until probably April. So, yeah. doing, Well, How about you?

Chenell Basilio: that's a buzzkill of a way to start an episode. Dang, that stinks. I didn't realize that happened already.

Dylan Redekop: Yep. We're, we're fully, we're, we're into it. We're

into it.

Chenell Basilio: And over here it's like, uh, 80 and sunny later this week, which is crazy. It's gonna be October. That's wild.

Dylan Redekop: wild

Chenell Basilio: I'll take it.

Dylan Redekop: only mildly jealous.

Chenell Basilio: I'll try not to rub it in too much.

Dylan Redekop: you. Thank

you.

Chenell Basilio: so I guess let's get, let's just jump right into it, right? So the most important metric people should be paying attention to. A lot of people probably [00:01:00] think like open rates. Like you hear people talking about their huge open rates, 60, 70% open rate. Their click rate maybe is a little bit better than open rate, but we think there's a better metric to pay attention to

Dylan Redekop: and it's subscriber count.

Chenell Basilio: Nice. Make sure the number goes up as fast as

at all

Dylan Redekop: Get your

Chenell Basilio: Yes

Dylan Redekop: thousand subscribers as fast as possible. No, obviously we're joking.

Chenell Basilio: exactly

Dylan Redekop: is Im, is important and it depending on, you know, what the goal of your newsletter is and how you're monetizing. But we do think that that's, that can be a distraction bit of a vanity metric.

There's, there's something else that we think is at least directionally more important for sure. And do you wanna bury the lead or stop bury the lead or should I.

Chenell Basilio: Yes, I will reply to that because the most important is replies. The metric that is most important is getting replies. So if you can get more people to reply, you are on a great path. Recently I asked the newsletter subscribers of mine how, what I could help with, if there was anything they were struggling [00:02:00] with, which we'll talk about that later.

But one of the things that came up so much. In those replies was, how do I get more engagement? How do I get more replies? It feels like I'm talking to a ghost list, there's nobody there, and it gets I don't know, disheartening after a while when nobody replies to your emails. So we wanted to tackle that topic today.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, and there's a lot of reasons why getting replies is important and there are different ways to do it. But I, I can relate to this too because I've, I've sent out many newsletter editions and there's been a few instances where I was like, oh, wow, this, this is getting a lot more replies than I thought it would.

Um, and that's great and it's a great signal. Uh, but there are way too many times where I've sent out an addition and it's had a solid open rate, like hitting up around 50% clicks have been there. Nobody's really replied, or not many people if at all have, so this is a topic that is, you know, near and dear to me too, because I want to increase this.

As I imagine a lot of people probably [00:03:00] will, will want to as well. I don't think there's a ton of operators who just like, yep, I'm crushing with replies. I don't need to listen. So I think this'll be

a

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: episode.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. it's, it can be really disheartening at times when you spend like a ton of effort and bandwidth on a specific issue of your newsletter, and then it's crickets and you thought it was great. You spent hours and hours trying to write something great, and then you just get no replies, and then you'll see people posting like screenshots of Hey, look how many replies I got.

Oh my gosh, this is great. You're just like, how? Why am I not getting anything?

Dylan Redekop: yeah.

So a lot of people think that, like, I think we should validate why we think replies are so important. So Chenell, why don't you, I have a few reasons why I think they are, but what do you, what do you think the, the most powerful reason why you think replies are? Should be like your number one metric or a really important metric you should be focusing

on.

Chenell Basilio: Honestly the one we were just talking about, which is mental health of creator. It is so hard when nobody replies like that. Honestly. All of [00:04:00] the really good like ideas and reasons that they're like technically good for your email list are great. But I honestly think that getting replies can just help boost your mood in a way that most other things can't.

So that's my main one. But honestly, like deliverability would be the top one here. Making sure that your emails are actually getting through to people's inboxes. When Gmail and other provider inbox providers see that you're getting replies to your emails, they'll prioritize your email in somebody's inbox versus, putting it into promotions or spam, is like the worst case.

So that's probably the biggest like technical reason. But yeah, mental health is a big one too.

Dylan Redekop: That's really interesting. I did not see that coming, that that's, uh, mental health is a reason to get replies, which is like, I, I could totally get it because the, the burnout thing, like I'm writing and I'm writing and I'm spending so much time and I'm sending all these newsletter editions and it's just like kind of crickets on the other end.

So, um. Getting the replies being like, oh, this was, somebody did resonate with [00:05:00] this, or, you know, this did help people. I did. It was worth spending all that time on this one edition. that being,

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: a really important thing that I

Chenell Basilio: I

Dylan Redekop: that I maybe had overlooked.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, no, it's easy to overlook, but I think sometimes we need to think through these things versus just it's a tactical, technical thing, whereas like the amount of time you spend on each week's edition of the newsletter is not insignificant, and so if you can get a reply or two, it's like really helps boost the continuation of you being able to sustain this thing long term

Dylan Redekop: And I, I have a few reasons myself why I think replies are important. So, if you're getting replies, it's a strong signal of three things. One, that your content is actually resonating with people. So the time you're putting in is like, oh, people, people are feeling this in some way, shape, or form.

