Monica Froese [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Empowered Business Podcast, where strategy meets action. I’m Monica Froze and I’m here to help you create, sell and scale digital products the smart way, using AI and proven strategies to build a sustainable, profitable business. If you’re ready to turn your expertise into digital products that sell and eventually grow into a thriving digital shop, you’re.
Monica Froese [00:00:22]:
In the right place.
Monica Froese [00:00:23]:
Each week I break down real world tactics, unfiltered insights and bold business moves. Because building a digital product business should be sustainable, scalable and designed for long term success. Let’s ditch the fluff, leverage AI to work smarter and turn your expertise into a thriving digital empire on your terms. Let’s get started. Welcome back to another episode of the Empowered Business Podcast. We are here with the lovely Dr. Destini Kopp.
Monica Froese [00:00:54]:
And Destini is going to share with us unique ways that she is using.
Monica Froese [00:00:59]:
AI in her memberships and as well.
Monica Froese [00:01:02]:
How she’s holding her students in her memberships accountable in an automated fashion. She has some really clever ideas that she’s sharing with us today, so I’m super excited to dive in. But before we start, I just want to tell you a little bit about Destini. She is a graduate marketing professor and business growth coach and she helps business owners turn their digital products into consistent scalable revenue using growth flywheels and AI powered systems. And today she’s here to share all of her knowledge with us.
Monica Froese [00:01:31]:
And I am confident you are going.
Monica Froese [00:01:33]:
To walk away from this episode with new ideas on how you can implement AI into your student experiences. So let’s dive into today’s episode. Destini. Welcome to the Empowered Business Podcast. I’m so excited that you’re here with us today, Monica.
Destini Copp [00:01:48]:
I’m super excited about our conversation and to dig into all things digital products and AI is my absolute favorite things.
Monica Froese [00:01:56]:
To geek out about and definitely the hot, hottest topic that everyone’s been talking about in this space. And also I feel like I’ve known you forever, but we’ve never really had a one on one conversation. I don’t think over the years.
Destini Copp [00:02:09]:
Well, we’ve been in like various groups, various summits. We’ve been in various things over time. But yeah, it’s good to sit down and chat with you.
Monica Froese [00:02:17]:
Yeah. And I love when people always come to the table with perspectives and different ways they’re handling things. I feel like you are one of those people. Before we dive into the meat and the topics, I always like to ask people to tell us a little bit about themselves and their entrepreneurial journey.
Destini Copp [00:02:31]:
Yeah. So I’ve been in marketing for 30 years. I’m dating myself a little bit here and I’ve also been a university marketing professor online since 2005. I actually still teach. A lot of people don’t know this, but I’m still teaching in the graduate level, teaching like business courses and marketing courses for a university. So I’ve been doing this online business thing for a few years now, since around 2017. And I’ve had various adventures over the time when one of those bigger adventures has been launching a brand from scratch. Literally a domain name purchase a few years ago, which was my hobby school brand.
Destini Copp [00:03:10]:
And that’s been fun growing that up from absolutely nothing to. We have around 32,000 people on our email list now. We do online learning, virtual summits and all types of hobby type niches. And we have some memberships too in that particular brand. And that’s in addition to my personal brand, which I’m here representing today.
Monica Froese [00:03:31]:
And you have shops on both sides of your business, right?
Destini Copp [00:03:34]:
That’s correct. We have a Shopify store full of digital products in hobby school and I have one in my personal brand. It’s called hello Content. So it’s hello Content Shop. I used your digital shop experience course to set all of those up and it’s just been very helpful to get those started. I definitely want to put a little bit more effort into those and that’s one of my goals in the later part of this year is to really dig into that and figure out how I can drive more organic traffic to those shops.
Monica Froese [00:04:05]:
Now, what kind of products are in the hobby school shop?
Destini Copp [00:04:09]:
So a lot of our online learning virtual summit, so we have those packages there and that’s probably the majority of the products. When people are coming to that shop, that’s what they like to buy, right? They want to go back and get the harvest to Table Summit that we did a year ago or whatever. Lots of low cost digital products like journals and planners and those type of things are also in that shop.
Monica Froese [00:04:34]:
Do you happen to use PLR products at all?
Destini Copp [00:04:37]:
Yes, I do. So I’m. I use Evelyn Weiss’s I Can’t Remember what it’s called. Perfect Secret Weapon. I may be getting that wrong. So don’t quote me on that. Look it up. Yeah.
Destini Copp [00:04:47]:
So I do love her. I love her designs of her products. So a lot of times I’ll take like those planners that she has done or those journals that she has done in that particular program and customize them for our hobby school audience and the level.
