How do you to Get Millions More From Existing Customers? And Secrets to Winning with Direct Mail, Email Marketing, AI and Podcasts in 2024

Kendra Discusses Email, Podcasting, & AI

Eric Eden 0:00

Welcome to today's episode . Our guest today is Kendra . She is a marketing leader with over 15 years of experience . She specializes in email marketing , podcasting and AI . Welcome to the show .

Kendra Corman 0:15

Thanks so much for having me . I'm super excited to be here .

Eric Eden 0:26

We appreciate you making the time . Why don't we start by you sharing a minute or two about your background ? Give us some context of who you are and what you do , beyond what I just shared , before we get into your story ?

Kendra Corman 0:33

Sure , so I have a lot of experience . I started in big corporate I was the Jeep advertising manager , the SRT marketing manager , worked at Chrysler , went off into the B2B insurance wholesale world , which was a little bit crazy and totally different . But one of the things that I saw was how much of an impact somebody that knew and understood marketing could make on a business . And then I got my MBA from Michigan State University and decided to try my hand at doing my own thing . So I started my own business . My former employer was my first client , which was pretty cool , and then I've grown my full service agency , which is age to age consulting from there , and a couple of years ago started a new business , kendracormancom , where I train people to do more effective and efficient marketing for small businesses and nonprofits .

Eric Eden 1:28

Awesome , lots of great stuff in there . So let's jump right in . Tell us a story about some of the marketing you're most proud of , the best marketing that you've done .

Kendra Corman 1:38

So there's so many different things that I'm proud of , because I am a true believer that marketing that has a result , that brings in revenue if that's the goal right is the best marketing out there . So I've won awards , I've done huge campaigns , multi-million dollar TV campaigns . What I'll tell you is that the best advertising or marketing campaign that I ever did was when I was working in wholesale insurance and I had just started and I called all of the managers around the country and I said hey . I said what are your goals ? What are you looking to do ? Who are you looking to reach ?

Kendra Corman 2:21

24 out of the 25 people I talked to said that they wanted more business from existing customers and because they had all the customers they wanted , they actually didn't want more , they just wanted them sending them more business and they weren't getting all the business that they could be getting . So I was like , okay , that's really interesting , how can we keep ourselves top of mind with them ? And the first thing that I did was I looked at what our marketing initiatives were and a lot of them were advertising and trade publications . I'm like that's not going to get you more business from existing customers . We know who they are . We can reach out to them directly through email and direct mail .

Kendra Corman 3:06

And so I created and I worked with an agency at the time for creative , but we created a direct mail campaign that coordinated with everything else that we were hitting people all of the time through email , a couple of the trade publications because we still had some of those that we bought in advance left and through direct mail , and we gained over a million dollars in incremental income and we spent about $4,000 . An incremental income and we spent about $4,000 . Wow , it's crazy , right , but that's what happens when you look at what your goals are and you match your tactics to your goals . We weren't doing that at the beginning . We weren't helping our salespeople on the ground get the results that they wanted , because nobody had asked them . And so once we understood who our target was and that we knew exactly how to reach them and that we didn't have to go anywhere else , it was a no brainer and that was probably one of the best initiatives that we ever did .

Eric Eden 4:22

What was hard about that initiative ?

Kendra Corman 4:26

Convincing people that they needed to spend money on direct mail , because who reads direct mail anymore ? Right , and so that was a really hard sale , but the direct mail is what got us the increase .

Eric Eden 4:41

Because so many people get so much email that the direct mail stood out right yeah 100% , 100% . The other thing I really love about this story is most people focus on acquisition and not customer marketing and expanding with customers that they already landed with and you already have a relationship already landed with and you already have a relationship and the budget allocated to expanding with customers is often nothing compared to 99% of the budget going to acquisition . And it was right there in front of you .

Kendra Corman 5:20

And I didn't know until I asked and I think that's a step that a lot of people forget what are we trying to achieve ? Because , yes , we were doing some really cool ads in the trade publications , but they weren't going to work with anybody that called in , so why were we burying everything there when we knew exactly who we wanted to talk to ? That was just such a cool result . I was super excited .

Eric Eden 5:48

Yeah , it was almost the trade publications more just branding and awareness . Right , it's not even really acquisition like you're saying . That's great , really acquisition , like you're saying , that's great . One of the questions that I had for you , given that your areas of expertise , I wanted to touch on the three areas of email marketing , podcasting and AI just briefly . The first one is around email marketing . Is email marketing dead ? I think a lot of people are talking about , with some of the changes in deliverability with Google and others , that it's really hard . It's really harder than it's ever been right now .

Kendra Corman 6:26

right , yes and no . I want to say thank you , google and Yahoo , for upping the standard for people . Sending email is supposed to be permission based . People are looking forward to getting your emails is supposed to be permission-based . People are looking forward to getting your emails .

