Today we have with us, Roger Cunningham, who juggles between digital marketing and standup comedy. He’s a lighthearted boy from Texas who speaks about selling innovative goods and how he’s grown in the field with all the passion within. He also shares his strategy regarding establishing a successful e-mail presence and creating a marketing funnel.
Roger’s website: http://www.gingertreeinnovations.com/
https://www.mountainprimal.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mountainprimal
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mountainprimal/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLQJb3VsgcJyzfqJ1bkfeiQ
Katie Brinkley 0:02
Hey there. This is Katie Brinkley and you’re listening to Rocky Mountain marketing. This podcast is all about helping Colorado based small business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals discover the strategies and systems that take their marketing to all new heights. Let’s dive into today’s episode.
Welcome back to the podcast. My guest today is Roger Cunningham. In 2017, Roger and his best friend launched their own product company called Ginger Cree innovations. He also launched his own digital marketing firm ginger up media, which works with local Colorado lifestyle brands like Liberty skis, Western snowboards comedy works Boon Mountain Sports and crazy mountain brewery just to name a few. In 2019, after working with mountain primal meat company initially as Jindra media client he was asked to come on full time to initially run their email marketing and platform management. He recently was promoted to director of digital marketing and now oversees all of their online strategy. Roger has also taught several digital marketing courses at Colorado free university in Denver. Additionally, he does stand up comedy and he recently opened up for Kevin Farley who is Chris Farley’s brother. Just last December. Roger, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thanks for having me, Katie. Glad to be here. So let’s start back at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us where you grew up and what your life was like growing up. Oh, man, I grew up in Texas. So I still, I think living in between New York and Colorado after school. I think it kind of my twing went away a little bit. But yeah, I grew up in East Texas. I grew up in Longview, Texas. Our claim to fame is that’s where Matthew McConaughey grew up. So so that’s kind of cool. And then I went to University of Texas at Austin. And so I was Texas boy Yep. hokum horns. I was a Texas boy. True true. And then yeah, a little bit about me growing up but grew up is an out lots of fish and lots of outdoor stuff the normal Texas stuff that you do and barbecue his wife.
Roger Cunningham 2:11
And yeah, it was great as a good veto. I had to really enjoy going to University of Texas, Austin is it’s too hot for me. Now. I’ve just been spoiled by Colorado and living up north. But I love Austin and I love to get back there. Actually, Ginger tree innovations is based out of Dripping Springs down south just South Austin. So I get down there quite a bit. But yeah, that’s a little bit about where I grew up. So how do you think that your upbringing impacted your eventual career and professional journey? Oh, well, I grew up in a pretty funny household. I grew up in a we were really light hearted. And we, my brothers were hilarious. I mean, sometimes at my expense, but I’m the youngest of five. So we just it I think, I don’t know, we all grew up, we can talk to we’ve never met a stranger. So I think that kind of impacted. It just made sense for me to go into like a sales marketing role. That was, you know, looking back on it, I was kind of bound to fall into those things. And I’m kind of I’m a nerd at heart as well. So the marketing, the analytics, and the digital marketing. And all of that stuff just kind of made sense for me, because I’ve always kind of been into that stuff. And it’s funny, I was an English major. So I always joke about I’m like, well, that’s how I got an email. Marcy
has nothing to do with that. But it I think growing up in Texas, it’s kind of I grew up in a really friendly atmosphere, very funny atmosphere. You know, all my friends were just a bunch of jokesters and I was voted wittiest in my high school. So I’ve always been kind of class clown. So I was just kind of outgoing and it just kind of made sense. So sales and marketing and partnerships, and all of that stuff always kind of just went along with my personality. Yeah,
Katie Brinkley 3:59
your journey a little bit. Tell us a bit about where you started out and some of the different professional stops that you’ve taken along the way.