It's a strong signal that your readers are engaged, they're actually opening. You can't reply to an email unless you've opened it, unless you read it. So it is another signal that people are actually opening and reading your [00:06:00] newsletters, which sometimes we can wonder if that's actually happening given all the bot opens that we get in email clients and the bot clicks that we can be getting.

So a reply is actually like, there's not too many people that are gonna be using bots to reply to emails, so, it is a strong signal that people are actually engaged and I think. The, the third thing is it's a strong signal that your content is sparking an emotional response and that kind of can be lumped in with your content being resonant with people that it's resonating.

But and we'll get into maybe other ways, you can spark emotional responses with people, but. often people will reply when they are feeling an emotion whether positive or negative or or otherwise. But I think those are kind of the three things. Why I feel email replies are so important is that they're gonna res, they're resonating with people.

Your readers are engaged and it's sparking a response an emotional

response.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, totally. I think this is, has definitely played out and shown to be true throughout like the replies that I get too. It just happens when someone's like interested in that topic or you hit on [00:07:00] something that other people haven't necessarily thought about or talked about, or maybe you said it in a different way than someone else.

And so it's really resonating with them. So I think those are big ones.

Dylan Redekop: And maybe one last thing is that, in the replies that you get, sometimes you'll. Unearth problems or challenges or ideas you didn't realize that other people are either hitting back at you saying yes, but to your, to your content. Or they're saying, wait, wait, how did you do that? Or, how do you do that?

Or, they're asking questions that could maybe create a new idea for content, maybe a new idea for a course or something like that, or, or a resource that you could create for people. So the replies can just. Say so much to you about where you are going and where you maybe could go with your content.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, and even, if you're doing service-based work, this could be a huge way to get a new client too. If you're teasing something or just like saying something without specifically saying it and somebody replies and they're like, man, I'm really struggling with that. I wish I had a way to get help with that.

And you could be like, Hey, by the [00:08:00] way, like I do have, hour long calls, we could jump on a call and talk through this, maybe see if it's a good fit or something. So it could be a way to get clients too, if you do it right

Dylan Redekop: A hundred percent. Absolutely.

Chenell Basilio: Cool. And then obviously deliverability is a big key. It's probably the biggest one that most people are thinking about when they're trying to get replies, which is just, can my future emails land in someone's inbox versus their promotions tab or or that kind of

thing

Dylan Redekop: And I think that calls

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: when you should really. Prioritize getting a reply to your newsletter or to your emails. so we've talked about this probably like way too many times, but it's so important that I think it's worth repeating. We talked about it in our last episode even, but in your welcome emails, which is your most opened email you'll probably ever send that is where you and I both feel that getting a reply should be your top priority because of this de deliverability

reason.

Chenell Basilio: , . If you can get someone to reply to your welcome email, it does a few things, which, yes, it helps deliverability. You're [00:09:00] gonna hopefully avoid those horrible other places in the inbox in the future, but also you're getting those responses from your customers. You're also getting. You're setting people up for future replies, right?

So if someone replies to your welcome email, they, and then you respond to them. It's oh, Chenell or Dylan's actually gonna reply to this email in the future. So it'll keep them more likely to reply down the road, which is important as well.

Dylan Redekop: No, totally agree. I think if you are, if you're able to, time-wise, time permitting, like re reply to every newsletter reply you get, because that's just gonna build so much more trust and. Stimulate more of these replies from people who you've replied to. It's like, oh, I had this, you know, I replied to their last email saying, Hey, this was a great edition.

I really learned a lot. Thanks for sending it. And then you reply to that. They're gonna be more inclined to do that more often. So I think you are just doing all sorts of good things when you, when you do actually reply to these, these your subscribers replies.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I feel like we could also have [00:10:00] people start playing a drinking game right now of every time we say the word reply or replies

Dylan Redekop: I think they'd

Chenell Basilio: be a I think we've already said it like 40 times. Oh, that's great. Yes, so obviously first priority is welcome email and we'll talk through some ways to actually make this happen in the, a few minutes.

But first priority is welcome email. Then after that, high priority is still like every other email, you want to get some form of replies from people. Obviously, you're not going to get every person who opens your emails to reply. That would be practically impossible, but it's a good gauge to see if you're content's resonating and just trying to get some replies.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, absolutely. So how do we get more replies.

then?

I guess that the big question then.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah the the juicy stuff Yes. I guess there's a couple like simple ways, and then I think we wanted to just riff on some other interesting ideas as we think through them. The first one is the most obvious, ask for a reply. I see so many people and they're like, I don't get replies to my [00:11:00] email.

And I'm like, I looked at your last three or four. And you don't ask people to reply or even ask them a question or anything that would elicit a reply. Make sure you're asking, this is the biggest piece of it. It's just like the obvious one that. We probably are all missing it at a certain point, but yeah, ask for a reply is the easiest way

Dylan Redekop: it really is. And you, it's like, seems so obvious. But again, it's like if you're not actually asking people to take an action, read your mind and they may not know that you even wanna reply. They may think, oh, this is you know. newsletter writer who probably is getting tons of replies or responses, or doesn't have time to me, or won't reply to my, won't reply to me either in if I send them a, a response, I think just ask for it and say, if you do intend to write back to all these people, say that I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Please send me or send me your thoughts. And I will I'll respond. Like I think just writing that out super straightforwardly is gonna be. Is just gonna help that much more for people to trust that [00:12:00] you will actually respond and that it's worth them taking the time to write a

reply.

