54: Staying Organized with Email Tagging Systems with Magan Ward

Magan Ward

Are you doing the bare minimum with your email marketing? Maybe you see all the features and automations, but you don’t know how they can help or hurt your email marketing game. In this episode, Magan Ward is spilling the tea on how to use segmenting and tagging to target your subscribers and create a more engaging experience for them. If that isn’t enough to peak your interest, just stick around to hear her Gilmore Girl references.

The Systems and Workflow Magic Podcast is brought to you by Dolly DeLong Education. This podcast is for creative business owners who want to learn tangible steps to automate their business through workflows, systems, tools, and strategies to go from scattered to streamlined with purpose because even muggles can become automated wizards.

Meet Magan Ward

Magan Ward has been an entrepreneur since she charged $0.25 for a single cracker with spreadable cheese from her lunch box at the Kindergarten lunch table. She is an educator (with a strong southern accent) who knows 150% what the struggle is when creating an email list, and the opt-in, and the welcome sequence, and the millions of other details that we handle while doing all the things as we run this digital biz.

Magan took her email list that was suffering, and grew it by 78% and she helps others do the same.

Want To Learn How To Incorporate Systems In Your Business? 

Are you ready to automate the backend of your business with systems and workflows…but you have no earthly idea where to begin? Well, the Systems and Workflow Magic Bundle is coming out again in February of 2023 and this time the theme of the bundle = is The Systems and Workflows of All the parts of a Funnel! Doesn’t that sound like FUN(nel)? 

To get on the waitlist for the Systems and Workflow Magic 2.0 Funnel Bundle head on over here or go to: https://systemsandworkflowmagic.com/

Review the Show Notes

Kicking off a series of contributors (0:42)

Using a tagging system in your overall funnel strategy (2:30)

What can go wrong if tagging isn’t used properly (5:43)

Tagging and segmenting with different email providers (9:13)

Monitoring conversions with tags (16:01)

What to do when your welcome sequence is complete (18:49)

LINKS MENTIONED

The Systems and Workflow Magic 2.0 Funnel Bundle https://systemsandworkflowmagic.com/

Freebie: Automation, Sequence and Tagging Workshop: www.maganward.com/taggingworkshop

Course: Tailor-made Tagging https://www.maganward.com/tailormadetagging

CONNECT WITH MAGAN 

instagram.com/themaganward

maganward.com

CONNECT WITH DOLLY 

instagram.com/dollydelongeducation

facebook.com/DollyDeLongEducation

pinterest.com/dollydelong

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REVIEW THE TRANSCRIPT:

Dolly Delong
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the systems and workflow magic podcast. I am your host Dolly, and this is episode 54. And today, we are kicking off a series where I am going to be introducing you to several of the contributors of the systems and workflow magic funnel bundles. So the systems and workflow magic 2.0 bundle coming out in February of 2023. And my first guest is a fan favorite of this podcast, meaning a lot of people love her. She’s been on this podcast several times. And I am so excited to welcome back Magan Ward, welcome Magan,

Magan Ward
thank you, Dolly, I’m so happy to be here. I just can’t believe I’m here for the third time, I feel like I need a crown or a special jacket or something to

Dolly Delong
sport. I’m so so excited. You’re here. And thank you so much again for not only agreeing to come back on the podcast but agreeing to be a contributor again this year. And you all are in for a treat today, because, as usual, Magan is going to be talking about the topic of email marketing. And today she’s going to be sharing how to stay organized with the email tagging system. So something that’s so specific, but that will help our email marketing workflows and email marketing organization in such amazing ways. Yeah,

Magan Ward

so as dolly shared, my name is Magan Ward. I’m an email marketing strategist. And I currently work one on one with podcasters to grow their email list and podcast alongside one another. But I also create educational content and digital products for all entrepreneurs as it relates to email marketing, of course.