Roger Cunningham 4:06
Yeah, it’s actually where I am now. It’s just funny. I was talking about this recently with for me to be where I am now took a long time to get there because I this is a Marketing podcast. So one thing to know about getting into marketing, if someone’s listening to get into marketing is it’s not always it’s not an easy road to really get into especially if you’re making a transition from cells. So I just a little walk down memory lane for me is I started my sales career in college, I was fully on track to I wanted to go to law school when I went to University of Texas. So an English degree made perfect sense there, but I actually got involved with the program, the southwestern program, and I sell books door to door out of state every single summer to pay my way through school, which is a really cool program. I get college credit for a lot of it’s just a program in yourself or whatever. percent commission. So it sounds insane. That’s a whole different conversation. But that’s kind of how I got my start in the cells and mean, it’s grassroots literally knocking on doors, creating rapport with people that you never met in your life. And it just, I mean, you have to learn pretty quick. And I did it for five summers took a couple extra years to graduate, so I could pay my way through school and get it the fun way, I guess. But that’s kind of where I got my start. And from there, after I graduated, I kind of went into a sister company, and I was a director, State Director for an insurance company for five years. And, you know, all of those sales skills applied over to that, and I did very well with that. But it ultimately it wasn’t, I knew it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do in life. And that going back to that, I’ve always been a fan of comedy, I’ve always been a joker always been a class clown. And I took a huge reason i i moved to New York City with no job, no prospect of a job, just my residuals for my insurance company. And I took a stab at stand up comedy that God had so much fun in New York City. And we were producing shows and doing all kinds of different things. And it did actually pretty tight knit community and in New York City, so I got to meet some really cool people doing it. But obviously, it doesn’t exactly pay the bills. i One $50 One time for a stand up comedy contest. But now, but I was able to through comedy, and through just being able to meet people, I quickly network, and I was recruited by a company called ZocDoc, which is like, for a long time was a sweetheart online startup for New York City who and I was the 64th employee, I believe. And I mean, when I started, we had a corner office. And so and then when it by the time I left, we had about 700 plus employees, and it was just an insane valuation. So it was I got my, that’s where I got into tech. So that took me, I learned I saw, like, the coolest stuff, you know, just the innovation. And it’s just the vibe was exciting. So I was like, this is kind of where the space that I like, this is really cool. Everything’s headed this way. So try to keep this short, as short as I can. But then I moved, I have a passion for the ski industry and skiing and everything. So I got to a point to where I didn’t know anyone walking down the halls and ZocDoc I love the company. I love everything they were doing, I love the people I work with, but just got to a point where I was looking for another change. So I moved to Colorado and studied ski and snowboard marketing and steamboat, Colorado Mountain College, and I worked in the industry, and it was I had a blast, I skied my face off, I worked my tail off for different ski companies and just loved every minute of it, learn the ins and out the production all the way down. So it was just exactly what I love to do. But I still have that tech kind of in the back of my neck what I really like to do as well as the tech side of it. So I got a call from New York again to come back to back in sales and sales and marketing for develop a web development firm. And so it’s like, yeah, that sounds great. So move back. And we ran a really cool, super creative boutique firm called nightowl interactive. And we were doing some really cool stuff, you know, making some skunkworks projects and deep application work for like Spotify and American Red Cross and was able to pull in some big accounts and learn the operation side of all of that, which I had a great time doing and I love doing it. But I think I kind of knew that I wanted to shift into like more of the marketing side because I loved building things. But it was more about for me, I got to be like Okay, now we built this beautiful thing. How do we get it out to the masses? How do we promote this? And how do we get people to look at it and use it. So I took another step. And I went to NYU and I got my certification in digital marketing from New York University, NYU, and that was so cool, because the professors were big time CMOs and marketers for big firms as well as like large brands. So that was really cool. So policy that was that in all of this. I met my wife and I married and we had both kind of hit. I was itching to get back to Colorado. And she was kind of in New York, you hit most people hit kind of their timeline, and they’re like, I need to go, it’s time to go. And it’s usually during the winter too. It’s just terrible. So we made the decision and we moved back to Colorado, I gave up my partnership with Nadal. And they’re still thriving. They’re doing well. And I moved back and I