Ever wondered how to transform a side hustle into a lucrative business? That's exactly what Brooke Blake, our esteemed RTA member and TPT seller, is working to accomplish with her Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Our chat reveals the nuts and bolts of driving traffic and increasing revenue, with Brooke detailing her unique mockup techniques and the power of smart product presentation. We even go behind the scenes with a visual audit of Brooke's store, Blooming with Blake, that shows just how game-changing Brooke's strategies can be.
This episode isn't just about selling—it's about building connections and communities. We dig into the art of growing an audience and an email list, emphasizing the importance of high-converting resources and captivating product listings. I'll guide you through the key tactics that have started to show real promise in email marketing, from the creation of engaging covers to maintaining brand consistency. Discover how to strike the perfect balance between serving your audience with valuable content and crafting strategic sales approaches that lead to long-term revenue growth.
Navigating the intricacies of email marketing, especially for educators on TPT, can feel like a tightrope walk. I lift the curtain on my own challenges with engagement and sales tracking, discussing the delicacy of writing sales emails that resonate. Whether you're contemplating the use of AI tools like ChatGPT for inspiration or perfecting a personal touch, our conversation sheds light on what works and what doesn't. As we round off the episode, I delve into various business growth strategies, from the potentials and pitfalls of Facebook ads to the benefits of starting a blog.
Brooke's TPT Store - Blooming with Blake
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Blooming-With-Blake
Brooke's Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/bloomingwithblake/
Ever wondered how to transform a side hustle into a lucrative business? That's exactly what Brooke Blake, our esteemed RTA member and TPT seller, is working to accomplish with her Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Our chat reveals the nuts and bolts of driving traffic and increasing revenue, with Brooke detailing her unique mockup techniques and the power of smart product presentation. We even go behind the scenes with a visual audit of Brooke's store, Blooming with Blake, that shows just how game-changing Brooke's strategies can be.
This episode isn't just about selling—it's about building connections and communities. We dig into the art of growing an audience and an email list, emphasizing the importance of high-converting resources and captivating product listings. I'll guide you through the key tactics that have started to show real promise in email marketing, from the creation of engaging covers to maintaining brand consistency. Discover how to strike the perfect balance between serving your audience with valuable content and crafting strategic sales approaches that lead to long-term revenue growth.
Navigating the intricacies of email marketing, especially for educators on TPT, can feel like a tightrope walk. I lift the curtain on my own challenges with engagement and sales tracking, discussing the delicacy of writing sales emails that resonate. Whether you're contemplating the use of AI tools like ChatGPT for inspiration or perfecting a personal touch, our conversation sheds light on what works and what doesn't. As we round off the episode, I delve into various business growth strategies, from the potentials and pitfalls of Facebook ads to the benefits of starting a blog.
Brooke's TPT Store - Blooming with Blake
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Blooming-With-Blake
Brooke's Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/bloomingwithblake/
We're back with another coaching call episode and I'm so excited about this one. We're going to be talking to Brooke Blake today, and I love Brooke. She's been a member of RTA, she's participated in some small group coaching that I've done inside of RTA and she's absolutely amazing. Not only does she have a lot of great tips and tools and tricks that she's going to be sharing of her own inside of today's coaching call, particularly inside of our audit, but one of the things she's looking at in 2024 and her business goal for 2024 is to drive more traffic to her TPT store via her email list and also to increase her revenue. She left the classroom and so she's doing TPT full-time and she wants to try to be bringing in half of her teaching salary, or more, in 2024, and so we're going to be talking about ways that she can do that, both via email marketing and taking a look at her TPT store directly and looking for small things that she can do to increase her revenue.
Speaker 1:Super, super excited for you guys to listen in on this conversation. Brooke is so easy going and so much fun to talk to and, particularly, I know a lot of you guys listen via podcast and you're listening as you're driving, you're listening on the go, but one of the things that you do want to do is you want to watch the audit of her store. I'm telling you one of the things that she shares in the audit as far as how she's creating mockups, was a game changer for me. It was something I never thought of, was super, super simple and it's definitely something. In fact, I got off the call with Brooke and I was like, okay, I need for you to come to RTA and I would also like to hire you to do some stuff for me. So if you want to see that, what she's doing inside of her store her covers, her previews and how beautiful they are, make sure that you're watching that audit on YouTube.
