Matt Ragland has been an email marketer for 10 years, first at ConvertKit and now at Good People Digital, a Nashville-based agency he launched in early 2023 . Excellent Email His approach to his performance is storytelling.
He told me, “Brands that excel at email marketing often tell their stories to their ideal audience.”
In a recent conversation, he and I discussed storytelling strategies, email design, automation strategies, and more. The entire audio is embedded below. The transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Eric Bandholz: Who the hell are you?
Matt Ragland: I run an email marketing and course launch agency called Good People Digital. We work with creators and e-commerce providers. We create emails and usually publish newsletters about courses and information products. I've been in the email game for almost 10 years.
I do a lot of work in the creator economy. I have a YouTube channel with just under 100,000 subscribers.
Bandholz: What is your approach to email marketing?
Ragland: I focus on stories and stories. When it comes to e-commerce, brands that excel at email marketing often include their products and tell a story to their ideal audience. We want more e-commerce brands to engage customers in their stories in a natural way.
Creators do a great job with story, but many are terrible at sales and promotion. And while many e-commerce sellers are good at selling, promoting, packaging, and positioning, they are bad at storytelling. Both sides have much to learn from each other.
Bandholz: Email newsletter brands like The Hustle and Morning Brew have grown to eight-figure valuations. Describe its business model.
Ragland: Their revenue model focuses almost exclusively on advertising and sponsorship.
It costs almost nothing to start an email newsletter. The Hustle and Morning Brew both published daily newsletters fairly early on. I remember hearing about the founders of Morning Brew. They founded the newsletter while attending the University of Michigan. They asked people in business class to buy paper subscriptions.
From there, it started to spread naturally through referrals. They had a strong referral program. Let's say I'm reading Morning Brew. Sign up as a referral partner and send it to 10 other girlfriends who have signed up with you. Then you get a sticker and a shirt. Hustle was doing something similar.
Another thing that Morning Brew and The Hustle did well was attracting paid newsletter subscribers. E-commerce has been great at this for many years. But around 2015, when Facebook ads were cheap, traditional newsletters weren't understood the same way as e-commerce sellers. I felt like I was getting free money.
Bandholz: Do you have any new email marketing tactics to inspire you?
Ragland: Many people feel that email marketing is old and outdated. However, it is still one of the best forms of direct marketing. As for new tactics, emphasize the story aspect and simplicity, make the newsletter as simple as possible, and reduce graphics.
Make your newsletter look like a personal email message. A friend of mine runs a design studio called Late Checkout. He published a design newsletter and removed all visuals last year.
He's now sending out something like a letter to shareholders, calling it “Gregg's letter.”
Bandholz: The biggest innovation for me is campaign flow and automation. This is how Klaviyo gained attention over Mailchimp.
Ragland: yes. Also, something that Klaviyo did and still does very well is its SMS integration.
The automation part is really important, as is the ability to have one entry point as the starting point for the entire flow of upsells, downsells, and cross-sells. Implemented for an e-commerce client. Instead of an initial entry point of signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product, we used mid-lifecycle automation based on interest and intent.
For example, when a subscriber clicks on a particular product or link in an email, it triggers an automation similar to cart abandonment and cross-selling and storytelling around that type of item.
Bandholz: His wife is pregnant with their fourth child. What is your philosophy on being a good father?
Ragland: I want to be a good example for my children. I want to show them what I believe and what it means to be a good human being. I was lucky to have so many great examples in my life. I'm good friends with my dad and he's a great guy. He has always been a big supporter and fan of mine. My uncles were great leaders. There were many people in my life who taught me this is what it means to be a good man and a good father.
Bandholz: Where can our listeners follow you and learn more about your email service?
Ragland: Our agency site is MyGoodPeople.com. AutomaticEvergreen.com is our email marketing service. You can follow my YouTube channel or contact me on LinkedIn or X — @mattragland.
