Episode 767: How Food Bloggers Can Drive Traffic and Sales Through Human-Focused Email Marketing With Melissa Seideman

EBT767 – Melissa Seidemann

[00:00:00]  Supercut 

You are going to want to download our bonus supercut that gives you all the information you need to master Pinterest. Head to eatblogtalk.com/masterpinterest to download today. 

[00:00:14]   Megan Porta

Are you tired of waiting on the algorithm, whatever algorithm that might be to send traffic your way? If so, it is time to make email your MVP. Melissa Seidman, former teacher turned email marketing strategist, joins us in this episode to share how food blogger can consistently drive traffic and boost sales with strategic emails. We talk about how to write emails that feel personal and not robotic, how segmentation can skyrocket engagement, and the simple weekly email format that curates your best content and keeps readers clicking. If your list feels like an afterthought, this episode will change everything for you. I hope you enjoy.

[00:00:58]   

Hi food bloggers, I’m Megan Porta and this is Eat Blog Talk, your space for support, inspiration and strategies to grow your blog and your freedom. Whether that’s personal, professional or financial. You are not alone on this journey.

[00:01:13]   

Are you worried about the financial commitment of joining the Eat Blog Talk Mastermind? Here’s what helped Anya shift her perspective.

And say yes, if you want the same results, you keep doing the same thing. So sometimes you have to do something that’s a little bit painful and whether that’s on a personal level because you have to change something up, or whether that’s on a phone financial level because you have to make an investment.
 

But most businesses don’t stay the same unless they make some bigger investment. And that’s how I, you know, justified it and thought, okay, you know, I’m going to have to do something, but I’ll probably get a lot out of it. It’s more like an upfront investment that seems like a huge deal when you do it, but in hindsight I’ve already gotten so much out of it that it feels completely reasonable and justified in everything.

The cost of staying stuck is higher than the cost of joining. I promise. Secure your spot in the 2026 Mastermind today at eatblogtalk.com/mastermind. 

[00:02:13]  Megan Porta

Hello Melissa, welcome. How are you this morning?

[00:02:16]  Melissa Seideman 

Good. I’m very good. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:18]  Megan Porta 

Good, yes. Super excited to chat. This is always a great topic, especially here in the year of 2025 when email marketing is, I think, very important. And you’ll probably agree with that. Before we get into that though, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:02:34]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah, I am a former history teacher. I taught for in the classroom. Government, AP government, sociology and economics.

[00:02:41]  Megan Porta 

Wow, that’s amazing.

[00:02:43]  Melissa Seideman 

Also HomeC certified too.

[00:02:45]  Megan Porta 

Oh my gosh. Did you teach HomeC regularly too or.

[00:02:50]  Melissa Seideman 

I did not. There was an opening and they told me to get certified and then they ended up finding a spot in social studies so I ended up doing that. But I did get certified in social homes and I love to cook and bake and do all that fun stuff.

[00:03:02]  Megan Porta 

Amazing. So you’ll be able to relate to the Eat Blog Talk audience a little bit. The food bloggers. Yeah. Okay, so tell us a little bit about Not Another Va just to give us a background.

[00:03:14]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah. So I built my business on the side while I was teaching full time and I was a former teacher. I realized I needed to pay my daycare bill literally. And my daycare bill was really expensive. So we ended up, I ended up starting email marketing and people started hiring us to do their email and all of a sudden that took off.

[00:03:32]   

I was making more than my teaching salary. So I start switched into email marketing. None of the VA started because everybody hires a general VA for email market. But the reality is they don’t know what they’re doing and often you need a specialist who knows what they’re doing. So that’s why I thought of the name Not Another VA.

[00:03:47]   

Meaning we only do email marketing for small business owners. We do everything from startups to sending weekly emails, sending twice a week emails, sending once a month emails. We do email migrations from one platform to another. We do everything in terms of email marketing.

[00:04:04]  Megan Porta 

So you work with entrepreneurs beyond food bloggers, but food bloggers are definitely on your menu as well? It sounds like.