Dolly Delong
And now also in the past, Magan, I know you’ve talked with us to the audience on prior episodes about lead magnets about landing pages, but your knowledge and expertise go deeper into email strategy marketing, and you do a lot of work helping others set up tagging systems for their overall strategy. So can you tell us what is it about a tagging system that is important to our overall marketing and our overall funnel strategies as creative business owners? Yes, so

Magan Ward
it is something that a lot and I mean, a lot of people in the online business space are just not putting effort and stock into I keep my own tagging systems quite simple. But it does help me know like where my traffic and subscribers are coming from, it helps me gauge how successful an event was. And if it would be worth my time, and worth my while to participate with an event organizer in the future. A really quick example is my episode with you, Dolly that we did back in the spring on landing pages. That episode gained me over 70 subscribers within the first couple of days of that episode going live just from the lead magnet that are offered. And so obviously though, I would always come to hang out with you on your podcast because I consider you a friend dolly in this business world. I do have definite proof that it’s also worth my while because I have a tag that tracks people coming into my list from that particular episode. And I still see people trickle in from time to time, even months later.

Dolly Delong
I love that so much. And the great thing about a podcast, as you know is like it’s going to be living it’s gonna be evergreen. So hopefully you’re going to be having people trickle in through the next several years. I know for sure because you have amazing products and kind of like going back to that statement you made. Magan, I kind of put you on the spot, sorry, but I completely agree with you. A lot of business owners do not take advantage of really strategizing in segmenting their emails or tagging their emails and that’s something that I have struggled with in the past, and I’m trying to get better at strategizing for my own email list marketing growth. And so I’m really again I’m so excited you’re talking about it this topic with us today.

Magan Ward
Yeah, yeah, I’m so excited. Now. I just got an email this morning. And I happened the other day. And I thought it was a fluke. It’s not her tags are not set up, right? And I won’t say who it is y’all might not even know who it is. She is a bigger name in the industry. It’s not like an Amy Porterfield at all. But I get two emails from her back to back. And this is the second time she’s in launch mode. And it’s like, I’m under two different tags. But she’s not excluding the other one from an email. I’ll dive into more of the specifics of why that’s happening. But it’s just, it happens all the time. And this is why it’s so important. There’s no way I should be getting two emails from her at 7:30 am. And then at 7:31 am.

Dolly Delong
Yeah, so I guess that leads me to the question, what are the things that can happen or go wrong? If someone doesn’t have a tagging system in place? That is a great example.

Magan Ward
Yes, yeah. So piggybacking off of that, I’ve seen lots of whoopsie daisies over the years, and I’m not exempt, I’m sure I’m gonna make a mistake from time to time as well. But I have been on email with people who claim that they know what they’re doing or seem to be one of those, quote, bigger names in our industry. I even reached out to one person who claimed I was in a certain workflow in flodesk. And it was clearly in two workflows receiving multiple emails from this person daily for a while. And I mean, for me, I have inbox anxiety. So that situation was intense, and I had to create a rule for all her emails to go elsewhere. So I didn’t see them every single day, I still needed them because we were collaborating on an event. So I would just go every few days and check and see what she had sent and see which one of those actually pertained to me. But another example was to think about like if you’ve ever signed up for a course, that maybe you purchased it last season or last year, but you’re still getting emails about it during their current launch if you didn’t purchase it in the past. And there are multiple things that can go wrong with that, right? One of those things is the course creator getting themselves into a possible ethics issue, or just plain old customer service issues and having to answer multiple questions about bonuses that are available this round that was not available, the last launch, or maybe even a price drop that wasn’t available to you. I heard of a nightmare situation. I promise this episode will not be all gloom and doom. But I did hear and

Dolly Delong
I’m like, Oh my gosh, things not.

Magan Ward
Right. This is the episode of things not to do. But yeah, earlier this year, there was a group program. And they were not keeping their brand new students that were signing up that week from receiving the remaining launch emails. And when their program wasn’t filling up as fast as they wanted it to, they dropped the price in an effort to fill their seats, but only 24 hours before they dropped that price. Other people had just paid hundreds more for the same program. So you can imagine that icky sticky situation we all you know, want to avoid. So that dolly is proof. We don’t just need to have a tagging system, we need to be using that tagging system, and just making sure that certain groups of people are excluded from certain email campaigns and launch emails. And you know, as I said, we’re not immune to things happening sometimes. But efforts toward putting the system in place can help us avoid a lot of potential issues.