Speaker 1:We're going to do an impromptu audit of one of her emails. You don't want to miss this conversation. Let's go ahead and let's meet Brooke. Hey Brooke, how are you? Hey, lauren, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm so excited to talk with you today. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Let's start with just telling everybody a little bit about your TPT journey so far, how long you've been selling your niche, all of that good stuff. Tell everyone a little bit about it.
Speaker 2:Okay, that feels like a little bit of a loaded slash trick question, because it feels like my journey has not been like I started here and here's where I am. It's been very up and down. So I actually had to go back to my dashboard to like really look at when did I even start my store? Like when did I post my first resource? So I have notes here. So I opened my store in 2015 of February, which when I was looking at that, I was like why? Like I don't, I was in college, so it wasn't like I was teaching yet or anything and I posted my first product March of 2016. So a whole year later, it made my first 60 cents in March of 2016. And that is when I was student teaching. So that's when I started to really see a need for creating things that would help.
Speaker 2:I was blessed with a great mentor teacher who gave me the chance to really just like take the reins, and I jumped in right away and she let me do a lot of full teaching, like pretty much right from the get go, and I realized then that there was a lot of things that what they had for me I mean I had limited availability and access to things, of course, because I was a student teacher, so I had to create a lot of things on my own and I wanted to and I enjoyed it. So I posted several things in 2016. But as like a hobby, right, I had no idea what TPT was other than like, oh, I could make, you know, some Starbucks money here and there, so that's fun. I probably did the like thumbnails that were just the picture of the products, like all of those things that I had no idea you didn't do right. And then I like went dark until 2018. So I got my first teaching job and then posted some more things in 2018.
Speaker 2:I started to get a little more active on social media that was before there was an algorithm that was hard to work with and so then posted some things in 2018, made a little bit of money. That was like, oh, you know, here are some Starbucks runs for the month. That was really fun. And then went dark again until 2022. So I would say that 2022, if I'm being honest, is where I feel like I started to actually think through TPT as a business for the first time and not just somewhere where I threw these products on I had no idea about SEO. I had. I had no idea about anything. And so I started to spend a little more time learning that and realized really quickly how just tweaking some little things made a massive difference. And so I would say since 2022, I have been consistently working on my store, working on growing my audience and trying to shift my mindset that this is a business for me and not just an extra fun thing. So that's kind of my journey of TPT. It's a little messy ups and downs.
Speaker 1:But I think that's a lot of people's journey too, because with teaching, you know, I was talking to somebody the other day and I don't know when her podcast will air, but she had a very similar situation where it's like you start it and then life kind of gets messy, life kind of gets hectic, and you kind of put those things on the back burner when you're thinking about it as Starbucks money, because then it's optional money. But then when it starts to kind of take off and you get to that point where you're like, oh wait a second, this could actually be mortgage money, this could be whole income kind of money, Then that's when the game kind of changes and you realize this isn't optional, Like I, you can put it on the back burner, but you don't want to at that point, right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah. And I remember feeling like, especially in that 2018 time, I felt like my creativity had kind of it wasn't that it died out, but I thought that every single thing that I added to TPT had to be brand new, something that no one had ever seen before. And I'm learning that that's not the case, which I'm very thankful for, but also I think that was intimidating for me. I felt like, well, I don't have the energy or the time to come up with these ideas that are never before seen, or I think I had the idea and it was already out there, right. So once I kind of took that pressure off, I think that changed a lot of my mindset as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's huge. That's huge. I love that. So let's talk about your goals for 2024. Of course, at the time that we're recording this, we're at the end of 2023. So, as you're looking ahead into next year and you're saying this is what I want my business to look like in 2024, or by the end of 2024, what are some things that come to mind? We're like this is what I want to accomplish in the coming year.
Speaker 2:So I this is the first year that I decided not to be in the classroom so that puts a lot of pressure on in an exciting way, some pressure on the goals that I have for myself for the next year. I would say I don't really expect to maybe duplicate, or what's the word.
Speaker 1:Replace.
Speaker 2:Replace, replace, replicate my teaching salary right away, but I would love to get to a point where it's not 50% or close to that or more, to keep, just to be comfortable as far as revenue goes. And I know that a way to do that is to build my email list, and so that is my biggest goal, I think, or just my audience in general. My email list is growing Thanks to you. I was, I took your class, I have been in some other courses. Like I felt, like I've spent a lot of time learning email and I'm working on growing that and I would say, with that it also is just consistency, like in my whole brand and my whole business.