[00:04:11]  Melissa Seideman 

Yes. Yeah.

[00:04:12]  Megan Porta 

Okay, cool. Well, let’s talk about email marketing because that seems to be your area of expertise aside from history and home ec. So I guess how can food bloggers. This is something I know that is top of mind right now, but I think it’s so good to get this perspective from many different experts. How do you think food bloggers can use their email list to more consistently get traffic back to their websites?

[00:04:40]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah, I think what I would do is first off, make sure your website is optimized for your email list. Have a pop up, have an embedded form on your site, have something in your footer. You should have the email out done on almost every page of your website so you’re getting the most amount of subscribers.

[00:04:56]   

If they come to a recipe, then there’s a blog post at that blog post. Let’s say they then click the opt in form at the bottom of the blog to learn more about your recipe book or your menus. Or daily weekly emails that you send out, then what? The next step is to send consistent emails.

[00:05:13]   

And what consistent means for you could mean different for me. So some people might be once a week, some people may be twice a week, it might be every Friday, it might be every other Friday. Like you can decide what works for you. The more consistent you are, the more reality is they’re going to remember you and you’re going to be top of mind when they’re cooking or baking or buying food or buying a menu book or whatever you’re selling.Recipe book, that’s what’s really important.

[00:05:37]  Megan Porta 

So if somebody is sending out say one email a week, do you recommend just experimenting with going up to maybe two and just seeing how that plays out?

[00:05:46]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah. So see what works for your audience. If you have really good open rates and click rates, that gives you an indication that they’re opening them. So that’s really important. And monitor those metrics. It’s really important. So I found for me, I was sending emails every Tuesday and I found for me personally I was making sales every time I sent an email.

[00:06:04]   

So I said let’s try another email on Thursdays and more personal. So my Tuesdays is more like a newsletter style email talking about different things. So you could do like recipes or your favorite trending resources or whatever you’re selling in your business. And then maybe the Thursday is your favorite muffin recipe and why you love that and how it breaks up memories from your grandmother, whatever it is, make that more of the personal touch.

[00:06:28]   

And then you could say check out my blog and send traffic to your blog, send traffic to your website, send traffic to your YouTube channel, whatever you have.

[00:06:35]  Megan Porta 

And then for the forms you were talking about. So say you have embedded forms on your blog post, do you recommend customizing those or having just kind of a generic embedded form or maybe a variety.

[00:06:47]  Melissa Seideman 

I recommend a variety. So think of like categories for your business. I often say it’s buckets. Think of buckets for your business. Maybe a fall one, maybe a spring one, maybe a winter one, maybe have a summer one. At least that’s where I would start. Have a general one that’s just a general opt in for menu, recipes, ideas, but definitely seasonal for sure.

[00:07:06]   

And then you can get niche down. Maybe you have your favorite chili recipe and you’re going to put that chili recipe when it’s football season or whatever it is. And then that would be get people on the email list and they’re going to join your email list, want the recipe and then all of A sudden then they become a loyal subscriber. They’re going to be checking out your blog posts and all that great stuff.

[00:07:23]  Megan Porta 

How do you recommend people decide on what to put as the opt in? So yeah, like an ebook or some sort of, I don’t know, a cheat sheet for something or a meal plan or where do we start with that?

[00:07:39]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah. Think about what is your ideal client in mind? That’s often how I phrase it. If my ideal client is a busy working mom, then maybe I’m going to give a meal plan ideas for toddler friendly meal plan planning or if I know I’m targeting high end chefs or high end cooking that maybe like a recipe that’s going to work for that or ebook of some sort, even give a cheat sheet measuring cheat sheet, something depending on your audience.

[00:08:06]   

But think of that ideal client in mind and that’s what you want to target because you don’t want people on your list that are not your ideal client in mind.

[00:08:14]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay, so this is something that I hear a lot too. Someone in my mastermind group is going through this right now. It’s like she had been sending out emails to her audience regularly, but she wasn’t putting her in the emails. And she just had this realization one day that she needed to start doing that and make it more personal and make it more like I’m a human behind the emails. So how do we do that better?