Chenell Basilio: , and in the welcome email specifically, you can either ask for a reply, you can also ask them to reply and you'll send them something. We talked about this with Katelyn Bourgoin recently in her welcome email and actually. On her thank you page for her newsletter. She says specifically reply to this email and I'll send you a free gift.

Like straight up, like just hit reply and say yes, or I'm in, or something to incentivize that person to reply so that they get the freebie that you're, that mentioning.

Dylan Redekop: And I mean, there's lots of ways that you could potentially incentivize replies, but in the welcome sequence when that's really important to get, make sure that your newsletter continues to hit their inbox, even incentivizing a reply in some way, shape or form.

A free gift, it's not gonna cost you anything where you can automate it. That's great. If you even wanted to up the ante and do like a monthly draw or something like that, you could even do that. But incentivizing replies is never a, a bad way to go.

Chenell Basilio: in my welcome email right now I just say to [00:13:00] make sure that you have a better cha chance of receiving this in your inbox, go ahead and hit reply. You can either tell me how you found the newsletter, which I always love hearing how people find the newsletter or say Hi Chenell, and then they can copy that phrase and paste it in.

And that's it. And then they reply and it gets a pretty good reply rate, so it works.

Dylan Redekop: And you're doing one of two things, or you're getting, you're getting people to do like a really low lift of basically like just replying with quick two words. Hi, Chenell, or you are getting them to reply. some data of how they found you. So you're like, oh, I totally forgot that I, you know, posted, you know, this thing here, or I was on such and such podcast, or whatever it might be. So there is, there is a lot of advantages to asking for replies and asking simple questions like, like that in your welcome sequence.

Chenell Basilio: So those are some, like basic ones think. Ask for a reply, give them something for a reply. And then you can, I don't know. I think you had mentioned like creating content worth replying to before, so I know there's [00:14:00] Shaan Puri from my First Million, the podcast he has like this framework that I think he stole from someone else.

Dylan Redekop: Oh totally Like he was told I believe, and I'm pretty sure this is correct, it was Steven Bartlett who was on Shaan Puri's team

Chenell Basilio: Okay

Dylan Redekop: right in the beginning of. When Shaan was like really starting to push I think one of his, maybe his e-commerce businesses, or at the very least some his content business and Steven Bartlett went on to start Diary of a CEO podcast and now it's one of the biggest podcasts in the world.

So Steven told people, or told Shaan that people will respond or react. Basically if you create content that elicits. 7 key emotions. Those key emotions are basically make them laugh. So LOL I'll do, I'll do the kind of the, the one word responses that, that Shaan came up with. So it's LOL like, that's so funny.

If you do, if you write content that makes them laugh, another one is, oh. So that's like, oh, now I get it. So you've kind of taught them something that they didn't really know before, or if you wow them, so they're like, wow, [00:15:00] like, that's amazing. Like, that's great content that LICs like a an awe sense of awe in the response.

And then another type of a, like aww, that's so cute. So if you can, if you, like, you shared a picture of Bucky, I think the other day, right? A few weekends ago, of him wearing his cute t-shirt. So that probably might've gotten a few "aww" responses. If you're sharing great news, you want people to like say, yay, this is great news.

They wanna celebrate with you. Whether it's for yourself or for somebody else.

Creating something worth celebrating. I think that's actually a really common one. If you're sharing some great news that you've had either in your life, personal business, whatever that might be that's a really good opportunity for people to write back with a simple, Hey, congrats on this.

This is awesome. Another one. These ones are maybe a little spicier. If you if you create the WTF moment for people like, that pisses me off. I can't believe you know, this is happening. Or, or maybe you create a WTF, like, I can't believe you said that. Like, that you're getting to write you back with, if you have a, like a spicier contrarian take on something that can definitely elicit some.

Some [00:16:00] emotional response. And then the last, the seventh one is finally someone said it. So you basically saying what hundreds of other people have been thinking or feeling about a certain topic, probably in your niche. And and then people just resonating with that vibe that maybe they've been too the general consensus has been too quiet on, and you finally shared that, shared that opinion or that take.

Chenell Basilio: , no, those are great. And we'll leave a link to that list down below too, just in case you're, you wanna revisit it in the future. It's a good one. It's like very straightforward, very simple, but it is a good list of emotions to aim for. Or at least go back and be like, Hey, does my content actually elicit any of these?

And then you can like maybe tweak it a little bit to add some more emotion there

Dylan Redekop: you can work backwards from one of the, one of those that you think at least you could lean your content towards, and then, um,

Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm

Dylan Redekop: the, the changes, then the edits that it needs to kind of bring

that up.