Speaker 2:That has been something I want to focus on as well. So growing email lists, growing an audience, so that if I'm looking forward to 2025, actually I would love to be able to be in a place where I feel comfortable starting a website and or blog where it's worth my energy and time. Right now, I don't feel like I have an audience quite large enough that I think it's worth spending all my time on that. I think there's other areas that are going to be a little more valuable right now to direct traffic somewhere else. So that's kind of my short and long term goals there audience and, of course, just increasing revenue. So I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that. So what we're going to do is we're going to start by just taking a look at your store first and just kind of do. These are not deep dive audits or anything like that we're just going to take a look and see if there are any red flags, orange flags, things to look at. I like to always do that, regardless of your goals. Even if you tell me, like, my goal is to grow my email list, traditionally you wouldn't necessarily think, well, let's go look at your TPT store. But what we do want to do is we want to make sure that if we're really focusing on growing the marketing side of our business, that we're marketing resources that once the buyer gets there, they're going to convert Right? So then this is going to help with that primary goal of increasing your revenue in 2024 and getting to that stage where we're getting close to and or replacing your teaching salary. So we're going to take a look at that together.
Speaker 1:This next segment where we're looking at your store obviously, if you're listening on podcasts, you are not going to be able to see anything. So if you want to watch that audit, you can see that audit, or you can watch that audit on YouTube. There's a separate video on YouTube. That's just the audit. If you want to go and watch that, you'll find a link for that down inside the description. But what we'll do is we'll go take a look at that and then we'll come back and we'll do a little recap together of some things that we saw in your store that can help you reach those goals, and then we'll talk about other things that you can do to help you grow your email list and reach those revenue goals in 2024. So we took a look at Brookstore and we noticed just a couple of small things in her store. Overall, your store looks phenomenal. It looks amazing.
Speaker 1:A couple of pointers that I gave you when we were looking at your store audit that will help you with getting to that revenue was one with a search engine optimization and that is, with your seasonal resources, making sure that you're utilizing keywords that are really going to help you get found. So, instead of like fun using the word fun, like fun solving or problem solving or things like that, utilizing keywords like grade levels and we talked about how, with seasonal items, it's a little bit different than evergreen items A lot of times people are typing in a broad search term and then they're tacking on a specific grade level, so like Halloween escape room, and then they realize, oh my gosh, I've got like all of these and if they're like me, it's easier for me to just type in eighth grade right Than it is to go down, find the grade, select the grade that I want, and when we do that, it really allows us to still fall into that broad search term but then get found for that grade level, and that can be really, really helpful for those seasonal items. If you're listening, this is not like blanket advice for every store or for every situation, and we talked about this when we were looking at her audit, which, again, you can view the whole thing on YouTube. This tactic does not transfer over to evergreen resources quite as well, but I have found that it works really well for seasonal items.
Speaker 1:Another thing is we talked about how phenomenal your mockups are, your covers, your previews, all of that. So I highly recommend that, if you're listening, go check out that audit so you can see, or check out her store so you can see, some really great examples of what that looks like. And then we talked about product descriptions really going in, shortening those up and making sure that everything is super skimmable for the buyer. And other than that, other than those two things, your store looked great. So I would say 100%, we're ready to be driving traffic like loads of traffic to get to 2024.
Speaker 1:So super excited about that. Talk to me about what you've done so far for email marketing, because you mentioned email marketing.
Speaker 2:you've started to grow that, so I believe it was, let's say, january, beginning of the year. At some point I decided I had heard from several people that that is that's the way to do it. So I was like, okay, I can do this, I can do this. I do enjoy writing, so the email part doesn't scare me quite as much as the marketing and getting the people there. But so I jumped in there. I was part of rebranded teacher academy at that time and so I had gone through your marketing course. I had joined your coaching and that was extremely helpful, like you helped me get everything set up the way that I wanted it. And then I just jumped in and I've tried to be consistent. That's kind of been my goal. I've heard that's the thing to do be consistent and so I've been trying to do that. I've done some collaborations with some other sellers. I have done Facebook ads to drive traffic to my landing page and I have it inside my products to try to get that organic traffic there as much as possible, and it's steadily grown, which I've been really thankful for.