kind of worked was pushing very, very hard to get into the digital marketing space as an actual marketer, not as a sales person but as marketer, but that’s a difficult transition that to make sometimes. So I worked as a sales leader executive for some web development firms and some mobile marketing here in town, as well as some digital marketing firm in I was doing mostly cells and a little, I would sneak in a little bit of implementation, which, when I got to do it, and I love doing that stuff, but finally I just kind of I was really going after that marketer role, true marketer role. And anyone that’s tried to make that transition can probably understand it’s just not automatic. It’s like, okay, I understand sales that I don’t see the marketing side of it. So I said, Screw it, I’m gonna go out on my own. And a buddy of mine, my best friend for since middle school called me up and wanted to really launch an idea that he had for an underground tree snake, I had no idea. I didn’t even know he had to explain it to me. I was like, What are you talking about? This is insane. So he did. And I was like, that’s really kind of pretty brilliant. I don’t know anything about the landscape industry. But I do know, marketing, and I know how to, it’d be cool. So we built the brand, just on the side. For a while, we just built the idea. We’re both vibrant, red headed people. So we we always embrace the ginger so that we named the company ginger tree innovations. We know ginger is not a tree. It’s just kind of funny. And it turns out, it’s an awesome icebreaker. Because when we meet them in person, they’re like, oh, okay, I get it.
Exactly. That’s where it comes from. And then to recreate that from the ground up, literally just the name, the logo. He’s a graphic designer, as well, and a landscape architect. So we had kind of those things going for us. And it was just really cool. I mean, we got some funding, a little bit of funding. From my tech experience, I kind of knew a little bit about going after that. And we built this to his physical net, we were just patented a couple of days ago, literally. So that’s been a three year journey. But we’re able to now we’re profitable company with our product, we’re in a lot of commercial projects, and things so but it was kind of just, I mean, it was really a fashion but it was like a project, it was like, let’s see if we can do this like and let’s prove these marketing chops and these innovation chops. And we did and it’s been cool. I’m from that kind of STEM, like we were like, you know, I had a lot of people from my back ground and skis and, you know, just in general that were constantly asking me to help them out with their marketing their digital side. So we also branched off into ginger up media. And we turn that into a brand. Literally, the logo is my face, and my business partners hair. So it’s another play on ginger and get to work with some really cool brands, we you know, I was doing exactly what I love to do. We were in the outdoor space, we’re working with comedy works, which insanely awesome organization, I love them to death. And then some breweries, I’m a big beer drinker, I love beer. And
Katie Brinkley 13:00
all of the brands that you work with is are definitely from our conversation brands that have an interest in you know, snowboard skiing comedy in here. So that’s pretty great to be able to work for companies that you have exactly
Roger Cunningham 13:12
what it helps to. Because on the marketing side, I kind of we made I made a conscious decision. When I did switch over and I kind of took control of that career path. I was like I really only want to work with something that I can understand have a passion for and on a daily basis. I can I do want to learn more about it. You know, it’s not that I don’t work for some widgets that I just don’t understand or don’t care to understand. So it helps when it it all comes out and it comes out in the marketing comes out if we make a new video for them or if we’re that’s kind of the decision we made and that’s what we roll with and kind of brings me up to the present somewhat. I one of our clients was mountain frontal meat company. I’m also a huge I mentioned barbecue earlier. I’ve always my dad forte was a butcher for 40 years. My brothers in meat processing like it’s just kind of been our family and it’s just barbecue is life in Texas. And I’m a amateur smoker. I guess I’m smoking ribs as we speak right now seriously, oh my trigger. But yeah, and I met John and the guys out at Mountain primal through former coworker and we did a video project for him. And I actually went out to the ranch with ginger up my team video team and went up, went out there and met the guys and I just absolutely fell in love was the whole organization, the the ranch, how they were doing, how they were raising animals, just everything about it. And not long after we did the video project. They needed someone to come on and take on some digital marketing things. And so we talked about it and I just kind of made the decision. I was like this is really cool. This company is doing everything right in my book as far as like on the marketing side, taking risks, building a brand and has a story and started out just doing their email marketing, and their platform management meaning kind of just handling their website and any platforms that we built on, that came in kind of betting them and then kind of worked, just worked hard and kind of started getting my hands and other things. And earlier, this spring, I was promoted to the digital marketing, director of digital marketing. And now all of the every aspect of the online stuff is all me. So it was a long road to get there from a sales guy to Director digital marketing. But it’s, I don’t know how to say I’m living my best life doing exactly what I love to do on a daily basis. So in my office, when I go out to, you know, obviously, we’re all working from home a lot right now. But when I got to my office out there, I’m on a ranch, I’m looking at this beautiful land and crown mountain in the background is right outside of aspen. But I’m plugging away on the computer, but at the same time, it’s just it’s really cool what we do so but yeah, that’s a long journey to get here. But that’s my story.