Chenell Basilio: . The other thing that will get replies people ask all the time, like, how [00:17:00] do I get more replies and that kind of thing. And. I think the most impactful thing, and obviously you can't do this all the time, but is a pattern interrupt email. So if you send an a newsletter every Sunday, maybe on a Wednesday randomly, you send this like short thing that's just like a question or two.

And you're gonna get way more replies because it's just like breaking the pattern of what people are expecting. And so I did this recently and I guess we can talk about that if you want to but it worked out really well. Yeah. So last Friday, I like wasn't feeling anything I like, wasn't into my content.

I was like, it felt like a slog, right? And I was like, man, I just feel uninspired. And I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna send a random email to my newsletter. And I did, and it was just, we can put a screenshot up of it, but it was just the subject line said, just checking in. And then the email was, Hey I'm trying to think of like better content ideas for the next three months, which it's almost towards the end of the year.

Would [00:18:00] love to know what you're struggling with or is there anything I can help with or any questions you have. And that. Email was wild. So it was very short. It was just like one or two sentences one question, and it got over 200 replies at this which is way more than I, I normally get I'll normally get eight to 15, maybe 30 maybe that's like on a good so getting 200, I was like, whoa. And I guess like I should have known before I sent it that this was gonna happen, but. I didn't, I was just like feeling uninspired and I wanted to talk to someone, like on my email list and I was like, okay, I'll just send this out, send it out in 10 minutes. Now I look back and people thought it was like automated and then I was like, planned it out.

that was not the case. It was just like a random idea I had. Yeah. But that one worked pretty well. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: I think one thing too that, now that I'm thinking about it we've talked, or you've written about Kieran Drew's what do you call that when he has the, the picture at the end of his

newsletter?

Chenell Basilio: His I don't know what I called it. It was just like, he always has a [00:19:00] picture of him holding up a note says a it just on it

clo Yeah. Magnetic

closer That's

what it was

Dylan Redekop: So one way you could do that to show people that it's not automated, that is a little bit more spur of the moment, if. Can I help you? Or something like that with a date, even if you

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: make it seem more authentic and, and right away.

But, um, no, I, I think this strategy, you cannot overuse it. Like I think we should definitely make sure that's clear. Like, you're not gonna be doing this like every two weeks or even every month. Like people are gonna get sick of it. And it's really something that you would probably wanna only do once or twice a year kind of thing.

Right? I, I would assume,

There's

Chenell Basilio: totally And

Dylan Redekop: But this

Chenell Basilio: yeah

Dylan Redekop: like, I wanna help you. What, what, where do you need help kind of thing.

Chenell Basilio: Uh, so it got good replies. It also got the highest unsubscribes I've ever gotten from a newsletter so that's interesting to keep in mind. I was not expecting that either. So I think a lot of people thought that [00:20:00] I was either using AI and sent it out or like I was being disingenuous. Was not, I literally, it was a Friday and I was just checking in to see what people were struggling with and, uh, so yeah, lost a lot of subscribers that day as well, but also gained a ton of great ideas.

Uh, I think I have a list of like 50 content ideas now, just from that email. So And that's where this came from. So,

Dylan Redekop: that's

right, right. So you had I think when you, you posted this on LinkedIn too, as like just a piece of content like, Hey, this is what I did and here's what happened. And I, I replied to you

Chenell Basilio: yeah

Dylan Redekop: would take 200 replies, over 200 un unsubscribes any day of the week kind of thing.

So to

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: off was definitely

worth it.

Chenell Basilio: Oh, totally. It's just like, it was one of those like things where you're like, whoa, I really hit a nerve hit the, uh, I don't know. That pisses me off emotion, I think with some people.

Dylan Redekop: And they

hit the unsubscribe button instead of the reply button. Did you get any replies of

Chenell Basilio: Yes

Dylan Redekop: why are you sending this? Or like, why, what is this automated [00:21:00] crap? Or like, was there any like visceral

Chenell Basilio: I not to the email, but on that LinkedIn post, I did get some people saying oh, I thought that was like automated. oh, I thought, and so I'm like, oh, I'm glad I posted about this. And now that, I was like being legit with Like I wasn't just trying to bait engagement. Like I was genuinely curious what people were struggling with.

Dylan Redekop: And it worked so well that you saw some, some other people using this strategy

all of a sudden.

Chenell Basilio: I did, yeah. Within probably an hour Joe Pulizzi, who's like huge content marketing guy, did the same thing. And I was like, this is awesome. Like, being copied by a huge name in marketing like that is Uh, and then other people in the pro community did it. Some other folks on LinkedIn said they scheduled it out.

Dylan went ahead and did it.

Dylan Redekop: I did my own version of it. but

Chenell Basilio: So

Dylan Redekop: did the same

thing. yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Maybe that's why I got so many unsubscribes. 'cause people were like, look what you started.

Dylan Redekop: Yes. Yeah,

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: people

Chenell Basilio: Um

Dylan Redekop: a bit of an, [00:22:00] a spike in the frequency of those emails in their inbox last week, and, uh, they have you to

so You're welcome.

Chenell Basilio: Everyone

Dylan Redekop: there's different ways to do this as well. Like you don't always have to say what your, what problem you're solving or, but.

