Ever wondered why you dread building your email list? What if I told you it’s not about spam—it’s about showing up with heart, humor, and strategy?
In this episode, I chat with Dawn Richardson—the product education manager at Flodesk, former software engineer, wedding photographer, and all‑around tech‑meets‑creative powerhouse. She shares how she helps entrepreneurs build email systems that feel authentic, not icky.
This episode is brought to you by The Entrepreneur’s Death Folder:
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Less spooky, more smart. Because peace of mind is the ultimate productivity tool.
Why Email Marketing Gets a Bad Rap
Let’s be real—words like “lead magnet” and “welcome sequence” can send creative entrepreneurs into a cold sweat. There’s a fear that email marketing makes you sound like a late-night infomercial, selling products no one asked for.
According to Dawn, that discomfort often comes from bad experiences as a consumer. We’ve all been there—mystery subscriptions, non-stop promo blasts, and emails that feel more like spam than service.
But here’s the shift: if someone opted into your list, they asked to hear from you. You’re not spamming—you’re showing up in the most personal space people still check every day: their inbox.
Opt-Ins That Serve a Real Purpose
Your email list shouldn’t be built on obligation. It should start with value. Dawn’s favorite example? A Mac-buying quiz she created after getting asked the same tech question on repeat in her DMs: “Which Mac should I buy?”
Instead of replying manually, she created a 12-result interactive quiz, segmented by user type (photographer, podcaster, editor), which also tied into her affiliate links.
- Real value
- Zero pressure
- Evergreen results
Other low-pressure, high-impact list builders?
- Countdown timer forms (urgency = higher conversions)
- Seasonal challenges (like her Spring Cleaning Tech Challenge)
- Quizzes that give immediate clarity to your audience
The point isn’t to “capture leads.” It’s to help someone solve a problem before they even know your name.
The Case for Automation With Soul
If the word “automation” makes you feel like a robot, that’s a branding problem, not a tech one.
Dawn’s welcome sequence includes GIFs of herself dancing on stage, cheeky polls like “Which Harry Potter house are you?” (she’s a Ravenclaw, I’m a Slytherin, if you’re curious), and candid stories from her Genius Bar days.
The key? Write like you talk. Ask questions. Tell a story. Give something—before asking for anything.
Not every subscriber wants the same thing. Segmenting by behavior, interests, or quiz responses lets you speak directly to each type of person on your list—without overwhelming your audience.
Clean It Up: Quality > Quantity
Let’s talk numbers.
A lot of folks cling to big email lists like a badge of honor, but a 2,000-person list that never opens your emails isn’t worth more than 200 that do. Dawn recommends cleaning your list every six months and sending something at least monthly to avoid being flagged as inactive (or worse, spam).
Here’s why that matters:
- Infrequent emails lower your deliverability score
- Large lists with low engagement hurt your reputation
- High engagement signals quality to Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.
So no, it’s not a loss when people unsubscribe—it’s clarity. You’re curating your community, not hoarding names.
How to Balance Automation and Real-Time Connection
Automation should do the heavy lifting—but you still want space for real-time campaigns, launches, or timely updates.
Dawn’s tip? Use segmentation wisely. Tag subscribers who are “in workflow” and exclude them from newsletter sends or schedule automations to run on specific days, while reserving others for fresh content.
If someone already bought from you, don’t keep selling to them. Use automation to exit them from sales funnels the second they purchase—your subscribers will thank you.
Your List Is a Relationship, Not a Task
This is the mindset shift.
If you’re just starting your list—and feeling completely overwhelmed—Dawn suggests setting up a dedicated email inbox just to observe. Subscribe to a bunch of newsletters and note what catches your attention. Use that to fuel your ideas.
Then ask yourself: what do I wish someone had sent me?
Email marketing is not about numbers or click rates or clever subject lines (though those help). It’s about saying: “Here’s something that made my day easier—maybe it’ll help you too.”
Tell a story. Offer a resource. Ask a question. Show up.
It’s not just about the funnel. It’s about the friend on the other end.
Getting Started (Even If You’re Stuck)
Maybe you already have Flodesk (or another platform) and just haven’t done anything yet. Here’s your nudge.
- Start the trial (or open the account you’re paying for).
- Use Flodesk’s built-in forms—even without a website, they give you a URL.
- Put the form somewhere!
