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BBP4: Hitting Over 100 Subscribers with Katrina from Frugal Fun Mom

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Shownotes:

[00:00:04].430] – Liz

Welcome to Episode four of the Blogger Breakthrough Podcast I’m super excited for today’s episode. It was actually recorded before I decided to start a Podcast. We recorded it towards the end of 2019. It was meant to be part of a series on my blog. But to say 2020 hasn’t gone to plan would be a bit of an understatement. I’m sure you can relate, anyway, in this episode I’m talking to Katrina from Frugal Fun Mom about three things she did get her email list to over one hundred subscribers and more importantly, celebrating that milestone.

[00:00:32].480] – Liz

Let’s go ahead and dive in. 

[00:00:33].830] – Liz

Thank you, Katrina, I’m saying your name right, correct? from Frugal Fun Mom, which your site’s super cute, by the way. 

[00:00:40].890] – Katrina

Thank you. 

[00:00:41].880] – Liz

Super excited to get to talk to you because I reach out to you because you had shared a win inside a Facebook group that we’re both a part of because you finally crossed the threshold of one hundred email subscribers. Which is so exciting. 

[00:00:57].730] – Katrina

It is exciting. 

[00:00:59].500] – Liz

You know, a now you’re probably like. Okay, Well, now I need to get to 1,000. But let’s just take a moment to celebrate and really be excited that you crossed that threshold, because that’s, that’s three digits. 

[00:01:08].150] – Katrina

I know. Yep. It’s sure been hard. Holy moly. 

[00:01:13].920] – Liz

So you started your blog at end of March, this year 2019. Have you ever had any experience blogging in the past?

[00:01:21].530] – Katrina

I had. I’m no stranger to online business. My husband and I used to have a web and graphic design company about, ooh we’re talking like a good 10 years ago.

[00:01:33].980] – Katrina

And it was our sole income. I mean, it was the job that we did. And then I had three kids and decided I can’t do this anymore. And he needed to go back to work. We have a son that has a heart condition. And so my husband needed to go back to work so we could afford insurance for our son. It killed him to go back to work. But he is now. And so now we have insurance and that’s good.

[00:01:57].710] – Katrina

Or at least we can afford it more now. Now that we’re not paying for it by ourselves. 

[00:02:03].430] – Liz

Our health system’s broken. I know.

[00:02:04].880] – Katrina

It’s awful. But that’s you know, that’s in the past. So we put that business to bed. And I started another blog like eight years ago, and it just wasn’t doing anything. And that’s because I didn’t really have a plan. And so I picked up Ruth’s book, her first book…

[00:02:26].290] – Liz

How to Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul

[00:02:26].410] – Katrina

Yes. I could get her book and I started reading it and I was like, man, a lot of this makes a lot of sense.

[00:02:34].430] – Katrina

And then I heard about EBA and I was like, this is what I need, like an actual plan to know what to do. And so that kind of really, I feel like it gives you a really good plan. So that’s where I am now.

[00:02:48].390] – Liz

For those who don’t know EBA is Elite Blog Academy. And that was another thing I know about your post. Is this that this blog you started in March of this year… 

[00:02:55].240] – Katrina

There goes my dog.

[00:02:58].870] – Liz

You got Elite Blog Academy in January of this year. So, like, I feel like that was like the first step. to, like, you breaking through this level, is… 

[00:03:07].580] – Katrina

Absolutely. 

[00:03:08].330] – Liz

It was a plan, yes. If only I had started with EBA, no, I messed up my site  so much and then did EBA, 

[00:03:15].790] – Katrina

I think we all do. At least it’s fixable, right? 

[00:03:18].230] – Liz

It is. Thank goodness. Yeah. But yeah. So. So in March it was the end of March I think you said March 30th. And then as of like the end of October or beginning of November. You hit a hundred subscribers. 

[00:03:31].760] – Katrina

Yep. 

[00:03:32].100] – Liz

But half of those were in October, right? 

