94 | How ManyChat can help you grow your email list with Shannon Vondy
Grow Your Email List on Autopilot Using ManyChat
WITH SHANNON VONDY
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Learn how to leverage the power of chatbots to free up your time and grow your email list on autopilot. In this episode, Shannon Vondy teaches us how to use ManyChat within our business to create funnels that streamline our marketing efforts and automate parts of customer interaction.
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If you’re anything like me, you value anything that is going to simplify your business. You’re always on the lookout for tools and automations to free up your time and run parts of your business on autopilot.
If you’ve been in the online space for a while, you’ve probably heard about a tool called ManyChat, which leverages the power of chatbots to allow businesses to create funnels that streamline their marketing efforts and automate parts of customer interaction.
ManyChat is a great tool to help you build your email list and drive sales through conversations on Instagram and Facebook, without you having to lift a finger. I’ve wanted to talk about this topic on the podcast for a while, but I wanted to get an expert on here who knows all the ins and outs of the tool and can help you understand how best to use it for your business.
So, I reached out to a friend of mine… you probably know her as the Email Queen, Shannon Vondy. Normally, Shannon talks all things email marketing, but we’re actually going to be discussing an automated funnel that you can set up OUTSIDE of your email software to automate the process of growing your list through social media.
In this episode, Shannon walks us through the ManyChat funnel she’s set up to grow her email list on autopilot, how she’s used ManyChat to drive sales & conversions for her business and the steps you can take to set up your first ManyChat automation for free.
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Episode Transcript
This transcript is AI generated. Please bare in mind that it may not be 100% accurate.
Tish
00:00
Hello and welcome back to the show. I am joined today by email marketing queen, Shannon Vondi, who is here to share all about how she uses many chats to grow her email list. And I'm so excited for this chat. But first, Shannon, I would love to hear the story of how you started your business and what led to your passion surrounding email marketing.
S
Shannon
00:26
Yeah. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk email because it's my favorite subject. So yeah, long story short, I was a wedding photographer for 10 years when 2020 happened and I think we all remember what happened that year.
S
Shannon
00:43
And so in a panic slash almost losing my business, I was like, you know what, I've tried email before It had never really worked well for me. And I thought on a whim, I thought, you know what? I'm just going to send an email and see what happens. And I literally sent an email.
S
Shannon
00:58
And I joke that it saved my business and changed my life because I made $2, 600 from that 1 email. And I thought, oh, this is why everyone keeps talking about email. And I'm like, how come no one's teaching other business owners how to use email? It was literally such a simple email.
S
Shannon
01:16
And I'm like, why is no 1 teaching this? And so I thought, oh, that person needs to be me. So I fell into email that way. And yeah, so I just started teaching other business owners how to use email to make more money in their business.
T
Tish
01:32
Yeah, I think I've seen that you are already a wedding photographer before and you can tell because your photos and brand visuals are gorgeous but I love how you made no but I love how you made that transition. And you're so right. It's like email is 1 of the most effective marketing strategies, if not the most effective marketing strategy.
T
Tish
01:56
And there's just not enough information out there about how to use it effectively. We have so much information about social media. And then when it comes to email, it's like, there's just crickets.
S
Shannon
02:09
Absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, I saw that whole and I thought someone needs to teach everyone how to do this in a fun and easy way. Cause I think a lot of times there are people talking about it, but it's just kind of dry and boring and techie.
S
Shannon
02:21
And so it doesn't seem like something that like is easy. It actually is.
T
Tish
02:26
Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of easy, you have been using a tool called ManyChat to automate part of your marketing and to help you grow your email list. Now, ManyChat has become increasingly popular over the past couple of years, but for those who don't know, can you just describe what ManyChat is?
S
Shannon
02:47
Yeah, so it's a messaging bot that is actually Instagram and and many chat have a what's it called? They work together. So Instagram has approved the platform to be used through Instagram.
S
Shannon
03:03
So essentially when you ever see anybody saying like DM me this word or comment this word and I'll send you a link that's essentially what ManyChat is doing. So it's like when you comment something it will send you a link.
T
Tish
03:15
Yeah so it just makes the whole process really simple. So could you give us a walkthrough of an automation that you have set up in MiniChat?
S
Shannon
03:26
Yeah, so I mean, you can use this really, really simply, which I personally like to use because why make life harder, right? So I essentially have it set up. So there's many, funny, I have many, many chats set up, but 1 of the most popular ones I have set up would be probably just to say like, DM me email list and I will send you my link to get on my email list, right?