- Start collecting subscribers—so you’re not starting from zero when you’re finally ready to send.
Your future audience is waiting for you to show up. And when you do—with real stories, real tools, and real care—they’ll be glad you did.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Connect with Dawn:
Review the Transcript:
Julie: Welcome back to the System for Everything podcast. Today’s system tip. If you are struggling to get subscribers, just add New Taylor Swift album to every subject line. It won’t be accurate, but it will be effective today I am joined by Dawn Richardson, the product education manager at Flow Desks. She creates easy to understand resources that help entrepreneurs and small business owners confidently grow with email.
Marketing with a background in software engineering and wedding photography, she bridges the gap between tech and creativity, making flow desk’s, powerful tools, approachable for all. She’s also the voice behind her business, tech savvy, creative, where she helps creatives simplify all types of tech so they can spend more time doing what they.
When she’s not teaching about tech. Dawn is a wife and mom to two little girls balancing business and family life with plenty of coffee in hand. Thank you so much for being here, Dawn.
Dawn: I am so excited to be here, Julie, and like we’ve talked about this for so long and it’s coming true and like. I feel like we’ve manifested this for a long time, so I’m so excited that it’s finally happening.
Julie: Oh my gosh. I adore you. All right. We are gonna be starting with the system reboot. A quick little reset to start our episode with some humor and humanity. If you had to make an opt-in based on a personal hobby, what would it be?
Dawn: Probably a needle point.
Julie: Ooh, I’m not very
Dawn: good at it, but I love a good needle point.
Julie: I think I would be really bad at it, but it very much intrigues me, so I think I would sign up for it.
Dawn: Yeah, I’ll do something like funny or something that has curse words, you know, a pattern. I’m definitely buying it. What is your go-to karaoke song? Ooh, good question. Probably Bohemian Rhapsody, although, Ooh, that’s a really long one.
So it just, yes, I have to be in the right mood, but I love some queen wheel rock use, like less than three minutes long, so. I’ll probably go there too. Good to know.
Julie: Noted. All right. Besides what you currently do for a living, what is a job you think you would be incredible at?
Dawn: So I’ve always had this like dream if I had unlimited time, money, and resources, that I would open a play cafe.
You know, like I stop, I love that. A coffee shop that had like healthy meals for kids and moms, but also had like a safe place for moms to like get work done, but their kids to play. That’s like supervised play like that. That’s like my dream. If I had. Unlimited, all the things, but I think that would be so fun.
Like as an entrepreneur and a mom, like we need that space. I would
Julie: join that. I would sign up for that. Absolutely. All right, everyone, you have met the personality. Now meet the powerhouse. If you have ever cringed at the phrase lead magnet or felt like building your list meant turning into a sleazy internet salesperson, this one is for you.
Here’s my conversation with Don on the system for growing your email list without feeling spammy. Okay, I wanna start with fear. You know, a lot of creative entrepreneurs know. That they should be building their email list, but the second that they open that browser or they hear the phrase lead magnet, I mean they get just full body hives.
So I wanna name that fear and talk about where it comes from. Why do you think that email marketing feels so intimidating, or maybe even to some people a little icky for so many creatives and small business owners?
Dawn: Totally. This is such a good question, and I think it comes from perspective. I think we’ve all received that spammy email and we don’t wanna be that person.
Mm-hmm. Right? Like you are, somebody like emailed me, you, and you’re like, how did I end up on this list? Like, who got, how did my emails, my email been sold somewhere? Like, you don’t wanna come across as that person. So it was really natural to feel that way. Um, but we have to remember that when people opt into our list, they’re asking to hear from us and we need to.
Respond to that. We wanna respect that they’ve asked us to be there, so we need to show up for them. And that’s like a mindset shift that takes a little while. And it’s also a little different because. Like a pro and con of email marketing in the term, like in the mental head space, it’s not quite as visible as like Instagram.
You know, like you post something on Instagram, it’s very public. Everybody can see it. But when you’re having these conversations and you’re sending these emails, it’s a little. Bit more behind the scenes, like you’re not always sharing them publicly, so it can be a little intimidating, but some people also really like that because it’s not publicly visible and they have a chance to be a little bit more candid and behind the scenes in that way.
And that’s really where a lot of power comes from. Email marketing and just leaning into that, take advantage of it so. You know, you can show up where people are expecting you, which is also one of the most intimate places in their life, is like your inbox. Like you’re showing up in between like your doctor appointment reminders and your prescription pickups and like things like that.