Speaker 2:I will say, to be honest, the part that I'm struggling with the most with email marketing is getting the sale, that trying to find that balance of, you know, serving my audience, which I do feel like I don't sell to them all the time. I try to give you know ideas or I get about free resources you know all the things that that I tried to serve them with, but also trying to throw in some of the selling pieces as well, and, as far as my dashboard shows on TPT, I'm not getting as much return on that as I thought that I would, and I don't know if that's the size of my audience. I would say my audience is about half of them are active, like very active, opening majority of the emails, clicking things like that. But I have jumped past the hurdle of being upset about unsubscribes, so I feel like that's a win, yes, and so just trying to like continue to grow and serve my audience in a way that they trust me. I think that that's my biggest goal right now is earning trust and them getting to know me.
Speaker 2:I try to invite that conversation into my emails a lot and I don't get a lot back, and so I think that can be a little defeating. But I know people are busy, especially right now. I mean the fall, and the fall in the classroom is hard, and so I know that and so I'm just trying to push through. But I would say that, getting those sales, I feel like I've done a lot of learning about how to write those emails, when to send those emails, feel like I've done the learning. It's now refining that and just being patient, I guess. So that's kind of where I'm at with email marketing.
Speaker 1:Could you show me an example of a sales email that you sent recently? Sure, yes, and while you're pulling that up, I'll just say that. First of all, the UTM codes. I use them for everything If I'm driving traffic to TPT. I'm using them for absolutely everything, but they're definitely not that accurate, right? But this month in October was the first month that I drove traffic only to my shop, if I store, and that was the only place that traffic was coming from, like it was only coming from my email list and it was a third of what I made for the month and that was definitely not being represented in my UTM codes on TPT.
Speaker 1:And you're near a third. I would say probably in the neighborhood of maybe 15 to 20% on a good month, and I anticipated that it was probably around 20 to 25%, but definitely not like 33% of my income. A significant amount, I would say, is lost somehow or another. It's lost in that data. It's just not representing accurately. So that is something to keep in mind.
Speaker 2:So I've written all of my emails just from my brain. Yeah, I have dabbled lately in the past couple of weeks and some chat GPT like inspiration, yeah, and so I'm not going to show you those because I don't feel like they're completely me, you know like. I tried, I changed them to be me, but I still am like just it feels like I don't know, it just doesn't feel the same. So I am working on trying to figure out how to utilize that as a tool, but still be me, so, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to show you some.
Speaker 2:This is one from September. I try to send a more like targeted sales email, probably once, maybe twice a month. The other emails are maybe a mixture of a little bit of that and a little bit of an idea, or a little bit of that and a little bit of a freebie.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read it out loud and that way anybody listening via podcasts they can hear. So we've got okay in quotation marks. I'm done. I'm finished. Now what? What am I supposed to do when I'm done? If I had a dollar for every time I heard one of those statements, I had probably own a vacation at home on the coast of some beautiful beach in Europe. What about you first name?
Speaker 1:Planning purposeful activities for my fast finishers just hasn't always been one of my strong suits, so this is where I would definitely insert a new line and break up this paragraph. I always have something for them to do, but it usually consists of reading a book or doing something without much purpose on their Chromebooks. When you already have so many activities to plan for whole groups, small groups, centers, homework and everything else you have going on, it's easy to forget the importance of making busy work purposeful. I found that I really needed something that would be engaging for my students and not feel like just another thing. That's why implementing creative writing is a fast finisher activity has been a game changer for me and my students. Get a beautiful photo of the product itself. Take a look at finish the story writing prompts for the entire year here.
Speaker 1:The beauty of creative writing is that my students get the opportunity to have topic choice and practice writing skills without the pressure of a formal writing assignment. Writing can be intimidating for many students. We throw so many things at them, like the writing process five paragraph essays, structure planning, graphic organizers, revising and editing, checklist typing, final drafts. Okay, I can tell you right now, it's too long. It's too long. We've got like, for those who can't see the screen, who's listening on podcast, I can see like I haven't finished this paragraph. I can see four more and I'm still not at the end of the email. So we're too long.
