What’s the Future of Email Marketing for Law Firms? with MV Braverman

MV Braverman (00:01.193)
Hi, I’m MV Braverman, founder of Inbox Welcome. And my agency’s goal is to take your emails from sent to seen. So I help with the technical side of email, especially, which a lot of people struggle with the automations, all of the technical infrastructure stuff. And I do also think about the human side. I think that’s kind of my special team. Yeah, I’m really excited to be here. I also tell people I like to untangle tech spaghetti, which makes them

Karin Conroy (00:25.282)
Thank you so much.

MV Braverman (00:31.197)
wildly happy.

Karin Conroy (00:32.652)
love that. I love the visual of that. And thank you so much, MV, for being here. This is going to be exciting because I also love the combination of the tech side of things, but also making sure that we, I was going to say have a human overlay, but I feel like the tech is more the overlay and the human part should be the first kind of more foundational thought in terms of all of this marketing stuff you’re doing, not just your email marketing, but everything.

And then if you need, if you want to or need to add a tech overlay to expedite things, make things go faster and make things happen, especially in the, in in email, when it comes to email, it really, you need some tech there to make that happen. Then yes, of course add that in, but don’t forget that human side of things. And that’s where things really go wrong. So the title for today’s show is what is the future of email marketing for law firms?

So we’re gonna talk a little bit about the tech side, the things that are kind of up and coming, things that have been changing when it comes to email, things that you may not be aware of that could be hurting your email. So let’s first start with, what should we start with? Let’s start with some of the problems that people may not even be aware of when it comes to what’s going on with email marketing.

MV Braverman (01:57.643)
Well, I think many of us are at least peripherally aware that our inboxes are overflowing and there’s a ton of spam out there. Now that’s actually gotten better over the years, but believe it or not, behind the scenes, it’s gotten a lot worse, especially since advent of chat GBT. Industry reports are just basically spam, scams are just skyrocketing at almost an exponential pace. And so, you know,

Karin Conroy (02:09.942)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (02:19.277)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (02:26.923)
Yahoo mailbox providers have had to do a lot behind the scenes, especially Google, because a lot of spam, about 93 % of spam originates with Gmail, unfortunately. The ease is also taken advantage of, again, in the realm of this is why we can’t have nice things. Google and Yahoo, not last October anymore, October 20, 23, Google and Yahoo made a big announcement that was…

Karin Conroy (02:46.016)
Yeah, that’s so true!

MV Braverman (02:56.107)
kind of a little overlooked for the rest of 2023 while I was like, seems important. But we found out in 2024. So they basically said, and in some ways it’s actually become more human, I would say. So to summarize their new requirements is authenticate your email, which is basically put some technical signatures to say you are who you say you are, which.

Of course, everyone, especially lawyers, financial, really want to be able to prove that. Send emails that people want and make it easy for them to unsubscribe. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of unscrupulous people who are complying with the very bare letter of the law. But if your unsubscribe link is in six point type and light gray on white, I would say you’re not really compliant.

Karin Conroy (03:29.581)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (03:49.718)
Yeah, you’re making it… Yeah, we all know those emails where you just keep getting this like relentless spam and you keep trying to figure out how to unsubscribe and it shouldn’t be that hard. It should be obvious and clear and it should be one click. And so as a law firm, let’s just start by saying, let’s make it very clear and very obvious and let’s not try to skirt around these kind of…

things that make you look so smarmy. So first of all, you have to have an unsubscribe link. It has to be clear. It has to be one click. And these are can spam laws. And what is at risk? I’ve talked a lot about these problems that you are running up against by putting these things at risk. So let’s talk just for a minute.

about what happens if you decide to be sort of questionable in your tactics. What happens to your emails in general, not just your email newsletter or whatever you’re sending out through your email campaigns, but all of your emails.

MV Braverman (04:59.915)
Well, I think we can safely say bad things happen to your emails.

Karin Conroy (05:03.847)
Bad things, yeah.

MV Braverman (05:06.985)
I mean, first, just because you make it difficult to unsubscribe does not mean you make it difficult for people to hit report spam. And part of the good thing, the of the carrot behind the make it easy to unsubscribe is if you comply with these certain technical requirements, which every email marketing platform now does, then they basically Google nudges people away from report spam.

Karin Conroy (05:15.191)
Right.