[00:03:34].490] – Katrina

Yeah. Which was weird. My husband is a super nerd, as I like to call him. I say that lovingly. And we were up late one night and he was looking through my site and he was like, “honey, your site is loading really, really slowly. We need to smush all your images” And I’m like. “OK.” So we did that. It messed up a whole bunch of stuff, but it definitely helped in the next day. All of a sudden I had a couple extra subscriber and I’m like, oh, OK. So maybe this is a good thing. And then you fast forward a few days. And I was listening to one of Ruth’s Podcast about just making sure that you’re posting more than once a week and instead posting three times a week. And it’s like overnight I posted three times a week for a couple of weeks and I started getting ten subscribers a day. And I was like, this is it. This is the thing that I need to do and which is good.

[00:04:25].220] – Katrina

I mean, you just have to get more content out there. And somebody said the best way to you know, every time you put more content out there, it’s one more door opening up to your site. And so I keep trying to keep it in my head that the more content I put out there, the more doors they have. Hopefully, the more people will find me. And so now I’m on this quest of like posting at least three times a week.

[00:04:44].960] – Katrina

And it’s helping. And it’s ebbing and flowing. I mean, I think I’m averaging consistently five or six subscribers a day, which for me huge,  right. 

[00:04:54].590] – Liz

That’s huge period. Don’t don’t be putting yourself down, like for me. No, that’s huge. That’s consistent growth. right. Exciting. 

[00:05:03].020] – Katrina

It is and everyone keeps saying, like the holidays end up like changing everything, like Halloween. There was a huge dip on Halloween and of course, I was panicking going oh my gosh I have no subscribers today and like, that’s a holiday. Like, I guess that happens. And so I panic when, you know, things go down. But it does. It just kind of goes up and down. But I’m consistently right around five a day, so I’m excited with that right now. 

[00:05:28].820] – Liz

That’s awesome. So you’re are you. How many do you have now?

[00:05:32].660] – Katrina

Well, here’s the other thing that I’m learning is I’m getting a lot of the same people subscribing for a lot of my stuff. So I don’t know what that means. Like, I don’t know if that’s like I don’t know what that means. Honestly, I’m like hmm. 

[00:05:47].310] – Liz

It means they I love your stuff. 

[00:05:48].890] – Katrina

I guess so. Like, the same people are keeping. So now we’re I think I was just looking at it. I think I have one hundred and twenty one today and I’m like, I’m getting lots of people subscribing. But a lot of them are the exact same people getting other things.

[00:06:03].860] – Katrina

And so I don’t have any idea how to like…

[00:06:06].150] – Liz

Just out of curiosity, what email marketing service are using? 

[00:06:09].350] – Katrina

I’m using MailerLite. OK, so I love it. 

[00:06:12].830] – Liz

It does count people twice, I think? 

[00:06:14].720] – Katrina

Well, it doesn’t actually count them twice. It like tells me that someone subscribed. So it’s like you think you get a subscriber and then when you look at your subscriber, like you think I’m getting one OK. So then your subscriber list stays like, that’s why I’m at one hundred and twenty…

[00:06:30].900] – Liz

 Which is nice because then you’re not being charged.

[00:06:33].020] – Katrina

Agreed. Yeah it is. It is nice but of course I’m like oh as I’m like scrolling through my email I’m like sweet! I got like 10 today and then I go and look at my list and it’s like what? like I have two actual new ones. 

[00:06:44].770] – Liz

That’s awesome to be excited about because they love your stuff, which means they’re going to love what you’ve got. You don’t need to….

[00:06:50].280] – Katrina

So I hope so. It really helps…

[00:06:54].040] – Liz

Keep going in EBA. Keep going. 

[00:06:55].980] – Katrina

I think that’s what, that’s what I’m doing.

[00:06:58].610] – Katrina

And I keep hoping that someone will like that people will write me back, you know, like with my newsletter and stuff. I’m not getting a lot. I don’t get. I’ve had one person write me back, which I’m like, OK, one person did. 

[00:07:11].640] – Liz

If anyone’s watching this and you get like newsletters from, you know, I feel you’ll probably think, oh, it’s just a newsletter. But if you hit reply like, it means so much to the blogger. It really does

[00:07:21].600] – Katrina

It totally does. And the lady one lady did write me back and she said it totally meant everything to her to get that email that day.

[00:07:28].430] – Katrina

And I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. It’s going to happen all the time. And well that was like three months ago.So… 

[00:07:35].120] – Liz

But you keep going. That’s awesome. OK. So you went into blogging with a plan. You bumped up your content creation to create more doors. 