But if you can show up there, that’s a really powerful place to be as a business owner.
Julie: Was there ever a time when you personally avoided or dreaded email marketing?
Dawn: Oh yeah, for sure. Um, so I have been in business for, it’s, we, I launched my first business in 2015, so it’s been over a decade. And when I got started with email marketing, this was before Flo Desk even existed.
I just didn’t love what I was sending. It felt spammy to me because it was just like. Really ugly. And it had like just maybe my logo if I was really like lucky and it’s just like, what do I have to say to these people? Like it’s just like, buy my mini sessions. Like it was weird. Like I didn’t love it and it didn’t really change for me until fluid SK launch.
And I was, you know, I test tools for a living, so I was like, oh, a new tool, I gotta go check it out. Um, and I went in there and I was like, oh. Wow, I can actually make something I’m really proud of and I, I was excited to showcase my work and I was excited to like launch things to my email list. And for me it really became like an exclusive place and I made over six figures from my email list with an email list of like a few hundred people and it was because like that is phenomenal.
It was so great because like I had just like this small, it was like 300 people, like it wasn’t very many people, but past clients, people that were on my wait list and I would launch mini sessions to them just on my email list and they would sell me out. I never had to post it on Instagram. I never had to talk about it.
And people would come to me and be like, why don’t you do these? And I’m like, well actually I do. Do you wanna be on my list? And it turned into this like exclusive thing and I sold many sessions that way. And that’s. How I did it. I never really talked about it publicly, but I made a whole revenue stream just from my email.
But it took a while to get to that point. And for me it, when I discovered flow desks, I finally was able to create something I was proud of. It was an extension of my brand. I enjoyed using the tool and that’s where it changed for me. But I think that’s like also very. Common for people like entrepreneurs, like we are in a world where people really prioritize social media.
They prioritize Instagram and reels and video content and your website, all these things, and it’s really easy to forget about email. So it’s not an uncommon feeling. But we have to remember that email has the highest ROI of all the marketing channels. So even though we’re in this world where things are moving fast, there’s trends out there, email still is the top.
Place you wanna be. So keep that in mind. Try it out, experiment, see what your audience resonates with, and then go from there. Uh, but we also have seasons too. So I wanna be candid here. Like, I’m working full-time at Flow desks. I’ve been doing this for a year and a half, and so I’ve like. Um, stepped back from my own email list.
I’ve like changed my frequency quite a bit just because I’m, you know, a hundred percent in at float desk right now. So, um, building a weekly newsletter is not something that I can do right now. Uh, but we all have seasons in our business, and you might do the same in your business. You might take a break, you might come back, and these tools, they’ll be there when you’re ready to do that.
And that’s the power that we hold as entrepreneurs.
Julie: Oh, that’s amazing. And I think that the ROI point speaks so highly to EMO marketing, and we forget that. And yet when I think back to most major and minor business purchases I’ve made over the last, let’s say five years, even, most of them have been because I was nurtured and on someone’s email list versus following them on Instagram.
Mm-hmm. Duh, duh, Julie. Okay, so we know the pressures, we know the pitfalls. Let’s shift into what actually works. ’cause you and your team at flow desks help people grow their lists in a way that really feels aligned and helpful. Mm-hmm. So what are some of your favorite low pressure, high impact ways to
Dawn: grow
Julie: an
Dawn: email list?
I love this question and. The true answer is it really depends on your audience. Everybody’s audience is a little different, so what works for me might not work for you. You’re really gonna have to test it and see what resonates with your audience. Freebies, opt-ins, all of that stuff works great, but other things that work great is urgency.
At Float Desk, we have forms that have countdown timer on them. So if I’m hosting an upcoming webinar or something like that, I use a countdown timer form and that countdown timer. Increases the pressure and my countdown timers get really great conversions because people don’t wanna miss out. Like even if that means I have to watch the replay.
Like they Exactly. So having those countdown timers, and I use that same timer on the emails, these are all built into float desks and that really helps like. Drive the message of like, Hey, this is limited time. Take advantage of it while you can. So aside from that, we talk about opt-ins. Um, I’m a big fan of using an opt-in to solve a problem, and this works really well for me at Tech Savvy.
