EP 70 - Transform your college’s email newsletters - Insights from Mailed It!
w/ Ashley Budd & Dayana Kibilds
Co-authors of the book “Mailed It!”
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SHOW NOTES
My guests today are Ashley Budd and Dayana Kibilds, co-authors of "Mailed It: A Guide to Crafting Emails that Build Relationships and Get Results." Ashley is a digital strategy expert at Cornell University, while Dayana is a strategist and researcher at Ology, an agency in the higher ed space.
In this episode, Ashley and Dayana discuss their new book "Mailed It" and share insights on effective email marketing strategies for higher education. They provide practical tips on crafting emails that engage readers and drive results.
Key Takeaways:
Focus on the reader's needs and meet them where they are
Use simple language and shorter sentences in emails
Leverage the "F" reading pattern to place key information where readers will see it
Test different email styles and formats to convince stakeholders of new approaches
Treat email more like a conversation than an academic thesis
Strategies and Examples Discussed:
Using polls and pop culture references to build relationships with readers
Implementing the "F" email method for better readability
Sending "breakup" emails to re-engage unresponsive contacts
A/B testing different email styles to demonstrate effectiveness
Book Information:
Title: "Mailed It! A Guide to Crafting Emails that Build Relationships and Get Results"
Get on the book list: https://emailbook.co/
Available at: emailbook.co, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and independent bookstores
Connect With Ashley:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleybudd/
Website: https://ashleybudd.com/
Connect With Dayana:
Website: https://kibilds.co/
Connect With John:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnazoni
Website: https://unveild.tv
Newsletter: https://unveild.tv/newsletter
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Transcript (done with AI so only about 80% accurate):
00:00:00:05 - 00:00:28:07
John Azoni
My guests today are Ashley Budd and Dae Kim. Bills coauthors of the book, mailed it a guide to crafting emails that build relationships and get results. And we did an episode with you guys about a year or so ago. Episode 29 For people listening, if you wanted to get to kind of the precursor to this episode, we gave a primer on their points of view on email and some some things that would be in the book.
00:00:28:18 - 00:00:45:09
John Azoni
But now the book, by the time this comes out, it will be officially out. And I wanted to have them back on the show to sort of geek out one more time about emails, drop some wisdom and talk about some content that's in the book that you probably haven't heard them talk about yet. So Ashley and Day, welcome to the show.
00:00:45:11 - 00:00:46:18
Ashley Budd
We're so happy to be back.
00:00:47:15 - 00:00:50:22
Dayana Kibilds
Yeah, we're super excited to be back. Thanks for inviting us again.
00:00:51:08 - 00:01:12:14
John Azoni
Awesome. I remember in our last show, I was like, when this book comes out, I want to I want to be part of the roll out tour. Here we are. So I've come full circle. This is a this is a bucket list item for me, you know, right up there with, like, you know, vacationing in the in the Bahamas or something.
00:01:13:16 - 00:01:14:09
Ashley Budd
Wow.
00:01:14:15 - 00:01:16:08
Dayana Kibilds
I don't think anyone will ever do.
00:01:16:08 - 00:01:17:23
Ashley Budd
Anything to trip.
00:01:19:02 - 00:01:38:09
John Azoni
Yeah. So in the spirit of, you know, getting to the point, which is something that I've learned from you guys, just sort of like, you know, in your emails, like, don't be cute. Just like, say it. What is it? What do you want? So, yeah, in the spirit of getting to the point, let's just start with some value right off the top.
00:01:38:10 - 00:01:47:03
John Azoni
What are two or three major takeaways from the book that you want? Higher Ed Mark I'm leaders to do more of or stop doing when it comes to email.
00:01:47:04 - 00:02:16:00
Ashley Budd
Yeah, we want everything to be grounded in the readers needs and to be respecting what is going on with the reader of this communication so that we can meet them where they are. And I think a lot of marketers agree that we're trying to get the right message to the right person at the right time, but we're not spending enough time thinking about what is happening with that person when we reach them.
00:02:16:19 - 00:02:25:12
Ashley Budd
So that's really part of the foundational trust building, relationship building, part of what we teach in the book.
00:02:25:15 - 00:02:59:06
Dayana Kibilds
Yeah, that's that's one must if that's not there, the rest won't work. But if you do get there, then another major takeaway. I think that's really important is that email is not a place to write a dissertation or write really complicated language or even write like you would write a paper letter. I think simple language is crucial and changing the way that you write alone to shorter sentences, simpler words is going to have a huge, huge impact on how people are receiving your message and whether they're reading it or not at all.
00:03:00:20 - 00:03:15:06
John Azoni
I love that. I think I think people in there like LinkedIn about me section could use a little piece of that advice. You guys should do like a follow up book on LinkedIn about me sections and just like how to like not talk like a corporate robot, how to talk.
00:03:15:13 - 00:03:36:21
Dayana Kibilds
Well, you know, like you can tell it's like something strange happens, right? We get into this like corporate robot mindset and we start like before we say our point, we add these six words of crap. Like in order for you to get to know me better or because my passion is to help students. Who cares? Like, just tell me what the thing is.
00:03:36:21 - 00:03:39:09
Dayana Kibilds
And that's one of the important premises of the book. Yeah.
00:03:39:09 - 00:04:17:18
Ashley Budd
And I think the lack of it, maybe that will appeal to use your that gets people really excited is the hack that we figured out how to get your message in the exact place that somebody is going to see it when they're doing their quick little skim and delete like everybody is doing this really fast looking, delete, look and delete in their inbox and they're making these split second decisions about whether they want to read the rest of this email and so we know exactly where their eyes are going to go in those 2 seconds.