[00:08:42]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah. I always recommend starting with a welcome sequence. We write them for clients all the time. But you should have a welcome sequence. Before someone even gets on your weekly newsletter, they should go through the welcome sequence. It could be something as simple as 3, 4, 5 emails, 6 emails over a period of time and welcoming into your business.

[00:08:59]   

Welcome to your brand, why you started cooking, why you love cooking, how it started, and give them the story behind it. Because the stories and connections are what sell businesses. I’m going to buy from someone who told me about their grandmother, cooking with their grandmother, making their favorite sugar cookies or whatever it is that’s going to sell.

[00:09:16]   

And put your face literally put a picture of yourself cooking, put a picture of yourself, your inspiration, give your favorite tips and tricks and that type of thing, make it personal, make it connected, and then you add them to the weekly sequence and then the start getting weekly emails and you literally tell them, I’m going to send you an email every Tuesday, every Friday, every Saturday, whatever it is, and then be consistent with that.

[00:09:37]  Megan Porta 

So I know there’s a balance between like here’s who I am, I Want to tell you about me. And then like, I know it’s about you. I want to deliver to you what you want and what you need. So how do we find that balance?

[00:09:52]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah. In that welcome sequence, you can ask them what is their favorite thing to cook and have them reply. Literally say, reply to me. In the email. You could give a poll or a survey and see what they’re interested in. And then that’s how you pull them into segmentation. If you’re interested in cooking for weight loss or cooking for nutritional value or adding more vegetables to your family’s menu, whatever you choose to do, pull them into whatever segment.

[00:10:16]   

That’s how you pull them in. And then you can segment your list based on that and send emails based on the interest.

[00:10:22]  Megan Porta 

Okay, I like that. So you’re, you’re obviously telling them who you are and what you’re about, but also, oh, I need to hear from you. I want to hear what dinners you need or whatever. Like asking. Inviting them into your sphere.

[00:10:36]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah. And say, come chat with me on Instagram. Come follow my YouTube channel. Come follow all these things. Whatever you do for social media too, connect those two branches, basically.

[00:10:46]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:10:47]  Melissa Seideman 

Of your business.

[00:10:48]  Megan Porta 

I like that. And then you mentioned segmentation. How much segmentation should we do?

[00:10:53]  Melissa Seideman 

I have clients that have way too many tags, hundreds of tags. I always recommend tagging based on interest and that you will actually use. So if you tag them. Interested in a cookbook or a recipe book or whatever you’re choosing to do or tag them into, I’m going to make a live. I don’t, I don’t.

[00:11:11]   

Let’s say I have one client who does like live cooking where she’ll do a cooking show and then they’ll watch the webinar and then cook with them. So if you do something like that, you can tag them into a webinar. But like, tags should be purposeful and intentional and I think that’s really important.

[00:11:24]   

And use them to your advantage. If someone’s interested in fall recipes, then you pull them into a fall recipe and then, then all of a sudden they could get a sequence or a funnel trying to pull them into the fall recipe book that they’re selling or the spring one, you can pull them into a spring one, that type of thing, or holiday menus, whatever it is.

[00:11:41]  Megan Porta 

Is there like what’s too many for segmentation? Is there a number or does it just depend on.

[00:11:47]  Melissa Seideman 

Just depends on what you can do. And again, start. If you’re brand new, you probably are overwhelmed thinking about this. But just start basic with a welcome sequence and weekly emails. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden you create a new product line that you want to advertise. What can I get them to click on to get into that product line, whether I’m selling a recipe book or tutorial or a live video?

[00:12:08]  Megan Porta 

Is it a lot to manage? Like, let’s say you have 12 that make sense, perfect sense for your niche. Is that a lot to manage? Do you think that? Yeah, I can just see someone being like you said, overwhelmed by that and just not getting started.