MV Braverman (05:33.483)
Because for a long time, people just use it as an unsubscribe button anyway. But let me just say that unsubscribe is a neutral signal. I know if you’re a solo person with a small list, it kind of stings when you look at it. But yeah, why don’t you like my email? I like to tell a little story. Like maybe they’re taking that long awaited trip around the world and they’re just unsubscribing from everything. Wish them well. whatever it is, you know.

Karin Conroy (05:37.75)
Yeah, yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:46.4)
You’re what? Why didn’t you like my email?

Karin Conroy (06:00.724)
Yeah, I love that visual. Yeah.

MV Braverman (06:02.685)
I think it’s great. More room, I’m paying less for subscribers, because that’s another consideration, of course. But yeah, so that’s kind of a neutral signal. I mean, if you have a large percentage of unsubscribes, that’s not great. But let me tell you, one spam complaint is worth more than 10 or more unsubscribes. you do not want…

Karin Conroy (06:09.868)
Yeah. Sure.

Karin Conroy (06:22.598)
interesting. Okay, so that’s good to know. Getting an unsubscribe is way, way better than having someone report you as spam. And we all know when you’re in your inbox, it’s not too far from like clicking on the little unsubscribe thing versus report spam. So what happens when there is a signal that someone has reported you for spam?

MV Braverman (06:31.22)
Absolutely.

MV Braverman (06:45.523)
If it’s a one-time thing or like if it’s just a small percentage, it’s okay. It happens to everybody and we don’t worry about it. But they have Google and Yahoo and let me just say Microsoft and Apple are not far behind. Microsoft has made it very clear that they will be adopting a similar standard. And Google and Yahoo will be tightening further. So the standards that Google has kind of set out the most clearly is

Karin Conroy (07:03.405)
Okay.

MV Braverman (07:14.397)
Ideally you want to be under 0.1 % of spam reports. So one person in the thousand on your list and subscribe. It can report it as spam and it’s okay. If you’re at 0.3 or below, you’re kind of in getting edgy there territory. Yeah, if you are consistently above 0.3%, so that’s three out of a thousand, they will not work with you to mitigate.

Karin Conroy (07:18.764)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (07:24.845)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (07:32.29)
Kind of a danger zone.

MV Braverman (07:42.825)
they will not help you get out of that. And to be clear, if you have a spike, if one campaign goes wrong, it’s okay. They will take it into consideration. But if you are consistently sending questionable emails, whether that’s cold outreach or whatever else from your domain, you are affecting the reputation of your entire domain. So that means if you’re trying to communicate with a new client one-on-one,

Karin Conroy (07:53.112)
Okay.

MV Braverman (08:11.559)
your marketing, like that also affects whether they receive it. So all of your channels are affected. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (08:16.558)
whether they receive your emails. And what I’ve seen happen, yes. what I’ve seen happen is your domain gets blacklisted and where this really impacts is government websites, emails, things. me, as a lawyer, you’re sending a judge an email and it won’t go through. you’re like,

MV Braverman (08:34.483)
yeah.

Karin Conroy (08:43.458)
fighting with your inbox and your emails and you’re trying to get it through and you’re telling the judge, I sent this thing. How embarrassing is that? How embarrassing is it that your domain is blacklisted and you can’t get the important critical emails through to a judge or a government organization because you’ve been spamming people. I mean, let’s just kind of look at this big picture and how embarrassing and problematic that could be. So the bottom line is just

Follow the rules, like don’t do all that stuff. And one of the rules in terms of the can spam is that people have to have opted into your list. I cannot tell you the number of times in this day where people will be, it’s not true.

MV Braverman (09:27.125)
It’s not quite true.

That’s not quite true by Canspam. If they had some kind of a transactional relationship, so you could technically add like a client to your list or even someone who had some kind of an interaction with you. So if I buy something on, you know, websites, they can technically add me to their list. Because I’m not a lawyer, hoping that someone is a lawyer. Canspam is more opt out.

Karin Conroy (09:33.153)
Okay, tell me what is.

Karin Conroy (09:41.249)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (09:51.169)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (09:54.923)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (10:00.341)
Like you have to make it easy for them to opt out and comply within 10 days, which I assure you, Google Yahoo are not going to wait around for you for 10 days. But you technically can, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And I believe, again, not a lawyer, some state laws like California and Arizona go beyond that. And of course, international laws go way beyond

Karin Conroy (10:00.705)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (10:07.724)
Right, right.