00:04:17:18 - 00:04:43:00
Ashley Budd
And we show you in the formatting of your email how to hack it, how to leverage that bit of information because humans are super predictable in their eyes, are doing the same reading pattern over and over. And so we can hack that reading pattern and make sure that even if they're just going to glance, they saw what you wanted them to see in that two second glance.
00:04:44:20 - 00:05:07:01
John Azoni
I love that. Yes, I am excited about the the hack which will which will we'll get into for people that from my audience that maybe didn't listen to the previous episode or don't don't follow you on socials and whatever. Give us a little primer on who you guys are and why you wrote this book.
00:05:07:19 - 00:05:41:12
Dayana Kibilds
So I currently work at oLogy, which is an agency in the higher ed space. I am a strategist and a researcher. I come to ology with about 13 years of enrollment experience and all of my, I guess, enrollment and advancement, I bet. So higher ed experience, let's say it that way. All of my roles have had email in common and I was reflecting on this trajectory as we were writing the introduction of the book and email has just always been the thing that I knew that I could do better and that I could fix and that I could improve.
00:05:41:13 - 00:06:02:21
Dayana Kibilds
So I started testing things myself within my own jobs first and and missions, then in annual giving then and recruitment and admissions again. And that's where a lot of what some of these hacks and some of these like really specific how to's are coming from years of iterating and testing and seeing like really significant changes in how people receive the messages that I sent.
00:06:03:12 - 00:06:14:23
Dayana Kibilds
So Ashley and I met at Cornell during one of those roles for me, and she will tell you about how she was leading one of the teams that I was working with and her journey into emails that.
00:06:15:02 - 00:06:45:06
Ashley Budd
I have always been in higher education and I've always had this digital throughline in my work, probably because I am a millennial. And so my first job was handed software because I knew not that because I knew the software, but because I knew how to click buttons and learn to use a computer very quickly. So I kind of always had digital projects and email for sure, being part of that.
00:06:46:10 - 00:06:57:13
Ashley Budd
Like I said, in Higher Ed my whole career, I moved to Cornell in 2013 and what did you do Thursday 16.
00:06:58:08 - 00:06:59:15
Dayana Kibilds
16, 2016?
00:07:00:00 - 00:07:18:14
Ashley Budd
Yeah, yeah. And I'm still there at Cornell, still doing a lot of really interesting digital strategy work, but now also working with other colleges and universities and some small nonprofits too, to help them with their digital strategy.
00:07:18:17 - 00:07:32:05
John Azoni
Awesome. Love it. So, all right, I wanted to ask you about a couple of quickfire questions. Are are you guys like inboxes zero day people.
00:07:33:14 - 00:07:34:00
Ashley Budd
Right?
00:07:35:03 - 00:07:45:10
Dayana Kibilds
I am. I am an inbox zero unread, but I am not a folder person. Like it's all in there, but it's always unread. O zero unread.
00:07:45:16 - 00:08:00:22
Ashley Budd
I really like zero zero now and I am a folder person, but it's not like I think I get there twice a year now because I am too much for even myself.
00:08:02:21 - 00:08:21:11
John Azoni
Yeah. So I'm neither of those. I open my inbox today and I have 14,632 unread emails. But the thing is, the thing is they're all the important ones. I'm on it.
00:08:21:13 - 00:08:23:00
Ashley Budd
How do you distinguish?
00:08:23:01 - 00:08:38:15
John Azoni
I have a system, so like I have mine set up where like the starred emails are at the top. So if it's like something I need to come back to or something I actually have to read or whatever, I'll star it. So the important action oriented ones are at the top of my inbox and I just keep track of those.
00:08:38:23 - 00:09:10:08
John Azoni
But the rest, it's like I mean, I've got I'm looking at a marketing email from some digital asset management company because I went to some webinar and I haven't clicked on subscribe yet. I got one 20% off photo book orders from Google photos. I mean, it's all stuff like that. Like it's, you know, so it's not even worth the, the, the energy, the calorie to delete it expenditure to click the mouse and some of those things.
00:09:10:20 - 00:09:16:05
Dayana Kibilds
Yeah. And this is why we say that trust is first, right? Maybe you shouldn't be getting those emails at all.
00:09:16:18 - 00:09:41:18
John Azoni
Yeah, there are emails that I do read actually. I read your I read yours when they come in I read you know and in the in the on the topic of like people kind of like scanning real quick to like figure out if they want to open something. Alison Tashiro I was like really impressed with her preview text line on her higher Ed Marketer Digest that she sent.
00:09:41:18 - 00:09:54:03
John Azoni
It was something like, I need help with your higher ed budget answer inside dot dot, dot And I was like, That email was like, Good job. That was good.
00:09:54:03 - 00:10:05:18
Dayana Kibilds
And we should use we should use the inbox to tell people what's in the email so that they open it not to trick them to opening the email to figure out what's in there.
00:10:06:12 - 00:10:19:06
John Azoni
Absolutely. So what's like what's an email that you've received that just is like remarkably bad? Like it Was there any emails that inspired this book where it's like these people like this need help so many.
00:10:19:23 - 00:10:20:11
Dayana Kibilds
Oh yeah.
00:10:21:12 - 00:10:43:20
Ashley Budd
Oh, I got emails to mind there. Every time I get a political email I just rage and then anything produced by Chat GB That I think that was also putting us over the edge when we were thinking about should we do this? And they're like, Well, there's this A.I. that's going to fix it. Maybe that'll teach people and know that no know, no.
00:10:44:10 - 00:11:08:09
Dayana Kibilds
I think for me it's definitely working in a higher ed institution. Internal emails like the things that you get from another department asking you to do something, they are there are some of the worst. And my husband's a professor and he gets a lot of emails, you know, with a lot of things he has to do and he complains every time like this is a wall of text, how am I supposed to know what I'm looking for?