Monica Froese [00:05:03]:
And for anyone who doesn’t know what PLR is it’s private label rights and it’s essentially you buy the content, it’s already pre created content. But I always tell people I don’t teach PLR just because I like, you’ve been doing this a long time and you realize that, oh, I can’t just take the PLR and dump it in my shop. You have to personalize it still. And I saw so many people that would just take the PLR and be like, here, I’m going to go sell it. It’s like, now you’re just a dime a dozen. You have to still infuse yourself into it. I think that has been the biggest thing I’ve been talking about with AI and the differentiation. Because I have to, I get targeted.
Monica Froese [00:05:36]:
TikTok’s like my place of the world for my personal consumption. I’ve said I know I’m missing out not having my businesses on there. But it’s just give me something, give me an app that doesn’t. My brand doesn’t have to follow me to. But I get targeted with the worst bros who are like, we’re just going to create an ebook and you’re going to make $10,000 next month. I’m like, bro, not the way it works. And plus, if all you’re doing is plugging something into ChatGPT, pulling it out and making it a product, anyone can do that. That’s not gonna set you apart.
Monica Froese [00:06:05]:
And if you flood the market with that, people are still not dumb. Like they, you might get a little ways to it, but then they’re gonna clue into the fact that I can do this on my own. I don’t need to buy a product for this. So I feel like that’s a good way. Let’s talk about how AI is as digital product creators who’ve been doing this for a long time, how it is changing how you’re approaching your business.
Destini Copp [00:06:25]:
Yeah. So to your point there, I just want to take it a little step further. So to give you an example of how we have customized one of those offers that we have in hobby school. And I really love this example because I got a lot of feedback on it. People loved it. We had a Halloween costume planner that we had launched and one of the things we did was created a custom GPT so that when they were going through the planner, it was almost as if they had a costume designer sitting next to them helping them design their Halloween costume. And people were like, this is genius. We loved it.
Destini Copp [00:07:00]:
It helped them take that planner and really take it to the next level. So I think you’re right on track. Right. When you say you’ve got to customize these type of products 100%.
Monica Froese [00:07:12]:
But it’s a great example of what I’d want people to do. Not just take the PLR and throw it into their shop, because teaching shops, that’s what I found a lot of people doing. And I started pushing back. I’m like, no, that’s not going to create a successful shop. So that was a great example. So thank you for sharing that.
Destini Copp [00:07:26]:
Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:07:27]:
Okay, so now moving into offer shifting and what you’re doing to combat, I said before we got on the call, I feel like AI, We’ve been through a lot in this online business space, being in it as long as we had and there’s been hard things. New laws get passed, Facebook ads change and we adapt. But I do feel like AI is coming at us so fast that we’re laying down the track and then rolling over it. And sometimes I feel like the track’s not even there anymore and it’s just, it’s changing our efficiencies and how we can work. And then it’s like we’re so much in the back ends, even shifting of how we run the business, but then how we’re showing up for our people.
Destini Copp [00:08:03]:
Yeah. So I saw the writing on the wall about two years ago and I really started revamping all of my offers. And that’s when I decided, you know what, I’m going to move. Not going to say completely away from these self study type courses, but I did that for, to a large extent and moved into more of a coaching slash workshop model. So just to give you an example, in all of my B2B type memberships that I have, and I have three of those right now, between hobby school and my personal brand, I do one live workshop every month just so I can get in front of people because people were wanting that support from me that you don’t necessarily get in those self study type courses. I do the private podcast to answer all their questions so they can ask unlimited questions and I will answer them in the private podcast to make sure that people were fully supported and they just weren’t stuck out there. Because I do think with the self study courses, the static content number one, things are changing a lot and it’s hard to keep that updated. And with these monthly live workshops, I could really stay on top of what people were asking right now and getting their questions answered.
Destini Copp [00:09:20]:
I think that’s, quite frankly, that’s what people want from me. They want that support. They want me as a business owner, as a graduate business professor. They want that support and that insight from me. And quite frankly, they can’t get what I can do via AI. So it is a unique differentiator.
Monica Froese [00:09:38]:
Yeah, 100%. Okay, so let’s talk about these workshops because so I have noticed writing on the wall as well with evolutions even in my workshop. So we had a very successful run of doing what we call Quick Win workshops. They’re such good workshops but it, they’re actionable and it really narrowed it down to okay, this is the topic that we’re going to solve and like it was a very narrow topic versus like when you had like a self study course that you have to go from A to Z and it’s going to take you three months to get through it. It was like, okay, no, this is what we’re solving. And they did really well for about two years. And then I started realizing that they were getting stagnant and I was like, you never know if it’s like, is your audience getting stagnant on it or is it because we’re having another shift on what people, how people want to learn. And so now I’m moving into, I’m hosting my first one at the end of July.