Karin Conroy (10:14.188)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (10:23.79)
Okay, so in the case, this is what I see quite often, in the case that a lawyer is starting their own firm, they’re leaving a firm, and they’re taking a client list from that previous firm. This client list has not contacted them under the name of the new firm. They contacted them under the name of the old firm, which is a different business, a different set legal arrangement. My understanding is that they,

technically really don’t have the right to send an email to those clients that really were under the previous firm. Is that right? do you think that’s…

MV Braverman (11:05.781)
I don’t know if I would agree with that because, you know, I’ve rebranded, like people rebrand. I would say that’s questionable, maybe legally from whatever agreements they have as employees, but that I don’t know, right? Yeah. The other thing is that they have to make it like really clear that this is where you know me from, this is who I am. So technically again, they could, but again, the fear is not necessarily that legal, at least for me.

Karin Conroy (11:15.468)
Well, yeah, that’s it’s a combination of ethics. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (11:26.826)
Right. Yeah.

MV Braverman (11:35.435)
It’s more, are they gonna hit that spam button?

Karin Conroy (11:38.902)
Right, okay. All right, so if you’re leaving and going to a new firm or starting your new firm, totally different business, your contacts from the old business, you’re saying that you think it’s relatively safe to send emails to a list that you obtained under a different firm.

MV Braverman (11:59.303)
would definitely maybe send it as a one or two time thing and say I’d love to continue our relationship please sign up and then you will have that affirmative consent you won’t keep emailing them because if they abandoned that mailbox you know I’m again looking at this more from the technical side but like if they abandoned that mailbox and they moved on you don’t have that you have that clean list of people who actually said yes because that is my goal is

Karin Conroy (12:08.234)
Okay, yeah, that makes more sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (12:17.645)
Sure, yeah.

Karin Conroy (12:24.598)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MV Braverman (12:28.607)
a list of people who have affirmatively consented. I like to say that I practice enthusiastic email consent. So you have to like really say, really wanna be on your list. I really wanna hear from you.

Karin Conroy (12:32.51)
yeah, exactly. Yes, yes, absolutely. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what about buying lists? I see this all the time. Let’s talk, let’s spend a minute. If you’re listening and he is making like a bad shaking head. No face. Okay. So why not?

MV Braverman (12:52.299)
Please, please, please, please, please, please 100,000 twice. Please don’t. Please don’t. Again, they have not consented. That is a super fast way to, like people who buy lists, I will just say straight out they’re spammers. Even if they have the best intentions, they’re spammers. People are not aware of what they’re signing up for. They didn’t sign up.

Karin Conroy (13:12.418)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (13:19.837)
You don’t know where this kid, the email came from. Was it scraped from a website, whatever? Like I’m getting emails to an email address that’s for LinkedIn only. So I know they scraped it from LinkedIn. I did not consent to that. So again, the straight, straight path to, to spam bad reputation. Like, is that really how you want to present yourself? Whether it’s legal or not. Is that really how you want to present yourself?

Karin Conroy (13:38.338)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (13:43.951)
Right, exactly. Okay, so Google and Yahoo, you started to talk about this, the new requirements because there’s such an influx of spam, even though I feel like from my inbox, it feels pretty steady. I think if those numbers are up, yeah, exactly. That’s really a positive reflection on how good they are at controlling it. But what’s super important,

MV Braverman (13:59.829)
They’ve gotten really good. Yes, they’ve gotten really good.

Karin Conroy (14:11.97)
are these technical requirements that you mentioned, these DMARC, the DKIM, the SPF. So we have to make sure, do you want to talk for a minute about it? I feel like you probably have a better kind of in a nutshell way of presenting why this matters and how it’s super important.

MV Braverman (14:31.563)
Again, it’s, you know, prove you are who you say you are because a lot of like the low level spam and scam emails don’t bother with that. They just try to take advantage of the. Unfortunately, when email was created, people were, it was very trust-based relationship. And so we’ve had to deal with that ever since it wasn’t built to be secure. So, you know, yes, we definitely have the acronym soup. So SPF, DKD mark.

Karin Conroy (14:42.829)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (14:59.739)
And I like the analogy I give is, you’re going to a nightclub, you wanna get into this cool new nightclub, there’s a guard at the door, they will not let you in. So in order to get in, have to be on the list, because they just open, you know, they’re not letting everybody in. So are you on the list? That’s SPF. You’re basically saying, I send emails from, say, Salesforce and Google Workspace. Anybody who’s sending from HubSpot or whatever, they’re not me.

