Episode Summary
In Episode 1 of The Out & About Podcast, we dive into newsletter performance for financial services. Tiffany, our senior director of marketing strategy and Jimmy, our marketing analytics director, break down the metrics that matter, including open rates, click rates, and click maps, and explain why newsletters remain one of the strongest owned channels in financial services marketing. Learn how to connect your data to real business goals, tailor content for clients and prospects, and think of newsletters as “breadcrumbs” guiding your audience through a non-linear journey with your brand.
Key Takeaways:
Newsletters often get a bad rap, but they’re still one of the most powerful tools in a financial advisor’s marketing toolkit. The challenge? Knowing whether yours is actually working.
- Many firms wonder if newsletters are worth the effort, cost, and time it takes to create them.
- Newsletters are one of the few owned marketing channels where you can reach your audience directly. Understanding engagement helps you make data-driven decisions and connect with clients or prospects intentionally.
- A solid open rate in financial services can reach the mid-60% range, which is higher than many advisors expect.
- Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) can artificially inflate open rates, so where possible it's recommended to exclude that from your data.
- Use the same metrics and style of measurement when comparing data across different time periods or platforms. At Out & About, we do that when comparing our own clients' data, which can account for why open rates you see listed online can seem higher than “normal” at times.
- Click maps in platforms like Mailchimp reveal not just how many clicks you get but where your readers are engaging most.
- Newsletters shouldn’t be treated as standalone — they’re “breadcrumbs” leading prospects and clients through a longer, non-linear journey with your brand.
Don’t Miss the ONE Thing You Should Go Do First!
- Listen to the end to hear Jimmy’s “One Thing” recommendation. It’s an essential first step to making data-driven decisions with your newsletter.
Related Links & Episodes
- Email Marketing Insider Tips for Financial Advisors
- Tips for Effective Branding and Website Strategies for Financial Services
- FAQs: When to Engage and How to Navigate Outsourced Marketing in Financial Services
- Using Technology to Capture What Matters in Relationships
Join Us!
- Subscribe to our newsletter for checklists, templates, and exclusive insights from The Out & About Podcast.
Transcript
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:14:09
Jimmy Lim
I think we have to think of newsletters. And all of these channels are almost like breadcrumbs.
00:00:14:11 - 00:00:21:09
Tiffany Silverberg
I think that's the dotted line between the data and what's working.
00:00:21:11 - 00:00:23:14
Jimmy Lim
I have five pieces of content. Which is the one that resonates most with them?
00:00:23:14 - 00:00:26:03
Tiffany Silverberg
Start a newsletter. Do a newsletter.
00:00:26:04 - 00:00:28:18
Jimmy Lim
Yes. Do it.
00:00:28:21 - 00:00:55:19
Tiffany Silverberg
Hi, hello everyone. Welcome to the Out and About podcast, where we break down all things marketing financial services, what's working and what's not working — whether you've been in the marketing seat your whole career, for decades, or you've just put on the marketing hat this year — we’re here to support you by reading you into all the conversations that our team has while making the play calls.
00:00:55:22 - 00:01:05:06
Tiffany Silverberg
Welcome. Wow, episode number one. Today we have with us Jimmy, our marketing analytics director. Welcome, Jimmy.
00:01:05:08 - 00:01:07:17
Jimmy Lim
Thank you.
00:01:07:20 - 00:01:18:14
Tiffany Silverberg
Today we're talking about all things newsletters. In fact, in the next few episodes, we're all things newsletters. We get tons of questions about that. But before we dive in, do you want to introduce yourself?
00:01:18:16 - 00:01:48:29
Jimmy Lim
Yes. Hi, everyone. Episode one — exciting. I'm the marketing analytics director. I look at everything that's data related, how it can help us make better decisions on almost everything, like websites and letters, basically everything we touch, as long as it's data. Excited to be on episode number one and talking to you about newsletters.
00:01:48:29 - 00:01:51:22
Jimmy Lim
Exciting stuff we have to share.