If you can even, maybe every recorder, if you can put out an email that like just asks simple question that could spark some replies or, you know, I'm sure there's a way to do this where it's, it's both helpful for you and for your subscribers and can help guide whether it's content or the direction of your business or something that you want to create for them.

So, I, I do think this specific question you wouldn't wanna ask too often, but you could probably approach this strategy. On somewhat of a regular basis if you, if it's, if it's gonna be really helpful for the audience and for

you.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, definitely.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm

Chenell Basilio: Hey, it's, we're [00:23:00] coming up on October. Do you need, or is there anything going on in your world that you need help with for.

Halloween, like maybe you're in the craft space and like you want ideas around that. I just, I think a lot of people focus on like getting replies on social posts but not emails. And I really switch that in people's minds of I. Here's the a way to you're not playing with an algorithm.

You're playing with, like actually getting people to reply. And it does help your newsletter engagement in the future, but you're also getting like these real one-on-one connections with your readers and you can learn so much from this stuff like I, a lot of the things that I gleaned from this exercise, like I thought were way too basic of like topics to come and talk about.

And I was like, oh, maybe I do need to talk about that. And some of 'em were from like more advanced folks that were asking these questions and I'm like, okay, but that's interesting that like they also want help with that. it's just a good reminder that like you often know too much and so you [00:24:00] get stuck with what to create for your audience

Dylan Redekop: the curse of knowledge.

yeah Feel that?

Chenell Basilio: yes,

Dylan Redekop: No I

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: a really good way to. Overcome a little bit of that. So if you're finding yourself, like, literally, that's what I put in my newsletter edition last week was like, I don't know what you don't know. Like, so like, some of this stuff seems obvious to me, or I feel like I've talked about it before or that you already know how to do X, y, Z when it comes to your newsletter, but I, I wanna know what you don't.

So and I

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: get nearly as many replies that you did, but the replies I did get was like, oh, okay. I did not know this was. Something people wanted to know more about. So I should write more about it. Or I need to lean into this, this a little bit more so it, it can be really a good a good way to dig yourself out of that, that curse of knowledge or that knowledge bias that a lot of us, when we've been writing and talking about the same topic for months, if not years we can fall into that

trap.

Chenell Basilio: And I didn't realize that I was struggling with that until I sent this and I was like, oh, no wonder [00:25:00] this feels so hard now.

right

Dylan Redekop: I thought everybody knew

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, absolutely. So you have

Chenell Basilio: Yep

Dylan Redekop: on our show note stock from Mario Garbiele

Chenell Basilio: Oh yeah. So he.

Dylan Redekop: This hear about

Chenell Basilio: This is an example of a Chenell note that no one else will understand, but myself. Anyway, so Mario was the first person I ever wrote a deep dive on, and one of the things I pulled out of that, of like why he was able to get so many replies and like engage with so many folks on his newsletter was something he called the Puzzler.

This was something he did. It was essentially kind of like. When you opened a Snapple can, if you're old enough, I'm like dating myself now, but like a Snapple bottle on the lid, it said like, how fast do giraffes run? Or like some random fact that like you, it's just like a talking point. And so he would put something like this in his newsletter.

So he would ask like a trivia question, or it was kind of related to his niche, but not really. Most of the time it was just super broad. Uh, but he was trying to get people to reply with their answers, like what they thought it [00:26:00] was and that kind of thing. And of course he was like, please don't Google this and then reply, like, try and actually guess it.

But it just it solidified like he was super nerdy with his audience and he knew that they would understand some of these like. Inside jokes slash trivia questions. And so he would just, um, do that through the puzzler. So at, at the end of every email he had that section.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. So just like a riddle almost.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. It was like a

riddle. Yep.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's cool. That's cool. So nothing

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: this content at

all.

Chenell Basilio: No, but

Dylan Redekop: with your newsletter, like in, in the form of a reply. And then he shouts out the people who, who won it the week prior.

So you have even that like incentive to reply, like, oh, I'll get shouted out in the newsletter.

Chenell Basilio: Yep So he'd be like, last week, John Janelle and whoever got it right. job people. And then he would add a new one, but it's just, it's fun and it, he didn't do it forever. But I think that's just like when you're smaller and you're getting started, like building that community aspect is so key.

And if you can do [00:27:00] that via a nerdy topic or a nerdy like Snapple lid type of situation I think that can really help you build those relationships with your audience.

Dylan Redekop: I'm, I'm a bit of a, I'm a bit of a puzzle nerd. Like I love doing New York Times crossword puzzles, and I think I subscribe to the New York Times. Like I pay

the monthly thing just

Chenell Basilio: Me too,

Dylan Redekop: all the wordles and, and like, so this really, yes, so this really resonates with me. And I even somebody I, I wrote about, probably about two years ago now was Toby, oh, what's his last name? He, he worked at and still does work at Morning Brew.

Chenell Basilio: Toby Howell,

Dylan Redekop: you. Thank you. So he wrote, he wrote a. Newsletter for a while it looked like he was trying to grow it, but he called it, I think he called it The Game. And it was formatted in an interesting way where it's like how people are winning and how people are losing in business, that sort of thing.