Speaker 1:I would say that this would be a phenomenal blog post, right For somebody who's really looking for a little bit more information, that type of personality who's a high fact finder or a high fact seeker can't remember what Megan Wisdom calls it but, yeah, okay, so you love writing, which is really evident. This is a good thing. Okay, I would start with this as a blog post and really pair it down. So what, I, what I? Here's the homework that I'm going to give to you. I'm going to say take this and instead of at the very beginning instead of starting off with are we done yet, are we this yet or that yet? Like you can still do that, but then say like, if you're getting these kind of questions on a daily basis, you're not alone.
Speaker 1:I got so tired of answering these questions that I had to make something for my students that was going to remedy this problem, and so I set out to create these resources. And then I want you to bullet point, not lengthy. We're talking about like one line per bullet. These x activities, like these specific activities, allowed my students to blank, blank, blank and allowed me to blank blank, blank. If you want to try one of these resources over topics like this, this, this, give example topics, like three or four example topics and more. With those example topics, you're going to link to those specific example topics and then you've got and more than for the next two days, I've got these 20% off. You can get them by clicking below, but only for the next two days, and you've got a button and that's it. That's the end of the email, okay, and then what you're going to do is you're going to follow up within the next day.
Speaker 1:Just a quick reminder that these resources, the sale at 20% off sale is going to end at this time, right, what happens is, when we get something this long is, I am going beyond trying to give them enough information to purchase the product.
Speaker 1:And what I'm really trying to do is I'm trying to lend credibility to myself, and I know that because you said this earlier. You said I've just got to get them to trust me. I've got to build this relationship with them. I've got to get them to the place where they feel comfortable making a purchase for me, which is true to a degree. But if I can tell someone specifically here's your need, this will meet your need, this will meet your I mean, this way, it'll meet your students need in this way and you can get it right now for this discount. That's going to get them to go ahead and make that leap. It gives them that short-term incentive. Like, if I don't get this right now, it sounds great, this would meet my need. If I don't make the jump now, I'm going to miss out on this discount. Once we've got them for that discount, then they've used the product and then it's easier to make that next sale.
Speaker 1:Okay, this doesn't mean that we constantly for every email is a sale right. It doesn't mean that you have to do that, but doing this on a fairly regular basis, especially when you're first starting out and you're just trying to get them to just purchase the product, just try the thing, it can be a really great incentive. And then I've found, with this economy, the way that it is, people are just really not interested in window shopping. They're really just not interested in purchasing something unless they have a really good reason to purchase it right now or they need it immediately. So giving them that incentive to go ahead and make the leap at the end of that sales email can be really, really helpful.
Speaker 2:So I want you to try that and then tell me how it works. And, honestly, I'm not upset about that because, like I said about the product descriptions, that seems me time. Yeah, I feel this need to be like. I need you to know what's in that. Like I don't know. It's like this. I'm a very I'm a type A controlling like Enneagram one person. So I'm like here are all the facts, here are all the things you need to have, everything you need to know to make an informed decision. And you're right, that's just. I know that's not the case, because that's not the case for me. I don't.
Speaker 2:I, when I shop on Amazon, I just add the cart. I mean, it doesn't take much, right. So I appreciate that I don't typically have people look at my emails, right, Like I can have friends of mine give me advice about products or my store or whatever it may be, but emails like they're not on my email list, it's harder to kind of figure out what's wrong and I do feel like I try to change it up every cell. You know, I always feel like I'm trying something different with email, and maybe that's a problem too, because I'm not trying something enough to see if it works. I'm just kind of trying different. You know here's a different type of sales. I've tried a different type of freebie this recently. I tried just different types to see what sticks and so I think, while that can be good, I'm not doing it enough maybe of the same thing to see what's working, because it does take time to build. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I would say and I told somebody this the other day too and I'll just repeat the advice because I feel like it's pretty solid I would say send a series of six emails. Two of them are going to be just really short, to the point, sales emails, like what I said two of them just really really short, two of them. Make them a little bit longer, maybe tell them a little bit more of a story and give them a little bit more information about the product, and it'd be a little bit more of a soft sale, right.
Speaker 2:So this is, and would you do that first? Would you do the soft sales first or would you start with the shorter, harder sales?