So I would get daily dms at Tech Savvy Creative about like, Hey, I need to buy a new Mac. Which one should I buy? What specs do I need to buy? Literally daily. And everybody’s different. It depends on what you do. Instagram is not the genius bar. Come on people. I used to work at the Genius Bar. That was my life at Apple.
Um, so like, it’s natural to me. I love talking about this, but like, I can’t respond to all those dms because it results in questions. What do you do? Are you a photographer? Are you, what software are you using? Do you wanna be on the go? Do you wanna be at your desk like. All of these questions change the answer.
Yeah. So. What I did was I went into Interact, which is a quiz building tool. Float Desk has a direct integration with Interact, which is Chef’s Kiss. Beautiful. But I built a quiz. I have a quiz
Julie: coming out soon. I’m pretty excited about it.
Dawn: Oh, beautiful. It is so good. You guys are like, so in the Float Desks integration with Interact, not only do you, are you able to segment your audience based on what the answer they got at the end, like the result, but you can also segment them about.
How they answered the questions in the quiz. So like one of my questions is, what do you do for a living? And that helping, that’s helping me get to the answer. But it also allows me to segment. So when I have an offer for photographers, guess what? I have a whole audience of photographers to market directly to.
’cause it’s all email. Marketing’s all about getting the right message to the right person at the right time. So anyway, so this quiz, I built this quiz. It has 12 different results. What Mac is right for you? I ask these questions, I tell you what Mac, what specs, all of that. So I built this opt-in, which is my highest converting opt-in hundreds and thousands of people, like I have like a couple thousand people that have gone through it and it tells them what Mac they buy.
They get value right away. I don’t have to answer the DM and it saves me time. And then when Apple turns around and releases a new Mac, or they update their MacBook Pros or whatever it is, I go in, I update my landing pages, I update my quiz to make sure it’s all accurate. And that’s something that I have to manage maybe two or three times a year.
And that’s it. And this just runs on autopilot. And there it goes, and I make affiliate money from it. I answer the questions. People recommend the quiz to get answers, and I don’t have to do anything manually. So for me, the best opt-in is something that solves a problem for me, but also for other people.
Checklists are fine. But if they’re not solving a problem, like it’s not as enticing as other things could be. So lean in, get creative. Maybe it’s a quiz, maybe it’s a challenge. Um, my spring cleaning challenge used to do really well when I had that running. Um, and just see what really resonates with your audience.
Julie: I love that. And I’m gonna challenge myself to have an opt-in, up and ready by the time this episode airs.
Dawn: Yes.
Julie: I challenge
Dawn: you too, Julie.
Julie: Yes. And issuing myself challenges within these episodes before has worked sort of like a, a threat to myself, but also, uh, breaking news. Everyone, Don and I’s friendship is about to come to a crashing end because I’m a PC user.
Dawn: Okay. It’s okay. I forgive you. I used to build PCs, so I get it. I used to build PCs and then I got a job at Apple and that was, I mean, that was like a long time ago. I launched the iPhone four in the first iPad, so it’s been a long time. Oh my gosh, amazing. Yeah.
Julie: Um, I know a lot of people worry. I, I’ve had this worry about like.
Quote unquote, bothering their audience. I mean, what is your perspective on frequency? Like how often should people be emailing their list? Because I know that there has been times where I’ve been on a list and I have gotten something daily and I’ve been like, Ugh, unsubscribe. Or somebody pops in my inbox and I’m like, I don’t even remember signing up for this ’cause I’ve never heard from you.
Dawn: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yes. I think you bring a really great thing to the, like a great conversation to the surface here is like, you don’t want people to forget about you. You have to be consistent, right? And that consistency’s really important. So let’s adjust the first thing. Like, I don’t want people to get sick of me, right?
Mm-hmm. Well, that’s why there’s an unsubscribe button. And that’s why you should always be using an email marketing platform. That’s true. So that’s why it’s really important that you’re like not trying to send marketing emails just straight through Gmail. Like that’s not part, that does not compliant with like marketing regulations.
Make sure you’re using a platform that meets regulations, that has the unsubscribe button and so on. So that’s really important. But remember, people are gonna unsubscribe and that’s a good thing. You actually want them to unsubscribe because there’s a whole nother topic here, which is email deliverability, and that’s.
