[moxiebarbell]

I think this is the right place to post this but let me know if it’s not!

I have a question about growing my email list separate from social media. I’m currently working through the growing your online business module and I’m actively doing a lot of the practices to grow online without much success (I have a weekly educational email newsletter, I have 6 freebies on my website that all filter onto my email list, I’ve offered free webinars, email list sign up on my website, promote freebies/newsletter/webinars via Instagram, etc.) My social media following is really small (<400 on IG) so anytime I promote anything on there, even free resources and webinars, I never get any sign ups. So I’m curious if you have any thoughts about growing your email list (and business in general) off of social media. I have a referral program for clients and I’ve done a lot of networking to build out a network of other practitioners who can refer out to me but it still means that leads are sporadic. I’ve had zero ROI from IG thus far so I would love to grow my email list so I have more warm leads that I can sell to when I’m launching new products. But the primary way to grow the email list is via social media which isn’t super helpful when the lack of engagement on socials is the very reason why I want to grow the email list in the first place.

[Josh]

Hey Carly!

Totally understand where you’re coming from here. The first step would be making sure you’re posting consistently on social media. With the way things are working now, anywhere from 3-5 posts per day could be viewed as optimal frequency. Only about 20% of your following is seeing any one post at a time. So let’s say you’re posting once every day (great place to start), that’s only about 80 post views at a time. As post frequency increases, post quality improves as a direct correlation.

Now once you have been doing that for consistently, it may be time to play with a small budget ad (you could start with $10/day). Pick your favorite freebie and turn that into an ad lead magnet. This is going to deliver your lowest cost per conversion (compared to running ads for a paid service right off the bat). The goal there is to grow your ecosystem.. Bring them into your nurture sequence where you can provide value and then move toward a sale (like we talk about in the modules)!

The bottom line is that it sounds like leads are the first bottleneck of the business. The first step would be making sure you’re posting enough (if 1x per day isn’t getting the job done, work to getting that to 3x per day). Ads would be the next level of that if organic is’t cutting it!

[moxiebarbell]

3-5 grid posts/day?! I have to be honest when I say that feels really insurmountable. I currently post reels (occasionally static posts but I find reels do better) ~4 times/week and I’m in my stories very consistently. I already feel like I spend a ton of time on content creation and even getting 4 done per week is a lot on top of everything else to run the business. Any tips for speeding up content creation? I already repurpose across multiple platforms, batch create content, reuse some old videos/ideas, but it still takes me close to 20-30 min to film, edit, and write the caption for a post. I don’t know how I’m supposed to basically quadruple my output when I’m already pretty much at capacity.

[Josh]

I definitely understand that feels like a lot, but that truly is the game we’re all in. We’re competing for eye balls. Competing for attention in a saturated market. 4 posts per week isn’t going to be enough, especially when you mentioned you aren’t growing. It may feel like reels do better with a reduced posting frequency, but A- they aren’t growing your account as you mentioned. And B- we have to reframe the way you’re looking at it. Let’s say you average 700 views per reel on your current frequency. Then let’s say you work up to 3 posts per day that “only” get 300 views. That’s still 900 total views compared to the one post of 700 views. That compounds over time!

I totally understand the time constraint, which is why batch creating is so important. If you film 10+ videos at once, quickly clip them and put some captions on them (all at the same times), it’s not going to take a drastically greater amount of time than doing 4 individual posts separately throughout the week. The key is to write down your ideas, create the outlines, film them, then get through your post-production.

This is also where AI is a huge positive at this point. There are a ton of different softwares that will clip your longer form videos into 9:16 shorter form that you can repurpose across platforms. For our podcast, we film a 30 minute episode and usually get 10 quality clips (25 total clips to choose from) with Opus Clips. You can upload the video directly, or a YouTube link. So if you have something like a 30 minute podcast once per week, using a tool like that would immediately give you 10 useable clips without any additional work. Then if you come up with an additional 5 posts/reels, you’re at 3 posts per weekday.

I want to re-iterate, I completely understand how overwhelming that feels. But we’re entrepreneurs and that is the cost of free attention. This is not an easy game. We have to remind ourselves of that!

[moxiebarbell]

I hear you; it’s just definitely tough to wrap my head around but I’ll give it a try. Can’t knock it and say it’s impossible until I’ve tested it out. Going from 4/week to 3/day feels like a big jump so I’ll probably probably start with the something>nothing approach so my goal for this upcoming week is 8-10 total grid posts and I’ll build from there. Writing it here to hold myself accountable!

[Josh]

I love that, you’re absolutely going about it the right way!