00:01:51:24 - 00:02:10:00
Tiffany Silverberg
Absolutely. So I said the next few episodes would be about newsletters. We get tons of questions, so I'm going to answer them. But today in particular we have Jimmy, so we're going to talk about how to know if your newsletter’s engaging. That's the visual title but also how to know they're working for people, engaging with them. Is it worth your time?
00:02:10:02 - 00:02:30:01
Tiffany Silverberg
Is it worth the effort, the money that goes into it? All that good stuff. So, like I said, episode number one. So we're going to break this down. We're going to start out our episodes with what are we saying yes to this week? We love a positive vibe. Anytime we start a meeting or anything like that.
00:02:30:01 - 00:02:37:00
Tiffany Silverberg
So we're going to just talk through what we are saying yes to, especially when it comes to newsletters.
00:02:37:02 - 00:03:08:06
Jimmy Lim
Of course I'm going to say data. I'm saying yes to data. Data is good. It helps us make decisions with confidence. I think we always kind of have that gut instinct of what we think we should do. And that comes with experience. I think data just helps to give us that validation sometimes, although sometimes it's validation against the gut instinct but still that kind of tension, that push and pull, I think it's really good.
00:03:08:06 - 00:03:11:18
Jimmy Lim
Just definitely saying yes to it. What about you?
00:03:11:20 - 00:03:30:01
Tiffany Silverberg
I'm saying yes to just all things newsletters. They get a bad rap because I think we've had email with us for so long that we're always looking for the next shiny object, the next cool thing. And I think email's just kind of — I don't know if it just gets boring to people.
00:03:30:01 - 00:04:07:03
Tiffany Silverberg
And so it starts to get, is it worth our time? I don't see it working, right? These are always the thing. But owning that list is powerful, right? So social media, all those sorts of platforms, you don't own it. And you can see, well, this is a person who's complaining about having a newsletter and making it align with your brand. And also I have another one — also saying yes to more personal items in newsletters, which we're going to talk more about and contracts but getting so little more personal, a little less automated.
00:04:07:05 - 00:04:29:28
Jimmy Lim
Definitely. Yeah. And I would say definitely yes to just being intentional about newsletters — it is worth your time if you put in the time, right? What do you want to do with your newsletter? What is the purpose? Don't get into it just because everyone has a newsletter, so we must. But why do a newsletter — what does it do, what do you want it to do?
00:04:29:28 - 00:04:48:16
Jimmy Lim
Who's it going out to and then where does it fit on the funnel? Is it kind of more at the top? This is where you get people to notice you. Or is it kind of more the bottom, where you really try to get your prospects to make that leap, that little tiny step toward contacting you?
00:04:48:19 - 00:05:07:11
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah, that's such a good point. So maybe we should take a step back and just talk about what is an email newsletter. And how can we use it? I love what you just said about where does it sit in the funnel. Are we talking to prospects? Are we talking to clients?
00:05:07:11 - 00:05:16:27
Tiffany Silverberg
So maybe we need to kind of take a step back. What is an email newsletter? What can it be doing? So let's define.
00:05:16:29 - 00:05:36:24
Jimmy Lim
Yeah. I can go first I guess. Newsletters are this one marketing channel in which you can say a lot more than you can say on social media, where you’re limited by the latest character count, right? So you need to be really quick to get attention.
00:05:36:24 - 00:06:00:16
Jimmy Lim
With newsletters, you have the attention of the reader who's opening an email, and then you just have a little bit more time and you could pack a little bit more things into it. But then that is also when you have to be just really intentional about what exactly goes into it. Is it to educate? Is it to provide more information?
00:06:00:16 - 00:06:15:13
Jimmy Lim
What is it and how did people get into your newsletter? That's also important. What about your list? Are these all your prospects? Are these all your clients? Do you have your centers of influence?
00:06:15:16 - 00:06:35:29
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah, absolutely. So much to dive into there. You reminded me of something — when I'm talking about email newsletter activity versus social media; they don't necessarily have to be against each other. But you know, if we're talking about them, for social media, you're always beholden to the algorithm.