Kendra Corman 6:42

I'm adjunct faculty at a local university here in Michigan and when I was , I'm teaching my students integrated marketing communications and I talked to them about email and they're like email can't be that effective because all I do is unsubscribe from it and I'm like okay , first of all , danger of sample of one danger . But there are emails that I get daily . There's emails I get weekly that I open and read because I'm looking forward to what they have in there . I have some that I do save for later , but you have value to share with your audience . They may not look at every email , they may not take action on every email , but them seeing your name in the from is huge . I know so many businesses and agencies that their email list is like 70 to 80% of their revenue . That's where they're getting 70 to 80% of their business . That's insane . It's still the most effective and efficient way to communicate .

Eric Eden 7:49

It scales and is cost effective and you can get an immediate response . There's everything there to love about it , but just to put a fine point on it , I think that non-permission-based email marketing is in a very difficult position right now because of the changes that Google and Yahoo and the others made , and I've been guilty of that in the past

Evolution of Email Marketing Strategies

Eric Eden 8:11

. I've said for companies I work for we send millions of non-permission-based emails because we were making people an offer that we thought was relevant . It wasn't a cardinal sin in our view , but I think even just technically , right now , the deliverability isn't there to make that work is what people are talking about . So do you think that the non-permission-based email marketing is in a difficult spot right now ?

Kendra Corman 8:34

Yeah , it's definitely going away , and I think that's good because I think email inbox is so personal . I told a story about direct mail because direct mail itself is very cool . That mailbox that you have at the end of your street or in your office , with the inbox , the Ed , my postal guy , comes and drops off . It isn't as personal to me . You can send me stuff without my permission there , no problem , right , and I'll look at it , throw it out , do whatever I want to do with it . My email inbox I'm giving you permission . There's value there for me , so I want to have given you permission to get there there .

Kendra Corman 9:12

I think that there are ways to leverage other people's email lists without breaking the non-permission , and that is influencer-type campaigns , leveraging someone that has access to an audience that you're jealous of . Right , you could be an accountant and do cross-promotion with an attorney . There's a lot of different ways that you can do things where the email still comes from someone who gave permission , and I think that that's ultimately really where it's headed . Non-permission-based email marketing , where you're buying and renting lists . It's never been a best practice . It has worked in the past really well , which is why people did it right , and I think all of us are guilty at some point of doing that . But and we Again if you think of the email inbox as that personal way to reach people and you respect that and send value , it's unbelievable the results that you can get .

Eric Eden 10:17

So let me ask you because I think , with opt-in and permission-based email , I think there's a couple big challenges that people run into , challenges that people run into . The first is I think people these days are less likely to opt in because they've had bad experiences where they opted into something and then people email them every day . It's just crazy , non-rational behavior . So I think because of things like that and that's happened to me with retailers I think people are less likely to opt in . It's pretty hard to get people to opt in . What do you advise your clients about how to break through that ?

Kendra Corman 11:01

So a couple of things . One , you want to build trust . I build trust through my podcast . I am consistent on my podcast and that adds value , and a lot of times people want additional value that goes beyond my podcast , and to get that you have to sign up for my email list , right ? But again , you want to prove to them what it is .

Kendra Corman 11:22

I never all my clients you do not have a join my email list sign up . Nobody wants to sign up for your email list . You want to tell them what they're going to get , what's the value you're going to send them . Right , I'm going to send you video tips on once a week or twice a month . They're going to sign up for a cadence and a value that you're going to provide to them . And I think , as long as we're upfront and open and then we stick to it , then we're in a good place and you're building even more trust with people . I get replies to my emails that have nothing to do with the email I sent , with people saying hey , Kendra , I have a question about this and how can you help me achieve this ? I get replies that are not related to the email I'm sending with people that want to work with me , and it's all because I have earned their trust and I've given them a lot of value for nothing Except the ability to reach them in the inbox .

Eric Eden 12:31

So isn't part of the trust , like you just said , giving people a lot of value up front , because if you're not continuing to deliver a lot of value , they'll opt out , or they may even report the email saying oh , I didn't opt into this If you're not ?

Eric Eden 12:45

continuing to provide the consistent value . I think that's one of the traps of you can still be doing permission-based opt-in marketing and if a couple of people , like three or four , click that button because they're maybe confused about what it means when it says report this , then you can start getting blocked . So you can even run into challenges when you're doing the permission-based , if you're not being consistent , if you're not providing a lot of value on an ongoing basis right , Yep , yeah .

Kendra Corman 13:13

Again , it all comes down to value . I find a lot more people now with these Google and Yahoo changes . There's an unsubscribe button at the top , so they're hitting the unsubscribe before they're hitting a spam reporting this , things like that . They're doing what's right because it's not as hard as it used to be . They didn't have to scroll all the way to the bottom and figure it out and then add a note as to why they were unsubscribing and all these other things . Right , google and Yahoo have made it really easy for people to unsubscribe . And you know what , if you want to unsubscribe , I'm hurt and upset for about five minutes , but they weren't going to do business with me anyway , and that's okay . I want them off my list .