00:11:08:09 - 00:11:36:06
Dayana Kibilds
Like, I don't have time for this. So a lot of that are things that I was hearing and inspired this. But if I had to pick one email, it's an email we actually put in the book. It's a fundraising appeal from a race organization, like an organization that or organizes a race, a marathon, and they were racing funds to support local shelters so that kittens and puppies would not be euthanized.
00:11:37:01 - 00:12:12:08
Dayana Kibilds
And the original email is horror. Like you can't see that at all. There is a picture of like a vodka brand. There's a picture of a dog there, the name of the race. There's like the Giving Tuesday logo. It's so many things happening that you miss the, Hey, we've got to save these pets message. So that email, I use it over and over in all our workshops and it really it really shocks people when you put what we're writing and what we're teaching into practice, how much quicker you actually see, Oh, they're asking me to give ten bucks so that these puppies can live, you know?
00:12:12:19 - 00:12:16:13
Dayana Kibilds
So it's that's the email. If I had to pick one and it's in the book.
00:12:17:07 - 00:12:45:16
John Azoni
Okay, I like that. My, my favorite example from my life is I have two daughters, one is nine and the other one's almost seven. And they're both in elementary school. And so I've been getting a break from it, from it, from the summer. But like during the school year, Oh, I am getting an E multiple emails per week from the principal, multiple emails from the week in, the week from the office lady and then the 12 same.
00:12:45:16 - 00:12:49:12
Dayana Kibilds
They ask all this barrack candidate to tell this notoriously bad.
00:12:49:17 - 00:13:17:01
Ashley Budd
It is I agree and it Yeah and it's well I'm not going to say it's all really important but there is really important stuff buried in those messages and it's like I've got three of them now. I need to take 30 minutes of my life to try to unpack what's in here. It pertains in my child. And then you do that and how many days a week, stories running, 30 minutes, just trying to decipher what are in those emails.
00:13:17:03 - 00:13:20:20
Ashley Budd
Yeah, those are bad ones.
00:13:20:20 - 00:13:43:11
John Azoni
The the one I had to use I on this one last year because it was like when school was starting this past year, it was instructions about the car drop off line, which are important. Like I want everyone to follow the rules in the drop off line because I don't have time to wait for you to like spoon feed your child, you know, in and like get a get out and like, hug them and set like go, go, you know, drop and go.
00:13:44:04 - 00:14:01:22
John Azoni
And so there are instructions about how how to do the drop off line. And they were buried in this like novel of an email. So I like I put it through chat type and chat to be do is like, all right, pull up like then move out and then it's whatever something like that should that should have just been the email you.
00:14:01:22 - 00:14:16:12
Dayana Kibilds
Should have done, you should have sent that back to them. Like, honestly, my husband Tom, it wasn't the drop off line, but I recommended to Deputy. I was like, he got an email that was like, you know, ten kilometers long. And I'm like, Just put it in handy. Beattie Tell it to pull out the actions and send it back to her.
00:14:17:00 - 00:14:21:21
Dayana Kibilds
Yeah, but he did it.
00:14:23:16 - 00:14:50:19
John Azoni
So speaking of, of long emails and you hinted at this hack actually, I want to talk about the, the email method because I think that was one thing like last year that I got really excited about when I, when I was kind of researching the stuff that you guys, your points of view. I got really excited about this email method, so I want to like explain what it is and you know, what are they going to get out of the book from this.
00:14:51:14 - 00:15:17:06
Dayana Kibilds
Yeah, so we're borrowing some very well known and very well researched UX and design methods from from web, from web design. So what we found is back in the early 2000, when websites were super plain and they were just text on a simple background, the Nielsen Norman Group did a bunch of readability studies where they kind of recorded what the pupils do, like where do the eyes go?
00:15:17:06 - 00:15:37:23
Dayana Kibilds
What are those spots look like and what they found back then when again websites were super plain is that the eyes follow a natural pattern. So that's a top line. It's a second horizontal line, kind of halfway through, like a little bit further below and then a left hand scan. This since then they've done this kind of research.
00:15:37:23 - 00:16:14:07
Dayana Kibilds
Again, what they found, which is cool, is if you're lying, if you speak a language that's right to left reading language, the F as in first slipped and in mobile it follows a kind of very similar flow, but it's obviously a little bit longer and then headings play a more crucial role. Now that that's what we were like, that's what we call the F pattern or the we call it our single action template, because we have found over again so many years of testing that if you take advantage of knowing that the eyes are going to do that and you put the most important line, so your action, your dates, your whatever in those spots,
00:16:14:13 - 00:16:39:13
Dayana Kibilds
the top, the middle on the left hand side, people can't help but like before they even know what's going on. They you you have communicated, they have received your message. And so we love that one when that email short and it has one thing and then over time with again, the evolution of web design as well. We know designers know how to move the eyes around a page and it and so a very similar thing can be mimicked in email.
00:16:39:19 - 00:16:59:12
Dayana Kibilds
If you're writing an email that is a bit longer, like a newsletter format, where what people do is something called the layer cake reading pattern. And that's heading, heading, heading, heading, heading basically. And nobody reads the blurb that's in between those unless there's like a link or something that looks different because then the eyes will go to the thing that looks different, right?
00:16:59:12 - 00:17:15:16
Dayana Kibilds
So we like we have made a newsletter template as well, and both of these are available on our website. That's like heading link, heading link, heading link. And if you do that, people, people can help, but it just happens before they even know what's going on. They read it.
00:17:15:16 - 00:17:33:16
John Azoni
Interesting. Yeah, I love that. And, and that's kind of like my newsletter is sort of like that, that layered cake. And I think, you know, people can kind of skim through and I don't expect anyone to read the whole thing. I have like a handful of people that do click on everything and I'm like, Wow, good for you.
