We’ve talked a lot about emails on the podcast lately. And for the 406th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I interviewed ConvertKit’s Creator Growth Manager, Morgan Kitzmiller about newsletters, referral tools, and how to use email service providers like ConvertKit in ways you might not have thought of before. There’s a lot of good stuff in this episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.
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Full Transcript:
Rob Marsh: We’ve talked a lot about email on the podcast over the last ten or fifteen episodes. How to write them. How to make sure the emails you write end up in your reader’s inbox. How to add personality and sell with emails. In today’s episode, we’re going deeper into how to work with an email service provider to do more with your emails.
Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I talked with Morgan Kitzmiller. Morgan is the Creator Growth Manager at ConvertKit. And she’s the owner of her own business, Root and Rise. Morgan works with creators to help them grow their audiences and their businesses. We talked about how to use automations and other tools to make email a bigger part of what copywriters do. And we talked in depth about what’s going on with newsletters… which tools like substack, beehiiv and convertkit are making so easy to start and run as a business. We covered a lot of ground in this interview, so make sure you stick around for all of it.
Before we hear what Morgan had to share…
You’ve heard me talk about The Copywriter Underground often on the podcast. Along with the monthly coaching, weekly copy critiques, the community and courses you get as a member, each month we bring in a special guest to go in-depth on a business or copywriting topic. This August 14, copywriter Francis Nayan who was a recent guest on the podcast will join us in The Underground to share the ins and outs of what we’re calling the one-email-a-day business. He’s going to break down his business model and show you how to sell digital products with a daily email. It can be a great way to diversify your income and if you want to work with fewer clients, what Francis will be sharing could be pivital to creating a business that supports you and your lifestyle. To join us for this workshop. Go to thecopywriterclub.com/tcu and sign up.
And with that, let’s go to our interview with Morgan Kitzmiller.
Okay, Morgan, welcome to The Copywriter Club. We like to start with your story. So tell us, how did you become the creator growth manager at ConvertKit? And I suppose it’s probably connected to this business that you built for yourself, Root & Rise, as well.
Morgan Kitzmiller: So actually, kind of the other way around, I built Root & Rise as a result of being involved and working with ConvertKit for a long time. Starting off at the beginning, this takes us back eight years ago. I had graduated college and was looking for new opportunities. I was an art major. I did not want to go into the art world and was just learning about different jobs or things that were out there. And I stumbled upon ConvertKit. Learn that they were hiring and really growing up the team in many ways at that point in time that was like 2016 was when Nathan our CEO hired a ton of new people like I believe the team went from. maybe four people, four or five people at the beginning of that year to closer to 20-ish by the end of that year. So there was a ton of growth in the company that year. And when I learned about ConvertKit at the time, the tagline was email marketing for bloggers. And that was a world that I had definitely consumed a lot of content in, not a world that I was directly a part of myself. I did not consider myself a blogger, did consider myself a creative being an art major. And just got really intrigued with the mission of serving bloggers, serving creators, and went through the interview process to join the team as a on the customer success team. So I was doing support at the beginning.
Then after not even a year of doing support, I transitioned into migrations, where I helped our new large customers migrate over and get started using ConvertKit. And then a couple years into that transitioned over into account management. And then I want to say, A year and a half ago, we rebranded Account Manager to Creator Growth Manager because we felt that fit more of what we do at ConvertKit. Really, our mission is to help creators grow, help them build an engaged audience, help them monetize, help them really find success doing what they love every day in whatever facet that looks like for each different creator. And the story with the root and rise there is that like when I first joined even back eight years ago, the team was built of creators. So regardless of where people were in the company, if they were in marketing, if they were in success, if they were engineers, people across the entire company were creators themselves. They had side hustles. They had businesses. People were in lots of different stages of their creator journey. But a lot of people had their own projects and had their own things that they were working on. And I always wanted something like that for myself. And it took me four years of working at ConvertKit, being inspired by the creators that I work with every single day, to realize that I had this passion for fitness, wellness, for helping women specifically, build sustainable, healthy lives that they can actually keep, or sustainable, healthy habits they can actually keep to lead long, healthy lives.
And so Root & Rise was born as a result of being inspired by the work we do at ConvertKit and by the people on my team that were creators themselves, and then also by working with so many creators. So Root & Rise is just a little side hustle that I have, but that’s the story. That’s how that all got started.
Rob Marsh: We may come back to Root & Rise because I’m sure that you can give me some advice on how I stick with those habits. Totally. Yeah, let’s talk about creators and this whole evolution with newsletters. Before we started recording, I mentioned a couple of the other newsletter companies that have really gotten popular and people are talking about them. And I’ve seen ConvertKit create some new tools. And in fact, I think you guys just launched a plan a few weeks ago for newsletters that like, I think it’s 10,000 subscribers for free. It’s a pretty cool plan. Tell us about what’s going on in the newsletter industry right now.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah, I think just in the industry as a whole over the last few years, like, I mean, like I said, I’ve been working with creators for eight years now. I’ve been working at ConvertKit for eight years. With people all across the board, that could be people with newsletters, people that have had newsletters for that amount of time. And there were also people that haven’t necessarily had newsletters, but maybe they were just still relying on email to sell their products, services, courses, you name it. But I think as we’ve seen some of these other players step up into the newsletter space, we’ve just seen the rise of publishing, writing online. I think COVID was also a pretty big Component in this of people were stuck at home people wanted something to spend their time in. And people were also finding more success online, growing their audiences. We also saw the rise of TikTok during that time.