What he did to really start growing and getting traction with this newsletter is he had something kinda like the [00:28:00] puzzler at the end of his newsletter. What he basically did was you know, I'm just gonna pull it up here.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, no. All good.

Dylan Redekop: Okay, so. What Toby did was yes, he had a newsletter called The Game and basically he, it's a way how he basically got instant engagement got a high, high click rate and he incentivized this. So he just put a basic button at the bottom of his newsletter. So it says the button. And he wrote, the rules are simple. Reply to this email with a guess of how many times the button below will be clicked. Whoever guesses the correct number of clicks wins the amount of money in the prize pool. If no one guesses the correct number of the prize, pool doubles and the game continues.

Current prize pool, $10. So is a hundred percent a little bit gimmicky. Like, I'm not gonna deny that. Like you're, you're basically paying to get people to click and kind of play this game. But at the same time, he was like. Trying to figure out how he could grow his newsletter, increase engagement and all those sorts of, sorts of things with his newsletter from [00:29:00] the get go.

And I thought this was just a really unique way that I haven't seen a lot of people explore.

So I dunno, what do you think about this strategy?

Chenell Basilio: It's interesting. It's probably interesting because he was the only one that did it. If more people kept doing it, it would probably get a little overused. But no, that's, I think that's super smart. It's funny 'cause it's okay, so you guess the number and then it's and do you click too?

'cause then you're like, I'm gonna add, it, when do the clicks end? Is it like how many clicks? I don't wild. It's just

Dylan Redekop: I think it does this, it

Chenell Basilio: Um

Dylan Redekop: it does a few things, right? It, it gets the engagement on that edition and then it, when you see the next edition come into your inbox, which you most likely will, if you replied to it right with your guests, you're gonna wanna open that up and find out. you won or who won or how if anybody won, if the prize pool increased.

And, and so it does create kind of this gamification to a newsletter, which I think is a, a hard thing to do. And I think he did it well. Unfortunately, he did not keep going with this newsletter. I think he just got too busy, to be honest with his role at at Morning Brew. But [00:30:00] I, I

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: look back to this and think it was really interesting and I should also say like.

The newsletter itself was actually good. Like he was writing about he a is a really great writer, so he is really engaging. He's got a great sense of humor and he invokes that really well in his writing. So the content was actually good. It was worth opening up for that alone. But then this, this little you know, game that he put at the end was, was just kind of the icing on the cake for me.

This reminds me kind of Katelyn Bourgoin's Fri-Yay emails. Have you seen these

So

they're Friday emails, which makes sense Friday. But they're different than her typical email. So she writes about buyer psychology and like why people buy certain products and that kind of thing.

So on Fridays, I have one up, so I'm just gonna read from she says okay. So she'll teach you something. She gives you like a brainy breakdown, which is what she calls it. So she'll teach you something and then she'll be like, which bio-psychology technique does this breakdown use? And she gives you three.

It's like a poll and there, so three choices and you have to pick the right one. And then once you do pick [00:31:00] that if you submit it, I think I hit the wrong one. So this isn't gonna work.

No it'll take

Chenell Basilio: Thanks

Dylan Redekop: of the landing page.

Chenell Basilio: It takes, so it takes you to the landing page that says, thanks for voting. The answer was blank.

Did you get it right? We'll announce the winner of the prize in the next issue. And she's giving away a product of hers, which is called Wallet Opening Words. It's like $129 product that you'll get for free if you just guess correctly, like super smart. And it's incentivizing the people who are actually learning these techniques and are interested in the topic.

So you're more likely to want this which is a cool way to do it. Then Yeah. it says winner chosen

Dylan Redekop: If you haven't heard of it, be like, wait, what's

Chenell Basilio: Yep

Dylan Redekop: I wanna win it, but I also might wanna just

buy it.

Chenell Basilio: And then underneath that it gets even better. It says Apply this. It says, ready to get a quick win first thing Monday morning. Add one behind the scenes element to your email showing how many steps it took to create what you're delivering. And so she's like giving you exactly how to use this thing too.

I actually thought this said. Tag me and I'll choose another winner, which could be [00:32:00] an interesting Katelyn, if to say, use this, take a screenshot, tag me on social, and then one of those people will also win. That could be interesting

Dylan Redekop: I like this too, because unlike Toby's, this isn't costing her like any money. Yeah. You could say there's opportunity cost

Chenell Basilio: right

Dylan Redekop: giving away one of these for free, but really there you're not costing yourself any money and. It's not necessarily getting a reply, but it's definitely doing something very powerful where you're getting the clicks, the engagement and it's going, it's teaching you something.

It's going to a landing page that looks like just a kind of a thank you page, but really is kind of like a subtle pseudo sales page for your product. Kind of giving people fomo. Like, you could win this, but you might not. And if you don't win it, you'll probably want to buy it 'cause it's super

Chenell Basilio: Then each Friday you're just like being reinforced of Hey, a really powerful product that I probably want to get access to and I should just 'cause there's 60,000 other people reading this newsletter or whatever the number is at this point. [00:33:00] yeah, I think this is super smart

Dylan Redekop: guess is if you click on that poll to answer the question, you know, three or four times, you're probably eventually gonna be like, I just need to buy the damn thing. I

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: I'm thinking

Chenell Basilio: maybe.