00:17:33:16 - 00:17:41:23
Dayana Kibilds
You signed the newsletter today and I clicked on a little thumbs up or one was it yesterday? I clicked on a thumbs up because it was about our book.
00:17:42:11 - 00:17:46:23
John Azoni
Yeah. So like, if it's about me, I'm, I.
00:17:46:23 - 00:18:06:05
Dayana Kibilds
Will like it. And they're like, No, but honestly, I do. I subscribe to our newsletter, Don and I like it a lot. Like it entertains me a lot. You know, I'm not I'm not your customer exactly right. But I'm like, I'm a fan and I learn a lot from you. So you have you attended one of our workshops and you implemented some things.
00:18:06:05 - 00:18:08:23
Dayana Kibilds
What have you noticed in your newsletters? What has changed?
00:18:09:04 - 00:18:39:21
John Azoni
Oh, who's asking the questions here? Let me. Yeah, so I yeah, I did attend one of your workshops. I love it. It was great. And so I think the big thing for me was biggest thing was click through. Rates were pretty low coming into that workshop and I noticed like, you know, people would click on like maybe one thing at the top of the email, but they wouldn't make it all the way to the bottom.
00:18:40:08 - 00:19:02:18
John Azoni
And I don't know which one of you said it. It was something about like, give them some low stakes thing to click on. You know, in the beginning and just get them in the habit of clicking. And I was like, Oh, great idea. And at the same time, I had I had been experimenting with like LinkedIn polls and I was surprised at how many responses I was getting to these LinkedIn polls.
00:19:03:12 - 00:19:32:11
John Azoni
So I was like, Well, maybe I'll just kind of translate that over here. And so I started asking some like, you know, Markham related questions, and then once in a while, like throw in like a pop culture thing. But people were clicking on that. And then I noticed like just a dramatic increase, probably like a 5% increase in click through rate, I think just and then but, but most importantly, people clicking all the way through, you know, some people would go straight, maybe straight to the bottom and click something.
00:19:32:18 - 00:19:53:21
John Azoni
It like really solved the problem of people just kind of like whatever is at the top. If I care about it all, you know, I'll click on it. Or maybe not. Before the workshop I had implemented that, the thumbs up and thumbs down thing, which has been mildly helpful. One problem I've been running into is like the robots.
00:19:53:21 - 00:20:17:10
John Azoni
Like if someone has a spam filter, they gravitate right to the like the dislike button. So like I have asked people that have pressed the dislike button, I'm like, Why did you press that? And they're like, I didn't press that. And I'm like, I'm like, Oh, okay. So, so certain contacts have a filter in their, you know, email service provider that's going and clicking all the links.
00:20:18:03 - 00:20:35:17
John Azoni
So I've had to learn how to kind of filter out some of those. But I do like that just an opportunity for people to give feedback and it's helped me to learn what do people like? Because I at 1.2 emails in a row at the bottom of the email, I had put like, here's a like a content idea for you.
00:20:35:17 - 00:21:03:17
John Azoni
And it was like about Jojo Siwa or, you know, transforming into this dark Lord, you know, artist or whatever. And, and, and I got like five people like click the like button and then I did it. I did another one again, like, here's another content idea. Here's, you know, something you could spoof is Mike Tyson the Mike Tyson Jake Paul fight that's coming up and all these like all these like trends trending Tiktoks were coming out that were spoofing that and then a bunch of people like that.
00:21:03:17 - 00:21:28:22
John Azoni
So I'm like, okay, so part of my newsletter I think should be, you know, people want to know trends in the video industry and the content industry. So I've tried to like take that into account and they gave me some tough love, too, because you're you're like, I was like, why? I was like, why I didn't Because I had there was one week where I had a Starbucks card behind the pole.
00:21:29:10 - 00:21:46:08
John Azoni
Yeah. So any pull button, people clicked. They would have gotten a Starbucks card and zero people clicked it that week. I was like, I was like, So I would message day. I was like, Was there a glitch with my newsletter? Did you get it? And I was like, There's a Starbucks card behind that. She's like, Oh my God.
00:21:46:18 - 00:22:02:11
John Azoni
And we try to figure out like, and she was like, Maybe because it's like boring and work. That was a work related poll because it was like it was like, what kind of content do you typically consume or whatever it was like it was like too serious. And I had just come off like a Britney Spears. Paul Yeah, before that.
00:22:02:11 - 00:22:05:16
Dayana Kibilds
And if I was totally different, yeah.
00:22:05:16 - 00:22:28:20
John Azoni
So I so I took that to heart. And since then it mostly, mostly the polls are just very silly pop culture. This one, the one this past week was it was a meme of like this old piece of like antique heirloom furniture. And it was like what my grandparents left me. And then it was and the next beside it was like an IKEA, like white Particleboard box and was like, What?
00:22:28:20 - 00:22:51:06
John Azoni
I'm going to leave my grandkids. I'm just like the same the garbage furniture that we have, like none of it is worthy of passing down. And I asked I asked, Do you have a piece of furniture that you're going to pass down? Has nothing to do with higher end marketing. But but I like I'm people click on that stuff and there's always like a funny gif on the landing page that they land on that's related to what their response was.
00:22:52:20 - 00:23:19:04
John Azoni
So so yeah, I think that's, that's one thing. And making it scalable, just, just realizing that people aren't reading this start to finish. So I need to include things that are kind of all stages of the funnel. I had asked, I think you and I talked in response to one of your newsletters actually about about that if you have a newsletter, there's kind of like multiple audiences receiving it.
00:23:19:04 - 00:23:41:03
John Azoni
Then, you know, you don't necessarily have to segment those audiences like into such granular things, but just make sure there's something for everybody there. So I've kind of keep that in mind every week. The other thing, subject lines of being what being about, what the emails about, and then the other one was the using the pre header or the preview texts wisely.