There were so many things that happened during that time where I think a lot of people really just saw what was possible to be a creator, to grow an audience, to make money by publishing your writing and cultivating an engaged audience and building relationships through publishing. Yeah, now with now with a lot of big players in the game, we’re just seeing that become more and more popular. And our newsletter plan that we just launched free up to 10,000 subscribers, we really created that so that there’s a really low barrier to entry for people that want to get started. And even with 10,000 subscribers, like, I don’t think I’ve seen so many people, even with lists of 1,000 subscribers, build multiple six-figure businesses, make millions of dollars. I don’t think list size is necessarily correlated to the amount of success that you have. I think there’s so many different components that go into the success that you see. And so us creating that is just like opening the door for so many people to get started, to really invest in their creator business, whether they’re just starting off or whether they’ve been in it for a while and they have less than 10,000 subscribers, they can still send all of those emails for free.
Rob Marsh: So newsletters are having a moment, but email’s not new. How do you guys see the difference between email and newsletters? Because, I mean, they’re kind of the same, but they’re also kind of different.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Totally. So If we’re looking at the entire email landscape and we’re looking at just emails, well, there’s emails that you write with other people, between people in your inbox, right? If I’m going to go email you, we can have a conversation about something. That’s going to be a one-to-one transaction. When we’re looking at using an email service provider like ConvertKit, Substack, Beehive, some of the other people that you mentioned, it allows us to send emails from one to many. The other also really incredible benefit of email is that compared to social media, especially when we send emails, we do know that they are going to get delivered to the inboxes of our subscribers. As long as we are taking care of and implementing deliverability best practices and we’re not sending spam, we don’t have some of these other things in the mix. Just wanted to find that like there is so much benefit in email because we know that our emails are making it to inboxes of our subscribers. Whereas when we’re relying more on social media, we can’t guarantee that a post is going to make it to somebody’s feed given the way that algorithms really control who we reach nowadays.
Now breaking down email newsletters versus other types of emails that you can send, there’s value across the board in all of it. Like if we’re looking at newsletters specific, I think really the value comes down to a lot of people that are really succeeding in the newsletter space. They’re sending something that is extremely valuable. They are sending it consistently on a specific day, on a specific time. They’re following a pretty consistent format. They’re speaking to their experience or at a targeted audience. They’re solving their audience’s pain points. They’re answering their questions. They’re filling a need. And I also think it’s landing in their inbox. So people are already spending time in their inbox. They’re catching up on their emails and doing it through written word really allows you to connect with the readers on the other side. So that’s going to be like a lot of the benefits of newsletters specifically. When we look at all of the other types of emails that you’re still able to send via an email service provider, that is one too many. There’s endless value and immense value in all of those other types of emails. I could talk about this all day, but when somebody subscribes, we can give subscribers an opportunity to opt in for a specific freebie or opt-in incentive. We can then send that out automatically to them, so they opt in, they subscribe, give us their email, and then I’m able to, on the back end of an email service provider like ConvertKit or others, send them that freebie immediately. They get the thing to their inbox, engage with it, and then from that point forward, we can determine what happens next in their subscriber journey. So maybe we then send them a welcome sequence. That could be a handful of emails that’s offering more value related to the thing that they opted in for. We could tell more of our story.
Telling stories can really create engagement between the email writer or the creator and the subscribers on the other side. And then we can send them automated emails that are upselling them to our products and services. After they purchase our products and services, we can send them emails that are going to nurture them with the thing that they had purchased from us. So There’s so much value in all of those other types of emails that you can automatically send as well. And then there’s also the value in sending a newsletter, which is more of like a thing that regularly appears in somebody’s inbox on a specific day in a specific time.
Rob Marsh: Okay. Yeah. I think to me, it’s the specificity of the consistent schedule and the targeted audience problem that we’re talking about, is I think about newsletters. Obviously, yeah, welcome sequences, abandoned card sequences, those have been popular for decades. Actually, so I have newsletters, but because of the new tools like what ConvertKit and others are building, Like I said, they seem to have a bit of a moment. And I think part of that is around the value of the content that’s being provided. Like you said, part of it is the fact that it’s guaranteed to show up. But a lot of people have started charging for them. So let’s talk about paid newsletters for a minute. Because again, before we start talking, you’re mentioning there are various kinds of newsletters that people are sending out. So maybe we should just kind of talk through some of those options. A lot of listeners to this program have their own list and we’ll email them, some of them very consistently, some of them every once in a while, you know, inconsistently as busy business owners tend to be. But let’s just talk through some of those options.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Totally. Yeah, I think if you are a creator, you’re a business owner, I think the one of the best things that you can do for your audience is to send some sort of consistent email, whether that is one time a month, whether that is one time every two weeks, whether that is one time a week to determine the cadence that works for you. And then Make sure that you’re showing up for your audience in that way. You’re setting the expectations and that you’re providing the value when you do that. That’s going to be more on like the, I’m going to schedule a newsletter and I’m going to send it on a specific day on a specific time type of email sending. We also have paid newsletters. So paid newsletters are often, I mean, it’s a digital, it’s a digital product, essentially. And so people think of paid newsletters in many different ways. We’ve seen paid newsletters where somebody’s sending out an email, maybe it’s every single day, there are paid newsletters that are going out every single week, that maybe they are a more long-form piece of content, maybe they’re offering value that exceeds the other types of emails or newsletters that they may be sending. Sometimes people have both. Sometimes people have a free newsletter, but then the paid newsletter is where they go into something deeper. Maybe they are doing some of the work for the subscriber. Maybe they are viewing the paid newsletter as more of a a course. Maybe it’s more of a deep dive on a specific topic. Maybe they’re doing a bunch of research and they’re presenting people with different opportunities. There’s so many different ways to think about paid newsletters.