Katie Brinkley 16:04
Well, I think that having that background in sales, definitely opens up your eyes to more of the marketing aspects, because especially in digital marketing, all the different marketing that you’re doing while you’re still trying to develop the brand and develop the community and develop the voice, it’s still great. If you have a sales background to know, I need to put out this type of message so that people will click learn more, or click Buy Now,
Roger Cunningham 16:30
when they’re first set percent, it all kind of just ties together the the sales background is you know why people buy, you know, the buying line, you know, you know where to get them. And you understand that the funnel, I guess it really kind of puts the funnel the marketing funnel into perspective, because I can think back and you can, it all kind of ties down to just that buying one and how you have to get them there. I mean, online is a little slower and a little bit of a different process. But it is kind of the same, it’s very similar.
Katie Brinkley 17:00
You know, and I want to talk a little bit about where you started with your current position, you started just with email. And it’s such an important part of marketing, to have a strong email presence, because you’re getting right into people’s inboxes. And these are people that have given you permission to get into their inboxes. Whereas with social media, you’re just kind of putting the message out there hoping you’re getting the right, someone that’s interested, especially if you’re doing but this way, when you’re going directly through email, you have people that have said, yeah, you can get in touch with me talk to us a little bit about having a strong email newsletter, or strong email presence for your company.
Roger Cunningham 17:36
It’s night and day, and I have a man, it’s close to my heart, because I just love it, I see how powerful it is like following guys like Ryan Deiss. And those guys that I’ve learned from, you know, through all these trainings, it, it can make or break a company, it literally can, it can take you to that, or it can take you to that next level. But we started, when I started not primal there was a small bit there, but we really just beefed it up. That’s why they brought me on. And it’s made a world of difference. And it’s really about and it takes a while it’s patience. It’s a game of patience. But it’s also there’s you’ve got to come at it from different ways. And you have your different ways of gathering your emails you have that you have to have. And we can go into strategy if you’d like to. But the the really major strategy? Yeah. So basically, you start out and you have to come at it from different ways, because it’s all about traffic. Because if you’re going to if you’re going to gain these emails, you have to have a very tight funnel, you can’t really you mentioned before the call is that kind of those tips of the trade. Yeah, I’m always thinking about that funnel. And people start out you have your funnel, your awareness, and then your consideration and then and then your conversion. But on the sides of that funnel. When you start out, you have lots of little holes, where people are just flipping out here, flipping out here, flipping out here. And the way I kind of think about it is you’re you know, okay, I’m going to set up my Facebook pixel to track them when they come so I can retarget you’re slapping on some seal right there and you’re covering that hole, then you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna do some smart pop ups on our website on these pages with this offer, okay, I’m gonna slap that or in general up here, maybe you’re just doing a pop up. Just one pop up with an offer. You’re gonna cover a hole right there. So we’ve done basically, we one thing that I did when I came in, as far as email marketing goes is I found all these little holes and I just patched them. It’s like, okay, we’re gonna have first we’re gonna start out with just a pop up. So when they show up to the site, we have to have an offer. So we offer it a couple of different things. And we, you know, we we’ve tried a lot and a lot of it is that it’s trial and error. You know, you could start out with a percentage we’ll give you 10% off of your first order, we’ll give you to join our email, or you can start out with a product like that. You know, maybe we’ll give you a free ground free pack of ground beef, but you always have to have some kind of offer there. And then down further down the line, depending on what kind of company you are, you can also offer like, we have things down the line that we want to do like a cookbook, we want to do online ebook, so that has our main go to right now really has been our discount for our product, because a lot of the people that are