Is my email landing in the inbox, or is it landing in the spam folder, or is it being blocked altogether? Because I want you to step into like the email provider shoes here for a second. So we’re talking about Google, Yahoo iCloud, these providers. Just think about all those spam emails like them pretending to be other people.
They are in the business of making sure these awful emails aren’t landing in inboxes and people are getting spoofed, like people are not giving their account information away. So that’s what they’re really focused on. But if you as a business owner are not following best practices, it’s easy to be caught in that trap.
So you have to do things to make sure that Google, Yahoo iCloud Outlook trust you. Okay? One of those things is consistency. Okay? Mm. They don don’t like surprises. Okay? And I’m gonna tell you right now where it’s like we’re coming into fall, black Friday is upon us. Now is the time to start talking about your email list because if you have neglected your email list in a whole year and Black Friday rolls around and you’re like, Hmm, maybe I should email my list and you send an email to all of your subscribers on Black Friday, guess where you’re going?
You are going spa straight to spam if you don’t get blocked entirely. So just know that like you have to like, you have to set yourself up for success. They don’t like surprises. Consistency matters. Your email domain tends to go cold after about four to six weeks of not sending. So my rule of thumb is at least monthly.
Okay, that’s my like bare minimum. Um, we see a lot of our members have the most success with like weekly. Type emails weekly, um, biweekly, but the bare minimum I would aim for monthly. That’s 12 emails a year, guys. Okay, you can do it. Okay, so lean into that. You can do it. Okay? But that consistency really matters.
And on that same point, it’s also really important we’re talking about email deliverability here a little bit to not email people that don’t want your emails. Okay. Yeah. One, don’t email people that have not directly opted into your email list. Okay. Yeah. Just ’cause you’ve found their email somewhere.
Exactly. Don’t email people ’cause you got it somewhere like. Only email people that have opted into your list. That’s really important. Um, also, if you have people on your list and they haven’t opened your emails in six months, say goodbye. Quality is far more important than quantity in this situation.
Quality. Okay? Because if you have all of these subscribers on your list and none of them have ever opened your email, or like a really small percentage, you send an email and let’s say 15% of people open your email. Well, Google goes, well, only 15% of people wanted this email, so clearly it’s not valuable.
And guess what? But if you send it only to the audience that opens your emails, well, all of a sudden, 90% of people open that email because they’re the people that wanted it. And Google goes, oh my gosh, 90% of people wanted this email. It must be really good. You see where I’m going here? You’re building that trust, you’re establishing that.
So with this. Clean out your list. Get rid of the people that are no longer serving you. Okay. Time to say goodbye. I know we get really protective over our email list. Like we, these are our subscribers. Like these are mine. Like, I work so hard. No. Get rid of them. Let ’em go. I think
Julie: people also get very precious about the numbers too.
Dawn: Yes. It becomes
Julie: the yes. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, yes,
Dawn: a hundred percent. You can have a very successful email list with a very small number. Okay. You have to just focus on those engaged users. And here’s the thing guys, like when you have like a small engaged audience that’s gonna grow because you’re nurturing that crowd, they’re talking about you, they’re forwarding on your email, and it just gets better and better from there.
So really lean into that, especially as we’re going into the Black Friday season.
Julie: I think that one of the biggest. Things I hear from people when they push back against email marketing is, you know, they don’t wanna deal with the, the workflows you guys offer. They don’t wanna automate things. They don’t wanna maybe sound like a robot, so Sure.
I wanna talk about how to bring your voice into your automations and make that tech work for you and not mm-hmm. Turn you into a template. Sure. So what do you think are some of the key ingredients of like a really good welcome sequence? Sequence? Like, what should those first few emails be doing for your audience?
Dawn: Totally. And again, every audience is different, so test and see what works for you guys. For me though, in my audience, some of my audience actually doesn’t get a welcome sequence because I know that they’re maybe not as warm as others. Okay, so it’s it. And then this is like a strategy that I’ve done really well with.
So my welcome sequence, somebody signs up for my newsletter, whatever it is, they’ll get, oh hey, like I hate email. And for me and my brand, my brand is very colorful, very fun. There’s actually a gif of me like posing on as. Stage, like I use gifs, like to like, oh, I love that. To showcase myself. Yeah. So at Float Dek, we have a Canva integration.