Monica Froese [00:10:26]:
It’s going to be a four hour workshop, hands on. It’s going to be on building a no code app and we’re going to use Lovable and I’m going to go and from ideation to get people to just create a very simple one to get the idea of how to do it. But like in the Quick Win workshop, how I would have done it was, it would be like I’d explain it, I’d show them how to do it and we go on our way. In this type of workshop, they’re going to be doing it along with me in a zoom room. So how are yours being structured?
Destini Copp [00:10:52]:
Yeah, so they are more workshops of more hands on type. Let’s do it together, let them go through it, get feedback type thing. Some of it just depends on the topic. Right. So one topic was more going over, creating all of your launch assets. I have this minimalist launch method that I teach and it was like every single day, it was like a get it done week. Right. Every single one day we worked on your webinar slides, the next day we worked on your whatever, the sales page, the email.
Destini Copp [00:11:22]:
So every single day we would meet and go through it. I would give them feedback. So I really, to your point, I think People are wanting that. They want you to give them feedback on what they’re doing. Right?
Monica Froese [00:11:35]:
A hundred percent. And I’ve been thinking, I’ve been toying with the idea because listen, when I say death of self study courses, I know that people still want to learn from people. So like my knowledge that goes into my two signature programs which are technically self study. But you can’t, you would not know what to ask ChatGPT to get that level of knowledge that I have in those courses. However, I do recognize that people want to interact with that information in a different way. So I’ve been toying with the idea of. I’ve identified like three core GPTs to take all of these years of knowledge of my processes and what works and what doesn’t, systematize it and then have people be able to put the information in but then offer almost like a done with you type service. We I don’t want to start from scratch with, I want you to do the work and I’m going to give you all the tools to do the work and then we’re going to meet and review it, make sure it’s in line and then so like they can submit it all to me.
Monica Froese [00:12:32]:
And I don’t know if it’s going to be like a loom or if I’m going to do 30 minute zooms. I haven’t decided. But I do know that it’s not that the death of. It’s not the death of the information, it is the how the information is being presented and used. I feel like.
Destini Copp [00:12:47]:
Yeah. So I’m trying to think about how I would equate that to what I’m doing. So generally what I will do like in these workshops, they’ll get the AI prompts but really what I want them to do or use is my custom GPTs because I’ve really trained those custom GPTs and I’ve gotten really good feedback on that. So I’d like them to use that so they can use that do their information. If they need further help or they need me to look at a sales page or whatever, they can submit it through a form and I can give them feedback on it.
Monica Froese [00:13:17]:
So you had mentioned and when you submit it to be on the podcast that you have some interesting use cases of people in your audience, I’m assuming using AI for their products.
Destini Copp [00:13:26]:
Yeah, for I can walk you through some of the things I’ve done in my memberships to incorporate some of this. So like accountability bots kind of onboarding type stuff. So I’ll Start with the onboarding. So the challenge that I personally had in my newsletter Profit Club, is that people were coming in in all types of different stages and they had different means. Like, I would have people come that are people in the newsletter Profit club that have 70,000 people on their email list. And I have people who are just like, I haven’t even started it yet. So I needed to point them to different resources. And when people come into a membership, right, and they’re like, I don’t know where to start.
Destini Copp [00:14:04]:
So I basically set up an onboarding bot that asked and quote questions and then based on their answers, it pointed them exactly to the trainings that they needed to go review based on that. So that was one thing that I did. And I used Louise Bot that I got off the appsumo, I don’t know, a few months ago. I can’t remember when I bought it, but I used louisebot to do that.
Monica Froese [00:14:32]:
How do you spell that?
Destini Copp [00:14:33]:
Just Louise. Like name spell in bot. Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:14:37]:
Okay. I hope I’m. I’m going to be going Ampsuma to see if it’s still available.
Destini Copp [00:14:40]:
The other thing that I did, and this is, I say it’s still in beta, but I think it’s working pretty well because I had somebody contact me this week and her question was, destiny, I used your AI voice clone. Now, this is in my newsletter, Profit Club. So it’s trained on all the trainings and the research study that I did there and all. Basically everything that I teach. There she goes, I used your AI voice clone and I asked it a bunch of questions, but I wasn’t sure when did you want me to submit it via the private podcast feed or ask the AI clone. Valid question, right? So I asked her, I said, what kind of feedback did it give you? Because I wanted to see a real, live world case. There’s somebody who was actually out in the wild using it. I looked at the answers and I’m like, man, this was really good.