00:23:41:03 - 00:23:57:05
John Azoni
So one of the things someone said in the workshop was say what the and more is about like because that's what I used to do, I'd be like this, you know I would I would put the put the subject line like in the subject line what it was about. But I would always be like and more you know.
00:23:57:07 - 00:24:18:11
John Azoni
Yeah. And then I would put in the preview text. This week's newsletter are and I'm like, it made me realize that that's such a waste of preview text. And it made me realize how often I actually do read people's preview text. So, you know, so this week was like it was like best short form videos in higher ed.
00:24:18:16 - 00:24:42:18
John Azoni
And then in the preview text, it was like plus heirloom furniture and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, And, and so my open rates are great now. I mean, like consistently over 50%. And I have a oh, I have a, a pretty targeted list. I mean, in the last week I have broken up with the idea of this whole like lead magnet and then send people emails for the rest of their lives that they don't want.
00:24:43:23 - 00:25:01:11
John Azoni
Yeah. So people that sign up for my newsletter are they want that content that I'm promising. And so the open rates are very high. I mean, consistently above 50% click through rates ten or 11% every every week.
00:25:02:08 - 00:25:03:15
Dayana Kibilds
Pretty good. That's good.
00:25:03:17 - 00:25:22:04
Ashley Budd
And I think yeah, and so macro part of this, whenever I teach about the clickbait, I'm always like this is there's a method to this, you know, because because you know, your listeners can be like, oh, of course people are clicking ads up because you're just giving them like, what does that have to do with your business, right?
00:25:22:04 - 00:25:47:17
Ashley Budd
Like you're giving them this stuff, like how it's helping you and it's helping them have a relationship with you, right? Like they are going to come, they're going to see when they get an email from Josh, I'm like, Oh, I want to open this because it's going to make me smile. Or like, I know that he's going put something good in there for me and there's probably going to be something in there that I want to click on.
00:25:47:17 - 00:26:04:03
Ashley Budd
And so if you know that about our email that's in your inbox, you're going to behave differently. You're like, It's not going to be automatic delete. It might be one that's like, Oh, I'm going to start it and come back to that later. Or like, I'm going to take some time. I know I need a need more than 2 seconds on this email and I want to take that time.
00:26:04:03 - 00:26:32:10
Ashley Budd
So you're building this relationship with the readers that you know, it drives the activity and it keeps them coming back. But one of the other things that was happening is your deliverability is increasing to. So if you had a really strong email that like more people clicked on, the next one's going to get delivered better and it's not going to be in promotions or spam like it's going to be in the inbox because the last one people were clicking on.
00:26:32:10 - 00:26:59:21
Ashley Budd
And so it's creating this like unconscious habit. It's what I really am trying to get people to that whenever they see an email from me or you or university that they automatically know like, Oh, that's what I want, because we've done the work to build that trust, to prove to them that we're going to give them things that they want, that they feel good about that are helpful, all those good things.
00:26:59:21 - 00:27:19:05
John Azoni
Yeah. And that's the other thing. Yeah, the the poll at the top is like a great. Yeah. Relationship building. And I think most of my readers are like millennial and beyond. I don't have a lot of Gen Z. So most of them, it's like, you know, it's like if you watch Super Bowl commercials, they're all like the got like M.C. Hammer and like TLC because they know the millennials are watching.
00:27:19:23 - 00:27:47:01
John Azoni
Yeah. So, like, I had one poll that was like where you where you, like, die hard, like real world or road rules. And then and then the next week communicated what the results were from that poll. And then I gave everybody an update on what PAC is doing today. I found Puck's Puck's from Real World. He's the very first real world villain, found his Instagram and oh, my gosh.
00:27:47:18 - 00:28:08:15
John Azoni
So it's just fun, but it's fun. And I think it builds a relationship with with readers. And, you know, I had I had somebody reached out from Hamilton College or Hamilton University or college or whatever, and she goes, I recently subscribe to your higher tier, the so-called higher end marketer. But whatever do your newsletter and it's and it's terrific.
00:28:08:20 - 00:28:31:19
John Azoni
I forwarded recent edition to several people because of the content and because of the structure. It keeps me engaged from start to finish. So yeah, I mean, I attribute that a lot to what I've learned from you guys. So I mean, I definitely like, you know, I get like as a podcast, so I get, you know, periodically people have a book and they email it to me and they pitch an episode or whatever.
00:28:31:19 - 00:28:42:01
John Azoni
But like, this was one that I like. I actually like I am a consumer of this content and I like you guys as people. So like, I really do believe in this in this book and it's worked for me.
00:28:42:12 - 00:28:52:18
Dayana Kibilds
That's awesome. Oh, we're so happy to hear that. I mean, I'm a fan of your newsletter. I forwarded it. I have 42 newsletter to my clients. Like, you want to learn about video. This is your guy.
00:28:53:21 - 00:29:13:23
John Azoni
I did have someone from Harvard Business School reach out to me and he was like, he was like, they forwarded me your email. And our team is trying to learn about short form video. Like, do you have any courses or anything? I'm like, Man, I should I should start a course. Like, Yeah, you should. Yeah, you should. Yeah.
00:29:13:23 - 00:29:40:22
John Azoni
So, yeah, thanks for, you know, thanks for any traction that you helped help me get, but I wanted to get to some things that there's a couple of topics that you haven't covered a lot publicly or in your workshops or audience management and working with stakeholders, and I would love to hear about that. So drop some wisdom on us about those topics.
00:29:40:23 - 00:29:41:20
Ashley Budd
I would start.
00:29:43:20 - 00:29:49:00
John Azoni
Well, start with audience management because I read Left to Right and that's the first one that comes, you know, that's coming up in my notes.