But essentially, it’s just taking some sort of free offering that you have, whether that’s on social media or a free newsletter, and then you are making it a digital product that is delivered, again, at a specific cadence, on a specific day, and every so often. So maybe it’s weekly, bi-weekly, maybe it’s once a month. But because people are paying for it, you do have to offer that extra value. You do have to get people to buy. Taking a paid newsletter one step further, we’ve also seen people set up paid evergreen newsletters. So this could be something where I’m saying, hey, opt into my let’s say 12 week paid newsletter on improving your health and fitness, um, or creating a sustainable, healthy lifestyle that you can actually keep. Whatever the thing is that I’m selling, I could say, opt in for this paid newsletter every single, every single week, you’re going to get one email that is doing a deep dive on a specific topic. That’s going to help you achieve your goals and live a balanced life and live in freedom or whatever the tagline is that I’m selling. And again, this is a digital product that would be delivered though, based on the time of subscription.
So if it’s an evergreen newsletter, people can buy at any time. And then the emails that would be sent out would go out based on the time that they purchase. So it’s evergreen. Somebody could buy today and start their 12 emails. Somebody could buy in six months and start their 12 emails then. The key to creating evergreen content, though, is that it is always relevant. I can’t create a New Year’s challenge that stays relevant in June. And so really thinking about if you do want to lean into creating something that’s a little bit more automated, still in an email based newsletter type format, but doesn’t need to go out on January 1st, January 7th, January 14th. You can lean into that automated format, but it does need to stay relevant to your audience whenever they purchase.
Rob Marsh: So thinking through this, I mean, I guess, you know, four or five years ago, we’d say that this was an email course. But I think that a lot of newsletters now have additional tools that make it less only text only, I guess, is what I’m thinking through. being able to link off to videos or even include videos in some of what’s provided when they come back. Tell us a little bit about like how you see that part of it. So it’s, you know, again, we’re not just sending somebody a long email. Yeah, it’s valuable, but it’s all text. What else can we do with that?
Morgan Kitzmiller: Totally. Yeah. One of the features I love that we have at ConvertKit, I don’t think anybody else in the space has these features yet, but that totally could have changed. We do have the ability to add a YouTube video or a video directly to the email and that video can play within the editor. So let’s say I want to create 12 videos that accompany my 12 emails that are in this automated newsletter that’s going to go out. I could publish those or upload them to YouTube, keep them unpublished, link to them into my email newsletter, and then people would be able to receive the newsletter, watch the video directly within their email. So they’re not clicking on something, taking them out of the email. They can watch it directly in the email and then hopefully they stay engaged with your content and then they keep reading the content that may come after that as well. That’s one way that I’ve really, I love recommending that to different creators because I think With more people leaning into newsletters, people leaning into the email space, you have to think of ways that your product, your digital product, your newsletter is going to stand out.
I do think video content adds an extra layer of authenticity. It can help really increase engagement with the subscribers on the other side. When people see your face, hear your voice, they come to know you, like you, and they want to learn from you more. I also think it’s important to look at what other, like before somebody goes ahead and creates a paid newsletter of any sort, look at what other people are doing and think of ways that you can stand out. Think of ways that you can offer something new or different to your audience, think of ways that you can utilize this medium to create more engagement with them. We also just released an in email polls feature. I know a lot of other people in the space have that feature as well. But that could be something where like, in my first email, again, going back to the example of a 12 week automated newsletter on creating a healthy lifestyle that I can actually keep. You can have a poll in there that says, hey, I want to know. And it’s like. It’s has a really great design when you like hover over each answer, they kind of change colors. So like you really get to interact with this poll in the email and you could say, hey, I want to know what your biggest struggle is when it comes to health and fitness right now. Are you struggling with food? Are you struggling to Go to the gym. Are you struggling with your mindset? Like let me know what your biggest struggle is. Click here and then people can click on that and then that allows you to also learn more about your audience, understand their needs, their struggles, and then you can send them more targeted information later on.
Or if you want to get really fancy and take things one step further and ConvertKit specifically, you can add different sections to your emails that are conditional content, that contain conditional content. So let’s say somebody told me that their biggest struggle was around food. Every single email for that 12 weeks, I could include a special tip that spoke directly to the people who told me they were struggling with food. And so I think that customization, understanding more about your audience and then serving them more content that is relevant and specific to where they’re at, to the things that they’re struggling with, to the questions that they have, can really help you stand out and can help you, again, build more of that engagement, help them get the results they’re after, help them achieve their goals, those sorts of things.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, I think one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you about this stuff is because for, especially for beginner course creators or information product sellers, whatever that looks like, this is extremely valuable. It almost eliminates the need for something like Kajabi in order to host all of this stuff. Obviously, people can share emails, and so some of that conditional stuff that, you know, if you make it conditional that they’re tagged properly, that it’s the right person, can help control some of that distribution. But this could literally save a beginning content creator thousands of dollars a year until they can build up enough of a base to want to move to those bigger tools.