Destini Copp [00:15:28]:
That it said. She goes, destiny. I really felt like it was you sitting next to me answering my questions that I use LouiseBot to do that also. So it’s an. Basically, it’s an AI clone and I’ve uploaded all the trainings that I’ve done in the newsletter Profit Club. Like I said, the research study, all of that, that’s another cool thing that they can get 24 by 7 help on.
Monica Froese [00:15:53]:
Yeah. Okay. So was it fairly straightforward to do to build?
Destini Copp [00:15:57]:
So easy to set up? Literally, I had to go in and upload, like PDF Word, Google Docs. It was so easy to train it.
Monica Froese [00:16:06]:
And did you upload the actual videos or just transcripts?
Destini Copp [00:16:11]:
I uploaded the transcripts. I uploaded these slides of my training. I uploaded data from what I had done from a research study because I did a six month research study on newsletters. So I uploaded all of that. The other thing I did was an FAQ type thing. If they’re asking this, answer this way. But that was pretty easy for me to put together. Cause I obviously I know what kind of questions they’re.
Destini Copp [00:16:35]:
They’re asking. But it was super easy to train it.
Monica Froese [00:16:39]:
But now the only drawback is it’s not giving you. You can’t see people using it. So you can’t. So it will track heart history.
Destini Copp [00:16:49]:
I can’t remember how far back it goes. I want to say it was like seven days, 14 days. I couldn’t remember. Maybe it’s 30. It will give you some history there.
Monica Froese [00:16:58]:
Okay, can you download it? So you have. Yeah, because that would be really important to know. Plus you. You want to probably do it audit checks. That is responding in a way that you would respond. You may have just solved one of my biggest issues, to be honest with you.
Destini Copp [00:17:12]:
Oh really?
Monica Froese [00:17:13]:
Because when I’m thinking about I just revamped the Empowered Business Lab for the AI in in. I have been teaching that program though that framework of that program did not change because of AI the frameworks there. It’s not in the framework in 20. Really before 2021. But I put a name to it in 2021. I have had more one off trainings, coffee chats with my students, cohorts. The amount of training and teaching that I have done on this framework is astounding. It would probably take me.
Monica Froese [00:17:43]:
I know how long it would take me to download it all to get into a box. But it’s so extensive that I feel like that’s what I’m missing. Cause I can’t run unless I make it a membership like you did. I really resonate with it being a membership. But I have to figure out a way to infuse me. I can’t do cohorts all the time. It’s not really with just how my life is structured. I don’t really have that kind of bandwidth.
Monica Froese [00:18:05]:
So I need to add on a way that people feel like they have access to me without it being too much of my bandwidth. And it feels like that could be especially because I have. And so can I just mention that this is the other thing I like to point out to people about if anyone thinks, like our digital products dead. No, because here’s the thing, you know the new people that are like trying to do the hacks with AI, they don’t have years and years of content that they’ve developed without the help of AI with their own brain. And like, I realized this because I wanted to redo my goal planning workshop with and infuse AI into it. So it’s AI powered goal planning. This was like one of my top workshops. People love how I goal plan.
Monica Froese [00:18:43]:
And I was like, okay, so we’re going to redo it. I had already done the entire workshop. So I take all of that into ChatGPT and I’m like, okay, like, I already know what I want to talk about. Now we’re dousing some fire on it with AI. And honestly, I went back to it. I didn’t like what it came up with. I was like, no. I’m like, I’m smarter than you.
Monica Froese [00:18:59]:
And that’s the thing. Like, there is such power for people who have been putting content on the Internet for years to train AI on our unique voice. That’s essentially what you did with these bots.
Destini Copp [00:19:09]:
That’s exactly right. So I think it’s going to take you some time to pull those transcripts, Word documents, PDFs, whatever, training slides and upload it. So that’ll be time consuming, but you could probably get a VA to help you with that. But it is going to be easy for you to train it. I can guarantee you.
Monica Froese [00:19:24]:
I am completely jazzed by that idea. And then once I do it for the ebl, then I’ll do it for the digital shop experience too.
Destini Copp [00:19:32]:
Oh yeah, for sure.
Monica Froese [00:19:34]:
And especially because the biggest. And I’m interested if you run into this with your students. I’m going to guess you do most people, most creatives, I would say you’re dealing with creatives as well. Right.
Destini Copp [00:19:43]:
They don’t like data. And I have an undergraduate degree in.
Monica Froese [00:19:47]:
Accounting and I have my MBA in finance and I do like data, so. But I find I am definitely a unicorn in this space with liking data. Let’s take your newsletter club, for example. Obviously you’re. I’m guessing there’s a level of people need. They are tracking their data. You gotta know what’s working, what’s getting clicked on.
Destini Copp [00:20:04]:
Absolutely.