[00:12:21]  Melissa Seideman 

I think start slow with it. And again, your email provider does the work for you. Again, you can’t just send an email with gmail.com you got to go with a provider. And on the VA, we work with 12 different providers. Use your provider to your advantage. Every time I use the word winter, it’s going to send them the winter recipe book or the weight loss book.

[00:12:41]   

If, if I’m trying to do weight loss tagging, whatever you’re trying to advertise, pull them in and use your email provider to your advantage. So every time you just, they click a link that says, I’m going to want this recipe book, then you pull them into this funnel automatically and you don’t have to think about it.

[00:12:55]   

And the best part is, do you make money when you’re cooking, when you’re playing with your kids, when you’re going for a walk? All those funnels do the work on the back end.

[00:13:02]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. So getting it set up is the initial time investment and once it is, it’s just set and forget it.

[00:13:08]  Melissa Seideman 

Right, Set and forget it. And then you can update it every so often. I have a calendar reminder in my schedule once a year to just check my funnels to make sure they’re relevant and appropriate.

[00:13:17]  Megan Porta 

Okay, great recommendation. And then do you have some ideas for monetizing email lists?

[00:13:24]  Melissa Seideman 

Yes. So Kit is a really good platform. I recommend, I recommend Kit for a lot of different reasons, but Kit you can do do. They’re rolling out ads for email list, which is kind of cool. So my email list has made me 400 over the year, which doesn’t sou sound like a lot, but my bill is 700, so it’s paid for a little over half my bill.

[00:13:44]   

So you can target ads that way. With Kit, which is pretty neat, you can have send your emails to blog posts or providers that sponsor you. So you can do sponsored advertisement, you could do Amazon affiliate links, send them to your blog post and get them to Amazon. That way you can do all kinds of different things and monetize your list very simply.

[00:14:07]  Sponsor

Hey food bloggers, we have something super exciting to share at Eat Blog Talk. The Eat Blog Talk podcast is now on YouTube. You can watch full video interviews with incredible guests, sharing game changing tips for your blogging journey. Subscribe now and don’t forget to share with your fellow food bloggers. Let’s grow together. Head to YouTube, search Eat Blog Talk and start watching today.

[00:14:29]  Megan Porta 

Now for Amazon. Can you now put direct links? You can only link to your storefront, right? Your storefront, yeah.

[00:14:42]  Melissa Seideman 

So you can link to a storefront or you can link to a blog post. So that’s why I’m constantly thinking link to a blog post that has this is my favorite utensil that works with this recipe or this is my favorite spice that works with this recipe. And then you link the Amazon affiliate that way. And you just constantly are sending traffic to your blog or your YouTube channel.

[00:15:00]  Megan Porta 

And I know there was a, wasn’t there a possible change in that recently? And then it was like you had to read the fine print from Amazon and it wasn’t actually something you could do. I think this was back in May, it was kind of, oh, I don’t know, much unclear about what they were saying, but it was like maybe a change where you could link in your emails, but then people were reading more deeply and then it was like, no, you can’t.

[00:15:24]   

You have to be part of the influencer program. But I like your idea of putting a post together and just saying like, maybe you have favorite kitchen gadgets. You could even organize them by category. Right. Like small appliances or whatever.

[00:15:39]  Melissa Seideman 

I even made a page on my website called Recommendations and all my recommendations have all my affiliate links on it. So that’s a really helpful thing that you could just have recommendations and then your favorite kitchen tools or your favorite items that you want to recommend and then all of them link to affiliate links.

[00:15:53]   

And then at the bottom of the footer I just say this page contains affiliate links. But then even in the blog post, they’re going to the recipe, they’re going to the items that you’re sending traffic to. You might as well affiliate that way.

[00:16:04]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Okay, so you mentioned ads and email affiliate recommendations. What are some other ways to monetize through email? Obviously traffic, like getting people to your site.

[00:16:16]  Melissa Seideman 

And you could have sponsors sponsor an email and then you advertise. Yep. So you can have sponsors advertise an email and then the sponsor can get all the clicks based on the email that you do so again, the more consistent you are and the more consistent you are with your emails, it improves email marketing.