So I built the like gif graphic on, it’s like a little collage on Canva, and I imported it in directly to MyDesk email. So like, oh, you say, uh, stop. That’s so fun. You see like a, Hey, I’m so glad you’re here and it’s me being. Hey, like, um, but it’s like showcasing my personality and I’m like, Hey, this is like what I’m all about.
Like I introduce myself, I tell you like some things that are free and available for you, welcome you in, right? And then I might do something like a story, okay? Like people love my horror stories from working behind the genius bar at Apple. So I might throw a funny story in there. Um, but you wanna connect with your audience.
Like the last thing you wanna do is be like, hi, this is my business. Hi, this is what I sell. Hi. You should buy this. Like you don’t want to do that, right? Like you want to have like a fun relationship. Think about how you would walk into a room of people you’ve never met before. What would you tell them?
You wouldn’t be like, hi, I offer this, and then like, you should buy my stuff. Like you don’t say that. You’d be like, oh, let me tell me about you. You ask questions to your audience, right? Like how to win friends and influence people. You always ask questions to other people, right? Ask about them. Tell me about what you do.
Maybe I’ll use like a little poll block in my email being like. What is your favorite book of these? Or like, uh, what’s your Enneagram number or what Harry Potter House are you, I don’t know, different things that you can pull into Slithering Baby. Oh, I’m a hardcore Raven Claw. Like,
Julie: yeah. Yeah. I can see that.
I stand, I stand by my Slitherin. People look down on it and you know, a lot of them gave us a bad rap, but you know what? I stand by Slytherin and I look great and green. It’s about ambition. Yes.
Dawn: That’s ambition. It’s all ambitious. Anyway, we, but like, bring your personality in here. Get to know your audience.
Let them interact with you. And for me, like I, my welcome’s like two, three emails tops. But again, I also have opt-ins. Sometimes my quiz is one of them that I don’t send my welcome email because they were there for something very specific. Yeah, they were there for information about a quiz or about a Mac not to know me.
Like they didn’t find me because of me. They found me because they were looking to solve their problem. So the emails that follow a Mac quiz are more like, Hey, like. Like, do you need like these accessories for your Mac? Or also like, Hey, I saw that you, you ended up with a result for a MacBook Pro. I just wanted to let you know that Apple released new ones this week, so if you’re still in the market, this is a good time to buy.
You know, like that’s the kind of thing that they’re there for. They were there for really tangible things, so I wanna serve them the way that they showed up for versus somebody signing up to be on my newsletter to hear funny stories and things like that. That’s the audience that I’m gonna send my welcome email to.
’cause I’m connecting with them on a personal level. And this is all in the same account, right? I’m just serving my audience differently and there’s some crossover. So some people will end up in the welcome series anyway. But all of this is happening on autopilot and with these workflows that I’ve built in Flow Desk, it’s, I’m sending tens of thousands of emails.
Without doing anything, it’s really great and it just goes, and it’s also segmenting my audience, which is really powerful, so I can, again, send the right message to the right person at the right time, because if somebody did not, or somebody told me that they aren’t a Mac user, like, like you, like Julie, like if, if I’ve segmented you into a PC user, I’m not gonna tell you about the latest Apple keynote.
You know, because I am not interested. Exactly. And if I’m building a workflow that’s like tech tips, weekly, tech tips, maybe I have a weekly tech tick that is macros specific. You are gonna jump right around that because it does not apply to you. And if I’m sending you emails that don’t apply to you, that’s the fastest way you’re gonna mark me as unsubscribe.
Like you’re gonna unsubscribe, or, which is far worse, is marking me as spam because that’s really damaging to a sender reputation. Like if I’m sending you bad emails. That’s what’s gonna happen. But if I’m sending you emails that are relevant and exciting to you, that’s how I’m gonna be successful. And that’s why you’re gonna come to me when you have a need that I can solve for you.
And that’s what turns into a great strategy.
Julie: I love that From, yeah, from a consumer standpoint. ’cause I’ve been with flow desks since they. Offering it to beta testers. I have not used it as successfully as I need to. I think that I’m doing a much better job these days, but I think that flow desks really became like known within the email marketing space for their beautiful designs.
Mm-hmm. But I love that there’s so much you can do behind the scenes with the systems and the automations and the tech part of it too. But how do you balance that automation with real time content? Like do you. Build in space within those workflows for live campaigns or or updates?
Dawn: Sure, sure. Good question.