coming to the site, of course, everybody wants a little bit of a discount doesn’t take very much to do. So driving that traffic, the first thing they see, and they see it a couple of times I see it on the side. So you gotta make I think shirt first part of the charge is you got to put it out there. And a lot of people see pop ups is annoying and all that. But it’s a necessity. I think if you’re not doing it, you’re really dropping the ball. I mean, allow is very simple, easy out of that pop up, don’t make it annoying and make it set your timers and say you’re strategically. And if you’re going to do, you know allow that right there and allow them to stay on the page as well. Second strategy on that is not just gathering those emails, but we also have run ads for traffic. You know, we’ve run a retargeting ads, Google AdWords, as well as through our Facebook and Instagram, all that stuff. So and the beauty of that is that if you have all of you’re not losing anyone in the mix, so either we’re going to get you as a customer, an email subscriber, or we get back in front of you, or we’re going to get you with an ad a little bit later. But we’re going to stay in front of you. But as far as the email goes, we treat you like gold once we get you. So that has been our key to success. And I think the biggest thing that gathering emails, you can do it a lot of different ways you should do it the right way pop up offers, we have had some branded giveaways, giveaways are, are good, but they come with their cost as well, because they’re the people that are subscribing for certain reasons. But we were able to kind of put all of that together, we run our Google Ads also have an email. So anywhere and everywhere you see it, you can sign up for our email and get either a discounter or so we’ve been able to really leverage that. But also when we get you we treat you like gold Do you have an in doc series that we subscribe to. So we have basically three we call it three days a Christmas, you know, when when you come in and you sign up for us, you’re going to get an email telling you all about us everything about us, we’re going to give you a discount a special discount at the end of your email. But it really indoctrinate you into who we are and what we believe. And it tells you about the company, the second email, and then we tell you exactly what you can expect the second email that you get, and we’ll let you know tomorrow for the next two days, you’re going to get another email. And they’re each going to have their own little gifts. And so the next day we send more videos that kind of hopefully, they watched and shows them a little bit more about the ranch shows them a little bit more about John our founder and shows them more about like our, again, our beliefs on our, our animals and how we treat them and all that good stuff. And then we also offer another discount to different products. So maybe they’re in a pork, maybe they’re their beef, or maybe their merch you know, who knows. And then the last one is more of a short and sweet and it for us marketers out there. What that also does is it kills two birds with one stone is the engagement as far as Gmail goes, it gets you it gets us immediately out of their spam folder. So once they click, and they engage with those emails, because there’s a lot of stuff in there, too, we’re bouncing around to our social media, we have a pretty quickly growing social media following. So we’re bouncing them around in the air and they get rewards for going there as well also is just again, they just really there’s no doubt about it, who we are and what we stand for. And I think people appreciate that. And then we don’t bombard them, we send one email a week it we pepper in sometimes that’s going to be about a promotion. But sometimes it’s just about D Day, it could be about a military, we support our troops, we’re very patriotic. So it could be about what D Day is about what Memorial Day is about. Or it could be just a recipe for working with our meet like a breakfast recipe or something like that. So I think the key is gathering those emails the right way, several different ways diversify the way you do it. But also once you get them treat them like gold, don’t waste the opportunity and just hit them with promotions every single week. And I
Katie Brinkley 24:29
think that you brought up a lot of good points with your strategy here. And that one, you’re you’re building a story. So you’re letting people know about more about the brand more about the founders more about what your company is passionate about letting them kind of have feel a part of the company feel a part of that brand and have loyalty. So you’re building brand loyalty. And then it’s also great because you’re consistent with your emails like oh, well I know. Every Wednesday I get an email. So It might be maybe it’s a discount, I need to order some food, but I have to make sure I open it because it could be that, you know that email with the discount. So right to getting people to open up your emails and be expecting it. And like you said, it could just end up being a story about about D Day. But it could also be that 20% off offer for your loyal newsletter subscribers. And I think that a lot of companies and brands might not even be aware of this, but you can enter in your email list into Facebook ads, and Instagram ads. So you can retarget people already on your email list through a certain ad. So it’s just another way to get in front of people that are already interested in your product.