Dolly Delong
Oh, Magan. So how can someone get started with tagging? If they’re not sure how to use it or if they haven’t done much with it? Or they know they have time but they aren’t organized at all. And they know they need to get it all fixed up. Like, I’m guilty of this, like I was sharing with you earlier. This is something that I didn’t know I needed to do until like even last year. And so this past quarter, last two quarters I’ve been in flow desk, I think they’re tagging is called segmenting. I could be. I think you’re right. Yeah. So I’ve been trying to segment my list according to like, the downloads that they’ve downloaded or what they’ve purchased. And so I have like one person with several tags or several segments. So I’m just now wrapping my mind around it. So yeah, how can someone get started?

Magan Ward
Well, I’m gonna backtrack just a tiny bit before I dive into that, because like you mentioned, flodesk calls them segments. I use ConvertKit. We call them tags, but then we also have segments and that’s like an overarching so anybody that’s a ConvertKit user. The segment is overarching to the tags, you can have a group of tags. For those that don’t know, I do have a photography business on the side as well. So all of those photography email subscribers are under one main segment. So if I want to email every photographer on the list, I can do that by just clicking a segment and then it’ll email all those tags, but then places like mailerlite, I believe we call them groups. I used to use mailer light a few years ago, and I was trying to go back and like remind myself so everyone, just knows groups. tag’s segments, they may be called something different in whatever email marketing provider that you’re using. But this all pertains to the same conversation. If you don’t have your pencil out, go get your pencil. If you’re driving, obviously, don’t go get your pencil just come back and listen and take notes after you listen through the first time. But what I want you to do is you have to decide on a plan and a naming convention that will work best for you and your business. Think about how you want to be able to go in take a quick look and see the journey of the subscriber, you want to see how they came to your list of purchases that they have made and specific content that maybe they have clicked to go consume, so on and so forth. I have a very fun example that I came up with just for this episode. And so this is for all my fellow Gilmore Girl fans out there. We’re going to use Laura lives Dragonfly Inn so it’s gonna be a fun one. So let’s pretend that Laura Ally’s lead magnet or opt-in to her email list for the N is a coupon code for booking that gives a percentage off for a weekend package at the Dragonfly. And her welcome sequence is going to be a series of emails to those subscribers that talks all about the charm of Stars Hollow and all the fun events and festivals that they have around town during their stay. And when her sequence starts, she could have her tag title be something along the lines of weekend coupon underscore new. Now, in this case, the word new and aw at the end of that tag signifies that they’re currently receiving the welcome sequence. Then when that sequence ends, I’m going to have her remove that tag and replace it with one that says weekend coupon underscore history. The word history added to this tag now shows they came to her list to grab that weekend coupon opt-in. And now they have finished the welcome sequence. Now to take it a little bit of step further. This is how she can choose what tags to include or exclude from her weekly dragonfly in updates that she’s sending out. So she’s going to exclude people that have the tag weekend coupon new so that they don’t receive weekly emails during the duration of that welcome sequence and it’s just going to avoid them from receiving multiple emails from Laura Ally.

Dolly Delong
If you are listening to this episode live, I have some time-sensitive news to share with you today. After listening to this week’s episode, I really want you to head on over to the show notes and get on the waitlist for the systems and workflow magic bundle 2.0 funnel edition today. Yes, you heard me the popular bundle is back but in 2.0 form. So if you are ready to sprinkle in some systems and workflow magic of funnel building into your business in 2023. Get ready my friend coming February 6 through February 10 of 2023 You are going to have access to over 30 plus experts who are going to be contributing different funnel-related resources to help you grow your own top-of-the-funnel, middle-of-the-funnel, bottom-of-the funnel and beyond the funnel strategies for 2023. This bundle includes resources from experts such as Helen Young, Ashlyn Carter, Linda Sidhu, Krista Miller, and Kate Doster, just to name a few. And so many more amazing experts and industry leaders. You don’t want to miss out on the systems and workflow magic bundle 2.0 funnel edition. So head on over to systems and workflow magic.com to get on the waitlist or head on over to the show notes. Either way is 2023. The year you learn more about funnels and how to apply them to your own business. I certainly hope so. And as always stay streamlined and strategic with your workflows. You amazing muggle, you. I’ll see you at the funnel bundle. Well, I really liked this example. And I was just thinking that she should also as a joke put Luke in all the emails to receive all the emails just to Oh, absolutely. He should get every one of them. I love that you’ve made a Gilmore Girls reference. I just love Gilmore Girls on so many levels. That was a great, great reference by the way. Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that so much. So I may