Morgan Kitzmiller: 100% that is actually in my creator business in root and rise. I sell digital products. I have a monthly membership. So not necessarily a newsletter. It is delivered via email, but I wanted the lowest barrier to entry. Because I don’t have tons of customers right now, I don’t have tons of clients right now, and I didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars a month for platforms that maybe I didn’t need because I could do everything that I needed using ConvertKit by sending out my product every single month to my customers and including videos, uploading things and delivering them as if they were a course, but not relying on a course platform and not having to invest so much money up front when I’m not ready to do so.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, okay. So now we’ve sort of established, yeah, newsletters are good. Paid newsletters can be, you know, a real boon to your business. The biggest problem with growing an email list or a newsletter list of any kind, though, is getting the word out. So, you know, paying for people to, you know, having an ad, paid ad that drives people to your landing page for lead magnet or whatever, that tends to be the way if it’s not organically done through social media or whatever. But a lot of email companies or newsletter platforms like Kit, ConvertKit, are adding in other growth tools. So talk to us about some of these growth tools and how you guys actually can help creators to grow their lists, you know, in addition to the efforts that they’re putting in, you know, with maybe paid ads or their own social engagement.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah, totally. So last year we launched what’s called the Creator Network, and that is a network of creators using ConvertKit. Specifically, right now that’s just inside ConvertKit, but our goal is to build that out so it is an open network. we launched the Creator Network where you can connect with other creators so that you can all grow your audiences together. So the idea behind it is that a rising tide lifts all boats and we can grow faster by collaborating with other people and by getting more exposure through other people’s audiences. So technically this is a little hard to explain without having the visual component. But basically, if you connect with other creators in the Creator Network, let’s say I go out and I find four other people who are in the personal growth and development space. There’s other people that maybe they’re around the same size as me. We’re at the beginning of our creator journey. We’re getting some growth, but we’re not growing as quickly as we’d like. I could go out and partner with all of these people and say, hey, I noticed you’re using ConvertKit. I would love to recommend my subscribers to you if you want to recommend your subscribers to me. I think we complement each other with our content. And I think it would make a great partnership. And if we create those collaborations, we create those partnerships and connect in the creator network. Basically, if somebody goes to my website, they opt in for my freebie. After somebody gives me their email address and they hit subscribe, a modal is going to appear where it says, hey, thanks for subscribing. These are five other creators, four or five other creators that I recommend you check out their content as well because they’re great. They’ll help you in these ways. And from that point, subscribers can choose to subscribe to those emails, those newsletters from those other creators or not. And if they do, their email address automatically goes to the other people that I’ve partnered with in the creator network. The goal is that all of those other people that I’m recommending are then recommending me back and we can all grow together at the same time.
Rob Marsh: Is that a paid referral? I know Substack, Beehive, they have similar tools where it costs a dollar or two per referral that you get back. Is it the same thing in ConvertKit or is it just you scratch my back, I scratch yours?
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah, so in the Creator Network, we have a thing called free recommendations, and then there’s also a paid recommendation side. So everything that I just explained is totally free. You can partner with other creators at absolutely no cost, just in that collaborative spirit of, I want to recommend my subscribers to you, you’re going to recommend your subscribers to me, and we’re all going to grow our audiences faster. We see the most success there when people do form intentional pods of creators. That’s what we call them pods of people that do have complimentary content. It doesn’t need to be the same. I probably don’t want to go recommend five other fitness coaches, but I might want to go find somebody that is really into mindset. Maybe I find somebody that is into nutrition, maybe I have somebody that’s like a hormone specialist, things that really complement my audience and help them learn and grow and develop in related topics so that they’re more likely to stay subscribed. That’s going to be on the free side. On the paid side, last year we also acquired SparkLoop and SparkLoop has two sides of the paid side of recommendations. If we go back to the Creator Network. If I’m somebody that’s just getting started, maybe I’m seeing some growth but not a ton, or maybe I’m somebody that I do want to invest more money in ads, I could join other people what we call their partner programs. If somebody creates a partner program, that’s them saying, hey, I want to pay other creators, let’s say $1, $2, $3 for every engaged subscriber that they send me so that I can pay to build my newsletter that or grow my email list that way. This is pretty confusing just to explain via words. But as somebody just getting started, I could say, OK, maybe I want to run paid ads to my landing page. I’m going to join five people’s partner programs who are paying for subscribers. If I’m running paid ads to my landing page, the modal appears. I could have all five slots enabled on that recommendations modal. B, people that are paying for subscribers so that if my subscribers then that are coming in through ads join those other people’s email lists, they end up staying subscribed, then I will get paid for those and that can help offset the cost of my ads. That ads example is like just one way that that’s being used. We do see people that are growing organically. Utilize paid recommendations just as a means to add an additional revenue stream as well but then there’s the side of paid recommendations where you are the one creating the partner program, where you’re the one specifying in SparkLoop, hey, I really want to grow my email list. I’m willing to pay $1, $2, $3, whatever your price point is for subscribers. And then there are the other people on the other end that say, OK, I’m going to join this person’s partner program because I think my subscribers will join their thing and then they will get paid. Does that make sense? I know it’s confusing how they overlap and how they work together.
Rob Marsh: Definitely makes sense. And I want to sort of underline this idea, though, to make it really clear. It’s not always that you’re paying for subscribers to your list. If you’ve got a good list, you can get paid for sharing those. So like you said, it becomes another income stream. Obviously, if you’ve got 10 subscribers, there’s not a huge opportunity there. But if you’re able to build a list of, you know, 10,000 or 100,000, This could actually become decent monthly revenue for you as an email newsletter provider.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Exactly, 100%. And one great thing, especially about it in ConvertKit, let’s say I want to lean into both facets. Maybe I want to lean into the collaborative spirit of the Creator Network, but I also want to make a few bucks from some of the subscribers that I’m sending to other people. In my recommendations modal, I could specify maybe the first two people are going to be intentional collaborations with other creators where I’m saying, OK, always keep these two people at the top of my recommendations modal. Then maybe I have three other people in there that are paying for subscribers. And so you really do have the customization, the flexibility to do both. If you want to, you can choose one or the other. We do have people that are going like all in on either side, but you really can do both. And you it’s up to you. where those people appear in the recommendations that you are giving to your subscribers.