Dylan Redekop: to

Chenell Basilio: Or Maybe she'll send you like a discount if you do it that many times

Dylan Redekop: yeah. She might, or she

Chenell Basilio: It could interesting

Dylan Redekop: tag that click, at least in Kit. She could tag that click and then like, send out to those people who are clicking many times. Something like that. Yeah, for sure. Like a discount code.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: she came on our podcast like six months ago and she talked about this.

Do you remember that?

Katelyn Bourgoin: It's called Fry. Yay. And the idea is it's the only newsletter that rewards you for getting smarter. So it's super short. And each issue is a little quick tactical buyer-psychology based lesson with an example. We share the example, we show kind of the use case, and then we do a little poll using kit's, polling feature where we ask.

Do you know what this specific buyer psychology technique is? And [00:34:00] then you give them three options and they click on it, and when they submit their answer, they're actually entering a contest to win a prize. What I love about this is a couple of things. It is. So short that super bite-sized people open and consume it right away, it makes it easier for us to promote our own products. Um, and because we send them to this thank you page, after they complete their poll, we can promote something else. So we can promote our own stuff.

We can promote a continuation of our sponsor stuff. So it gives us a second ad spot that isn't directly in the newsletter.

Chenell Basilio: I think she one edition in or something.

Dylan Redekop: And so she said it was gonna be test to see how well it was working and the reception of it. So I think it's probably, it's probably working well for

her.

Chenell Basilio: She's actually sending a weekly, I

must be working anyway. I feel like we've talked about this a lot. Do you, I know that we have some q and a Should we save those for another time or jump into 'em?

Dylan Redekop: Are there any things you wanna call out in some of these questions that you think would be, that we should definitely touch on in this episode?

Chenell Basilio: So [00:35:00] the, we also got a couple questions from that email that I sent, and this first one I feel is something that happens a lot for people. And so I wanted to touch on it before we end this which is important. So this person wrote my, my open rates are great, but my engagement beyond that is pretty low.

Usually no replies, few or no takers on free offers. I talk to other creators who get a ton of people signing up for their wait list. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I get better engagement on YouTube community, et cetera, et cetera. But not a ton of replies. The one thing that always jumps out at me when people say I cannot get people to reply.

I feel like there's a couple things happening that could be happening. One is if you're growing your list via, I dunno, paid recommendations or paid ads that aren't super optimized or you're not cleaning your list regularly or something like feel yeah, lead magnet could do it too. I feel like sometimes your list just isn't as high quality.

If people say oh, I have 55% opens but nobody's replying. And I'm like, it makes me nervous [00:36:00] because is the list actually as big as you think it is or is it just bot opens or you have a ton of people who are with.edu addresses or dot org addresses that open every email like automatically.

And so they're not real opens. So that makes me a little nervous. It's not all doom and gloom though. I do think you can send a series of emails maybe some of these pattern interrupt emails will help work or will work for you to get people replying and that kind of thing. It could just be that the content or the questions don't, I don't know, get people excited enough to actually reply.

But I think if you are using like a paid recommendation strategy or something like that, I wonder if that's having an impact here.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah

Chenell Basilio: Um

Dylan Redekop: totally Absolutely. I think there's. This is basically like your chance to really mix things up a bit. Like if you are,

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: for a reply at the end of your email, put it at the very beginning. Like, say like, Hey, before we go any further, I really want I'd love to hear from you on this question.

And I reply to everyone, like, if you just like. Slide that up to the very top. [00:37:00] How many people are gonna open your email versus how many people actually read to the very bottom is gonna be quite a different number. At least you're, you're gonna cap how many people will actually see that message if you put it right towards the top of your newsletter? So I would, I would recommend the very first thing would be my recommendation would be to try that. And then you could try something that is a bit of a pattern interrupt, at least when you open the email.

Or you could even put it in your subject line too, like you did just checking in. Or can ask a favor or can you help? Something along those lines. If you've given a lot of value to your subscribers, they're gonna be more willing to reciprocate right? By helping you out as well. So I think there's a few ways you can go about that.

Chenell Basilio: and you can also segment your list and say people who maybe used to or used to click more than they do now or something. And just reach out to those people differently. If they've been on your list for a long time, like they probably. Maybe wanted it at one point.

But I don't know. It's just hard to, without seeing specific things. But I think you can segment them and [00:38:00] send those people a pattern interrupt email and the newer folks just have that reply thing at the top. There's a bunch of different ways you can do it, but I think you're, what you're doing now probably isn't working sadly.

So try something different. Try a pattern interrupt, try changing your subject line. Create a lead magnet or. Reintroduce something that you've already built and be like, Hey, I have this free thing. Make as long as it's super relevant to your topic. And just send that to them and say Hey, I built this for you, like just wanted to give it to you.

Dylan Redekop: Or

Chenell Basilio: re if you

enjoyed this or

something.