Monica Froese [00:20:04]:
How do you train them to read that data? And is there a way you’re infusing AI to help you with that?
Destini Copp [00:20:10]:
Yeah, so that’s a good question. And I think one way that we have done that is a workshop that I did this past week on fix your funnel. So uploading your funnel data, your funnels sales page, your sales pages, any of that, uploading that into AI. So yeah, we did basically just taking that data, uploading it into that custom GPT that I created and it would save spit out what the recommendations would be. But yeah, I think there’s a lot more opportunity for that. One of the workshops that we’re doing in July and I’m bringing in an expert to do this because I don’t feel like this is my area of expertise. She’s going to walk us through how to do that with our website and using Google Analytics and uploading that into AI and figuring out what do we need to up level in our website.
Monica Froese [00:20:59]:
Yeah, so the way I did it in ebl, since EBL is funnel based, it’s not a whole website based. I have a funnel tracking spreadsheet. So they just go to. Because the data’s kind of all over the place like your landing page software, your checkout. So I do have them do a little bit of a manual data pull but all the calculations are built into the spreadsheet. It doesn’t take too long. Once you watch the video then. So before they would pull their data and then I’d have the if this, then that statements inside.
Monica Froese [00:21:24]:
I’ve been doing this a long time. So if your data saying this, try this if you’re doing those types of statements then I took this to the next level and used hot jar and we get our heat maps where people like how many times that people were falling off the page before they even got to the main point of what you were trying to say. And then also you can watch people clicking through and like I always say like when someone like is hovering over your words or they scroll back up, it’s because you’ve lost them. Like they don’t understand what they’re reading and all these things. Like I know all this, I’ve been doing this for years. But that’s a lot for someone who’s new to it to be like it’s kind of like a deer in headlights. It’s okay, I see the data but I don’t even with your if this then that. So I made, I did a prompt base.
Monica Froese [00:22:02]:
I am going to make it a custom GPT soon here. But it’s all prompt based since briefly you upload my funnel tracking spreadsheet, you upload your heat maps and then you do a data debrief on your the video. So if you speed watch them make few notes. Oh my gosh, this just took so much manual intervention I used to have to do for students and made it so much easier. And it’s still using my logic.
Destini Copp [00:22:25]:
So does the AI, can it read the heat map or how are you uploading the heat map and reading the heat map?
Monica Froese [00:22:32]:
I download the picture of the heat map and then the CSV data of the heat map and honestly I was blown away. So I can only imagine how much better the GPT will be. So that’s one of my big pushes because it’s. And then like I’m thinking one of the things I was thinking about doing is then they. So now they’ve run the GPT I. So they’ve done the upfront listing of getting their data put in and then they can submit it back to me. And maybe. Oh, now that we’re talking about this, maybe even what could happen is the.
Monica Froese [00:23:07]:
I could have a bot. They put it into my bot then that’s been trained on all these funnel review because you know the number of funnel reviews that I have recorded over the years and then it’s trained on me. I’d be so interested to see how those two things could connect. And maybe I don’t even have to have manual intervention at all.
Destini Copp [00:23:22]:
Yeah, it could probably do it all for you for sure.
Monica Froese [00:23:25]:
It’s just mind blowing. What is out there now? How do you feel about how fast AI is changing and moving things? Does that worry you at all?
Destini Copp [00:23:35]:
I would say that it has changed so much just in the past six months. It’s crazy how fast things are changing and it’s a little overwhelming even for somebody like me. And I do feel like I’m like on top of things and trying to keep on top of things and doing all this research and reading all these newsletters. And it is, it can be overwhelming for sure. But I feel like the what we can bring to the table is just really analyzing it, how we can use it in our business and help our students use it in their memberships and their courses. And that’s where I have narrowed down. My focus is to really focus on that.
Monica Froese [00:24:12]:
Okay, I Can we talk about your newsletter strategy? Because I think this is pretty cool. Like I, first of all, the fact that you did a research study first and studied newsletters get and assuming that informed your eventual framework for your membership. So here’s my question. How much are you teaching people to use AI to write their newsletters?
Destini Copp [00:24:34]:
So I do have custom GPTs that will help them basically fast track their newsletter writing because that’s the biggest complaint that people have is it’s just, it takes me so much time. And with the framework that I have set up for them and with the custom GPTs, they can generally get it done in less than an hour a week. So it’s definitely working. I would say just going back to your main question in terms of the strategy and kind of all of that. Yes. Oh, I did that research study. It was a six month research study. I did that and then I started implementing all of this in my business.