Eric Eden 13:55

Makes sense . So you mentioned your podcast . Tell us a little bit about it I know you have about 186 episodes , so you've been pretty consistent and a little bit about why you advocate others should do a podcast .

Kendra Corman 14:08

Yeah , so my podcast is called Imperfect Marketing because marketing is anything but a perfect science and a lot of it's about experimentation . And I love podcasting because in the world of AI which I'm a fan of , because that's one of my big things in the world of AI it allows us to differentiate ourselves , creating authentic and real content that people want to hear about . It allows me to highlight guests like you and like you're highlighting me right now and have people learn from a lot of different voices , but also learn from my experience . So I've got a mix of shows that are just me which are less than 15 minutes . I have interview episodes and a lot of times , if there's resources that we talk about , we link them in the show notes so that you're able to go ahead and take action right away .

Marketing Lessons and AI Strategies

Kendra Corman 15:00

One of the questions I always ask all my guests is the show is called Imperfect Marketing for a reason Marketing is anything but a perfect science . What's your biggest marketing lesson learned ? And there's just so much value you can get out of learning from others , learning from marketers who have been there , done that , have the t-shirt and messed up in one of 800 million different ways that we could have . So it's a lot of fun and it adds value to people that are looking to grow their marketing . As they go , it's evolved over time and now I've started to really just focus on productivity , specifically with AI , podcasting and email marketing , because I feel those are the biggest and easiest ways to make a splash with your marketing .

Eric Eden 15:47

So let me turn it around on you and ask you what is the biggest thing you've learned from doing so many podcast episodes over the last couple of years ?

Kendra Corman 15:56

Number one do not sign up for more than you can handle , and that's because you have to be consistent and consistency is key .

Kendra Corman 16:04

But what defines consistency is really up to you , and I defined consistency as I started off with once a week episodes and then upped it to twice a week because I felt like people weren't getting to hear my expertise enough in the interview episodes .

Kendra Corman 16:21

So I started adding a solo show in on Tuesdays , and so Tuesdays and Thursdays , I released my episodes . That can get to be a little bit of a pain in the butt when you're trying to keep up with everything else , and so Tuesdays and Thursdays , I release my episodes . That can get to be a little bit of a pain in the butt when you're trying to keep up with everything else . And so , while it does streamline my marketing and AI saves me over three hours per podcast episode and it saves me from having to think up a bunch of social media content , which is all great and all good , yeah , don't sign up for more than you can handle . The average podcast releases less than once a week , so you can release every other week . Start small and then exciting new area for a lot of business leaders and marketers .

Eric Eden 17:22

What are you helping clients on with AI ? That's been really successful . What are you promoting to clients that they should be doing with AI today ?

Kendra Corman 17:32

So a lot of my clients have small marketing teams , and so they need to brainstorm . They need to be creating first drafts . I work with some nonprofits that write grants . When you're writing a grant , measurement is one of the most important things . Ai can come up with way better ways to measure the impact of some of these programs that people are putting together than anybody else . It is an intern with unlimited hours . That's the way you have to think about it . It is amazing how you can get a consistent voice . You can get that first draft , that second draft , you can get edits . If there's an area that you don't have expertise in , you can have it . Review websites for SEO . Every client is different in what I help them do , but it all comes down to learning it as a skill and getting in early because it is going to be a required skill .

Eric Eden 18:27

There's so many favorite things that I have about using AI .

Eric Eden 18:30

I think it's made me 60 , 70% more productive in all the marketing I do on a daily basis and the team that I work with . It's not without its challenges , like any other area of marketing imperfect , like you have said , but there are some really fun things you can do . One of my favorite things is to have it combine things that wouldn't normally be put together for a humorous result , because you don't want your marketing to be boring , right ? So I've had to do things like I told ChatGPT to rewrite my LinkedIn profile in the style of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey , and the result was pretty epic . And you can do things like have it do a rap song in 1990s rap style about a particular topic is like another example . And so I think combining different things since it has so much knowledge , like it's absorbed so many books in the world that it just it knows about so many things that if you can direct it the right way possible to combine things , you can get some really amazing results that you could never have gotten otherwise , right ?

Kendra Corman 19:46

and some other fun voices to play is tony stark , because that's always fun . Barbie valley girls all . All of it works right , so you can have it right for a fifth grader Again . There's just so much power in AI and as communicators and marketers and business leaders who are strong at communications , you have an edge . Use it .

Eric Eden 20:13

Absolutely so . Thank you very much for being with us today . I encourage everyone to check out Kendra's podcast . I will link to it in the show notes so you can easily get there . I encourage everyone to share this episode with your friends , and thank you so much for being with us today , kendra .