So again, it depends. What I see a lot of people doing is what they’ll do is they, when somebody enters a workflow, so a workflow is a automated series of emails and such. When somebody enters a workflow, I often see people like add a segment that says like. In workflow and then what they do so that person’s in that workflow.
But if they wanna send something to anybody who’s not actively in another workflow, when they send that single send email, they will exclude that segment of people in a workflow. So that’s how they can do that. I’ve also seen some really successful, um, methods where like people always send workflow emails on a Thursday, but they always send like their newsletters on a Tuesday or something like that.
They like put it in certain days of the week. Everybody’s strategy’s a little different. Um, but if you’re in a launch season, if you’re trying to sell something, like it’s not uncommon for people to like ramp up your volume. And especially like Black Friday sales are coming up, like you just wanna make sure that you’re serving your audience well.
And the other thing too, we’re talking about segmentation earlier, is you wanna make sure you’re setting this up to where if somebody buys that thing from you, you don’t continue to sell that thing to them, right? Because that’s like the quickest way to be like, oh wow, you. You’re not, I just bought this thing from you and you just tried to sell it to me, and maybe you offered me a discount that you didn’t offer me before.
Like that’s the easiest way to make people really frustrated. Yeah. So make sure you’re using your segmentation to be like, okay, when this person purchases this, add them to this segment. Remove them from the workflow. So that way you’re not sending those emails, you’re not sending those sales emails to people who should not be receiving them.
And again, you’re sending the right message to the right person at the right time.
Julie: Beyond the tools and tactics that you can use, there’s gotta be a mindset shift here. Mm-hmm. So one that moves you from, how do I get more people on my list to, how do I build these real relationships? So, mm-hmm. How do you reframe that for people?
Like for somebody who is starting at zero and I’m talking zero subscribers and zero confidence.
Dawn: Yes, totally. One thing that I would encourage everybody to do, and something that I really love is I created a separate, a separate email inbox for subscriptions. And I, anytime I see a box to subscribe to somebody’s newsletter, I will subscribe using that inbox and that puts all of those emails into my own inbox.
And then like once a day, that’s kind of like my, like decompress time is, I’ll scroll through it and see what people are talking about, see what other people are sending, and then I figure out what’s resonating with me. Like what do I like, why do I like that? Is it the design that I like? Is it the story?
Is it the way they told it? Is it the length of the email? Is it like. Did they have something interactive? Is it a countdown? I look at these emails and I see what I like about it, what resonates with me, and then I use that as inspiration for content in my audience. ’cause maybe it’s a funny story. Maybe I’m telling them a real story about something that happened to one of my customers when I was working at the Genius Bar.
Maybe I’m telling a story about that time that I. Like broke my camera on the dance floor at a wedding. Oh gosh. Yeah. I’ve been there, been there. Uh, lens fell off, shattered. Boom. Glass bow, like, like, but like does that make you open it? Like my friend Natalie, her highest perform performing email? Yeah.
Right. But, well, Natalie, her highest performing email ever is a story about her running through the airport. ’cause she was about to miss her flight and she tripped and fell on her face like it was like, hm. But people resonate with stories. They a hundred percent, they see you, they wanna connect with you, and that works really well for some audiences where other audiences might really prefer something tactical and tangible and a quick tip that they can digest in three minutes.
You know? Or maybe it’s a busy mom. Maybe a busy mom, if that’s your audience doesn’t have time to read this whole novel of a story, but maybe they need something like. The best YouTube video you found that your toddler loves or something like that. Like little things like that are gonna really resonate with them.
So again, it depends on everybody’s audience, but my advice to you is to start with something that you feel good about. Maybe it’s a story. Connect with them. Imagine you were sitting down at a coffee shop with a good friend. What would you tell them? You wouldn’t tell them, buy my product, but you maybe tell ’em a story about something fun that your daughter did, or maybe you’re telling ’em a story about how you’re really struggling with balancing mom life and entrepreneur life, and then something clicked.
And like that’s the deep thing that’s gonna connect you with other people. It’s not the buy my stuff now. It’s the storytelling. It’s the connecting with people where they are maybe connecting with them in a way that they makes ’em feel, seen and heard. Like a, I think of a coming like to the moms. Yes.