Magan Ward
or may not have been watching Gilmore Girls, it’s like a staple. It’s always on in the background when I’m doing work. So that may have inspired this example.

Dolly Delong
I bet that there are sons that will Watch Gilmore Girls with their moms but like, that’s definitely not going to be my son my son’s very into like, I don’t know, like people beat each other up like, you know, like, yeah, very stereotypical boy things. But I was like secretly hoping I know we’re getting off track, but I promise we’ll come back on but Gilmore Girls just made me think when I found out I was pregnant the second time I was like, oh, maybe able to have a girl and we can like, watch Gilmore Girls together and we could like, we could do all the fun stuff. We could go to Stars Hollow like we can do all that fun stuff. And so when I found out, I was like, yeah, that’s not gonna happen.

Magan Ward
No, you can come to watch with me and my daughter, cuz she’s getting toward the age now that we’re going to start introducing or I’m going to start introducing her to Gilmore Girls, perhaps to my husband’s dismay, but you can come to watch with us.

Dolly Delong
I will I’ll just show up and you’ll be like, random woman. Oh, I love it. Okay, so kind of going back to that. Let’s talk about conversions. Isn’t there a way to monitor conversions with your tags as well?

Magan Ward
Yeah, you better believe it. So similar to how I had your podcast listeners from the prior episode be tagged a certain way. So I could monitor how many people signed up for the lead magnet that was shared on your show. Let’s stick with the Gilmore Girls, we might as well this is the Gilmore Girls episode, everybody. If we stick with that example, just to keep it all fun, Laura’s welcome sequence, of course, is going to be encouraging and inviting subscribers to book a weekend package at the Dragonfly. And if she has her integration setup, which she’s in this scenario, she’s working with me and we’re going to have it set up right, it’s going to connect your email marketing provider with her booking system. And then she can follow actions taken by that subscriber to know if they booked during or after that welcome sequence to monitor if that welcome sequence is converting, and then that person’s tag can change again to something like weekend coupon underscore booked. So then she can see that they opted in with the weekend package coupon and then follow through and purchase the weekend package to stay at the end. And then she can go and look at that tab to see how many people are subscribed to that specific tag that shows that they have booked and the original way that they came into the list, right, because it has the weekend coupon naming convention.

Dolly Delong
Wow, that was a lot. That was a mouthful. And that was that just made me think like, do you teach anything? Do you have like a specific masterclass? Or a course or a mini course about this? Magan?

Magan Ward
I do. I do have a little course. It’s called tailor-made tagging. It’s available all the time to anybody. It is only $47. But if you just want to kind of dip your toes in a little more into tagging systems, and a little bit more advanced automations Do you have a free workshop that you can just go watch and grab it’s Meghan ward.com forward slash tagging workshop. And you better believe that URL, and tags will only be associated with this podcast episode. So uh, no, Dolly will have it in the show notes. And then that way I can monitor how many people went and snagged up that training. Because I mean, of course, I am.

Dolly Delong
I love that so much. I have a question. I know, I’m kind of going to take you again. I love asking questions off the riff. Sorry. But for your Titan workshop, do you give examples, not just to ConvertKit? But do you give flodesk examples? Or do you give mailerlite examples?

Magan Ward
That one is I’m reworking it a little bit at the time we’re recording, it’s very specific to ConvertKit. And it walks you through me setting up automation but I’m going to add in some other things of what this would look like inside of other providers just so it kind of meets everybody where they’re at with whatever that they’re using.