00:06:35:29 - 00:06:55:02
Tiffany Silverberg
So this is your world. I mean, you can have 1,000 followers and you can post something but those 1,000 followers are not all going to see it. That’s the reality of the algorithm, right? But if you have an email newsletter list of 1,000 people, 1,000 people could open it.
00:06:55:04 - 00:07:13:12
Tiffany Silverberg
There's no technological hindrance to them all seeing it, right? There's no algorithm that's like, just kidding, we're suppressing it to a certain number of people. So I think that's why it's so powerful to really see that.
00:07:13:12 - 00:07:28:01
Jimmy Lim
That is such a great point. MailChimp, MailerLite, Constant Contact — it's not in their benefit to say, nope, not today. I'm just going to show you 200 of the 1,000 people on the newsletter list. That's not how it works.
00:07:28:01 - 00:07:48:19
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah, exactly. And we don't have to get into it, but that's the issue on the social media side. It would be nice if you were paying some money to get that out more on the social media platform first and just maybe put it back up and see what people are engaging with.
00:07:48:21 - 00:08:08:21
Tiffany Silverberg
So speaking of what people engage with, let's talk about newsletters. The reason we're talking about this first is because we get this question every time we work with a client: Should I be sending a newsletter? Is it worth my time? And we get a lot of, I want to call it negativity, but automatic noes?
00:08:08:21 - 00:08:30:08
Tiffany Silverberg
I don't want to send newsletters. They don't work or they're old school or I don't want to bother people. We can set the bother people part aside — we'll talk about that a little bit more about that next meeting.
00:08:30:10 - 00:08:32:23
Tiffany Silverberg
So what would you say to them?
00:08:32:26 - 00:09:06:24
Jimmy Lim
Yeah, that is true. The most frequent kind of feedback we get. But another thing about newsletters, I think part of that is also because it takes time. It takes time, right? It takes time. It takes work. It requires resources. And then kind of going back to what we talked about, if you don't know specifically what you want a newsletter to do — without knowing that, you won't really also know how to know if your newsletter is working.
00:09:06:25 - 00:09:30:24
Jimmy Lim
I want to educate, I want brand awareness, I want whatever. And then if you set that out as an objective, you will be okay based on knowing these are the things I will look at in terms of data to know if my newsletter is working. So I would say the next most frequent question will be how do I know my newsletter works, also known as how do I know how my newsletter is engaging?
00:09:30:24 - 00:09:53:12
Jimmy Lim
I think that is really important to look at, hence the topic of this podcast. And I would start off with the open rate. So important. And that is how we know how many people actually opened our email — like earlier you said if you have 1,000 people on your list.
00:09:53:12 - 00:10:13:02
Jimmy Lim
Assuming your list is pristine — nothing wrong, no typos — 1,000 get successfully sent, right? How many people actually open it? The open rate. That is the first sign of knowing, right? I mean, in order for me to click on something, I have to open it.
00:10:13:04 - 00:10:25:26
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah. So I don't even know if you have this in front of you, but can you give us a general idea of what is a good open rate, at least especially in our world?
00:10:25:28 - 00:10:44:16
Jimmy Lim
Yeah, I would say, if I look at some of the data we have from my email clients and just what I observe, I would say a typical pretty good open rate would be around in the mid-60%.
00:10:44:18 - 00:10:46:24
Tiffany Silverberg
Okay. Higher than I thought.
00:10:46:27 - 00:11:09:22
Jimmy Lim
It's higher than we thought. If you Google you will see all different kinds of benchmarks. It's not that easy to find financial services benchmarks. But if you do find them, it varies. And sometimes it could go a little bit lower.
00:11:09:25 - 00:11:22:23
Jimmy Lim
But yeah, sometimes also just looking at research, looking at data, we also have to know what is the sample size and what goes into the data. But yeah, it sounds a little bit high, but that's what we see.
