Indie businesses and making the leap: it’s my mid-year review

This year, I’ve been so busy beavering away on my business and other projects that I haven’t really shared what I’ve been up to. I want to put that right because maybe I can help you with things that you aren’t even aware I can do! And of course it’s always helpful to look back at how far you’ve come every now and then. Here we go…

View of Tower Bridge before London training session, June 2024

How I’m working with my email marketing clients now

Up until 2024, most of my work had been with solo business owners but this year I’ve shifted the balance towards small businesses that have a team of employees. I still love the solo businesses of course, I am one myself, but it’s good to have bigger businesses in the mix too. Email marketing makes a bigger impact if you have a larger list, a bigger team and e.g. more products in the warehouse, waiting to be sold.

These ‘bigger small businesses’ tend to have an email marketing platform and web traffic in place already, which means we can focus all our attention on email marketing strategy and implementation. They already have a mailing list that they aren’t using to its full potential and are raring to go. I’m really enjoying being able to dive straight into the strategy and helping my clients make more sales.

My role has shifted towards working with business owners on their email marketing strategy and meeting them regularly to check progress and plan their next steps. Previously, I mainly set up platforms and trained the business owner on how to use them. I can still do both of course, but this new mentoring and strategy approach feels a better fit for both me and the business owners. I get to do the things I enjoy most and do best (training, strategy and mentoring) and they are more ‘hands on’ with their marketing than if they just outsourced it all to me.

I’ve worked with businesses in beauty, printing, food and tourism recently but would love to add to that list. So if you’re sitting on a mailing list that you aren’t using  to its full potential, I’d be happy to help you get it working for you – just get in touch.

Speaking and training events

Email marketing has taken me out and about in 2024…and in some style, actually!

In March I was invited to speak about email marketing for small businesses at Indie Cambridge’s monthly networking meeting, held at Café au Chocolat. If you’re ever in Cambridge do take a stroll down Green Street, have a crepe and take a look at the fabulous independent businesses there.

Ann Hawkins did a write-up on the event here. Thanks Ann!

Indie Cambridge is a very welcoming and creative community of business owners who get together to support one another. Meeting everyone really did remind me of how much I enjoy working with businesses of this type and size.

More recently, I delivered a one-day email marketing workshop for members of the Association of British Travel Organisers to Italy. This was hosted by Kennedy’s at their offices on the 16th floor of 20 Fenchurch Street, London, otherwise known as the building with the Sky Garden.

In fact we took a look at the Sky Garden (34 floors up!) during afternoon break…

In the workshop I covered the benefits of email marketing for small independent businesses, choosing a platform, content planning and layout, getting subscribers on your list, setting goals, simple automations, segmenting and tagging, reports and improving performance over time.

If you’d like me to speak about email marketing for small businesses at your networking event or run a full-day workshop, just let me know.

Always learning…

Early this year I completed the Mailchimp Foundations certification and the courses needed to be an official Mailerlite Expert. I knew most of the content of the courses already as I’ve been working with both platforms for some years now, but things change rapidly in the email marketing/eCRM world so it’s important for me to keep up to date.

Artificial Intelligence has been big news in the marketing world this year and I’m still experimenting with how I can use it…erm… intelligently! I took the course Digital Skills: Artificial Intelligence and found it explained what AI actually is, without the hype, and how it’s likely to change work and business in the next few years. I’m using Chat GPT to help me generate ideas – although I wouldn’t use it to write content itself – and email marketing platforms are increasingly building in AI tools such as subject line writers.  I’m sure I’ll report back more on AI in a future post here on my blog.

Copywriting: it’s a transferable skill

I’ve been delivering training part-time in adult education for the last few years as I gradually ease myself into full-time email marketing. This year that’s mainly been employability skills such as career planning and CV writing. I was really pleased to find the copywriting skills I use in writing emails and sales pages work for CVs too, and course attendees who struggled to get interviews before the course started to get them after.

Career planning is similar to email marketing planning because so much of both is about nailing down exactly what you want to achieve, writing down a realistic plan to get there, tracking your progress and adjusting to improve results as you go. It’s been good to put my strategising to good use here, too.

What leaving school taught me about business

If you read my last update you’ll know that we took our daughter out of school just over a year ago as she was too sick and anxious to carry on. She was 15 at the timeand still wanted to take her GCSE exams a year later (May/June24), so we had to work out exactly how to do that privately, how to fill in the learning she’d missed and finish the second half of her courses as well as getting her better. It was a huge learning curve for all of our family. I’ve been freelance for most of my career but now our daughter had gone freelance too, except it was years earlier than expected!

I learned that while careful planning and strategy are often the way to go, sometimes you have to make a leap, work out what to do on the way down and trust that you and the people around you can handle whatever happens next. This experience took a lot of head-space, much of it was second-guessing myself – could we really pull off GCSE exams in a year without sending our kid to school? Well, the exams are now over and we’re waiting for results. But it’s already been a success, whatever her grades because our daughter has gone from being ill and anxious to confident, happy and independent.

What’s next for me in 2024?

After a full-on couple of years I finally now have more time! I want to work with more email marketing clients, especially the ‘bigger small businesses’ I mentioned right at the top, so if this sounds like someone you know, please do ask them to get in touch for a chat. I’m also on the look-out for more training and speaking opportunities, this could be in person events, online events or guesting on podcasts.

Here’s to the rest of 2024!

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