00:29:49:12 - 00:30:26:09
Ashley Budd
Audience management. Yeah. I think part of why we don't fit it into our three hour workshop, which is already extensive, is because it's so dependent on who right? Like if I'm trying to get colleagues at work to do something that it's an audience of a handful. If I'm growing a business, it's such a little different story. And so I think the way to simplify it the best is to first start with your message that will work for everyone.
00:30:26:09 - 00:30:55:06
Ashley Budd
What are you trying to communicate? What's the broadest message to your audience? How can you make it as inclusive as possible to everyone that you're going to reach? And if you can make that work, if it can feel good for everyone and oftentimes it can like one example from higher. When we were first working on Cornell, launching Cornell Giving Day, we really wanted to have a more fun tone.
00:30:55:06 - 00:31:22:22
Ashley Budd
We wanted to reach a younger audience. So we changed our language. We changed everything that we were doing. The copy was different, the visuals were different, but we decided it didn't need to be a young alumni segment that only got that fun, right? Like that kind of writing and energy appeals to everyone. We were just a little too stuffy for one part of our audience and we were missing that.
00:31:23:13 - 00:31:48:08
Ashley Budd
So there is a way to think about your audience as a whole and try to create the conversation that includes everybody. And then when you feel that breaking there is like a natural break point and you often say if you find yourself writing, if this applies to you or like if this doesn't apply to you, you can delete this.
00:31:48:08 - 00:31:49:18
Ashley Budd
Like that is when you know.
00:31:51:05 - 00:31:53:16
Dayana Kibilds
That something's going wrong. There, there you need to sell.
00:31:53:22 - 00:32:21:04
Ashley Budd
Right? And so there are, you know, thinking about like the prospective student side of things, like do you need to talk differently to parents and students? Sometimes you don't. Sometimes. I mean, the same information they need, the same consistency from us. But there are other times, like I think it's helpful to think about it in real life, like, where would you pull this parent aside away from that child and have a different conversation with them?
00:32:21:04 - 00:32:47:22
Ashley Budd
Like, where do they need to hear something maybe more directly or maybe on repeat for different audiences? So I think that's the most general way I can talk about, like how we think about audience is there's probably a global way that you can speak to who you're trying to speak to you, and then you'll start to feel the breakpoint where it's like, Ooh, I actually needed to talk about something, something different, or I need to just send that person to a different website.
00:32:48:03 - 00:33:12:19
Ashley Budd
And that's when you know it's time to segment. I'm just like one other thing that comes into play a lot and audience segmentation is based on what you know about their behavior. So it's really helpful if you have information about people, especially about your relationship with them or the way that they behave to that segment and speak directly to them.
00:33:13:08 - 00:33:48:06
Ashley Budd
So I'm thinking about somebody who is a loyal donor to the university, deserves that recognition. And so I want to speak to that differently than somebody who's never given an idea to speak to them, convince them that they need to start on this path. Right. Or depending on where you are in your journey, wherever we're trying to move you, it might make sense to split you there, but it's more often it's like real communicate, like how you would handle, like me communicating with a big group of people if you were in real life, would you decide to put them in little breakout rooms and talk to them separately?
00:33:48:06 - 00:33:55:16
Ashley Budd
Or could you communicate your message to the big group on a mike in front of everyone?
00:33:55:16 - 00:34:22:15
Dayana Kibilds
Yeah. The other part of audience management we have in the book is like a bit more tactical, like what do you do with your lists? And we've talked about a little bit already in this recording. You said on like your list is very curated, right? There's you are on a lead farm, right? So we, we talk about some tips about keeping your data clean, taking people off who haven't opened your email in a while because that hurts you actually.
00:34:23:04 - 00:34:39:20
Dayana Kibilds
And really making sure that anyone who's on your email list actually wants to be on your email list and how like what some strategies are to make sure that that's the case every time. So there's a lot on audience and segmentation in the book that we rarely get a chance to talk about.
00:34:41:03 - 00:34:50:14
John Azoni
Yeah, it gets pretty granular. You know, when when you start, you know, it's I think I think you guys do a good job of like you got to leave something for the book you know that people can really.
00:34:51:16 - 00:34:52:20
Dayana Kibilds
By the book Yeah.
00:34:53:00 - 00:35:16:13
John Azoni
Yeah people can really dig into it. I actually that's on my list is to start removing people and Yeah and it hurts but it does hurt. It really hurts my ego. I so when we talked, when we talked last year, I had, I think I had 80, 80 subscribers to my newsletter. I have two over 250 today but wow.
00:35:16:20 - 00:35:45:08
John Azoni
Which you know, against against other people sometimes they're like in their CTAs and they're in LinkedIn. It's like, oh, you know, 3000 other leaders are subscribed to my newsletter. You should be wanted. But I'm like, Oh, 3000. That's a lot. And the idea of like going down in numbers is is daunting. But but I know there's a bunch of people that just don't open my emails and I'm curious if, you know.
00:35:45:10 - 00:36:09:18
Ashley Budd
I've been on that journey cleaning up. I'll tell you, my, my strategy is to first email. So I I'll find the people who I think are these, like at risk people who are not really paying attention anyway. And I will send them a specific message saying, I'm going to unsubscribe you. This is a courtesy, you know, like I'm not like you're not that enemy.
00:36:09:18 - 00:36:12:04
Ashley Budd
I get it. This is a courtesy.
00:36:12:19 - 00:36:13:08
John Azoni
Message.
00:36:13:08 - 00:36:41:19
Ashley Budd
To tell you that like, I'm going to help you clear out your inbox clutter and unsubscribe you. But if you don't want to be unsubscribed like click here and let me know. And otherwise. Yeah, you know, next week I'm going to unsubscribe. You can always come back, right? That kind of thing. And that kind of helps me psychologically feel like I did everything I could instead of just hard heard, unsubscribing people.