[00:07:44].940] – Katrina

Right. 

[00:07:45].400] – Liz

Are you doing an opt in for every post or do you have a set few, you fit for each post?

[00:07:50].660] – Katrina

Well, I make sure to put an opt-in in every single post. And I’m trying to write all my content to somehow apply to all the options that I have. I was looking at them just today. I have like 18 of them, believe it or not. I have a lot of them, which I have, like, I don’t even know. Don’t even ask me what that means.

[00:08:13].490] – Katrina

I have a lot of different things. It’s like the whole throwing spaghetti at the wall trying to see which one will grab people. 

[00:08:20].810] – Liz

Yeah, 

[00:08:21].030] – Katrina

but they all are in different,  they’re all different things. Anyways, I’m trying to make sure every post I write includes like somehow applies to one of those obviously. But yes, I’m optimize every single post has an opt-in and it applies to something. 

[00:08:36].520] – Liz

Yeah. And, and what I should say. One of the other big things you did is you sped up your site speed. 

[00:08:41].930] – Katrina

Yes. Which I am working on that even more now because my husband is like, honey, I don’t know where you missed the boat. You used to be a graphic designer.

[00:08:50].690] – Katrina

Like, come on. Like, what happened? I’m like, I don’t know. You get some….

[00:08:54].650] – Liz

You’re like, I had 3 kids And like my brain just had other priorities. 

[00:08:59].180] – Katrina

You know what? I’m looking at this stuff going on. The picture looks a lot better if it’s PNG, which it’s not, like.

[00:09:05].490] – Katrina

Anyway, so now I’m backtracking and kicking myself that I’m making things smaller. 

[00:09:12].220] – Liz

Yeah, but if you need to compress with like a plugin like smush. I use short pixel myself. 

[00:09:17].970] – Katrina

Yep. 

[00:09:18].320] – Liz

There’s plugins to make this easy. So before we’re like, speed up my thing and you’re like Oh my God… There’s a plugin. 

[00:09:24].440] – Katrina

There is agreed, agreed. 

[00:09:29].500] – Liz

Because I am not a huge techie person. I can’t code, you know. But I’ve managed to run sites for five years now. 

[00:09:36].300] – Katrina

Yeah. It’s amazing how easy it really is for us that like my, my husband’s the nerdy one. I know some things, but I’m not artsy fartsy one. And so it’s like, you know, I can figure most stuff out, but I don’t know how to do it all either. And I’ve done this, I don’t even ask him for help a few times. 

[00:09:55].860] – Liz

You don’t know what you don’t know. And then you find out a piece of information, it opens a door… and you’re. Oh, wow. Let me go learn about that and apply it and then, you know…

[00:10:09].500] – Katrina

 Thankfully I just call my husband. I’m like, honey, I don’t know what I just did. 

[00:10:18].730] – Liz

Yes, I call Grayson Bell from iMarkInteractive who is awesome. 

[00:10:21].100] – Katrina

Oh, yeah. 

[00:10:21].830] – Liz

Because we were in the same FinCon local group and stuff. And so I’m like, hey, man, what did I do?

[00:10:29].140] – Katrina

 It’s always good to know somebody, right? 

[00:10:31].460] – Liz

Yes. Yeah, but yeah. So I’m sure. So I mean, you took a lot of steps, but I think having a plan, being consistent, you know, clearing the clutter that was slowing down your site would probably would you say the three big things that helped you kind of hit that next level of. 

[00:10:48].760] – Katrina

Absolutely.

[00:10:50].510] – Liz

Of 100 subscribers?

[00:10:50].640] – Katrina

Yep. Yep.

[00:10:52].750] – Katrina

And now I’m like, keep pushing forward come on, come on. Let’s get 200. and we’re going out for dinner, babe. 

[00:11:00].610] – Liz

I like it. You reward yourself with…

[00:11:02].510] – Katrina

Oh totally. Oh my kids are always asking me, mom, how many subscribers did you get today and when when I reach certain spots. They’re like, can we go get ice cream, and I’m like sure whatever. Let’s party. It’s hard. Whatever you got to do to celebrate. Right. 

[00:11:20].420] – Liz

Yeah. I would also say celebrate the fact that, you know, when you for a month get three posts out of a week, you know.