Karin Conroy (15:19.085)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (15:25.454)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (15:29.57)
Yeah, okay.

MV Braverman (15:30.229)
So they have to check off. Then you have to show your ID. And they have to scan it and verify it. So that’s DKIM. It’s kind of your digital encrypted signature in a way. And then you have DMARC, which is kind of a set of instructions to the bouncer. If you don’t pass those first two, what should be done? Do we just kick you right out? Do we put you out by the…

Karin Conroy (15:38.424)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (15:42.616)
Okay.

MV Braverman (15:59.219)
You know the garbage bins are you hanging out in the coat check or can you just keep strolling in anyway? So so that’s kind of that’s going to very high level view of of it and.

Karin Conroy (16:00.546)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:07.0)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:12.822)
And so DKIM tells them where to put those emails. DMARC, sorry.

MV Braverman (16:18.325)
So that’s DMARC. Yeah, DKIM is a digital signature, basically. The better description is, if you send a package, it’s a tape seal.

Karin Conroy (16:24.791)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (16:30.068)
Okay, got it. So DMARC is the one that tells them what to do with the email.

MV Braverman (16:34.843)
Yes, but the really important thing is you have to have SPF in Decom. It sits on top of those. If you have those misconfigured, that’s going to affect the rest. one thing I see a lot is, you know, email marketing platforms like MailChimp, Salesforce, they tell you what to do for their channel, but they don’t say, hey, you need to consider your, you know, your one-on-one emails. You need to consider your website contact form.

Karin Conroy (16:40.536)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (16:47.297)
Right.

MV Braverman (17:03.177)
all the other email channels that send. And so only that part works perfectly and you’re like, I’m golden. You’re not.

Karin Conroy (17:10.934)
Yeah, right. So typically, I don’t want to get super technical about this because typically when it comes to these settings, we will have, if we are helping a client with their email and their email settings and we have access to that, we will take care of that. And then we will double check that all of those settings are in place. Oftentimes that is something that their IT provider or whoever has set up your email

your email accounts and your email service provider, they should know this stuff and you should just basically double check. Are these all in place? Do you have other recommendations for that?

MV Braverman (17:53.833)
Ideally, yes. I don’t know. I have been in IT support for a long time. So I don’t know if they always have the full view. And I also…

Karin Conroy (18:04.758)
Okay, so what do you recommend for people to be able to check these settings to make sure it’s correct and in there the way needs to be?

MV Braverman (18:12.639)
I mean, the other thing is, of course, if you have a large enough corporation, have lot of people setting stuff up all the time. But the really important thing is if you have DMARC, the R in DMARC stands for reporting. see a lot of people do not take advantage of it. It’s really important. up reporting, read your reports. You’re going to see everything that’s trying, like everything people are trying to send out, you’re going to see it and catch it. So that’s my biggest recommendation.

Karin Conroy (18:17.687)
Right.

Karin Conroy (18:36.332)
Okay.

MV Braverman (18:39.283)
especially if you’re an enforcement, so you’re saying, you know, send them to code check or kick them out. It’s absolutely critical because otherwise you’re not going to know if things are going wrong.

Karin Conroy (18:49.452)
Yeah, okay, awesome. All right, so that’s the technical side of things. And it’s really important because what’s happening here if you don’t have all of these security settings done correctly is your emails just will not get delivered. And we’re not just talking about your email newsletters and your email campaigns. This is affecting all of your emails. So this is super important. You need to double check, make sure it’s all the way it needs to be. But let’s…

flip over to the human side of things now. And as we’re talking about making sure that these technical settings are the way they need to be to get your emails into the inbox, how do you then make sure that people actually care about reading your emails? where do you start in terms of, let’s just talk about first the subject line to get people to care and open the email?

MV Braverman (19:46.795)
I always say if I knew the answer to that, I would be a whole lot healthier. But in some ways, needs to be straightforward yet intriguing, no pressure, and especially short, because the majority of emails these days are being read on mobile. If you are trying to write a novel in your subject line, it’s going to get cut off. Sometimes it’s going to get cut off really funny in ways you didn’t expect, but

Karin Conroy (19:52.192)
Yeah, okay.

Karin Conroy (20:01.25)
Okay.

Okay.