S
Shannon
03:48
It could be that simple, or you can even go more complex with these things as far as like you could kind of have it doing conversations. I've seen a few too that do like DM me this word or comment this word. And then when you do, it will ask you a question and then you hit a button saying like, yes, I wanna hear more or you can customize all of this. So it could be whatever you want.
S
Shannon
04:09
And then it will send you through a series of questions to kind of get you to give like your email address so that you join their email list and then you get more information, you know, you're trading your email list for what they're going to share with you.
T
Tish
04:21
So basically you set up a trigger word and when someone comments or DMs you that trigger word, it then sends them the link to go and get your lead magnet or whatever it is that you are offering.
S
Shannon
04:35
Exactly, exactly. And I mean, you could link this to other things too. You could link it to a sales page or something like that.
S
Shannon
04:41
And some people do, like a lot of people absolutely use it that way, but I love using it to grow my email list because it's just such an easy way for people to get excited about it and send it to them that you're not, you know, you could do this in the middle of the night, essentially, right? Like, because it's working for you at all hours of the day.
T
Tish
04:58
Yeah, of course. And are there any points at which your many chat automations run into issues? Like perhaps someone misspells your trigger word or they leave a comment with more than just the trigger word.
T
Tish
05:11
And if so, what do you do in that situation?
S
Shannon
05:15
Yeah, so there are a few issues, right? So autocorrect will sometimes fix words, right? So if you're putting a word in there and they, autocorrect will fix it and then it doesn't work.
S
Shannon
05:25
So yes, that's an issue. Also, if you don't use a clever enough word, Sometimes you can be in a conversation with somebody and it will trigger your many chat, which I've had happen on a few occasions. So what I'll do in those situations, 1, if it's the 1, the latter situation that I've, we've accidentally triggered it in a conversation with somebody. I usually just laugh at it and apologize and move on, right?
S
Shannon
05:53
I don't really make it a big deal. I know some people make it kind of a big deal, but it's tech, right? At the end of the day, why make it a big deal? But if it's 1 of those things that they like comment on your post, right, and they have put the wrong word in, sometimes I'll just either message them on the post.
S
Shannon
06:08
Like, I'll say like, hey, try that 1 more time. What's funny is they have to do it in a clean comment. It can't be in like a thread of comments. Or I'll just DM them what they ask for like manually which isn't ideal especially if you have a huge amount of following but at the end of the day we want to cater to our people right like we don't want to just leave them high and dry.
T
Tish
06:31
Yeah I mean I think people are becoming used to it now. Like AI is taking over and this is such a simple way that business owners are leveraging it to make business simple. And automation is something that we're very used to now.
T
Tish
06:48
And so when those little things happen, it's not so much of a big deal. But I am wondering, do you ever engage personally with people after they've triggered your many chat automation? Or do you just let it be completely automated?
S
Shannon
07:08
Most times, it kind of just depends on the situation. Sometimes if I know the person already or we've had a previous conversation, then yes. If they're brand new, I don't as often as maybe I should.
S
Shannon
07:25
But every now and again, it just kind of depends on the situation. But you could absolutely, once they've sent something like that, set up some sort of system that you are communicating with them more. And I think that would be a great idea because you can get that like no trust factor up a lot faster because they've already communicated with you so you can absolutely build a conversation with somebody and perhaps convert them into a sale
T
Tish
07:49
too. So I'd love to shift gears and talk about some of the results you've experienced using ManyChat since you just mentioned about potentially making a sale. But Firstly, how has ManyChat helped you to grow your email list? Like, how has that helped more than if you were to do everything manually?
S
Shannon
08:11
Yeah, so you can. 1 of my favorite things is, like I said earlier, you can use it any time a day, which is great for people to be able to sign up easily. But the other thing that's really nice, too, is you could set, like if you're 1 of those people who planned your content out quite a bit, Or if you're, yeah, I mean, let's go with that example.
S
Shannon
08:35
If you're somebody who plans your content out, or if maybe you're just doing it a week at a time, like you just know that week you're going to put out content and you have it set up automatically, what's nice is you don't have to think about it. So you could set it on Monday and know all your posts going out. You can really do like fun reels that are going to make people really engaged and they want to get more information from you. And so those can run automatically and you're not sitting there thinking like, how do I grow my email list today?
S
Shannon
09:00
How do I grow my email list today? So it kind of takes away some of that constant needing to think about it, which I think is really valuable. So it's really a fun way to add to growing your list and talking about it more often, too. I think that that's something that a lot of business owners kind of like forget to do is that they're like, oh, my email list isn't growing.