[moxiebarbell]

Another question so starting a new thread — I’m considering adjusting my pricing structure to follow more of the PIF/Ongoing subscription model you shared in the growing your online business module. I currently have monthly subscriptions that are tied to 6/9/12 month contracts. So while I’m not reselling every month, I am having to resell at the end of the contract term. Curious to hear your thoughts on this!

This structure has been working really well for me; of the 12 clients whose contracts have ended in the last 4 months, all but 1 have renewed. I do like the idea of not having to have the resale conversation with them so I’m planning to shift to a monthly recurring subscription with a 6 month minimum and no “end date” so clients can cancel at any time with a 30 day written notice as well as adding in PIF options for 6/9/12 month contracts.

This feels straight forward enough to implement with new clients but my question is how do you handle pricing changes for existing clients who signed up under a different price and/or pricing structure? Even before changing the structure, I’ve raised my rates since many of my clients first started so when they want to renew I’ve been grandfathering them in at their current rate. Would you increase prices for existing customers who renew? Give them a grace period or a partial rate increase? Shift them to the new pricing structure and just allow them to start a monthly recurring subscription with no minimum since they’ve already been with me at least 6 months (assuming they want to keep the subscription model vs PIF now that it’s an option)? Or keep them on their current pricing structure (monthly subscription with a contract term)?

Much appreciated! Seriously learning so much already from the 3 modules I’ve finished and eager to make some changes to my backend systems!

[moxiebarbell]

And follow up to that… I currently use PayPal as my payment processor (I can create monthly subscriptions or send Invoices for PIF) but I don’t love the UI, lack of customizability, or their customer service. I was thinking about switching over to stripe but that’s another thing that feels like such a pain to switch for existing clients. Would you just wait to move existing clients over until their contracts expire (since everyone on there has a contract end date) or gradually migrate clients over mid subscription? Or is it even worth switching in the first place? Just thought if I’m going to change the payment structure anyway, might as well start with a more malleable payment processor but just don’t know how to manage existing clients.

[Josh]

We also never increase pricing for existing customers as long as they remain active on their current plan. Changing plans would default to latest pricing, as would canceling and coming back.

In regards to moving your payment processor, the path of least resistance would be waiting until terms expire and clients are re-signing/signing new clients to the new payment processor. You certainly can transition active clients, but that tends to be a little messier and may lead to some turnover.

[moxiebarbell]

Thanks for confirming that you don’t change prices for existing clients; helpful to know I’m on the right track there.

That was my thought as well with switching payment processors for existing clients but just wanted to confirm my suspicion.

[Josh]

I like the structure, and we currently have something similar. A couple different ways to go about it. One is to automatically have the PIF contract roll into a month to month subscription after that term is complete. The client would obviously have to be aware that they have to notify you of cancelation if they don’t want to go MTM after the PIF term, but it makes the transition easier if they are thinking about continuing.

Along with that, we also reach out about 2 weeks prior to the PIF term ending to let them know their membership is coming to an end, but that they get priority in regards to staying active. We ask them if they feel the mission with their coach has been completed, or if they need a bit more time. This makes it feel less like a sales pitch and more welcoming like we’re here for you as long as you need it!

[moxiebarbell]

I really like the approach to resigning at the end of PIF; definitely less sales pitchey. I was going over all of my options this weekend and I settled on doing all month to month recurring subscriptions but with options for a 6/9/12 month minimum. So that way all memberships don’t have a hard end date but I can still offer price breaks depending on how long they want to commit for at a minimum. It got very confusing in my sales presentation to have so many different options of subscription and PIF and different terms. The subscription model (sans PIF) has been working well so I landed on just sticking with what I’m doing but removing the hard end date. If anyone wants to do PIF, they ultimately can if they ask and I guess then I’ll just roll them to month to month after the PIF period ends.

[moxiebarbell]

Do you guys reuse emails across different freebies/workflows? I’m building out my email sequences right now for each of my different freebies. I’m customizing the sequence based on the content of the resource but there are some emails that it makes sense to use in multiple workflows. If someone downloads multiple freebies and are therefore in multiple workflows do you worry about them receiving duplicate emails?

[Josh]

Definitely want to condense whenever possible. What you can do is create shorter workflows for a specific freebie to give them the specific info they need, then automatically funnel it into the standard workflow/nurture sequence that you can utilize for all the freebies. At the end of that nurture sequence, they should end up in your main email list.

[moxiebarbell]

Oooh good idea, I didn’t think to have a separate standard nurture sequence and then smaller ones for each freebie specifically to solve that problem — much appreciated!