MV Braverman (20:16.759)
I think in some ways there’s almost too much pressure on the subject line. And the other thing to think about is your, you’re from your display name. that’s really important because people consider both who is sending this and what the subject line is. So if, know, I get emails that are like from Anne, like what, cause I didn’t set it up correctly. So when I send emails, I just say MV and then at inbox welcome. So they know exactly who I am.

Karin Conroy (20:20.771)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (20:24.568)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (20:31.16)
Okay.

MV Braverman (20:44.359)
and where I’m from if it’s a business email.

Karin Conroy (20:47.968)
Okay, so you recommend just using a name, not having some elaborate name for your newsletter or whatever, using like a human name.

MV Braverman (21:00.041)
Ideally, yes, especially if you’re representing yourself kind of as the face of the business, it gets harder. If it’s a giant corporation and they’re sending it from a person and just like, really, they probably long since moved on or this is a fake persona. But if you’re the face of your business, if it’s a small company or just you, then yeah, absolutely.

Karin Conroy (21:13.816)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (21:20.672)
Okay, all right, so I can’t tell you the number of times when I’ve talked to firms about setting up a newsletter and their image of what this looks like is from like 1984. And it’s this detailed newsletter that talks about, first of all, just a million things. And it talks about things happening in the news, things happening.

in their neighborhood, things, and it’s so disjointed and so complex. And my first thought is who is gonna sit and read all of this? And why would they care? So let’s talk about this image that I think this historical idea of like what a newsletter looks like, which is like the front page of a newspaper, like these detailed versus

MV Braverman (22:13.813)
Hmm.

Karin Conroy (22:17.311)
what you think actually works.

MV Braverman (22:20.267)
Well, what I think actually works is, have pretty short attention spans. unless you’re like a 1440 or some other newsletter that’s like a news aggregator or something, keep it short, ideally, just one topic. I do have clients who send like one monthly newsletter that’s a little bit like that and it works for them, or at least it works well enough for them that they don’t wanna change. But I’m on the side of shorter and sweeter and give people a chance to decide.

Karin Conroy (22:40.045)
Okay.

MV Braverman (22:49.449)
Maybe some of them do want to hear about the neighborhood news and then let them opt into that channel. So separate it out and let them decide. know, tease in each news that are saying like, here’s what other things we’re talking about. Let them click. Like, just give them a chance to think about how they want to hear from you. What do they want to hear from you? I mean, I’m not a lawyer, but like, believe me, if I could like just get my hands on a lawyer and just even ask one question.

Karin Conroy (22:52.13)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:05.493)
Interesting. I like this idea.

MV Braverman (23:18.219)
I mean, again, don’t know what kind of lawyers they are, but of course the first question is like, much is this going to cost and how exactly does this billing thing work? So can you answer us questions?

Karin Conroy (23:20.044)
Yeah, yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:24.728)
Right.

Karin Conroy (23:30.7)
Right, right. Well, and as, know, if you’ve been a lawyer for more than a few weeks, you know what the common questions are. So whatever your practice is and whatever, you know, people are coming to you for, you know what commonly the first couple of questions are going to be. And so start with that and keep it really clean and simple. And then I love this idea of…

give options for people who might want more. So if there are people who want a more involved detailed newsletter, put that option in there and then see if people opt in. And if you get all of a sudden a bunch of responses where people are saying, yeah, tell us more about this and this and this, the neighborhood and whatever, then you’ve proven that concept instead of just guessing.

MV Braverman (24:19.243)
Yeah, just send us separate emails. But the other thing is, you know, if you answer these questions upfront with an automation, you don’t have to repeat yourself nearly as much. You’re not wasting your time. You’re not wasting their time. You know, I love going on podcasts, but there’s a lot of times where I end up saying close to the same thing. But even then after that, when people reach out to me, having heard me on the podcast, they already heard me say these things. They know them.

Karin Conroy (24:21.676)
Right.

Karin Conroy (24:29.559)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (24:40.503)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (24:48.861)
At least they refer to them and say, said something about what’s the difference between deliver and deliverability. And so can quickly summarize it. But they at least have a much better idea of what they need. So they’re more pre-qualified and they’re more educated and they’re more invested in you or me or whoever it is.

Karin Conroy (24:54.038)
Yeah. Right.

Karin Conroy (25:03.468)
Yeah, right, right, right.