Rob Marsh: OK, that makes sense. And then with SparkLoop, there are also at least last time I looked at SparkLoop, I haven’t looked at it for a little while, but there are ways where rather than even paying for subscribers, you can give incentives for your own subscribers to start recommending you out to their friends and family. Right. Tell us a little bit about that, how that works.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah, so that’s going to be more of a referral program. So I could say, okay, if you refer one subscriber to my email list, I’m going to give you maybe it’s an ebook, maybe it’s some sort of freebie. If you refer 10 subscribers to my email list, maybe you get 50% off my program. And if you refer 50 people, you get a free 15 minute call with me. You can create different tiers. in a referral program that incentivizes your subscribers on the other end to share your content with their friends, family, other people that might find your content helpful.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, so I’ve seen like some people offer a journal or a mug, so they’ll send that stuff out. Or it can be, like you said, you know, easily delivered, you know, programming or information, that kind of thing.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah, I think a lot of people when they immediately think of referral programs, I think there’s some really big players in the newsletter space that have implemented these and a lot of them do rely on physical product services, merch, mugs, t-shirts, journals, those sorts of things. And so I’ve seen people get kind of stuck into that box of, oh, I can’t create a referral program because I don’t have these sorts of things. And the way I encourage people to think about referral programs is really around What are things that your subscribers would want that you’re not offering anywhere else that would incentivize them to refer somebody to your email list? It literally could be maybe it’s content that you’ve already shared somewhere else. Maybe you take your top five performing social media posts, you turn them into writing, put them into a free five-day email course, and maybe that’s what people are getting instead. You can think of creative ways to repurpose content that you’ve shared other places into something that’s new, different, that is exclusive and limited to the referral program, and then offer it that way. Thinking about what’s going to incentivize at different tiers, obviously, the more referrals you have to send, the more valuable it needs to be. That’s why I mentioned something like, maybe it’s a free call, maybe it’s a free audit of somebody’s something on the other side. Maybe it’s something just like really highly personal that you would offer But you have to think is somebody actually gonna go refer 50 or 100 email subscribers, like, that seems like a really large number to wrap your head around. But one thing I will say is, we just hosted our annual conference craft and commerce at the beginning of June. And john you say he’s a YouTube creator that just started his own newsletter as well. He was up on stage with Nathan, our CEO, and they were doing like a fireside chat of just going back and forth on different questions, topics. And John had posed a question to the audience, and he said, OK, if I’m creating a referral program, he was kind of like using the audience to get live feedback on what his referral program should look like and what people would actually be incentivized to do. So number one takeaway there is if you’re not sure what would be an incentive for your audience, ask them. That’s a great way to figure out what do you want to create. Start asking your audience. But he literally said, okay, if I’m going to do for YouTube specifically, I’m going to roast somebody’s YouTube video or roast somebody’s YouTube channel. How many subscribers would you refer to unlock a personal roast of your content? And some people said 100, which was crazy. Like there was a lot of hands that went up in the audience where people were willing to recommend 100 subscribers for a personal roast from this specific creator. And so I’m not saying everybody should create a referral program where 100 is the top tier. That’s a lot of people to refer. But if the offer is good enough, if the thing is that personal, that impactful, it really could incentivize people to refer their friends to your email list.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. Especially if the people that you are offering this to have their own large lists, it can be very easy, you know, for somebody to just drop a little footnote in and say, Hey, I highly recommend Rob’s email list. You’re going to love this. People click over. So thinking through those, those kinds of incentives, obviously not for everyone, but there are definitely people out there who can do it.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Totally. And in this specific example, when I look back to why so many people said they would refer 100 people, our conference is comprised of creators, of other business owners, entrepreneurs, many of which do have followings across different social media channels or email lists themselves. So then when you think about that, just like you said, of, okay, it gets easier to refer people when you already have that following, when you have that list, when you have that reach. For some people that might not have that, then it makes it harder.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. So you just need to know your audience. And obviously as you grow, more opportunities come your way. What other growth strategies should we be thinking about if we’re going to start or we have a newsletter, we want to keep it growing?