You’re a mom of a little one right now. Like life is hard. Like they, there’s leaps and there’s sleep regressions, and there’s like all of these things. But if you can connect with somebody and they’re like, oh my gosh, me too. That’s just gonna make them open the next email from you, and then when you have something to offer them, like, Hey, like I was having a really hard time with the sleep progression or whatever, but the thing that really helped me in my business was putting this on autopilot.
Well, guess what? Now they’re listening. You’ve connected with them and now you might have an offer to make their life easier and you didn’t just become something that they bought, you became a resource, a lifeline for them in their business or for them in their life, right? And that’s how we are successful, is by solving people’s problems in our businesses.
So think about it that way. What are you solving? What are the people you’re talking to struggling? And how can you connect with them in that way? Avoid the whole buy from me type thing. You can get to buy from me like you will. But start there. Start with the story, and I think you’ll be really surprised how people respond because they’ll feel seen, they’ll feel heard, and they’ll connect with you on a deeper way.
Ugh. I love that.
Julie: Yeah. Guys, isn’t Dawn the best? Like I just love, love. Oh my goodness. I just love listening to you talk. I could listen to you talk a million times. If somebody is listening right now and really feeling stuck, maybe they have. You know, purchased the Flow Desk subscription, but they haven’t sent anything.
They haven’t set anything up. What is the first step that you would recommend they take? Today.
Dawn: Oh, today. Start your trial right now. Okay. Um, start your trial right now because you have to get in there and experiment. And here’s the thing with flow desk forms are always free. So even if you are not ready to actually start emailing, you can create some stunning forms.
Put them on your website. We have forms that generate a URL for you, so no websites required. You can start collecting those subscribers now. So when you are in the phase of your business and of your life where you are ready to emailing, you’re not starting from zero. You have people that have been opting in, waiting to hear from you, and then you have an audience there ready to go.
So no excuses. Get those forms started, check it out, experiment with it. You might be really surprised, might be excited to send something, but the very least, get that trial started. Create some forms, and start collecting those subscribers so they’re there when you’re ready.
Julie: Yes, and we are gonna have all the flow desks, links and fun signup things in these show notes, guys.
So make sure to check those out. Um, Dawn, I want you to tell everyone where they can find you online, how they can get started with flow desks. Um, I know you just mentioned the trial, if they’re ready to jump in and sign up.
Dawn: Yes, so you can find us@flodest.com and we’re also Flo Dek on Instagram. That’s F-L-O-D-E-S-K.
And if you wanna find me, my Instagram handle is, it’s Dawn Richardson. And which is a change as of like yesterday guys. So I’m like live in my new era of Instagram live. New, new handle. So scary. And, uh, but you can find me also@techheavycreative.com. But go check it out. Start the trial again. Julie said like, we’ll drop the links to start your trial and check it out for yourself.
And if you ever need support, the Flo disc scheme is here cheering you on and here to support you along the way.
Julie: Yes, and I will say if you are a flox, uh, user, also the Facebook group is really helpful. Yes. I mean, you’re always gonna find people who are just like. Complaining and ranty about weird things that are their own fault.
But I will say the team is very responsive and super helpful. I’ve had, you know, over the years, maybe a handful of questions where I’ve been like, Hey, why didn’t this deliver like this? Or how do I make this look like this? And very, very helpful. I write everyone. Thank you Dawn, so much for being here. Yes, thank you.
Yes, you’re the best. Guys, Dawn’s the best. Oh my gosh. We’re gonna head to the system shut down. Now. This week is a movie review, a drop, which is streaming now on Peacock. It is a thriller following a widowed mom on a first date who suddenly starts receiving ominous an anonymous messages on her phone right in the middle of dinner.
I was hooked. Almost immediately. It’s a kind of slow burn kind of thriller where every notification feels like a ticking clock. Um, pretty solid acting. Some fun twists and some serious action that I didn’t see coming. Um, the movie blends moderns anxieties about dating apps and digital privacy with a claustrophobic restaurant setting and type pacing.
If you are into character driven thrillers that simmer with tension before boiling over, and you don’t mind a few tonal shifts, drop is. Definitely worth your time. Four and a half out of five stars. Thanks everyone for listening to the system for everything. If you liked this episode, hit that subscribe button.
Leave a quick rating or review and forward it to your friend who’s been meaning to start an email list since 2018. You can also subscribe to my newsletter@dallasgirlfriday.com for behind the scenes podcast updates systems for real life. And the occasional internet gem, I just have to share. See you next time.