00:11:22:23 - 00:11:41:14
Tiffany Silverberg
And like you said, it does vary because it depends. When we say financial services it's pretty broad, right? So banks instead of retail type of places, they have I think a little bit higher open rate. That's more on the retail side. Am I making that up?
00:11:41:17 - 00:12:07:07
Jimmy Lim
You're absolutely right, because when you look at financial services, sometimes when you search for data, it will say finance or if you're lucky, financial services. But you really don't know if they include banks or are they really psycho dating it? Because then again, if you think about how they collect the data, collecting fashion, beauty, just big categories, right?
00:12:07:07 - 00:12:26:06
Jimmy Lim
So it’s unlikely they are going to split it. If you look at the fine print, most of them do include banks and want to include banks. I mean, just think of yourself when you receive an email from the bank, you're most likely to open it, right? Because it could be a statement.
00:12:26:07 - 00:12:31:24
Jimmy Lim
It could be something about hey, something's wrong with your account.
00:12:31:26 - 00:12:57:22
Tiffany Silverberg
A lot of our clients are more in the wealth management space. There's others too, but a little smaller than America's First National Bank. So, do you generally see those open rates a little lower in those spaces?
00:12:57:24 - 00:13:23:22
Jimmy Lim
Yeah, I would think if we talk about banks and all that, we also have to keep in mind they have huge lists, probably hundreds of thousands on the list. So once you mix everything in it's likely going to just reach an average, right? But if we look at our clients and the numbers, that 60 sounds really high.
00:13:23:24 - 00:13:46:17
Jimmy Lim
Then again, it's very intentionally kind of curated, that list. So people really opt in. It's not so massive. And as such, you're guaranteed you're kind of more or less guaranteed a certain sense of interest in what you have to say, which kind of then goes back to why is it worth your time?
00:13:46:17 - 00:13:57:04
Jimmy Lim
Because if you rate your list properly, it is worth your time. And people do open it. And they will. That's the first step, right? Getting them to open an email.
00:13:57:07 - 00:14:00:15
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah. The content matters.
00:14:02:19 - 00:14:06:07
Tiffany Silverberg
Calling another podcast. I know you want to talk about some other data points.
00:14:06:09 - 00:14:36:05
Jimmy Lim
Yeah. So like I said, open rates. That is a clear indication of whether your subject line is working. Is it engaging? Are you making people want to open your emails? Before I move on to some other metrics, I do want to mention if you are using MailChimp, it is good to know there is a function where you can exclude this thing called NPE, which is — now I got to look at my notes — the mail privacy protection.
00:14:36:07 - 00:15:01:28
Jimmy Lim
And this is something Apple does. So what it does is, in order to protect your privacy when you receive email, it actually automatically downloads to its own service, which sends a message to MailChimp. It is similar to another person on an Android phone opening an email. It triggers the same response, but MailChimp does know that is something Apple does.
00:15:01:28 - 00:15:07:01
Jimmy Lim
So it would be good to exclude that because it could artificially inflate your open rate.
00:15:08:11 - 00:15:36:02
Jimmy Lim
You know, your decisions are as good as your data, right? So if your data is clean, then that's how it could help you make it better. So that's the one thing I want to mention. But yeah, kind of moving on, once you go past open rate, the next thing I would say is really that key thing about whether your actual content is on the subject or is engaging clickbait.
00:15:36:04 - 00:16:04:21
Jimmy Lim
How is it clickbait? Also, when you look at clickbait, when you look at clicks, you're going to see different columns, you're seeing unique clicks, seeing total clicks. Just real quick. Unique clicks just means you know the number of individuals who actually click it. So if you clicked twice on the link and I clicked one time, the unique clicks would be two because there's just two of us, but the total clicks would be three.
00:16:05:26 - 00:16:30:24
Jimmy Lim
So that's good to look at. And then from that it will actually count your click rate. Also, it's worth some time to just go into the multi-platform use and look at how they define the metric, the clickbait, and how they calculated, because some would calculate based on clicks of emails delivered and some would do it on clicks over emails open.
00:16:30:26 - 00:16:31:08
Tiffany Silverberg
Okay.