Karin Conroy (25:10.124)
Yeah, they’ve already listened to the things you have to say and decided that that’s what they need. Okay, so you talk about this idea of be upset it and forget it and why that could be a problem. tell us more about that. because I think when it comes to especially things like an email newsletter or an email campaign, that’s what people and a lot of my clients are kind of in their mind, they’re thinking, we set this up once and then we’re good.

MV Braverman (25:13.749)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (25:38.687)
Well, mean, campaigns by their nature are not a sudden forget it, but it’s more the automations. And I’m a big fan of automations. I’m a big fan of, you know, evergreen newsletters, onboarding sequences, all kinds of things. But the thing about that is, it’s just like, you know, when you design your website, it was, you you set it up years ago, so you forgot about it, but it’s the first impression that people get. Is it still the impression you want to give?

Karin Conroy (26:04.246)
Right, right, right, yeah.

MV Braverman (26:07.403)
So the same thing with automations. Is this still the impression you want to give? Are these still the questions you want to be answering? And is it still working? strong recommendation is maybe that’s a takeaway to do. If you have some kind of opt-in method, go and sign up for it with a fresh email address and see how that actually works. Or ask a friend or someone to sign up. What do they perceive?

Karin Conroy (26:18.935)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (26:37.501)
And is that what you think they are perceiving?

Karin Conroy (26:39.852)
Yeah. Yeah. Or even just open it up if you have access to those accounts and read through it. You know, if you did this two or three years ago, is this what you still want to be saying? And is it still current? I mean, maybe you’re talking about certain laws that have changed. Maybe you’re talking, you know, maybe there’s certain details and things that you need to just go in and update. And by not updating them, they, it’s really kind of a negative first impression.

you know, and the same with your website. I say this all the time. There’s a handful of things because I’m looking at law firm websites all day, every day. And so I can real quickly look at a website and tell you the kind of agency that you used to design it, what’s happening behind the scenes. I can also tell real quickly the last time you touched it. So if your copyright is like,

you know, 2019, you haven’t changed anything, you haven’t had a blog post update in two or three years. It just looks old and dusty to me. And that’s going to be your first impression for your clients. And that’s so bad. And there’s a lot of things that you can do if you’re too busy to have blog posts and things like that. There’s a lot of things you can do to take those impressions away. But you just, the first step is to check in.

and make sure it’s all still up to date and there’s nothing that needs to be refreshed, which it’s likely there is.

Yeah. Okay. So when it comes to emails and campaigns and newsletters and all the different versions of email marketing, what do you think is typical for an agency, for a firm, like let’s just say a typical small business in terms of how many different kinds of campaigns and email systems should they have in place?

Karin Conroy (28:40.652)
So for example, a newsletter, a welcome sequence, a response to something on their blog, or you know, what do you see that’s typical in terms of how many different types of campaigns that a typical business or firm might need?

MV Braverman (29:00.363)
I think first we need to get on the same page about the terminology. your email marketing platform is going to let you send. there’s that we kind of separate out. Well, there’s several separations. You have marketing emails versus transactional emails and the marketing emails. You must be able to opt out of transactional receipts and shipping confirmations, things like that. You’re not technically required to have an opt out.

Karin Conroy (29:14.264)
Okay.

MV Braverman (29:24.971)
But then there’s also, so there’s campaigns, which are one time sends that you can schedule for a specific date or send immediately. And there’s automations, which are triggered by some kind of action. So someone signs up, someone makes a purchase. It could even be like an abandoned cart or something like that. So I’m sure you’ve gotten those. You went to a website, put something in your cart, and then a few hours or days later, they’re like, hey, did you forget anything?

Karin Conroy (29:46.571)
Right.

Karin Conroy (29:51.083)
Right.

MV Braverman (29:52.039)
Yeah, so those are are automations and those are again triggered by something.

Karin Conroy (29:58.604)
Right. You don’t see those abandoned cart type things in terms of law firms as often.

MV Braverman (30:00.433)
It’s.

MV Braverman (30:04.971)
Probably not, but I am actually seeing those more in like courses, which I thought was interesting.

Karin Conroy (30:09.938)
Right. Yeah. For most of the firms that we work with, we’re talking about email newsletters, possibly an ebook type lead magnet, and then campaigns that relate to their marketing funnel. So throughout that customer journey for a typical law firm, I’d say those are the three main areas that we are seeing campaigns and automations built

MV Braverman (30:19.019)
Hmm.