Morgan Kitzmiller: Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, like I said, Creator Network, start start partnering with other people outside of the Creator Network. This is something I’m saying this out loud because I’m saying it to myself at the same time for my side hustle. But partnering with other people, collaborating with other people outside of just recommendations for your email list, create content with other people, appear on other people’s podcasts, like really get involved with other people in your space. I think when I go to my social media channels, at least, and I’m looking at, okay, who are the people that are really succeeding in the health, wellness, fitness space? I look at their feeds and I see them with the other 5, 10, 15 people in the space that I look up to as well. And so I think that is the same with people in the newsletter space as well. When we look at the people, individual creators at least, that are really succeeding, they are a part of these communities and these circles, friend groups that are all succeeding. And so I think the more you can build relationships with and collaborate with other people, in person on different projects, um, on, on different things and really, really lean into those relationships. I think you’re going to be more likely to be successful because you can also go to some of those people and say, Hey, I just launched this new freebie. That’s something I’ll talk, I’ll share next, but I just launched this new thing. Would you mind sharing it with your audience? Um, if you have those relationships, those people in your space that are willing to lift you up and support you, you can reach so many more people. Um, on that same note, I think it’s important to think about how are we getting people onto our email list? Are we really incentivizing them to join? There’s so many times where I go to somebody’s website and the call to action to join the email list is a simple statement that says, subscribe to my newsletter. Yeah. And there’s no value proposition. There’s no explanation of why somebody should join a newsletter. And I think maybe it’s like when I look at some form builders, it’s like join my newsletter is like the default text that’s in there. So maybe people just don’t update that. But even if it is just a newsletter, how can we give two sentences a sentence that demonstrates the value of the impact that somebody is going to receive by subscribing to that newsletter? So if we go back to my example of health and wellness, if I had a newsletter and I wanted to spruce that up to get somebody to subscribe, instead of just saying subscribe to my newsletter, I could say subscribe to my newsletter to end the binge and restrict cycle, and to finally create a lifestyle that you enjoy waking up to every day. Like, how can we really paint a picture for somebody on the other side? How can we speak to their pain points and needs so that they see the value in subscribing? They’re not just subscribing to get a newsletter. How can we tell them what they’re going to learn so that they actually want to give us their email? If we take that one step further, is there a way that we can provide an incentive, an opt-in incentive for people that goes beyond the newsletter? So maybe we say, subscribe to receive my free five-day email course, subscribe to receive my free ebook. Subscribe to receive this free thing that’s going to give you this transformation, and then you’ll start receiving my newsletter after. I think offering some sort of download or something that somebody is going to get can really increase that incentive that they’re given, and then also ultimately help increase their engagement as a subscriber on your list as well, if the thing you’re giving them is really providing value, which, of course, should always be the goal.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, and fortunately, most of the listeners to this podcast are copywriters, content writers, so they should be really good at identifying like, what is the transformation? What is the result that you can promise from this product? So I think the mindset shift here is to start to look at your emails that you’re sending out or your newsletter you’re sending out as a product that needs to deliver a result or a transformation as opposed to a broadcast media. And if we’re thinking that way, it becomes really easy to start figuring out what are those promises? Why should somebody sign up? Because you’re going to deliver on that promise transformation.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Exactly.
Rob Marsh: I’m not necessarily intending this to be an ad for ConvertKit, but, you know, I’ve looked across the newsletter provider universe and You guys have competitors in Beehive and Substack, and there may be some others that are starting to come out of the woodwork as well, because again, newsletters are becoming more popular. Why should somebody choose ConvertKit over some of these other platforms? Where are the benefits? I guess, what’s the result of the promise transformation for going with ConvertKit?
Morgan Kitzmiller: I think starting off with who we are and our values, we are a team, like I mentioned early on, we are a team that is comprised of creators building a product for creators. So we always say, you know, ConvertKit by creators for creators. And in being a team made up of creators, we really empathize with the creators, the business owners, entrepreneurs on the other side. We use our product ourselves. I use my product every day, our product every day in my own business. So do many of the other people on the team. And so we really utilize or we use our own experiences to inform how we want the product to operate. and where we’re going and our vision and the roadmap and everything like that. So we really empathize with the creator experience because we’re creators ourselves. So aside from by creators for creators, we I mean, ultimately, I think ConvertKit is the most intuitive email marketing platform out there. I think as creators, entrepreneurs, business owners, so many people are teams of one. There are people that are doing it all. They’re doing their social media. They are doing their email marketing. And there’s nothing more frustrating than being a creator or creator of a business owner and going into a tool and trying to achieve something and not being able to get that thing done. And I really do believe that ConvertKit is the most intuitive email marketing platform. on the market. It’s so easy to log in, create a form, embed that on your website. After you create a form, you can create an automation that welcomes your email subscribers, upsells them to your products, and nurtures them once they do purchase. It’s extremely easy to send your subscribers the right emails at the right time, because we always want to make sure that we’re meeting our subscribers where they’re at, and we’re not sending them emails that are irrelevant to their journey or their experience. Taking that one step further, like we kind of mentioned before, being able to speak to your subscribers and their struggles or things you know about them. So being able to break your audience down and communicate to people that have let you know that they’re struggling a specific thing or they want a specific thing or, you know, leaning into like the segmentation, the tagging, like you can really communicate with different smaller groups of your audience extremely easily. There’s a lot of advanced tools within ConvertKit that will unlock a lot of that personalization and automation that we’re talking about. Our deliverability, that’s one thing I absolutely want to make sure I touch on. We do have a team of deliverability experts that work every single day to maintain the deliverability of all of the customers and creators that use ConvertKit. If you don’t have great deliverability and your emails don’t get delivered, then there’s that value that I mentioned earlier of knowing your emails are going to make it to somebody’s inbox, knowing that somebody is going to see it in their inbox relative to their social media feeds. If you don’t have good deliverability, then what’s the point? Like if your emails are going to go to spam, then what’s the point? And so we do have a team of deliverability experts that work every single day to make sure that our deliverability is some of the best in the industry. And if you ever have an issue with emails going to spam or emails not being delivered or something happening related to your own email deliverability, we have a team of experts that is right there working with every single creator that comes in to troubleshoot and make sure that we can get their deliverability back because we know how important it is that emails get delivered because that’s what our entire product is based on.