Roger Cunningham 25:41
Exactly, just stand on it stand in front of them. And another just another piggyback on all that on the email stuff is like that’s the initial but we have, if you look at our whole strategy, it looks like a storyboard from like homeland or something because we really do segment because we also want to stay we want to keep the right information in front of the right people. I think segmentation is super important. Because there’s one thing to have an email plan and then to have an actual strategy. And like if you’re a I was using example, if your exercise company, you have endurance sports, and you have strength, if you’re always shoving endurance sports down the strength people throw, and that’s all the information you get, you’re really missing the boat there. So we have a lot of different strategies to like, as far as you know, some people were just more pork people, some people were more beef people, so segmenting by that, but also, there’s just a ton of and we could talk about this for hours. But there’s like a ton of little things that go along way with email marketing, like we have, thank you emails that are segmented by your first order, your second order and your third or so they’re just different. It’s a different message we have, you know, six month anniversary emails that are just out of nowhere are going to, you know, give you a discount for being a loyal customer. So a lot of different things that go into, into the follow up through, you know, and then we have a review email that we get really good feedback from our review email, like we’re just like, and we’re putting it out there. We’re like, Hey, here’s the link to review us on Google. Here’s your link to reviews on Facebook. But even if you don’t want to do that, just send us a message back. Yeah, and what you think, you know, and we get a lot through real time, right? Yeah. And it’s like, and is it? It’s mostly good, but the bad is just as good and valuable to receive as the good like, if someone has a problem with shipping, most of the time, it’s not our fault, but at the same time, we can address it. And we can, you might not even know. Yeah, it’s it’s exactly, exactly. And so it’s another way, but we have a ton of those emails that are constantly kind of going out. But every time the way I look at it every single time, and whether it’s a shipping notification, or a delivery notification, your that is a chance to be in front of your customer. And then when once your customer, you know if you’re not following up with your customers within a week or so of getting their product. So the time they orders usually the happiest you’re going to have them so and then once they they get the product and right after that is a follow up. Those are the valuable time people really, really appreciate that. So I think setting that all up, and it takes a long time. Hiring a personal email. And if you’re solopreneur that’s really tough. It’s really tough to do but taking the time to do that. And at least getting it on a good automation to where you’re speaking but at the same time to where you’re replying in real time. It’s invaluable and it creates our customer retention shot out the roof after after we implemented all of this stuff.
Katie Brinkley 29:00
And yeah, like you brought up it. It’s a very long process to get all that set up. But once you have those funnels created, it’ll everything is automated for the most part, you know, right? It’s just the if there is something that’s like a one off have I had a bad experience, then that’s where someone from customer service needs to step in and handle it directly. So someone’s not just sitting there and sending out all these emails one by one to people. This is all an automated system. i There’s many out there. I know there’s Ontraport I know there’s MailChimp, InfusionSoft what email software do you find to be the most beneficial?