00:36:41:19 - 00:36:49:05
Ashley Budd
But you're going to you're going to where you might feel like you lost. You're going to feel like you want in that open right next time around.
00:36:49:07 - 00:36:51:03
Dayana Kibilds
Like like.
00:36:51:19 - 00:36:57:18
Ashley Budd
That. Can you put a send? Very. It feels so good. Right? And then I.
00:36:57:18 - 00:36:58:02
John Azoni
Think.
00:36:58:13 - 00:37:11:23
Ashley Budd
You know and just like encouraging people in every letter to forward to a friend that they think might like it like that is where I get the most of people subscribing to my letter is the.
00:37:12:07 - 00:37:30:23
John Azoni
Yeah I know I noticed because like I have a little blurb at the top of every newsletter that's like, Hey, if you're new, subscribe whatever, share with your team or whatever. And then in this week's I, the first the first section of the newsletter was something I can't remember. It was and I was like, Oh, it was the short form video.
00:37:31:05 - 00:37:47:01
John Azoni
It was like best short form video, some LinkedIn article that I wrote, and I was like, Share this with your team if you want, and someone shared it. And I got like four sign ups like in a row from the same school. I'm like, Oh, that was a that was a last minute that I wasn't going to be like, share.
00:37:47:03 - 00:37:47:19
Ashley Budd
To do a.
00:37:48:02 - 00:37:51:20
Dayana Kibilds
Ton. Tell people what you want.
00:37:51:20 - 00:38:15:04
John Azoni
And the breakup email is a great idea. And I experienced this because, you know, I run a business, I have to do sales outreach and sales follow up and stuff like that. And I have I have found that like when a contact is ghosting me, if I, if I say, hey, it's I've reached out a few times, haven't heard back from you, this will be my last time to follow up.
00:38:15:04 - 00:38:35:23
John Azoni
Unless, unless I've got your song in your ear, you actually are interested. So I had like two two schools were like deals that had gotten all the way to the finish line for like our subscription thing. And they had been. Then they just decided to like ghost me for, you know, two months, something the deal. I'm like, Well, yesterday I was like, All right, I'm going to I'm just going to send them a breakup email.
00:38:35:23 - 00:38:50:17
John Azoni
Like, I'm like, it's like taking every ounce of me because I just want to be like, maybe you are to maybe you still want to you know, I still like you, but I was like, I was like, All right, I can see you're not interested. So you know, you know where to find me. And both of them responded in like 10 minutes.
00:38:50:17 - 00:38:56:08
John Azoni
And I got an answer from both of them. So one was still interested, one wasn't. Yeah.
00:38:56:10 - 00:38:57:14
Dayana Kibilds
So now you know.
00:38:57:22 - 00:39:08:20
John Azoni
Yeah. So that's. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a that's a that's a better way to, to engage people I think is just call out the fact that Yeah. You're clearly not opening these emails.
00:39:09:00 - 00:39:35:11
Ashley Budd
And there I did have people write back after I unsubscribed to them oops that they weren't downloading images right. So they were just reading and my emails are very low fi like it is basically plain text. And so I wasn't getting there. It looked as if they weren't opening it because they had put those filters on for me not to see.
00:39:36:02 - 00:39:46:11
Ashley Budd
And they're like, No, please don't like I do. I read your email week, like, don't unsubscribe me. I'm like, My data says you have not opened, you know, but they were the.
00:39:46:11 - 00:39:47:00
John Azoni
Data does.
00:39:47:00 - 00:40:11:06
Ashley Budd
Not like downloading the to get and so okay so there you know there might be some and that's why it's like worth the outreach right like it looks like you're not maybe but and I also think that like is it a filter where empathetic like hey, we know the inbox is a mess. You know, you can be like, I have 14,000 unread emails, like I don't.
00:40:11:06 - 00:40:14:10
Dayana Kibilds
Want to add. I don't want to be one of yours for you.
00:40:14:10 - 00:40:18:03
Ashley Budd
And if I am, you know, I'm just going to I'm going to do this for you.
00:40:20:08 - 00:40:44:00
John Azoni
Yeah, I love that. Okay. We got like 10 minutes left. I have a question. So I did I did ask in this week's newsletter for people to submit questions. I was like, I will be lucky if I get one. I did get one, so I'm lucky if people are very, I mean, reluctant to actually, like, engage in like reply rates.
00:40:44:00 - 00:41:02:00
John Azoni
And so like when I get an email like, you know, I respond, I like I give senders the gift of a reply, like Brian Piper. I talk to him all the time, like back and forth from his emails. Yeah. And Jamie, her and I, you know. Anyway.
00:41:02:11 - 00:41:03:07
Dayana Kibilds
It's a little treat.
00:41:03:18 - 00:41:28:01
John Azoni
Anyway, but Cory Glover, he, he has, he has replied to my emails a couple of times. Corey Glover, marketing leader at University of Michigan. His question for you is higher education, writing and design across. The board between web print and certainly email tends to be long, formal, and more often than not focused on just relaying information instead of true conversational storytelling.
00:41:28:09 - 00:41:37:18
John Azoni
Any tips on convincing departments across campus to make shorter, friendlier content and email design and make their email design the standard practice?
00:41:37:18 - 00:42:00:09
Ashley Budd
Yeah, this is I mean, this is such a there's actually two things in here that are the kicker. I think the bigger one that he didn't directly ask is if, like I'm being told to push out all this institutional messaging, where's the room for the relationship? Like how can I, how can, how can I do a fund poll?
00:42:00:09 - 00:42:19:08
Ashley Budd
How can I convince people that this stuff that doesn't really seem like it's university stuff is what I'm like allowed to communicate, right? I mean, we hear that a lot because we try to teacher like do this fun stuff, build a relationship called, you know, think about your audience, don't think about the university. You need to think about their needs.