Karin Conroy (30:39.374)
for various purposes with the email platform. Do you think that’s kind of representative of what you’re seeing with your clients as well?

MV Braverman (30:49.067)
Yeah, definitely. Your welcome sequence absolutely is like the most profitable sequence for e-commerce is a vena cart. The most profitable sequence for a general business is going to be your welcome sequence because they remember you. They’re ready to hear something about you. Like you give them what they want without overwhelming. And the other thing, we talked about lead magnets.

Karin Conroy (31:11.126)
Yeah. Yeah.

MV Braverman (31:16.073)
I think one big mistake that people make is they sort of like give you the lead magnet and then that’s it. Then they launch you into their regular newsletter, which I think is a huge mistake because then it just sits there as we say, collecting digital dust, chances are. so like I have a how to set up DMARC for yourself guide. So I have a sequence of

Karin Conroy (31:23.394)
Right.

Karin Conroy (31:28.242)
really, why?

MV Braverman (31:44.789)
five emails to follow up to walk them through big parts of it and say, hey, did you have a chance to look at this part? Here’s a little more about it. And just make the most of this thing that you should be proud of and that you spend time creating ideally, because chances are that yeah, they grabbed it, they glanced at it, they forgot about it, but they will probably, something interested them about it.

Karin Conroy (31:55.021)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (32:02.157)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (32:07.776)
Right.

Karin Conroy (32:12.151)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (32:12.381)
So they would probably benefit from actually coming back to it, maybe with a fresh look or even just more time.

Karin Conroy (32:19.552)
Right. So typically you’ll have some kind of a lead magnet like an ebook or a download or whatever. And then you have a sequence that follows that to kind of remind them over time. And then what happens after that once they get through the end of the sequence, because typically we will oftentimes then have them go into the newsletter just as top of mind reminders, that kind of thing. Is that what you typically do also? Okay.

MV Braverman (32:28.383)
Mm-hmm.

MV Braverman (32:41.419)
Yeah, that’s totally, totally normal.

Karin Conroy (32:45.896)
Okay, all right, I thought earlier you were saying not to do that, but you were saying not to just jump right into that. Got it.

MV Braverman (32:49.697)
no, I’m just saying don’t just, yeah, because I have received, have, it’s pretty popular on Facebook, you go into a group and they ask you for your email address. Like I’ve received emails that’s part two of two and there’s no welcome, there’s no nothing. And I’m just like, okay, who are you and why am I getting this? So some kind of a welcome, here’s what you should expect, is highly appreciated.

Karin Conroy (32:59.009)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (33:02.739)
Yeah. Whoops. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Yeah.

I think this isn’t a perfect example of what we were talking about earlier in terms of like go in and look at your sequences. And maybe when you set that up, maybe, you know, that in that example, when they set that up, they were in a rush. They were setting up 50 other things and they just kind of threw it together and they haven’t looked at it since. But now is the time. I would say pretty much every six months, six to 12 months, you should be checking, making sure it’s what you really want to be saying and that nothing’s changed. You know, that

there’s things that don’t need to be tweaked and adjusted and improved and added to, especially over time. Right. Well, and over time you start to realize what people care about. Like they’ve come to this download or this ebook or this lead magnet for specific reason, and then they’re going to ask you some follow-up question. Hone in on that. So take your learned experience through that campaign or whatever it is and realize which part

MV Braverman (33:46.965)
or even change your copyright footer.

Karin Conroy (34:11.136)
works and which part you can kind of abandon because you nobody cares about that part. Okay it is time for the book review. We have a whole section on the website where we have a library of books that all of our guests have recommended. It’s a great resource for all of the different episodes. You can go by topic and so obviously you can go into the podcast section, drill down by email marketing and you’ll see once this episode is live obviously you’ll see the recommendation for

MV Braverman (34:15.659)
Totally.

Karin Conroy (34:39.096)
today’s episode. so, MV, what’s the book that you wanted to recommend for the library today?

MV Braverman (34:44.735)
Well, I had three, so I’m not sure which one we’re picking. Two are on email marketing, and then one is on more general marketing. I think the one that I would recommend as more general is Simple Marketing for Smart People by Billy Brolas. It really helped me decide on, the biggest questions that it helped me answer is,

Karin Conroy (34:46.592)
Okay.