Destini Copp [00:25:10]:
It really took me six months to a year to really get something that I felt like was solid and working. Because honestly, a lot of us in the creator niche, we hadn’t been exposed to what a true newsletter is, how it’s designed and the basically all the elements of it. So I use what I call like a mini magazine newsletter. It has those different sections in it.
Monica Froese [00:25:33]:
Just you years ago, I’m going to.
Destini Copp [00:25:35]:
Date myself a little bit. You would run out to that mailbox and get that Glamour magazine or that Cosmo magazine and it would have different sections in them. You would go to your favorite section in that magazine and check it out. So that’s the, you know, the feeling that I want people to get when they get my newsletter in their inbox. The other thing this mini magazine kind of method allows you to do is to do different monetization in your newsletter. One of the things that I did after doing that study, I did some sponsorships. People would pay me to get in front of my audience. It makes sense.
Destini Copp [00:26:09]:
I have 32,000 people on that email list. Duh. Why wasn’t I thinking about that before? So those are some of the things that came out in that research study.
Monica Froese [00:26:19]:
What, okay, like, what would you say are like the three, like key elements of a newsletter?
Destini Copp [00:26:25]:
The content, you have to have that valuable content that’s going to make someone open it up. So for me, like in my creator’s MBA newsletter, I have a section in there, it’s called bookmark worthy. And what I try to do in that section is really get something super juicy that if somebody is like, they don’t read anything else in that newsletter, if they read that section, they’re like, this is worth me saving in a special Gmail folder. The reason how I knew I was onto something with this newsletter strategy is that’s the kind of responses I was getting from people. They’re like, destiny, I have put your newsletter in a special Gmail folder. I’m like, okay, so this is working now.
Monica Froese [00:27:08]:
Yeah. And okay, so that’s where I’m trying to go now. I saw the writing on the wall as well. Like, where my, like, data. Right. My flash sales were becoming more stale and you could just see the shift in what people wanted. And so I launched two new newsletters on each side of the business. This Friday is my third one.
Monica Froese [00:27:27]:
So I don’t know yet, like, the impact it will have, but I think it’s all about training people to be expecting. I said, like, you’re. I almost always read your creator’s MBA newsletter because I know to expect it. I know the format it’s going to be in, I know the value you’re going to provide in it. And so I save it to read. And that’s what I’m like. So that’s what I’m going for. And it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re teaching people to do.
Destini Copp [00:27:52]:
Yes, absolutely. So there’s a lot of goals with that newsletter, right? It’s to nurture them, train them, get them to open it. Right. This newsletter, profit club that I have only focuses on this newsletter. It’s not going into that launch strategy that you’re going to be doing, kind of preparing people that for eventually you’re going to get them trained to open up your emails. But there’s a lot of different things that you can do in these email newsletters to monetize them that I think a lot of people weren’t doing. And I quite frankly didn’t even know I was using my newsletter based on what I had been told, which was send out your weekly pillar content for me. That was my podcast and that’s what I was doing in my newsletter.
Destini Copp [00:28:32]:
And it wasn’t working, Monica. Because when you think about it, when people know that’s the only thing in your newsletter, even if they love you and they love your podcast, they’re just going to go listen to it when they’re in their car. They’re not going to open up your newsletter. So we have to put other information in that newsletter that really will make it bookmark worthy, make them open it and say, this is worth me spending a few minutes of my time opening this.
Monica Froese [00:29:01]:
I think you’ll find this stat very fascinating, just having two of the newsletters down. My open rate on the newsletter compared to the podcast email which goes out the day before is 17% higher.
Destini Copp [00:29:15]:
Wow. So that right there proves what I found in that research study.
Monica Froese [00:29:19]:
I’m still like, there’s that part of me that’s okay, this is working, this is good. But wow. And actually I only mentioned the podcast in the newsletters. Like it’s woven into a story essentially. Like why to listen to the episode. It’s not like this even section that’s just podcast episode of the week. And so I’m still sending the podcast email because I’m not really highlighting it too much in the newsletter. But it’s making me wonder, maybe I should reconsider that.
Destini Copp [00:29:51]:
Yeah, I think you could just have a section in your newsletter that kind of highlights it. I want to mention something else because I think this is interesting. What they had, they were actually highlighting like their YouTube videos in there and they found that it was actually hurting their YouTube channel growth. Because what was happening is people were seeing that in the newsletter. They were clicking go into their YouTube and they’re like, I’m not in the frame of mind to sit here and watch a 15 minute video. They’re in the frame of mind to read, not go watch a video. So when they stopped doing that, their YouTube channel actually grew and they found different ways to point people to that. You got to think about user behavior and what people are thinking about.
Destini Copp [00:30:40]:
It’s easier to send them to a blog post. Right. Because they’re in the mindset of reading, but they weren’t in the mindset to go watch a 15 minute video.