Rob Marsh: I want to shift our conversation just a little bit because, again, you have some expertise in the health and wellness space. There are a lot of copywriters and content writers that spend hours sitting in a chair in the office every day. So I’m looking for some tips on how we can sort of overcome that sedentary lifestyle. But more than than just like, OK, how do we start exercising or eating right? Like, how do we stick with it? Help me with my discipline, Morgan.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah. I think when it comes to sticking with it and when it comes to consistency, it really comes down to like, are you doing things that you’re going to look forward to showing up to every single day? Like I think back to the beginning of my health, wellness, fitness journey, and a lot of it was driven by negative feelings that I had about myself. Maybe I wanted to be skinnier. Maybe I was like trying to compare myself to the people around me. Maybe I didn’t like myself at that moment in time. Because it was driven by these negative feelings or trying to look like or be somebody else, I was also doing workouts that were driven by that mindset. And I was also doing workouts and things that I didn’t like, and they were only like reinforcing those negative beliefs. So for example, I, for a very long time, I was going to spin class almost every single day. I was really focused on, let’s say burning 500 calories a spin class, which is a lot. You have to be working really hard to get that. And I would really beat myself up if I didn’t get that number. And while I still do love going to spend class every now and then, the type of exercise that I was investing in in that time was not doing anything for my mindset. And it was only reinforcing these negative beliefs that I had about myself, which also then caused me to totally yo-yo with it. So I would go all in on exercising for an amount of time. And then I would go all out. And when I would go all out, it wasn’t just with exercise, it was also with nutrition as well. So it was like these like huge swings of like being all into something or all out.
Rob Marsh: I totally get that, by the way. That sounds like my, especially with food. But yeah, it’s hard to stick with stuff. And yeah, when I decide, okay, well, I’m not sticking today. I like the whole apple pie goes down my throat. It’s yeah.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah. And so there’s a lot, I mean, I think with that, there’s so much that comes down to mindset of like, what is your mindset around fitness, wellness, nutrition? Are you committing to it for the long run? Like, do you have a perspective and a mindset that is supporting your growth for the long term? Or are you just focused on like the results of something right now? And so I think even working to, to shift that of like, if, if you’re listening out there and you haven’t been able to create a routine with fitness that you are able to actually keep, think about like, okay, am I doing it for some short term result? Am I doing it for the wrong reasons? And if so, how can I shift those to be more long term thinking? So now my whole mindset is, I want to exercise not to lose weight, even though that might be a goal of mine at a specific time, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that. My the reason why exercise is because I want to live a long, healthy, happy life doing the things that I love with a strong and resilient body. And so like that is my why. And so I think at the very core of it, If you’re not able to create a consistent routine, come up with your why. Establish a reason, a purpose for exercising that goes beyond this next month, goes beyond the summer. We’re in summer season, so people want to lose weight. goes beyond the summer and like is really thinking like, okay, do I want to be able to play with my grandkids? Do I want grandkids? Do I want to be 80 years old and sitting on my front porch reading a book? Like, like what is your longterm vision and what are the things that you can do to support that vision coming true? Um, and then going back to the enjoyment thing that I was just touching on, Like, are you trying to do workouts and habits and these things that you hate? Are you doing them because you’re seeing other people do them? And if so, what’s a version that you could do today that would be more enjoyable? So like, there are some people that maybe are at the very beginning of their health and wellness journey. They don’t really like any of it. They don’t like eating well. and they don’t like exercising. And it’s kind of hard for those people because it’s like, OK, well, you should eat well and you should exercise. So maybe we’re not jumping forward 100 miles. But what is something you could do today that you would like a little more than maybe some of the other things that you’ve tried? What’s something small? People, I think we have this like perception that we need to work out for like 45 minutes or an hour for it to be worthwhile. We need to show up in these like big chunks of time. But again, if you struggled with consistency, what’s a small enjoyable way that you could show up today that you that would encourage you to show up tomorrow? and the next day and the next day. Maybe that is literally starting with a 15-minute walk. That’s something that I rely on so much in my day. I also sit at a desk every single day. I have a standing desk. I don’t stand as much as I should. But getting out for walks, I’ve also found, is not only good to move your body, it’s so good to get a break from the screen and also give yourself a brain break. I find that after I leave to go on a little walk and come back, I am much more awake. Sunlight, light outside can help with that as well. I’m much more awake, but then also more productive the rest of the day. So don’t discount walking as a form of exercise. Walking is incredible for people at desks, behind their laptop screens. Like, we don’t walk enough. And so if you were gonna say, screw it and not work out at all today, like, can you get out for a five minute walk, a 10 minute walk, 15 minute walk? Because ultimately, I think it’s the taking action. Every single day, it’s the showing up even when you don’t want to showing up in small amounts, that is going to build some confidence, it’s going to build some trust within yourself of like, Okay, I showed up for the last four days, I went on a 10 minute walk doesn’t seem like much, but I still did it. And now I feel better about myself. And now I have a little bit more momentum to keep going. I think a lot of times people rely on the motivation to get started when really the whole cycle starts with action. If you can start with action, you are going to get those positive feelings about yourself. And that is going to give you the motivation or the momentum that’s going to give you more action or allow you to take more action and then keep that flywheel going.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, okay. I need you as my personal trainer. I’m 100% with you on walking. I actually have started adding in more walks. I run. I actually don’t love running, but I do it because it’s good for me. I have to make it easy for myself by putting the clothes out in the chair that I would go sit down in or whatever. So it’s like I wake up, I’m like, oh, the clothes are there. Make it easy. I go out. Um, yeah, I, I fit all of the things that you’re saying, you know, I don’t love running. I don’t, I hate lifting weights, but I still do it because, you know, I, I know I need to, so making it easy, but walks, walks are golden. Like the more I walk. And the interesting thing is, you know, I realized at some point, which like, this is a total no brainer and people listening and be like, yeah, duh, Rob. But I sit and I listened to podcasts, you know, on my couch or whatever. And it just dawned on me. I thought I can listen to a podcast while I’m walking. burn a couple of calories or whatever. Now that may be a luxury that I have because I’m not watching kids at the moment, that kind of thing. So obviously some of that lifestyle plays into that, but I’m all about fitting in the five or 10 minute walk at lunch and that kind of stuff.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah, and even things like, and this can’t fit into every single call, but like taking calls and going on walks. Like there are some calls that I have maybe with some teammates or people on my team or my all team meetings that I can just grab my phone, join the Zoom and go out for a walk for an hour. It’s like, yes, it takes a little bit of effort to make that happen. But if I was going to be just sitting here on Zoom anyways, then I might as well be getting 6,000 steps in on an hour-long walk. And so thinking about ways that you can fit in Walks or steps or like little pieces of movement into your routine as it is now podcast. The podcast example is amazing. I love a walk with the podcast more than anything. I do one every single day. But like take these things that you like listening to music. listening to podcasts, calling your friends, family, like if you’re on the phone a lot with people you care about, if you’re catching up sitting on the couch, how can you get up and take that outside? Again, just make that habit of like you’re doing these things that can also be done while you’re moving your body, especially when it’s summer, spring, fall, like these like nice seasons of weather for most people, at least in the Northern Hemisphere right now. How can you take advantage of that and get some more movement in while it’s really enjoyable?