MV Braverman (35:10.415)
What is it that my people need to know in order to want to work with me? And it helped me create this almost a ladder of belief in the sense. And it was just a really good chance for me to sit down and clarify my thoughts and my beliefs where I was doing it more piecemeal before. But the other two books I recommend are specifically about email,

Karin Conroy (35:15.65)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (35:20.76)
Yeah.

MV Braverman (35:39.625)
So I don’t know if I’m put all of them. I am a book nerd, so.

Karin Conroy (35:41.152)
Yeah, absolutely. to tell me? Yeah, I am too. I, which is why I have this whole section. So tell me about the, there’s the one email marketing book that we were talking about, which w w let’s talk about that.

MV Braverman (35:53.195)
which one? You have them in front of you. right. So this was written by a former lawyer. I think he is kind of a lawyer still. He actually has a legal startup that I am a customer for. and I was one of the early readers. So I don’t agree with him on all of his takes, but I will just say that they absolutely made me think and say, this is what I want for my.

Karin Conroy (35:56.674)
Email marketing that doesn’t suck.

Karin Conroy (36:07.927)
Nice.

Karin Conroy (36:14.125)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (36:19.03)
Okay, perfect.

MV Braverman (36:23.595)
This is what I believe about my marketing. This is what I’m going to do. This is what I’m willing to do. And that was a really good thing in a more general way because it actually helped me decide how I’m going to go about being visible and getting people on my email list as well as what I want to be sending.

Karin Conroy (36:28.205)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (36:42.978)
Yeah, I think that’s important because I think, you know, we were talking in the beginning before we started recording that for some reason, I think people overlook and undervalue how important your email list is. so just getting your head around how you’re going to get, you know, how you’re going to create a list, how you’re going to try to get more people onto that list and what you’re going to provide in order for people to do that. Because I know for myself, I don’t just hand out my email.

unless I am sure that it’s going to be something I want. I also have a whole separate kind of fake email that I use for ones where I’m like, I’m not so sure. So if I’ve used that email on some list, automatically there’s something not quite either trustworthy or something about your offer that I’m like, I’m not giving you my good email, my real one. I’m giving you this other one that is automatically

MV Braverman (37:20.545)
Very common, yes.

Karin Conroy (37:39.616)
anything that goes into that email, it’s questionable. And I’m assuming there’s a certain amount of spam there. And so if you’re thinking that you’re getting those kinds of emails, there’s something wrong either with your message or your email or your hook or whatever it is that you’re offering. So that’s something that needs to be reconsidered. the Email Marketing That Doesn’t Suck, the author is Bobby Klink, we’ll link to that on the show page as well. So, MV what’s…

MV Braverman (38:04.341)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (38:08.75)
The new section that we started adding in the last few episodes is this action items. So what’s the first thing after listening to this episode that you think people should think about doing in terms of their email marketing, their email campaigns, maybe their technical details or whatever it is, what’s the first thing that they should actually do?

MV Braverman (38:34.091)
Well, as we talked about, if you already have some kind of email marketing, go and sign up and look at it with fresh eyes. If you don’t have email marketing, but you think you want to start, start gathering up your contacts list, like exporting your different contacts list and putting them together. then don’t just add them to your list, please.

but it’s totally okay to send them one or two emails saying, hey, I’m gonna be emailing about this, please sign up here. And then you get that affirmative opt-in and you get that first batch of people who actually wanna hear from you, because it’s really hard to be sending it to the wilderness and never hearing anything. So I think that’s a good start.

Karin Conroy (39:21.836)
Yeah, I think that’s really important. And I also liked the other tip that we’ve said a couple times now about just checking your stuff and making sure that it, you know, like if you wrote it a few years ago and you’ve got these systems in place, that’s great. And there’s nothing wrong with having those automations, but let’s make sure that they’re saying what you want them to say and doing what you want them to do and that you take a look at

how they’ve been working and what questions people are asking. And maybe you need to fine tune it to better serve those questions. I do that all the time. And I go back in, especially for kind of my initial inquiry form where people continue to ask or say the same thing. And I realized, okay, there’s a hiccup there that I need to kind of patch over and figure out.

why this question keeps coming up. And so like, let’s go in and figure this out and resolve it. And then it just keeps making my forms and my processes stronger instead of having them sort of rust and go away and become less effective and all of that good stuff. So really good tips and action items for people to think about. MV Braverman is the founder of Inbox. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. This was an awesome episode.

MV Braverman (40:46.539)
Thank you so much for having me and I totally agree. I’ve learned a few things.