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, doesn't matter, literally, doesn't matter Whatever, or you want to do it in, but you can do two like informational, with a little bit of a soft sale. Still, don't make it this long, still make it very short, right? Still keep it pretty short and to the point, but bulleted like information that they can use tips, tools, valuable information that they can use with or without your product, and then a soft sale for your product, right? So we're going to do two of those. We're going to do two just straight up sales emails and then we're going to do two that are just a little bit lengthier still a sales email, but a little bit lengthier, okay, okay, and that is going to give you. That should give you enough data to see which format are they responding to best. You're automatically going to either see one of the two types of sales emails and or, in fact, probably both of the sales emails are going to do better than the soft sale, right? So the soft sale with information like that one's not going to do as well. That's okay.
Speaker 1:We still need to send those types of emails anyway, and they can be, because you ask, would that be a good prequel to say the sales email? A lot of times it can be a good prequel. It can also be a good follow-up to I tried this hard sale. Usually my audience responds to it, so maybe they just need some more information. So it can be a good follow-up. But from those three types of emails you're going to see which had the highest click rate, which had the highest conversion rate over on the other end and which one and I wouldn't do anything in there, I wouldn't ask them any questions, I wouldn't ask them to respond. I know there are times where we're really tempted, we're like let's get this conversation going, let's do this, like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't include that in any of those six emails because these are going to be the three standard formats that you're going to use over and over again to make a sale and you're just kind of seeing which one do they prefer. Because I think a lot of times we think my audience is going to prefer the soft sale with information, because I'm not really asking anything of them. I'm not asking them to spend money. I'm giving them the option to spend money and I'm giving them valuable information. But I will tell you that my audience prefers the quick and dirty, straight to the point. Just tell me what I need and where to get it Like they just prefer that. So if I know that they prefer that, it takes a lot of the burden off of me to try to give them fluff and not fluff, because obviously I want to give them valuable information, but to try to tell a story and make it personal and all that kind of stuff, because they're not interested in it.
Speaker 1:But if I say they are interested in it and they do want that. Well then, I'm going to do it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Okay, how would you space those out, those emails, if you were doing every week, every week, how many people?
Speaker 1:are on your email list. Let me ask you that.
Speaker 2:I have about 3,000. Okay, yeah, one a week and okay. So I have a clarifying question then when you say six sales emails, one a week, is this about a different product or the same product?
Speaker 1:Either one. You could do two products and you could do one product line and I say product Okay, okay, but really product line is best.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think. Okay, I get what you're saying. Okay, I got you. So at first I thought you meant like selling the same product, like following up with them several times. I get what you're saying. No.
Speaker 1:No, that would be quite long to talk about just one.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's why I was like wow, I definitely don't do that.
Speaker 1:You can do it.
Speaker 1:I mean, you can absolutely do it if you want to, like I've definitely done that before for a product line, but I would say three all in a row of the same product line, then three all in a row of the next product line.
Speaker 1:And at the time that we're recording this, cyber Monday sales are coming up, and so it is important to remember that, to kind of plan accordingly with that with Cyber Monday or with a TPT set-weight sale or something big, because I'm not sure when this will air, but I know we have another sale, traditionally in February, and then we have another sale in May. So just working around those cyber sales or those big set-weight sales, and that way you're not breaking it up. So not like, okay, one email about this, then cyber, then this, and kind of planning those You're going to do like a short-term incentive, planning that around the sale. So it's not like, oh, she sent me this the week before the cyber sale and then now I could save even more money than that short-term. You know what I mean, right, yes, so just kind of planning that accordingly. But yeah, I would do three in a row and then three in a row and just see how it goes, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds good. Thank you, that's really helpful, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So tell me a little bit about how Facebook ads worked for you. How did that work? Did it go okay?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think so. I run them to the landing page. It seems like it does well. I will be honest, send email marketing is newer for me.
Speaker 2:I feel like I am still learning what is doing well and what isn't doing well. You know what I mean. If that makes sense, like if I get you know, let's just say I'm making this number up. Let's say I get 100 subscribers in a week, I really don't know if that's good or not. I think I'm still learning that for myself.