Dylan Redekop: I was gonna say, or would you even just say like, hit reply if you want it? 'cause I don't wanna send it, I don't wanna send it to anybody who doesn't want it kind of thing. And then that could, that could spread

replies as well.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, you could do that. I don't know. I'm not a big fan. I guess I'm just like too jaded from getting so many cold emails of I made you a video. Should I send it to you? like, no, I don't. No, please don't send it to ​

you could always do a two-parter and ask if they want it, and if they don't reply, then send it.

I don't know

Dylan Redekop: reply, you'd

send it.

Chenell Basilio: If they don't reply, say, Hey, I'm not [00:39:00] sure if you saw the last email. I just wanted to send this free before you in case it's helpful

Dylan Redekop: okay. Yep. can do that. And Don't send it

Chenell Basilio: yeah know. know. Don't send it as a PDF. And don't make it be like a Loom video that's seven years old.

Yeah, it should be something new.

Dylan Redekop: it's hardcore evergreen

Chenell Basilio: yeah, I think it's just, it can be hard, like if you're trying to get replies and you're not getting them, it's like, what do I do? And like, well do something different. Change up your header. If it's, if you usually have a well designed email, send a plain text email. If it's usually plain text, send like a picture of you waving at the top, something to break the normalcy of what your newsletter typically looks like.

Maybe they are opening it and they're just like, well, this is a new, the same thing. I don't have time for this right now. And it, they archive it. So that could happen too.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think just calling out. you want to reply is just the number one thing you could do. And if you are doing that, then just do it in more [00:40:00] unique or different ways or different spots in your newsletter. That, that's, those are kind of the the few things that I would recommend which I think is what we're basically saying.

the other thing. Which we, we harp on a lot is maybe create content that's worth replying to as well. So obviously you need to be creating IV content, insanely valuable content. And if you can spark emotions like those seven, those Shaan Puri seven emotions you should be eliciting in your content that's gonna just help that much more.

So, I dunno, I think, I think that's a good kind of recap or summary of some of the things we've been talking about today too.

Chenell Basilio: I think the one other thing that just comes to mind, I wanna say before we end this, but I think. you can include a story or something that happened to you recently, I feel like those can do well too. If you're typically sending, I don't know, just like a generic, it's the same thing over and over, five links or whatever it ends up being.

Add some personality into it. Get people like emotionally in, invested in your story. I think you'll get more replies from that too, if you can tie it back to what you're talking about.

Dylan Redekop: I [00:41:00] considered just axing a whole, like, and this, this is something that is, I've seen people argue for and against of incorporating like a personal sort of intro to before you send, you know, get into the main, the meat of your email, if you will, and.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: depends on the industry and the type of reader you have for sure.

But I've found that when I incorporate stories of what I've been up to you know, challenges I'm having or anything from my personal life that can, some in some way, shape or form relate to the content and sometimes it doesn't. But if I include those stories or those pictures that will. Very often elicit replies from people just saying, oh, that, that looked like a great trip.

Or you know, I love that you're, or that you tried that, or whatever. Whatever the story related to that can get replies just in and of themselves outside of the content too. So I think people just wanna. Connect with other people quite often, especially in the sort of creator realm that we're in. And if you have a personal brand, a creator brand, then people are gonna be looking at you as a person and not as a face of a [00:42:00] business.

So I think it just comes naturally that you'd want to talk a little bit, not always and not fully, but a little bit about.

your personal life and things that you're enjoying or things that you've done. I think that is where people are gonna really be able to relate to you the most in a lot of

ways.

Chenell Basilio: So in short, if you're not getting replies, just break the pattern, elicit some emotion, and uh, yeah, be more personal to try and get some replies.

Dylan Redekop: that

helps.

Chenell Basilio: It helps for sure Cool. I think this was a good one. I hope this helps. If you enjoyed this reply you can reply on Spotify. You can reply on YouTube or you could just send us an email.

I'm chenell@growthinreverse.com. I can always forward it to Dylan or you could just reply to one of our LinkedIn posts or something

Dylan Redekop: Yeah

we'll take

Chenell Basilio: and uh in

Dylan Redekop: all forms, on all

platforms.

Chenell Basilio: Yes, And even a review. If you wanna review the podcast, that'd be great too. It is my birthday tomorrow, so if you would like to reply and review this, that would be a huge birthday present.

I would appreciate that a lot.

Dylan Redekop: [00:43:00] That

Chenell Basilio: so

Dylan Redekop: I've got it on my calendar.

Chenell's birthday

Chenell Basilio: yes.

Dylan Redekop: she's turning 21 again.

Chenell Basilio: 21 plus a lot.

Dylan Redekop: Alright,

Chenell Basilio: Oh that's great

Dylan Redekop: happy birthday to you

Chenell Basilio: I

Dylan Redekop: I hope this was

Chenell Basilio: Thanks

Dylan Redekop: for our listeners as well. And, uh.

Chenell Basilio: Yes.

Dylan Redekop: Please let us know if you do have follow-up questions to this episode, 'cause or we'd love to hear your experiences with the replies.

If you've done something that has kinda worked really well that maybe we haven't talked about, we'd love to hear it and potentially share it as well with with our readers and our listeners.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, definitely. That'd be Please let us

know

bye