[00:16:32]  Megan Porta 

All right, and then let’s talk about turning an email into more of like a weekly menu. Just putting. Pulling all of your best recipes together and utilizing some of that older content. I think food bloggers tend to think that we have we can only put our new content in emails. But that’s not true, right?

[00:16:50]  Melissa Seideman 

Oh, no, no. Yeah. No, yeah. I’m a big fan of tagging each email that I write. So, like, I rename each email based on the subject in the season. So, like, even people won’t remember what I wrote last fall about my fall favorite recipes or my spring favorite recipes. So look at best past emails.

[00:17:07]   

And it’s so simple that even if you don’t have time for a new recipe this week. But you could say, here are my fall favorite blog posts and send them to five blog posts about the fall or five blog posts about the spring or winter cooking menus. And here’s blog posts. That way you can send them to old traffic.

[00:17:22]   

They don’t know if it’s new or old, and it’s going to get more clicks and more views and they’ll likely buy from you.

[00:17:27]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. We have so much content we’re sitting on and it’s silly to just let it sit there. Right. Go back through it. And I know people who recycle stuff all the time. If it works, if you send out an email, like your best cookie recipes or whatever and it works, then try to figure out a way to do that again.Right. You don’t have to just do it once and you don’t have to create it.

[00:17:50]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah. And it’s so simple. And even like one week you can just say, connect with me on social media, connect with me on LinkedIn, whatever you want to do, and send them to Traffic that way, which is an interesting way to do it.

[00:18:01]  Megan Porta 

So I know Q4 is coming up and this is a really great time to tap into email and opt ins and freebies and all of that. Do you have any recommendations for food bloggers to just really get the most out of email in Q4?

[00:18:15]  Melissa Seideman 

Send consistent emails. I would throw definitely a Cyber Monday sale on products that you’re selling for sure. And gear up for it. Tease that something big is coming, whether it’s Cyber Monday or Black Friday. Black Friday tends to be a lot of emails. So I try to do Cyber Monday Monday, but give them the week to buy.

[00:18:31]   

So give them Cyber Monday if you have a sale that’s good for a product line for Christmas or holidays. You can definitely do that. And yeah, definitely gear up for obviously people are going to be cooking with their families, so I would highlight that too.

[00:18:46]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. So holiday focus, obviously and thinking through different ways to bundle your content and put it in your emails. It’s. I, yeah, email is such a great thing to tap into in Q4 and something we often overlook. So just wanted to mention that and then anything else we’re forgetting. How else can we get the most out of our emails now? Not just in Q4 but always.

[00:19:15]  Melissa Seideman 

The funnels you have to have. I know that sounds so silly to do and it’s, it’s hard for a beginner, but start doing funnels. Create one like the welcome sequence and then pull them into a funnel. And the way I think of it, I think of it like a teacher. I think backwards.

[00:19:29]   

What is the assessment or what is the goal I’m trying to do? So if I want them to buy this product line, what am I going to do backwards to get them into that product line? So maybe I create a new opt in that pulls them into the product line, but then I put a tag next to the product line also that pulls them into the segment.

[00:19:45]   

So then they get a series of emails upselling them on that product that I want to sell. So think backwards. And that often helps me think of, oh well, I have this, this product here, maybe I can pull part of it and make that the opt in and then that’s the opt in freebie.And then they can get a series of emails to upsell the bundle.

[00:20:01]  Megan Porta 

What if somebody doesn’t have necessarily anything to sell? How do they. And they don’t have that thing to work backward from and they’re just kind of floundering like I don’t know what funnel to make. Where do, where do they start?

[00:20:13]  Melissa Seideman 

It could. The funnel could even be just sending them to the blog post. Did you check out my blog? Did you check out this fall favorite recipes? It could be a funnel of just getting them to fall favorite recipes and you highlighting a recipe and sending them to the next blog post or sending to YouTube video.

