"Can you explain this to me? Do I need to worry about this?"I get these kinds of emails whenever a client gets sent an automated analytics report (and let me tell you, a lot of tools don't make them easy to understand - looking at you Google Search Console).The reality is most business owners have no idea how to find the metrics that matter. And often they don't even know what questions they should be asking.These days we've got access to more data than we know what to do with - but slogging...
11 days ago • 2 min read
May the notoriously finicky Amtrak wi-fi gods bless me right now. I'm on the train headed to Boston to visit one of my favorite clients and I figured this would be an apt moment to answer a reader question that came in yesterday. "Your email last week (this one move saved 2500 a month) on saving money by auditing your subscriptions really inspired me! I'm downsizing my business and realizing Kit is one of my highest expenses. I could save a lot by getting rid of Kit and using Kajabi for my...
25 days ago • 3 min read
All summer I've been repeating this phrase. Outside is expensive. (Frankly, inside is expensive too - have you seen the price of decent Parmesan cheese?)A couple of weeks ago, folks were in a tizzy over the abrupt Squarespace price increase. (The 25% hike was pretty egregious in my opinion and they've since somewhat adjusted it.)And it reminded me to do my mid-year tech-stack review and reduce session. Here's exactly how to save money on your tech spend: 1. Reduce the plan you're on. First...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
This has got to rank up there as one of my worst experiments ever.Tuesday night I decided to try out a new recipe I sourced from the 200 or so protein-packed posts I've saved off of instagram. (Pro tip: the recime app is a lifesaver when it comes to actually using the recipes you've bookmarked for "someday.")Lemongrass minced beef with veggies. Sounded innocent enough.The grocery store was out of fresh lemongrass, so I walked up the street to the Vietnamese market. They only had dried...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
My list of personal pet peeves is long.Dishes left overnight in the sink.Dust bunnies in yoga studio corners.Hour long meetings that could've been an email.People adding me to their random personal Substacks (shudder).But few things rile me up as much as a messy inbox. So when I saw my friend launch expert Brenna McGowan post her biggest email pet peeve (small font size), I knew I had to share mine.I sign up for a LOT of newsletters in the name of industry research. Pro tip: use a separate...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
For a hot minute last week I considered shutting everything down. I ever-so-briefly dreamed about quitting tech and opening a trampoline dance studio called tramp stamp. I can already feel all the studio owners on my list shaking their head at me at that really bad idea.What got me in a tizzy?Dealing with a technical grouch who didn't want to give control of a website back to a friend.This comes up more than you'd think.Are you the owner on your accounts? Or is your web designer? Your IT...
2 months ago • 2 min read
In the nebulous world of email marketing, there's surprisingly few important things to track. There's open rates. Click-Through Rates (CTR). Bounce rates. Revenue per email (RPE). And my personal favorite metric, Open to Write Back Rate (OWBR) - thank you Ann Handley for that one. But my new metric has an n-of-1. Getting Laura Belgray to open my emails right away. And as I learned talking with her this week, what gets her to open emails will likely get your readers to open yours too. Watch...
2 months ago • 2 min read
My friend Anika is in the midst of her Kickstarter campaign to launch her first book.She needs 12k to make it happen by next week. Yesterday morning I got an email that she had just crossed the 10k mark.The genius part? In her email, she nudged early pledgers that they could upgrade their donation to help her cross the finish line.Of course I want to be part of that - there's nothing I like more than seeing numbers go up on a screen. So I promptly raised my pledge.This is why you have to send...
3 months ago • 2 min read
The one thing I'm convinced I'm never going to do?Write a book. I've witnessed too many mid-draft "I don't wanna do this anymore" tantrums from clients to know I don't have it in me - and I'm in awe of anyone who actually gets one published.While I'm never gonna write one, I do love helping people with the back-end of their book launch. A proper book launch can be just as much work as launching a digital product (and frankly, way harder to fully control).I feel for authors who think their...
3 months ago • 3 min read