00:16:31:14 - 00:16:41:02
Jimmy Lim
Whatever it is that you choose, stay consistent, okay? You don't want to be measuring against one this month and then measuring against another another month.
00:16:41:04 - 00:16:46:20
Tiffany Silverberg
Okay, okay. Anything else that’s important?
00:16:46:22 - 00:17:05:05
Jimmy Lim
While you go to click rates, there's this little fun thing called the click map. Fascinating. One of my favorite things when you go into a click map is to look at click rates. It really does tell you how many people are engaging the content as a whole. Like, I had like 200 clicks this month. I had 100 clicks.
00:17:05:07 - 00:17:25:12
Jimmy Lim
So that gives you like say maybe out of 1,000 people, that gives you an indication of how well the content is resonating or engaging, going back to the podcast title, but you want to know deep within that, which pieces of content are specifically liked, which are the ones that resonate most. That is where you click.
00:17:25:12 - 00:17:45:24
Jimmy Lim
That is helpful. Go into it. It literally will show you, at least on MailChimp, what your email looks like, and then all the clickable items will show next to it, like a little pop up that shows how many people click on it or how many clicks. Be very, very careful here. We're not talking unique clicks. We're talking total clicks.
00:17:45:24 - 00:17:49:24
Jimmy Lim
How many clicks that link garnered.
00:17:49:26 - 00:17:50:22
Tiffany Silverberg
Okay.
00:17:50:24 - 00:18:16:24
Jimmy Lim
So you can look at emails top-down on the site. There will also be a table you can sort by — like give me the most popular and it will just show you which is the most popular thing people click on. And from there you can make hypotheses about, oh, I think it could be the visual, it could be this, this is really newsworthy.
00:18:16:26 - 00:18:24:06
Jimmy Lim
So we hit the jackpot at the right time to pull up reading about it.
00:18:24:09 - 00:18:31:01
Tiffany Silverberg
Okay. Any other data points?
00:18:31:04 - 00:18:40:26
Jimmy Lim
I would say probably when it comes to engagement, these would be the two: open rates and then click rate.
00:18:40:28 - 00:19:05:04
Tiffany Silverberg
Okay. So going all the way back to sort of the purpose of the emails, I want to explore this a little bit because I just think there's so many properties of an email that I think can help us understand these data points and how that relates to whether or not it's a thing, right? Because working probably means more business, right?
00:19:05:04 - 00:19:23:04
Tiffany Silverberg
So, I just want to talk a little bit about these data points and how they relate to it's just going out to clients, so what do we want clients to do? Versus is it a prospect list? What do you want them to do?
00:19:23:04 - 00:19:42:27
Tiffany Silverberg
I think that's the dotted line right between the data and what's working to what's working okay. Stacking up. So you know this podcast for all of you listening is for you in marketing. You probably have someone you have to be accountable to, so that's why we want to support you.
00:19:42:27 - 00:19:50:24
Tiffany Silverberg
And when you say it's working, they want to see that money. So how can we connect those dots?
00:19:50:24 - 00:20:21:06
Jimmy Lim
And I think often it will be really clean if you have the time and resources to say, I have one email newsletter going out to prospects, I have one going out to clients. But also often we know resources are just limited. So we combine them and then we have all of this together.
00:20:21:09 - 00:20:42:08
Jimmy Lim
I would say then go into your content, because the way you structure it will probably be, okay, I'm gonna write about this. This is for my client, and we're going to talk about what is happening in the economy, how it will affect investments and things like that. And then maybe somewhere down the line I will have something about maybe I have just needs that are getting warmer.
00:20:42:08 - 00:21:08:00
Jimmy Lim
And then I want them to know, hey, these are the people you will be dealing with. I want to feature my team, right?. So I will put my team in there. So how would you know what's working? Let's just use the same examples: one on the economy, one on the team, and then let's you pull something else when you go in and you look at the number of clicks, then you would see like, oh, people are clicking — I have 50 clicks on the team.
