Selling Digital Products Featuring Charli Prangley

05/23/23 • 49 min

1 Listener

Many people strive to become creators but often forget the discipline, hard work, and consistency required to build an audience. But while the task can seem daunting, it’s not impossible. The best way to learn how to grow a subscriber base is by learning from creators who have successfully done so.

In this episode, Alyssa and Melissa talk with Charli Prangley, Creative Director at ConvertKit, about her experience as a YouTuber with more than 220K subscribers, and the author of the Marketing Design Dispatch newsletter with more than 15K subscribers. Charli discusses what led her to ConvertKit, why creators should take advantage of email when building their brand, and why simple designs often land best with audiences.

They also discuss Charli’s digital product offerings, her different sources of income, and her advice for aspiring creators.

Key Takeaways

[06:00] - An introduction to Charli and her creator journey.
[07:35] - What brought Charli to ConvertKit.
[10:04] - Charli’s day-to-day at ConvertKit.
[13:07] - Why creators should use email.
[18:30] - An overview of Charli’s digital products.
[20:18] - How Charli decided which products to create.
[22:00] - What do Charli’s income streams look like?
[25:53] - Charli’s design advice for creators.
[34:26] - How Charli encourages email replies.
[42:28] - Charli’s closing thoughts.
[48:31] - Where to find Charli.

Quotes

[14:29] - “Email is powerful for directly reaching your audience.” ~ @charliprangley

[25:53] - “The main thing I suggest is to keep it simple. The more simple you make it, the more refined your design is going to feel.” ~ @charliprangley

[43:10] - “Don't make all of the decisions just based on business reasons, but include your own enjoyment in there as a factor too.” ~ @charliprangley

Links

Connect with our hosts

Stay in touch

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.

They also discuss Charli’s digital product offerings, her different sources of income, and her advice for aspiring creators.

Key Takeaways

[06:00] - An introduction to Charli and her creator journey.
[07:35] - What brought Charli to ConvertKit.
[10:04] - Charli’s day-to-day at ConvertKit.
[13:07] - Why creators should use email.
[18:30] - An overview of Charli’s digital products.
[20:18] - How Charli decided which products to create.
[22:00] - What do Charli’s income streams look like?
[25:53] - Charli’s design advice for creators.
[34:26] - How Charli encourages email replies.
[42:28] - Charli’s closing thoughts.
[48:31] - Where to find Charli.

Quotes

[14:29] - “Email is powerful for directly reaching your audience.” ~ @charliprangley

[25:53] - “The main thing I suggest is to keep it simple. The more simple you make it, the more refined your design is going to feel.” ~ @charliprangley

[43:10] - “Don't make all of the decisions just based on business reasons, but include your own enjoyment in there as a factor too.” ~ @charliprangley

Links

Connect with our hosts

Stay in touch

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.

Previous Episode

Why Is Email Still a Key Player in Today’s Marketing Landscape?

Email is a universal method of communication that brings together people of all different ages and backgrounds. While some people may check their emails more than others, it remains true that everyone needs an email address to survive in the digital world.

Whether you use your email to stay up-to-date on current events, manage your reservations, or collect discount codes, email is a versatile tool to stay informed and connected.

Email is a more reliable form of communicating with your audience because its popularity is not as volatile as social media. As we’ve observed with apps like Vine or MySpace, no social media platform is invincible or irreplaceable. Email content is also more customizable than social media, which allows creators to connect with different audiences and curate content specific to their needs and interests.

In this episode, Alyssa and Melissa discuss why email is crucial for your business. They cover how to customize content for your audience, how monetization for emails differs from social media, and how a good ESP can help you grow your list and find advertisers.

Key Takeaways

[04:14] - Why does email work?
[09:28] - Why it is important to “own your audience”.
[14:36] - How to customize email outreach based on your audience’s preferences.
[17:51] - How email monetization differs from social media.
[21:45] - How a good ESP can help your business.

Quotes

[07:25] - “Your subscribers have the control to interact with your email when it’s best for them.” ~ @mel_lambert_

[10:34] - “We don’t always know which direction [social media platforms] are going to go in, not just the success of a platform, but also how their algorithms work.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

[15:36] - “A lot of brands have become very successful because of targeted ads on Instagram. You could be making that money instead of Instagram.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

[16:36] - “You want to make sure that you’re treating people’s inboxes with as much care as possible.” ~ @mel_lambert_

Links

Connect with our hosts

Stay in touch

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.

Next Episode

How to Grow and Monetize Your Newsletter Featuring Dylan Redekop

As a creator, you are never going to feel “ready” to build something. The hardest part is getting started and accepting that creation is an iterative process, and the mistakes you make along the way will lead to stronger content over time.

In this episode, Alyssa and Melissa talk with Dylan Redekop, Growth Currency Newsletter Strategist and Product Marketer at SparkLoop, about his journey building his newsletter from scratch. What started as a multitopic newsletter niched down into a newsletter that helps creators and solopreneurs start, grow, and monetize their own newsletters. Dylan delves into the best ways to keep lists clean and audiences engaged, even if your newsletter is still in its nascent stage. There’s no need to wait until your audience reaches a certain threshold to seek monetization opportunities.

Together, they discuss Dylan’s process in choosing his niche, tips for growing and monetizing newsletter content, and the power of referral networks in gaining high-quality subscribers.

Key Takeaways

[06:40] - An introduction to Dylan.
[09:26] - How Dylan chose his newsletter niche.
[12:15] - Dylan’s advice to anyone niching down.
[15:36] - How to grow and monetize your newsletter.
[25:04] - How referral networks expand your list.
[32:25] - How to keep your list clean while using partner programs.
[36:43] - Where to find Dylan and his newsletter (@growthcurrency)

Quotes

[12:35] - “The subscribes and the unsubscribes, it's all vanity metrics. What matters is that the people that are reading your newsletter and are subscribed to it are interested in it, and you don't just want people to hang on because the numbers look good.” ~ @growthcurrency

[20:13] - “You only need to have one person on your email list to sell them something, right? People get caught up in, ‘I need to have a certain amount of subscribers to make a sponsorship deal or to sell my ebook or my course or my service.’ But I don’t think you have to wait. Why wait until you have a certain threshold to start trying?” ~ @growthcurrency

[26:00] - “The reason why I love [partner programs] is because it's cost-controlled and it's quality-controlled. When you create a Facebook ad or an Instagram, as soon as somebody clicks, you're paying, regardless of if they unsubscribe or never open an email. You don't have that quality control filter.” ~ @growthcurrency

Links