00:42:19:08 - 00:42:44:23
Ashley Budd
But how do you so how do you convince people? How do you balance that? How do you move it in? That's kind of the bigger thing that I am trying to unpack for people. But the formatting and the style and all of that is plays into a quality email too. And I think the answer for both is probably can you convince them to test something different?
00:42:44:23 - 00:43:10:07
Ashley Budd
Yeah. Can you convince them? Yeah. Can you pick one campaign even like one one email? Can you pick one and do you and show the results? Because it's really hard to argue with feedback, right? Like, let me show you the feedback that we got. Or if we get negative feedback because you think I'm being too informal, you know, like, let's see, let's see if that's real.
00:43:11:12 - 00:43:34:11
Ashley Budd
So if you have to do and you just even send it their way and then send it this way, or if you if you have the ability to take a whole campaign and try to run that whole campaign using different style and and compare it to this other style that you're pretty sure isn't isn't the best.
00:43:34:11 - 00:43:34:18
John Azoni
Yeah.
00:43:35:15 - 00:43:58:19
Dayana Kibilds
Yeah. I think we got to this point where we are with the certainty about these things by testing on ourselves like we to where in jobs and situations in which someone didn't believe it was going to work. And we you know, you can either do a pilot, you can do 10% of your audience, you can do any B test, but then you're like, oh, look, we actually got way more whatever we wanted to get out of this version.
00:43:58:19 - 00:44:20:03
Dayana Kibilds
Can we try it again? And it's so, so hard to argue against that right? The other thing that I would say just in general with this idea of it's long formal and not for and focus on relaying information is, you know, that's that's a that's a common higher ed conundrum because we think we're in the institutions of higher education.
00:44:20:03 - 00:44:38:23
Dayana Kibilds
So everything has to be very academic, but not in the inbox. Right. And I think we we talked about this before, like imagine if you were just speaking to these people in person, if it was in person, how would you address them? What would you say? What kind of conversation would you have? Just take that and put it in the email.
00:44:39:07 - 00:45:05:02
Dayana Kibilds
The email doesn't have to be a thesis like if you had to put email on a spectrum between conversation and academic thesis, it's it's conversation. It's not academic thesis. So that's how people read email, that's how people interact with email. And we know nothing. We say nothing. You say nothing is going to convince a higher ed leader who's not wanting to be convinced except your own data showing them that it works.
00:45:05:15 - 00:45:10:09
Dayana Kibilds
So shift the focus from convincing them to change to convincing them to let you test.
00:45:12:08 - 00:45:17:06
John Azoni
Love it, or just give them a wrapped present. And when they open it up, it's the mailed it book.
00:45:21:08 - 00:45:23:01
Dayana Kibilds
Just to query.
00:45:23:10 - 00:45:38:08
John Azoni
You do that. So success inquiry. On that note, if people want to buy this book at the time of releasing this episode, it's out. It's out now. So we're going. They work and they get it.
00:45:39:10 - 00:45:49:21
Dayana Kibilds
Well, that's yeah, we have all our retellings on our website which is email bookable and you can search for it yourself on like Amazon and other like other online.
00:45:50:09 - 00:46:05:12
Ashley Budd
Dot org if you're an anti Amazon or it'll be there it'll be Barnes and Noble and it's also on Ingram's site. So if you have an adorable independent bookstore where you live and you want them to order it they can just.
00:46:06:15 - 00:46:14:08
John Azoni
Awesome we just got a new Barnes and Noble by my house and I went to it last weekend for the first time and it's awesome. So maybe I'll see you take it.
00:46:15:07 - 00:46:23:11
Ashley Budd
Barnes Noble is coming back. We went to Why were we in Barnes Noble? We're in Barnes and Noble and Madison is there, so kick in.
00:46:23:11 - 00:46:27:01
Dayana Kibilds
Oh, yes, I. I needed Wi-Fi.
00:46:27:01 - 00:46:28:19
Ashley Budd
They have watch and books.
00:46:28:23 - 00:46:31:06
Dayana Kibilds
Yes. And books.
00:46:32:02 - 00:46:51:00
John Azoni
I need. I mean, I need Barnes Noble to stick around because I just love the vibe. And my kids love it, too. They love just going to look at stuff. And if I think if Barnes and Noble can capture the vibe of of Starbucks where that's like your third place, like you're going to go meet someone, no one's like, Hey, let's meet a lot.
00:46:51:00 - 00:47:12:04
John Azoni
Said this client meeting at Barnes Noble, You know, but it's got a nice coffee shop. If they can if they can, like, really, you know, pump up the coffee experience and. And it's like the best coffee shop with all these books that you can just peruse. Anyway, Barnes Noble, if you're listening. Don't don't go nowhere. Yeah. All right, cool.
00:47:12:04 - 00:47:16:20
John Azoni
Well, where can people connect with you guys individually if they want to follow you?
00:47:17:21 - 00:47:26:02
Dayana Kibilds
Or. We're very active on LinkedIn, so we're both very active on LinkedIn. So find us there. But also subscribe to Ashley's newsletter.
00:47:26:06 - 00:47:34:14
Ashley Budd
The Ashley About.com or where email book, Diet Co is our website where you can find us and all of our links.
00:47:36:05 - 00:47:40:23
Dayana Kibilds
And our resources and our free templates and recording is just like this one.
00:47:41:17 - 00:47:52:10
John Azoni
Okay. Well, thanks so much, guys, for for being here. I was excited to have this conversation and you did not disappoint. So good. Best of luck on the book launch.
00:47:53:04 - 00:47:54:10
Dayana Kibilds
Thank you so much, John.