Roger Cunningham 29:35
I’ve used them all like I really have. I feel like I’ve used it I’ve HubSpot and Infusionsoft and which is cool because they’re all very expensive tools. But once you kind of understand how to use them MailChimp and Constant Contact I think so I’m going to come at this a little bit different if you’re a smaller for the benefit of your listeners for a smaller company that is kind of getting started with their program costs and contact is amazing. It’s really, it’s a really solid program. It’s inexpensive to where you can do most of the things that you want to do there. Now, once you hit a certain level, like where we are, and your strategy is growing, and you’re, it’s a little more complicated, and it’s a serious web of automation. Yeah, all these funnels going everywhere and what you get there, we use clay VO, which I love clay VO, they’re pretty solid with their flows. The analytics are amazing that you can pull from that, you’re able to kind of take the reports that you can pull in really dive into your funnels, because once you have your funnel, like to your point, once you have this funnel set up, all it really is is changing the content and checking the analytics like okay, this open rate is amazing. But this second follow up is just, I mean, it’s dead in the water. It’s usually a content issue. Yeah, usually Joe go back and fix that. But clay vo has been amazing. And it’s it’s pricey. But at the same time, if you learn how to use it and spend the time to use it, as far as for your business, it’s it’ll pay for itself pretty quick. If you’re really dedicated to that email program and you really have the time to do it, I would I would highly recommend I actually have to go back. I did love HubSpot as well. It’s complicated, but it’s pretty cool. But currently, I’m just absolutely in love with Columbia. And they have a huge great support in training all that. So someone if they really are dedicated to the email game, I highly recommend them but just a tear down, I would contact and get the job done just very well.
Katie Brinkley 31:46
Now let’s just go basic for somebody who might just be getting started on their their email campaign. Let’s say they’re like, I only have 20 subscribers. Do I really need to waste my time on emails? I say hands down. Yes, absolutely. Because those 20 can certainly turn into 200 very quickly. Tell us three, write emails that you would get started for those 20 subscribers, when you’re trying to kind of grow your email list and just get started with your email campaigns.
Roger Cunningham 32:14
First of all, if it were those 20 that would do I would 100% do a referral email you’re trying to get something a referral. You create a if you’re an E commerce or whatever you are create some kind of incentive to tell a friend there’s no better marketing than word of mouth marketing. So I would definitely start with that. It depends on where you are with them. Obviously, if they’re brand new subscriber, you have 20 brand new subscribers, you definitely want to indoctrinate them with your company and why? Why you’re different? Why do I care, you incentivize them to open every email, put your offers, at the very end of the email, tell them and it’s written right in our at the bottom, it pays to read to the end of our emails. If it’s new, I would start with some kind of indoctrination series to kind of indoctrinate him. But I would also do definitely a referral email as well to set that up. But in most I know Constant Contact is kind of crack down on the forward, they used to have the forward tool, but I would definitely you can set up really, really easily. Loyalty programs, if you’re using Shopify or Magento, or any of those guys. So I guess to take a step back from there, I would set up a loyalty program that tracks your referrals and put those codes into an email and you’ll double your emails overnight. And then that goes and you keep doing that as well. Loyalty programs refer friend, we have one that’s give $25 get $25 we use smile IO in it, it that works very, very well, too. As far as like gathering more emails from those guys as well stay in front of them, don’t you’re not bothering them, unless you’re giving them useless information. You know, a lot of people are like, Well, I just don’t believe in I don’t want to bother their inbox. Hey, if you don’t somebody is but just make sure your emails have substance, you know, make sure that you’re not value value, value, promotion, value, value value promotion, as well. And depending on and that varies by industry, but you have a lot of things to talk about. Hopefully you’re in you enjoy the industry you’re into. So you can kind of put things out there that are valuable to those people within what you know, like us. We talked about grilling, we talked about different recipes, we talked about, you know, different cuts, why? Where does a brisket come from so things like that for us to make sure you’re adding value and then you earn the right to promote to people and they appreciate that I would so I would definitely focus on that. But to increase it definitely create some kind of incentive or referral incentive. I would also to increase work with if you’re whether you’re a tiny brand or you’re a big brand co branding, a giveaway a just a small giveaway everything Buddy, something like that can definitely go along. And they’re not, I wouldn’t say they’re always the highest value subscriber, but at the same time, if 50% of them, you can retain 50% of them. That’s a huge amount. But but once you get them in and just don’t let them leave, you know, make them want to stay on your email list, you know, make them want to when they get your email, it makes them want to open it. So I think answered your question, but different ways.