Monica Froese [00:30:48]:
If I’m going through my emails, I’m not in a place where I want to listen to a podcast. Now. I think the idea behind it was, okay, inform them that it’s there so then they can go back to it or even if they get to the show because it links to the show notes. So like to under a brief recap of what it’s about and then they could decide if they want to listen to it. But you’re right, if someone starts it, they’re probably not going to finish it there.
Destini Copp [00:31:12]:
They’re probably going to wait until they’re working out, walking their dog, getting in the car. That’s when I listen to podcast and that’s when most people do.
Monica Froese [00:31:20]:
Okay, I want to like reinvent then the podcast email because I feel like I. Because I released the podcast on Thursday and the my newsletter goes out on Friday. So I don’t necessarily want to. Maybe I just need to rethink what the podcast email is. I don’t know what that looks like, but yeah, that’s a very good explanation though of why that was hurting there. Especially on YouTube where the amount of time people have to watch the video matters for the algorithm.
Destini Copp [00:31:46]:
Absolutely. So it was definitely hurting their YouTube channel. So they stopped doing it and their YouTube channel started growing and they don’t.
Monica Froese [00:31:53]:
Even mention the YouTube video at all now.
Destini Copp [00:31:55]:
I think they found different ways to weave it in, which is what I’m.
Monica Froese [00:31:58]:
Doing in my newsletter right now for the podcast. I’m weaving it into, like, more of a story than it’s just here. Go listen to this episode.
Destini Copp [00:32:04]:
Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:32:05]:
Okay. Are there any other ways that you’re implementing AI into your programs?
Destini Copp [00:32:11]:
Yeah. So one of the biggest complaints or people were saying, I need help here is with accountability. So I set up some accountability bots that people can sign up for if they want. They don’t have to. It’s completely up to them. And how I had them set up, I used SMS text. So basically they subscribe to get a notification and basically it goes out, like in the newsletter, Profit Club. I have one going out on Wednesday.
Destini Copp [00:32:40]:
Have you sent out your newsletter this week? If not, click here. And, you know, whatever my bot’s name is, I name them all. Sarah will help you get it written in just a few minutes and then I’ll circle back on Friday. Did you need any help? Did you get your newsletter written? I do the same for the digital product growth club. So I contact them at the beginning of the week saying, what are your goals for this week? Do you need help implementing them? And then if they do, I have a custom GPT that will help them with that. So it’ll help them with their goals, putting together an action plan. It’ll circle back on Friday to see how everything went, and if they need an additional help, it’ll help them.
Monica Froese [00:33:21]:
Okay, couple questions here. What platform are you using for the sms?
Destini Copp [00:33:26]:
Mobile text alerts.
Monica Froese [00:33:27]:
Mobile text. And are you only using SMS inside of your programs?
Destini Copp [00:33:31]:
Right now I am using SMS inside the programs. And for. If people want to sign up to get notification for one of my live webinars. Basically, we’re starting in an hour, we’re starting in 15 minutes. I do have that set up for that, but I don’t use it for necessarily marketing. I just use it to we’re going live.
Monica Froese [00:33:52]:
Or have you run into any legal issues with it? Because one of the reasons I shied away from SMS is because I feel like my lawyer was like, this is a really big exposure thing, essentially that you’re opening. I guess the FTC cracks down considerably harder on SMS than emails at this point.
Destini Copp [00:34:09]:
Yeah, I. People can unsubscribe, so there’s always that. It says in the message they’re getting, you can hit stop if you don’t want to get these anymore. And I’m not using them for marketing.
Monica Froese [00:34:19]:
Which I think is the differentiation. And I would say in turn, I, I can’t be the only one that feels this way. I don’t want to be marketed to in my tax. Like reminders. Fine, great. Like, I remember to pick up my daughter’s prescriptions because Walgreens tells me to.
Destini Copp [00:34:31]:
Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:34:31]:
But I am. Don’t sell to me in my tax.
Destini Copp [00:34:34]:
They only get it, like for notifications. And they only get it if they specifically signed up for. I don’t automatically sign them up for it.
Monica Froese [00:34:41]:
I will say the accountability discussion is an interesting one to me. I just recorded a podcast episode right before this where this came up. She has. She’s launching a new basically incubator for her program and she said she did her intake forms. And the number one thing that people say, and this, I got this throughout the years too, is they want accountability. And what I always find funny about people who say they want accountability is what people don’t realize is you still have to do the work. Yeah. It’s almost like they’re using accountability as a catch term for, you’re going to do it for me.
Monica Froese [00:35:09]:
I need someone to do it for me. But no, that’s not what accountability is. You still have to do the work.