S
Shannon
09:19
And my first question for them is always like, are you talking about it, right? And what's great is many chat can talk about it for you. So I think that it's a really fun way to grow your email list that's a little bit unique to what a lot of people are doing right now.
T
Tish
09:33
Yeah that makes total sense. And would you say that you've seen many conversions on your paid offers by using this?
S
Shannon
09:45
I have seen people use them and I also know a few business owners who have seen really great success with using ManyChat. And the other thing you can actually set up in there is you can also set up like followups too, which I hesitate to say this because it gets kind of complicated, so just be sure that if you start getting into this, you can set it up, but I want you to just be aware that I don't want it. I hate when people get overwhelmed when they try and do things, so keep it super simple if you're not ready, but if you are ready, you can go in and set up things that kind of follow up with people based on if they've clicked the link, if they haven't clicked the link, or if they did sign up.
S
Shannon
10:26
I can't remember if you can set it up if they've actually signed up directly to your email list. So sorry, this is sort of complicated. But if you get a link, you send them a link to sign up to your email list, I don't think it can tell you if they've actually signed up for it. Whereas some of the people that collect many chats, you can ask for their name and their email address and then send them the information straight out.
S
Shannon
10:53
And that way you can tell if they've like, quote unquote, signed up for your list and you could send followups if like they didn't send their email list or things like that. So you can have it do some of that like work for you, if that makes sense.
T
Tish
11:05
So when you say follow up, are you talking about like, someone signs up for this lead magnet potentially, and then maybe a day later, you're following up and asking how they're going with it, or how would you use that?
S
Shannon
11:19
Yeah, you absolutely could do that. You could do that with many chat. I prefer just because I'm an email person, I prefer to do that kind of thing inside my email platform.
S
Shannon
11:30
But there's something to be said for people like communicating more on a DM, right? Like I'm a better communicator on DM than I am in an email inbox, right? Like it's just, I don't know why that is, but it's just easier on some level. So you absolutely could set up the many chat that it sends a follow up saying something like, you know, 24 hours later, you could just say like, Hey, did you get it?
S
Shannon
11:53
And like, I would love to know what you thought. And I think that that would actually be really valuable.
T
Tish
11:57
Yeah, I definitely think it would as well. Have you have you experimented with many other many chat automations like aside from the typical comment this and I'll send you this link? Are there any other unique ways that we could use many chat that most people might not think about?
S
Shannon
12:15
That's a great question. Like I said, I have seen some that will say, I think I just saw 1 the other day that was like, were you interested? Or I think I saw you were interested in this, and you tap a button.
S
Shannon
12:30
And then it says, great, could you share your first name? And so you share your name, and then it lets you change it if you want to, like if you maybe mistyped something or whatever. And then it'll say, OK, could you drop your email address? And I personally prefer to just get the link if it's me as a customer or DMing someone because I just want to be done.
S
Shannon
12:52
You know what I mean? I just want to be like, OK, I signed up for the thing. I don't want to be talking to a robot. But I would imagine when doing this, you could actually build a conversation better with people because they're sharing their information and or I imagine on the back end is with following up, it's a little bit more in depth.
S
Shannon
13:12
So I mean, it's really just depends on what works for you and your business and how you want to present yourself. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer there though, but those are some ways I've seen sign up. I've also seen people do it with using 2 different links in there too. So they'll say like, Hey, you asked for this or like, I've done this with my email address or sorry with my email sign up before too I've said like I'll like send them maybe I'm like put pitching my email club membership right so I'm saying like DM me this word if you want to get information about my email membership and then at the bottom of it I'll put the link but then I'll also add another button that's like if you're not ready to get into my membership you can sign up for my email list and sometimes people will click 1 or the other and just giving them 2 choices is also like depending on your strategy could be a good strategy if that makes sense.
T
Tish
14:03
Yeah, I really love the idea of that 2 choice automation. I think that could work really well. But if there is someone listening to this right now who likes the sound of many chats and wants to set up an automation for themselves, what steps would you advise them to take?
S
Shannon
14:22
So I actually can give this to you. I have a YouTube video that totally free that you can watch for setting up your first automation. And it's actually for at least it used to be, I assume it still is, free to set up your first 1 on ManyChat.
S
Shannon
14:37
I think they give you up to, honestly, they're not very clear on what you get for free, but you can absolutely set up just like 1. So if you just wanna set up your email list, which is totally what I would recommend. You could set up that people can get on your email list and I'll drop that video link for you so you can include it so that they can get it set up. But it's pretty simple to walk through the platform and they have a bunch of like templates inside ManyChat too.
S
Shannon
15:00
So if you're just like overwhelmed by it, you can go in and either use 1 of the templates or just watch my video and follow it step by step.