[00:20:28]   

If you had a YouTube video, it could be that simple. That too. If you don’t have a product line, that’s fine too. But then maybe you’ll think of something. All of a sudden the product line.

[00:20:36]  Megan Porta 

Will come to you or a category, right? Or a category on your site. I like what you just said about YouTube video. Yeah, it could be as simple as that. And then putting it out there and seeing what works, seeing what people like and then maybe just revising it as you go. So just starting with something and you have the content. So start somewhere and then keep experimenting and seeing what is resonating. What else? Is there anything else we need to know about email?

[00:21:06]  Melissa Seideman 

I always recommend having a template. It saves you a ton of time. Have your social media links and everything branded with your logo, your colors, everything branded. So don’t do too many colors. I’ve seen emails that have way too many colors and going on, it’s overwhelming. What I recommend is having your link be one color and your buttons be the same color.

[00:21:24]   

So they train your audience to see that color and want to click it. So for example, my branding colors, my branding colors are red and blue. So if I want the links to be all red and then all of a sudden they see the red, they want to click it. But then at the bottom I always have read my blog post, check out my website, check out my shop, check out whatever I want to check out and have the links there.

[00:21:45]  Megan Porta 

Do you recommend using different temp or styles of emails just to change things up or always the same template.

[00:21:52]  Melissa Seideman 

I always use the same template and then I change up what’s in the body. So if I have a newsletter style email where I’m just highlighting different features or different layouts, that’s a newsletter. I could do a personal email where I write, write emails personal and then that still that templates there because it’s brand recognition essentially what it is.

[00:22:10]   

They see my logo, they remember who I am, they know that I’m the email marketing person from Not Another VA. They see all my connections at the bottom, whether it’s Instagram or Facebook or whatever it is.

[00:22:19]  Megan Porta 

And then do you have thoughts about how many photos and links to put inside of each email?

[00:22:24]  Melissa Seideman 

I do no more than three. So I use the, I call it the rule of three. No more than three images, no more than three links that are different. It overwhelms people too many links. So and then I always remind them of the links at the bottom. So if I talked in the email about my fall favorites at the bottom, I put my top three links at the bottom.

[00:22:42]   

This is what I’m directing traffic to because not everyone reads the whole email anymore. People often read the top, the middle, the bottom or scan the whole thing. So it’s important to hit the links at the top, the middle and the bottom every time. If you’re doing that one call to action.

[00:22:57]  Megan Porta 

So you put the three Links toward the top. If people skip that, then you put the same three links at the bottom. Or do you just.

[00:23:03]  Melissa Seideman 

Sometimes I’ll put it as a ps. Okay. Yes. Check out my fall favorites. Check out my favorite cookie recipe. Check out my. Yeah, whatever it is. And then I put them at the bottom as a P.S. because often you’ll see and then you can track with your analytics. Where are they clicking? I have one client, for example, they all click at the bottom.

[00:23:18]   

So we’ve been putting mainly all the links at the bottom, talking about the emails, putting a picture that is clickable. Also because people do click pictures and pictures sell obviously food. So that would help too. And then that’s what we do. But it depends on the client.

[00:23:33]  Megan Porta 

Do you change things up as far as what anchor text you’re using? So do you use like the full recipe or my favorite chicken recipe or does it matter?

[00:23:42]  Melissa Seideman 

I would never put. Personally, I would never. With the, the cooks that, the chefs that we have, I would never put the full recipe in it. It can be too long. I tried heat mammals to about 300 words. No more than 300 words too long. People check out. So I just put a blurb about the recipe, a picture, a button.

[00:23:59]   

And then you send traffic to wherever you’re trying to go because again, you want traffic going to your website because they’re going to get to your website and they get lost. Oh, I found the chicken recipe and now I’m going to find this one and then I’m going to find this one and then they get lost.

[00:24:10]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I was more referring to just like the name of the full recipe. So maybe it’s like my one pan chicken and rice casserole. Like do we put that whole title in the blog post and link to it? Is that okay?