Destini Copp [00:35:15]:
And I think that with these custom GPTs, it definitely helps them. Does some of the work for them. Not 100%, but it is doing some of the work for them. So I think that does help a little bit from what I’m hearing from folks.
Monica Froese [00:35:28]:
Yeah. Which I love. Because you want to find a way to help them. Actually. Then do the. Because here’s the thing, we’re one person. I can’t be tapping every person individually on the shoulder. Like, did you do it yet? And I think that’s historically what people saw as accountability.
Monica Froese [00:35:45]:
They were looking for me to tap them. But if outside of it being a one on one coaching relationship, I’m not tapping you. So this is a great way to tap without you having to do the tapping.
Destini Copp [00:35:55]:
I think the only time I really do the tapping is with my people who have signed up for the boxer coaching that I do on Wednesdays and they are paying extra for that. So that’s an upgrade that they can do outside of their membership. And I’ll tap them on the shoulder and say, do you need any help today? I’m in here for office hours. But other than that. Yeah, I hear you.
Monica Froese [00:36:15]:
Yeah. When people want to. Honestly, if you want that really High level touch of accountability. You gotta. That’s a premium service.
Destini Copp [00:36:22]:
Yeah, I agree. I completely agree. Otherwise you get my SMS text.
Monica Froese [00:36:25]:
Yep. I love how you found a way to integrate that.
Destini Copp [00:36:29]:
Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:36:29]:
For on the lower level. And take out your. You built it once and now it’s automated for sure. That’s an interesting use case. You gave me a lot of bot ideas. I will say so. I appreciate that. I’m like my mind is reeling with all of these bots that I can create now.
Monica Froese [00:36:48]:
So thank you for that.
Destini Copp [00:36:50]:
Yeah. Really how I did this, Monica. I really just sat down and said where are people getting stuck? And also how can I help them move forward faster? That doesn’t take my own personal time because I am so swamped right now running these two businesses. And then I have my university teaching contract. My back’s against the wall. Like I have to figure out how to do this easier and help folks get results faster.
Monica Froese [00:37:16]:
How many people are working with you?
Destini Copp [00:37:18]:
I just have one va.
Monica Froese [00:37:19]:
Okay. So me and you are in very similar boats. I’ve actually scaled back on how much people are helping me in the business just because we’re in different times. Like the things I used to be able to like just willy nilly spend money on. I think very hard now about where my money is going in the business and like I’m. I have to be more efficient. And this is where if you’re a teacher online, it’s not that people don’t want to learn from us anymore, but it’s how AI. What’s helping us do is systematize all of our knowledge to make it more accessible to people.
Monica Froese [00:37:51]:
That’s how I’m seeing this.
Destini Copp [00:37:52]:
Because my memberships are not like super expensive. Right. They’re not hundreds of dollars a month. So they’re definitely accessible. So I need to have ways in there that they can get things done that doesn’t require me being there.
Monica Froese [00:38:05]:
Okay. So if people want to experience the magic of these GPTs and bots, how can they find you?
Destini Copp [00:38:11]:
Yeah. So the best place to go find me is destinycomp.com where you can sign up for my newsletter. Honestly, sign up for my newsletter. That’s the best place to learn more about me and all my offers and everything that I have coming out. I do have some really cool stuff coming out between now and the next few months, so check it out.
Monica Froese [00:38:30]:
Awesome. We will be sure to link to that because I have a feel I can vouch the newsletter is worth reading. It’s one of the few that I make sure that I read almost every week, so definitely get on our newsletter and see how you structure it too. Other people figure out, okay, how am I going to reimagine my email marketing and then jump into your email newsletter membership? Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge with us today.
Destini Copp [00:38:50]:
You know, thanks Monica for having me. I’ve so much enjoyed our conversation.
Monica Froese [00:38:54]:
Me too.
Monica Froese [00:38:58]:
That’s a wrap on today’s episode, but your next step starts right now. If you’re serious about selling digital products and want the AI powered tools, expert strategy and real human support to make it happen, then you need to check out the Empowered Business Society. Inside. You’ll get AI driven trainings to create and sell digital products faster, a private community for expert feedback and real time support, exclusive access to the Monica Memo podcast, and if you go pro, you’ll get monthly marketing shortcuts, live Q&As, and 20% off of the empowered shop perpetually. Because smart business owners sell smarter, they don’t work harder. And the best part? You can get started for as little as $9. The best business growth happens when AI and real humans work together. Ready to make your next move? Join us inside of the Empowered Business Society.
Monica Froese [00:39:46]:
You can check us out at EmpoweredBusiness Co Society. See you in the next episode.