T
Tish
15:08
Yeah, I will link to that in the show notes. And yeah, I will say that I've tried many chat in the past and it does seem very simple. I was using it for free, so I went in there, they had a template on how to set it up and it was just so easy to do.
T
Tish
15:23
So thank you for sharing that. And yeah, we will link that YouTube tutorial because I feel like that will be very helpful.
S
Shannon
15:31
It's easier to see than try and describe on voice. So I hope that that will work better for most people.
T
Tish
15:37
Definitely. So I have 1 last question for you. I ask all of my guests this and I just love to hear all the different responses. As you know, this podcast is all about how to keep business and marketing simple.
T
Tish
15:49
So I would love to know, aside from many chats, automations, what are you doing to keep your business simple?
S
Shannon
15:58
Oh, love that love. Because I'm all about like simple and ease too. Okay, so honestly, I know this is cliche coming from an email person, but I try and keep that side of my business really simple.
S
Shannon
16:14
So If I'm getting stuck, I think what happens is we get a little stuck with email of thinking that we need this crazy complex funnel before we can start growing our list, or we need this crazy freebie before we can grow our list. Or I hear a lot of people that are like, oh, I'm just going to keep, I'm going to get really consistent with Instagram or whatever platform first. And then I'll start my email list. And I think it's so simple to just set up a way for people to get inside your, or get on your email list.
S
Shannon
16:46
Right. Like literally just opt in page. It's really easy to do And just start talking about having an email list and growing it that way. Again, you could totally use many chat too to like assist you in this, but I think just having a very simple sign up of get on my email list and talking about it all the time is a really great way to grow your list and keep your business really simple, right?
S
Shannon
17:11
Because we're over complicating things all the time when it comes to this. And I used to do the same thing, like, oh, I need this crazy welcome sequence. And then I just thought, what if I just gave them the information in the first email? Like, I don't need to build up this whole PDF.
S
Shannon
17:23
I don't need to do this. Like, what if I just put the information in the email and make it easy for people and easy for you? I think, like I said, I think a lot of times we tend to overthink how complicated it needs to be, and it could really just be super simple as far as like get on my email list and join, and you're good to go.
T
Tish
17:41
Absolutely. You see all these entrepreneurs with these crazy funnels, and I know that for me when I first started my business I thought that I needed all of that but the reality is that you just don't. These people have likely been in business for years, they likely have a team behind them or have outsourced their funnel but it really can be as simple as just sending a few emails and then entering them into your regular newsletter. So thank you for sharing that because I think that's a really important point to make because that can tend to put a lot of people off from starting, thinking they have to do all these different things when they really don't.
S
Shannon
18:22
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's like you could literally just have people come on your list and then just start emailing them weekly. Like you don't need a crazy welcome sequence to get people to be, like that's literally how I started my list and it worked beautifully.
S
Shannon
18:35
So I think yeah I agree I agree totally.
T
Tish
18:39
Yeah and you can build as you go can't you? Like it doesn't have to be done from day 1. Exactly.
T
Tish
18:44
And finally where can everyone go to connect and learn more from you?
S
Shannon
18:51
Yeah, I basically live on Instagram. So you can find me there. I'm at mrs.vondee, V-O-N-D-Y, V as in Victor.
S
Shannon
18:59
And then you can also get on my email list if you'd like to. I think I gave you a little freebie for your people here, whoever's listening, so you can snag that and get on my email list. And I would also feel free to DM me anytime I'd love to connect with you. You can also find me at the email club.co, C-O.
T
Tish
19:18
I will just say, if you connect to Shannon on Instagram, make sure you watch her stories because she has the cutest dogs ever. And they literally get like, whenever I look at your stories, I'm just like, I want 1. They are so cute.
T
Tish
19:31
They're like the best. They are. Thanks. Thank you.
T
Tish
19:35
But I will link everything in the show notes if you want to go and connect. But it has been so great to chat with you, Shannon. Thank you for sharing all of this with
S
Shannon
19:44
us today. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and I hope it's been helpful and I look forward to seeing you on Instagram.
hey, I'm Tish!
I'm a multi-passionate business owner, digital marketing strategist, business mentor & part-time digital nomad ✈️
I'm on a mission to help you create more time, freedom & profit in your business through the implementation of sustainable & scalable business and marketing strategies!
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The Simple Marketing Podcast is for ambitious entrepreneurs who want to build a sustainable & scalable online business. With bite-sized, actionable episodes, you’ll learn how to create more time, freedom & profit in a way that feels good to you.