[00:11:27].060] – Katrina

Right. 

[00:11:28].190] – Liz

Because that’s a that’s an outcome you can control, whereas number of  subscribers you can’t always control that. So I hesitate to connect too much of a like a reward to the numbers. 

[00:11:37].870] – Katrina

Sure. 

[00:11:38].210] – Liz

You can’t always control them. But if I’m doing the work, I know who’s going to lead to that like that, I think should be rewarded. 

[00:11:43].430] – Katrina

Yep. Agreed. 

[00:11:45].810] – Liz

Are there any, is there any other tips or for that you would give someone who sub one hundred right now working towards that? 

[00:11:51].510] – Katrina

Oh I’m thinking, well don’t give up. And the days can be really long.

[00:11:58].090] – Katrina

I’ve had many days where I want to bang my head against the wall and cry and be like, what is going? Like why is this so hard? But at the same time, just keep going. Like, like they all say you never know what post is going to take off. I’ve never had any posts go viral. I got posts out there, but none of them have gone nuts. And I keep hoping maybe…

[00:12:17].050] – Liz

And viral is just subjective term. 

[00:12:18].730] – Katrina

I know it totally is.

[00:12:19].930] – Katrina

But like, you know what I mean? Like, nothing is like I don’t know. I feel like my site’s cool or whatever, but there’s nothing over the top yet.

[00:12:26].710] – Katrina

And I’m just continuing on.

[00:12:29].090] – Katrina

And I guess my advice is you don’t have to know exactly where you’re going to end up. You don’t have to know exactly what your business is going to look like because it is going to change. You don’t know what’s going to necessarily resonate.

[00:12:42].760] – Katrina

What you think is a great idea may not be the thing that your people love, just keep trying. Try lots of different things and just show up every day for the journey because who knows where it’s going to take you. And that’s kind of what I’m living in, is I don’t know where it’s going to go, but I am here. I’m committed to doing it. And I keep praying that it will end up being amazing. 

[00:13:04].090] – Liz

Well, thank you so much for sharing, because I feel like, you know, there’s so many, like blogger income reports out there and there are these like astronomical successes.

[00:13:14].410] – Liz

And, you know, especially when you’re starting out or it’s a newer site, even if you’ve been blogging on other sites, it’s like if you can feel it’s such a, like, drudge, you know, 

[00:13:25].420] – Katrina

Or you feel like you’re way behind, like you should have done this so many years ago.

[00:13:29].680] – Katrina

And if you had, you would be like super amazing, like all the big wigs, you know.

[00:13:34].150] – Liz

Yeah. Yeah. Like you see someone who started after you go, so much further, and you’re like, Come on. Everyone’s different. You know, you never know what their backstory is either. Maybe, you know, there’, maybe they have  a lot of money to pour into ads, you know, who knows?

[00:13:48].200] – Katrina

Yeah, lets go with that idea. 

[00:13:49].930] – Liz

But you know, so you never know. So don’t, don’t be comparing yourself and celebrate every level of success that you hit. 

[00:13:56].960] – Katrina

Absolutely. I like that idea for sure.

[00:14:00].500] – Liz

All right. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

[00:14:04].690] – Katrina

Absolutely. You’re welcome. Anytime. 

[00:14:07].450] – Liz

All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed my chat with Katrina. I did reach out to her to be like hey, finally publishing your interview. And she informed me that she is now over eight hundred subscribers. Who knows, by the time this is actually live, it could be a thousand. Which is saying a lot? Because she, of course, has been impacted by Covid 19 as well in the sense that I mean, everyone’s gotten impacted differently, but in the sense that all 3 of her kids are home now.

[00:14:30].490] – Liz

And so she went from being able to work full time on her blog to not having a lot of time at all. So the fact that she went from one hundred to over eight hundred and a good, you know, six or seven months and may even be at over a thousand is huge. So congratulations, Katrina. And if you guys have a blogging milestone, big or small, I would love to talk to you about it. I’d love to interview you and celebrate you.

[00:14:52].420] – Liz

Go ahead and shoot me an email. Hello@elizabethstapleton.com So that we can chat because I think we need to celebrate every single milestone. And knowing what you did, could help someone else hit that milestone, too. Take care.

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