00:21:08:03 - 00:21:30:06
Jimmy Lim
I think what's really interesting will be, number one, the quantity of clicks versus sales versus how many people open it. You get an indication; you don't really need to go right down to the calculator and get a percentage and you do get a feel.
00:21:30:09 - 00:21:52:08
Jimmy Lim
Another way would be at least within MailChimp, again — not paid by MailChimp but we use MailChimp a lot, right? So I'm really familiar with it. You can actually click into this link that shows you who are the ones clicking on your email on your specific content.
00:21:52:10 - 00:22:11:14
Jimmy Lim
So looking at the team member content; you're like, hey, this is really interesting. You can click into it and look at who are the ones clicking on to it? If it's one of your prospects, that's like, jackpot, right? Maybe it's time to think about if there's somebody you just spoke to recently.
00:22:11:14 - 00:22:15:03
Jimmy Lim
That's a sign, online and something else.
00:22:15:06 - 00:22:20:02
Tiffany Silverberg
Now we're big fans of getting in there and finding out who’s in there.
00:22:20:04 - 00:22:36:14
Tiffany Silverberg
The thing with a newsletter that we love isn't that it's a bit more automated. So we recommend really curating it as you were saying. But it is sort of a mass automation, but then finding out ways to follow up really personal later.
00:22:36:14 - 00:22:37:15
Jimmy Lim
If there are people who are —
00:22:37:17 - 00:22:41:04
Tiffany Silverberg
— engaging with it a lot.
00:22:41:06 - 00:23:10:07
Tiffany Silverberg
I was just going to add too that I think part of connecting those dots is, again, really figuring out sort of what you want people doing. So for clients you want to be probably educating them, helping them understand. You're researching the latest legislation or things like that, helping to build that value in their mind.
00:23:10:07 - 00:23:32:11
Tiffany Silverberg
And we can even talk about that in potentially, that keeping them aware of the team, like you said, we're gonna talk about more about that next week. But yeah, that'll be my takeaway about the team. But then if it's prospects, it's probably you want to be pulling them down the funnel. If you want to stay on top of that, want them on the website.
00:23:32:13 - 00:23:41:28
Tiffany Silverberg
You want them just engaging more with you, with your content, and helping them. Maybe you stay top of mind with them.
00:23:42:01 - 00:24:07:03
Jimmy Lim
And you know that's a great point. I want to say this before I forget. I think we have to look at the newsletter not as an end in itself. I think the end in itself would almost always be the lead becoming the prospect and then contacting us and then becoming a client — that would be the end in itself.
00:24:07:05 - 00:24:23:11
Jimmy Lim
But really all the work that goes into that, it's really a means to an end, right? And also worth spending some time. That's why it's worth spending time to say, all right, what do I have on my plate? I have LinkedIn. I have a newsletter. I have a website.
00:24:23:13 - 00:24:24:13
Tiffany Silverberg
Yes.
00:24:24:16 - 00:24:53:11
Jimmy Lim
How does each one play that role? It's like putting together a play. Everybody has that role and then it tells a story. And then it comes to a conclusion. And the conclusion that we want is really people getting interested in us. So I think we have to think of newsletters and all these channels almost like breadcrumbs leading one to another, and then kind of creating that closed loop and understanding the journey is not linear.
00:24:53:13 - 00:25:12:27
Jimmy Lim
You do not look at one LinkedIn post and go to the website. It's not like that. You kind of do this: You fall off a little bit and then you receive a newsletter. You go back, you click, you go to the website, you fall off a little bit, and then you go, oh, I'm following a LinkedIn page. They send something up.
00:25:12:27 - 00:25:16:10
Jimmy Lim
This is very interesting. And then over time, right?
00:25:16:11 - 00:25:17:07
Tiffany Silverberg
You build trust.
00:25:17:08 - 00:25:18:05
Jimmy Lim
It all adds up. Yeah.
00:25:18:12 - 00:25:30:02
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah. It's a long sales cycle in this field. I love the breadcrumb analogy. And now we need a breadcrumb in a loop, the loop breadcrumb.