Speaker 2:I will say it's hard. The Facebook ads are a little bit harder for me to just swallow because I'm like hopeful that I get a return on that, since it's costing me something. But I believe that it will. I believe that it does. I will say that I feel like I get more committed subscriber through collaborations and through other forms rather than Facebook ads.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I think the Facebook ads seems like they get the freebie and then they unsubscribe, which you know that's okay. That's okay. I know that happens, but I think I'm still just learning it and I currently have an ad running right now and it seems like it's going well. I know that, also with Facebook ads, it's all about giving it time to adjust to the algorithm and that's just hard to watch sometimes. So you know, I really I don't have a definitive answer for you on how it's going, but I think it's going well. I have noticed it depends on the resource that I'm giving away. I have one that I use consistently and that one does well. Sometimes when I try to throw in a newer like seasonal one or a different product line, I'm still kind of learning those, and that might also have to do with the welcome sequence that I have attached to this one that it seems to do a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Well, I would definitely say like, once you start to see your existing audience convert, it gets to be a lot easier to swallow the cost. So for sure, like if you feel like, oh, I just don't feel comfortable, and maybe even I mean, obviously you're doing it, so you feel comfortable doing it Like you're a smart business person, but if someone's listening and they're like I'm not sure I feel comfortable spending this money to grow my Facebook, if I'm not seeing the return on investment that I really am wanting to see with the email marketing, then I would say, focus on getting that return on investment that you want to see before spending money to pull new leads in. It's going to make it a lot easier to swallow. But I would say, definitely continue with the Facebook ads. I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Ayan, I've got a more engaged audience with the people that I've gained from collaborative events, which is one of the reasons why I love collaborative events, as you know. But then also one of the things to keep in mind is that every time you're participating in a collab event, all of those most active, engaged people who are on your list, all of those people are going to be the people who are joining somebody else's list, because they're the people who are actually active and engaged on yours. So that is the trade-off there is that once you start to get to a certain point, and you start to grow to a certain point and to a certain size, that then it's like, ooh, but do I want to share these people?
Speaker 1:Do I actually want to share them. So that is something to consider and that is really that's one of the reasons why Facebook ads are such a great option for ongoing, but then, as you know, being a part of or coordinating a collab event is a lot of work and the Facebook ads are easy.
Speaker 2:The Facebook ads are easy, they are you run themselves, yeah, and if I don't look too closely I forget the money's going away anyway.
Speaker 1:So you get that invoice at the end of the month and it's like you just spent $600 on Facebook ads and you're like, oh my goodness, that's a car payment. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Ok, so I would say, continue doing everything that you're doing. Shorten up those sales emails, experiment with some of the things that we talked about, and I think you're going to start to see, send me a message and let me know once you've tried that. But I think that you're going to start to really see that ROI for that email marketing. But keep doing what you're doing. And do you have a blog?
Speaker 2:I do not. So that's something. I have a goal for that and probably end of 2024, 2025. I think I'm intimidated by start a website. That seems like something I really would like to hire out and to put it together for me, and I don't know if I'm ready to invest in that yet. I did hear that you have started Shopify. That's correct.
Speaker 1:With the blog. There's a blog link option on there. Yeah, there's a blog function on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can't speak to how great it is, but I think it's doable. Like I am feeling more and more like it's doable and I would say, don't feel the pressure to start the blog, but all of those emails that you're writing, before you go back in and prune, like as you're practicing that pruning, save all of those drafts. Those are going to be your blogs. Just do that and then you've got the hard part done and you don't feel like I just spent all that time writing and then now I'm cutting half of it out. So just you can use this for blogs. Well, thanks so much. I'm so excited to see how we'll have to do a check-in, like an update.
Speaker 1:I know 2024, that'll be a fun one, but, yeah, super excited to see what 2024 holds for you and thanks so much for sharing about your business. Where can listeners find you if they want to connect with you?
Speaker 2:So I am most active on Instagram and that's even a little bit of a stretch, but Instagram at Blooming with Blake. I do have my own Facebook as well, but I'm not the greatest at social, so but I'm there.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. We'll put those links down inside the description. Thanks so much for being here, Brooke.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you, it was great being here. I appreciate all of your feedback. It's extremely helpful and valuable. So thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Any time. Thanks so much for being here. If you want to learn more on Connect with Brooke, you can find links inside the description to her social media and also to her TPT store so you can go find her, take a look for yourself and connect with her personally. She's a phenomenal human being and I know you're all of her work and don't forget to catch that audit. You can find the link to that video down inside of the description. Don't miss it. Thanks so much for being here. You guys, I'm going to see you right back here next week.