Dolly Delong
Gotcha. Can I ask you a question again? Like, yeah, author, okay, this is gonna be like a mini like, you’re going to be my mastermind leader of this or whatever my training this. Okay, so let’s say I created a freebie a lead magnet, specifically about okay, I don’t know, I can’t even think of an example. Let’s say Dubsado. Create a lead magnet about Dubsado, and then I want, sometimes like my overall goal is to get everybody in that what you were saying the overarching segment of systems and workflow group like because it’s systems and workflow automation, but as far as tagging goes, should I be tagging them as initially as dubsado freebie, and then when they go through the welcome sequence, at the end when they go into right before they go into that overall group? Should I attack them as finished?

Magan Ward
I would do Deb Sato dubsado. And then I always use the underscore. You don’t have to use an underscore. That’s just how my brain works, but you could do dubsado new, and in flodesk, can you remove a tag and add a tag?

Dolly Delong
Let’s see. I don’t know. I wonder, I need to look into that. Because like, again, the tags are segments. Actually, well, I’m wondering if you can move them to a new segment.

Magan Ward
So yeah, you so say you at the end of the welcome sequence, they move from the dubsado news segment, and to dubsado, free dubsado finished the segment, maybe. And that’s how you can see, okay, here’s how many people are currently going through that welcome sequence because they grabbed that lead magnet. And then now here’s how many people have already finished it. And they are now ready to get you to know, my weekly emails or my launch emails or whatever it is you have going on.

Dolly Delong
That’s very helpful. And you guys I’m learning alongside you all, and like, I’m learning so much about tagging right now like, Oh, my goodness, I have a lot of work to do when it comes to tagging. So okay, so you mentioned you have the tailor-made tagging workshop for $47. And all in you guys. I will link that in the show notes. And I also mentioned you have an amazing freebie as well not is it in addition to the freebie is the tagging workshop as well correct?

Magan Ward
The freebies tagging workshop, and then I will have it on that page somewhere. So if you want to go all in and get the tailor-made tagging mini course then you can from right there.

Dolly Delong
Awesome, you guys take advantage of that this will all be in the show notes. And then again, like I want to tie this back into the systems and workflow magic funnel bundle 2.0 edition, Magan is going to be one of the contributors. And so if you want to continue to learn from her, especially about the power of email marketing and how to continue to develop systems in 2023 and beyond, please join the waitlist at WWW dot systems and workflow magic.com Or go to the show notes and click on the waitlist that way. And guess what you will be tagged as waitlist for systems workflow magic bundle funnel 2.0. I will be working on that. So Magan will like hold me accountable for that. And I want to remind you that if you join the waitlist, you will be invited to an exclusive sneak peek. I’m planning on doing a pop-up private podcast. And so Magan is going to be one of the speakers on that puppet podcast by the way. Magan is the creator of the puppet podcast like the trademark and so I like learning that system from her. So she will be one of the speakers for that private event. And so it’s going to be like four days leading up to the funnel bundle. And so if you are wanting to learn even more about how email marketing fits into, like where it fits in a funnel-like Magan is gonna be one of the experts that talking about some incredible stuff on that pop-up podcast. So anyways, Magan, how can someone connect with you and work with you? Yeah,

Magan Ward

I’m always on Instagram at the Magan ward. And you can also find me on LinkedIn or just at Meghan ward.com.

Dolly Delong
Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here for the third time on the podcast. It’s always an honor to have you here.

Magan Ward

Thank you so much for having me again. It is an honor to be here Dolly, thank you.

Dolly Delong
And as always, I hope you continue to find the magic enjoy and systems strategic workflows and automations for your business and life. And if you enjoyed this episode, please DM me on Instagram at dolly DeLong education and let me know what you learned. And please don’t forget to leave a review if you enjoy this podcast. And I hope you have a wonderful streamlined day. Thank you so much for listening to the systems and workflow magic podcast. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at dolly DeLonge photography.com forward slash podcast. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast player. Be sure to screenshot this episode, share it with your stories, and tag me @DollyDeLongEducation over on Instagram. Until next time, go make some strategic workflow magic!