00:25:30:10 - 00:25:55:18
Jimmy Lim
Like Hansel and Gretel. Yes, the breadcrumbs leading to the location you want. So I think it's so important to know what each thing, each tool you have, what role it plays and how to just really be that master conductor, right?
00:25:55:23 - 00:26:11:22
Jimmy Lim
Make sure everything, everyone has a role. You just need to make sure they're all playing their role properly. And then you get results. And also, wanting to add we all know in this space the sales cycle is long.
00:26:11:24 - 00:26:12:16
Tiffany Silverberg
Yeah.
00:26:12:18 - 00:26:17:16
Jimmy Lim
So what’s that phrase? It's a marathon, not a sprint.
00:26:17:19 - 00:26:29:00
Tiffany Silverberg
Yes. And that's probably important with the data too. So, keeping an eye on your open rate, your book rate. But it's not all based on that last email.
00:26:29:02 - 00:26:41:12
Jimmy Lim
Yes. I look for trends. And not for flashes where like, ooh, this is really high. And then let's just keep talking about this even though it’s not in the news cycle anymore.
00:26:42:22 - 00:27:06:17
Jimmy Lim
So don't make decisions from newsletter to newsletter. I would say maybe for recommendations look at three. If you send one on a monthly basis look at three of all this stuff to add. The other thing would be frequency. Keep up that frequency. If you're only sending one newsletter a year or every few months, it gets a little bit more challenging.
00:27:06:20 - 00:27:15:12
Jimmy Lim
Frequency helps because then you could see if it's a trend or if it's just isolated.
00:27:15:15 - 00:27:19:00
Tiffany Silverberg
All right, I know where you could go for days.
00:27:19:03 - 00:27:21:16
Jimmy Lim
Or we could talk about this, whatever.
00:27:21:21 - 00:27:33:26
Tiffany Silverberg
So we always want to end each episode with the one thing you should do next. So, Jimmy, what's the one thing?
00:27:33:29 - 00:27:56:20
Jimmy Lim
Hey, everyone should expect this, but the one thing is if you haven't already, look at your data dashboard — MailChimp, MailerLite, Constant Contact. Look at the data dashboard. It can look overwhelming at the beginning. But just take that first look.
00:27:56:22 - 00:28:19:24
Jimmy Lim
Look at what's available in terms of metrics. Understand what each metric means. That is what I would like all of you to do as a baby first step. Let it sit with you. That is the key takeaway. Other things can come later on, but minimally just just go in and take a look.
00:28:19:26 - 00:28:25:23
Tiffany Silverberg
I love it. So our other big takeaway is to start a newsletter soon.
00:28:25:23 - 00:28:32:05
Jimmy Lim
All right, let's do it. Because otherwise you won't have any data to look at. So you need to start first.
00:28:32:08 - 00:28:53:20
Tiffany Silverberg
Thanks for making the time. I love all these analogies. I feel like we could go. I was going to say to ChatGPT but maybe to our design team, let's make these into a plan. All right, everyone, thanks for joining us on our first episode of the Out and About Podcast. We're so excited to get rolling these out a few times a month.
00:28:53:22 - 00:29:14:20
Tiffany Silverberg
You can expect to kind of be able to hop in with our team and hear about what's working, what's not. So make sure you subscribe. And you can also hop over to outandaboutcommunications.com/community and join the newsletter list. Yes, our newsletter.
00:29:14:24 - 00:29:16:15
Jimmy Lim
A newsletter about newsletters.
00:29:16:17 - 00:29:35:02
Tiffany Silverberg
Right. But we're all about building a community of like-minded marketing folks. So, grab that. And what kind of resources are we going to be sending out? Obviously podcast information and those types of links in the show notes and all that kind of stuff.
00:29:35:02 - 00:29:39:26
Jimmy Lim
So we do not keep all the good stuff in the newsletter.
00:29:39:28 - 00:30:03:11
Tiffany Silverberg
That's right. Exactly. So join us and tune in next time. We're going to keep talking about newsletters.