[00:24:22]  Melissa Seideman 

Yep. Yeah. And then a blurb about how easy it is to cook, why it’s your favorite, that type of thing. And then if you had any personal connections, is my mother’s favorite recipe or like whatever you do, but make that personal connection of why you like it, why it matters, that type of thing.And then you’ll make those connections with people beyond just opening an email and seeing you as a business.

[00:24:39]  Megan Porta 

Do you have thoughts about putting little quick snippet videos in emails or linking to maybe a loom video about like, hi, I’m Megan and I’m gonna. This week we’re gonna whatever talk about casseroles. Okay.

[00:24:51]  Melissa Seideman 

Love that. Yeah. So depending on the provider, sometimes even they make a gif of your video, which is awesome. And then they click it and they can watch more. So that’s great. Yeah, I definitely do that. If you have that repurpose everything you do. So if you make a graphic for social media, put it in your email, like you can repurpose a ton depending on what you do for your business.

[00:25:10]  Megan Porta 

I’ve also heard of people recently putting like Pinterest pins in their emails. Like, hey, check out this Pinterest pin that went wild. People are loving it, stuff like that. Just trying to think outside the box a little bit instead of just sending people to your website. I mean, obviously that’s valuable too.

[00:25:24]  Melissa Seideman 

But yeah, the Pinterest pin’s really well done for sure. Put it at the bottom and then you get Pinterest trending a little bit more too.

[00:25:31]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. I wanted to ask you, what is a good click rate and open rate for food bloggers? Would you say?

[00:25:39]  Melissa Seideman 

Minimum 30% and 5%. Click 30 and 5. And if you’re not getting that, you gotta clean your list. You gotta reevaluate where your links are. Often it’s something simple, tweaking. If you only have the links at the bottom, they’re not going to always click at the bottom. So making sure the links are strategically placed, seeing where they are clicking and making sure you’re marketing to your ideal client, your ideal customer. Okay, that’s important.

[00:26:03]  Megan Porta 

Okay. We just packed a lot and that was a lot of information. Is there anything we’re forgetting, Melissa, that you think food bloggers should know about email?

[00:26:10]  Melissa Seideman 

Just start small and it takes time to build up. Often people think they could start email and it just takes off all of a sudden. But it does take time and consistency. So if that’s really important, it does take time. And promote those opt ins wherever you can.

[00:26:23]  Megan Porta 

Okay, well, thank you. This was great. Super valuable. I like to ask all my guests if they have either favorite quote or words of inspiration. Do you have anything to share with us?

[00:26:34]  Melissa Seideman 

My grandmother wrote this in a book for me before she died. And she wrote dream about what you want to do, go after it and get it and work hard to get it. So I love that.

[00:26:43]  Megan Porta 

Oh, that’s really cool. Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. We’ll put together a show notes page for you, Melissa, if anyone wants to go look at those, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/notanotherva and then, Melissa, tell us where people can find you. I know you have services for food bloggers. Tell us all about those too.

[00:27:03]  Melissa Seideman 

Yeah, so you can find me at nonotherva.com NotAnotherVA on Instagram, NotAnotherVA on LinkedIn. I mean, wherever you want to find me. I’m my name is trademarked so you can find me anywhere you want. But we offer email marketing for small businesses. Whether you’re starting up. You want a funnel written for you, you want weekly emails done for you.

[00:27:21]   

We do all of that done for you. We also offer email club. Email club is email templates done every month for you. So you just pay a small fee of $30 a month and you get four email templates for your whole month and then you can take it and personalize it for your own business.

[00:27:37]   

It’s really great. I find people have really high open rates and click rates 70% 80% because of the email templates. And then in my free offers, you click below the show notes and you can find all my free offers. I have a ton of free offers that I can help you with your business.

[00:27:50]  Megan Porta 

Awesome.  Everyone go check all of that out. Thank you again Melissa and thanks for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:28:00]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. This episode was brought to you by the Eat Blog Talk mastermind, where bloggers come together to break through barriers and accelerate growth. Learn more at eatblogtalk.com/mastermind. I will see you next time.