Rob Marsh: Yeah. I’m with you. Okay. We’re all going to go for a walk. If you’ve been listening to this podcast and you’re not walking, start it over and go out for a walk.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Put your shoes on.
Rob Marsh: Exactly. Thanks, Morgan. If somebody wants to reach out to you or connect with you in some way, where should they do that?
Morgan Kitzmiller: Yeah, for sure. So I’m most active on my fitness Instagram account. That’s going to be @_rootandrise. The at root and rise was taken unfortunately, but that’s the best place to connect there. For anything, even if it’s about email marketing, ConvertKit, shoot me a DM there and I’m happy to chat more or happy to chat about fitness, wellness, getting your steps in those sorts of things too. It all makes my world go round.
Rob Marsh: Amazing. Thank you.
Morgan Kitzmiller: Cool. Great. Thank you.
Rob Marsh: That’s our interview with Morgan Kitzbiller. I just want to add a couple of ideas to what we were sharing.
We mentioned ConvertKit a lot on the podcast. It is a great tool. And if you want to check it out, you can visit thecopyrighterclub.com/ConvertKit. That’s an affiliate link. And if you decide to buy ConvertKit and the tools that Morgan talked about, you’ll help support the Copywriter Club and this podcast. Of course, just about everything that we talked about you can do with other newsletter tools, other email service providers as well. So choose the tools that work best for you, but just in case you want to try out ConvertKit or see what they’re doing that’s different, their free newsletter plan, all of that stuff, go to thecopyrighterclub.com/ConvertKit.
This interview got me thinking about creating a course that’s delivered exclusively by email. Now, this isn’t a new idea. In fact, it was actually really common around 2014, 2015. It became less common as content management systems improved and course software became more of a thing. But as low priced products that can deliver your content to potential clients and customers, having an email only course is a powerful tool. Think about your clients in your niche. What do they need to know? And it’s probably not about how to write headlines or emails because you want them to hire you to do that stuff for them. So you’re not teaching them how to be copywriters, but what can you teach them that will be valuable, help them solve a problem, add more of their own clients, bring in revenue, and so on. Imagine that you write for plumbers. What could you teach a plumber about attracting clients to their business that then you can help them accomplish by writing emails, by creating content for them, that kind of thing. That’s what you want to be thinking about. Can you create a short five to seven email course that teaches that thing and might be worth paying for? Tools like ConvertKit are perfect for delivering this kind of content. And because email works so well to build trust, many of these email course buyers could become longer term copywriting or content writing clients. So that’s something to think about.
The other thing that has me excited about tools like ConvertKit or Substack or Beehive are the new recommendation tools that they include. Now, Morgan mentioned SparkLoop. Tools like this make it so much easier to attract subscribers to your list. They do most of the work for you. And as long as the content that you create for your newsletter is remarkable. That is, it’s the kind of thing that other people love and will recommend to people like them, to their friends, to their business colleagues. It is so much easier to grow your list with these tools. They go a long way towards fixing the number one challenge of building a list and starting your own newsletter. And that is finding readers. And I’m not just talking about the first 10 readers. You know, most people say, Oh yeah, get your siblings or your best friends, you know, have them join your list to get you started. ConvertKit, Substack, Beehive, these tools get you people who are actually interested in the content you’re creating and in the services that you provide. You can use these tools for free. At least you can with ConvertKit until you hit 10,000 subscribers, which is a huge number for a lot of copywriters, content writers. And in the case of Substack, until you start to sell a product and then you have to pay a percentage of that. But they are free and easy to check out until you hit those limits. So to find out more about ConvertKit, like we mentioned, check them out at thecopyrighterclub.com forward slash ConvertKit.
I want to thank Morgan Kitzmiller again for joining us to talk about email systems and newsletters and even a bit about getting healthy. If you want to connect with Morgan, check out her Instagram at underscore root and rise, or you can connect with her directly on LinkedIn. Just search for Morgan Kitzmiller. Don’t forget our upcoming masterclass on creating a one email a day business in the copywriter underground to see that exclusive masterclass visit thecopywriterclub.com/tcu to join.