Katie Brinkley 35:26
I think that that’s, I think that’s great. The biggest thing people need to remember remember is you don’t want to be that person at the party, who all they do is talk about themselves, and then never asks, well, how are you doing, you want to make sure that exactly, you want to make sure that they’re always part of a conversation, and you’re giving them value, there’s a reason for you to be in their inbox, and they’re going to enjoy either one, they’re going to get something, whether it’s a discount, it’s for Financials financially, or it’s going to be a value for them, because they’re going to learn something. So I think that that’s, that’s something that everybody needs to keep in mind when they are doing email campaigns don’t just flood inboxes constantly trying to sell right, be in their inbox and give them that something that they might not have known. So give them a discount, give them reason that you’re there.
Roger Cunningham 36:15
Yeah. I think a lot of people still have that stigma of email marketing is like, I’m just bothering people. But if I like your party example, I was using the example of like a neighbor, like if I went to my neighbor every day, and I was like, Hey, can I borrow your mower? Hey, can I borrow you have any salt? You know, I’m constantly asking for stuff. He eventually he’s not going to answer his door, you know, they’re not gonna they’re not gonna want to listen to me. But if I’m like, Hey, we made some extra brisket. Or, Hey, I you know, I was mowing my lawn. So I’m going to mow yours. You know, if you’re starting to do those things, it’s the same exact concept, then he’s he Yeah, he’s gonna take my call. He’s gonna take my he’s gonna open the door. So you’re not constantly trying to take something you’re giving. And I think it that’s easier said than done. But at the same time, if you take the time to do it, it pays off so much in the long run, your email marketing will become a core piece of your revenue. So
Katie Brinkley 37:16
well, Roger, I could talk email marketing all day, but make up another another call for this. This has been such a great conversation. Where can we find out more about you in your businesses online?
Roger Cunningham 37:30
Definitely our our website Shinder tree innovations.com Ginger up media.com. Ginger media has kind of wind down a little bit, I focus on Mount Promate. The main one, I want you to go to his mountain primal meet. It’s just mountain primal calm. Check us out on Instagram at Mel at Mountain primal. Check us out on Facebook, LinkedIn or on all the platforms. But go to the website. If you’re interested in what a what our email program looks like. Just join the web, join the email program and take a look you’ll get 10% off and a couple of other goodies I won’t tell you about and unless you sign up history. Exactly. And you’ll learn where that Chuck Roast comes from that you’re putting in the slow cooker.
Katie Brinkley 38:16
Thank you again so much for coming on the show today.
Roger Cunningham 38:19
You bet. Thanks for having me. Anytime. I appreciate it. It’s good to talk shop.
Katie Brinkley 38:23
And if you’re ready to take your social media to the next level for your small business, head over to my website and check out my free video training the three biggest mistakes small businesses make with social media and how to avoid them. Discover how to make your social media marketing stand out from the crowd online. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Rocky Mountain marketing. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can visit my website at www.nextstepsocialcommunications.com or connect with me on LinkedIn. Just look for Katie Brinkley. Let’s keep taking your marketing to new heights.