Kelly Diels

Women, Power + Culture-Making

Feminist Marketing Tool #521: Refresh Consent with a Pre-Launch Email

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Sending a pre-launch email seeking to refresh consent is a culture-making move. It reinforces the feminist principle that consent is sacred; and practicing consent in all things helps us chip away at the foundation of rape culture. And, contrary to the narrative that says anti-oppressive principles are bad for business, refreshing consent also can be good for sales. Refreshing consent preserves your list, builds trust with your audience, and can even increase your sales. True Story.

In this Feminist Marketing Tool, you’ll learn how to implement The Refresh Consent Pre-Launch Process in your email marketing (and your culture-making!).

This Feminist Marketing Tool contains:

1. CONTEXT. The Politics of Consent in Our Email Marketing Practices — and Why It Matters

2. PRACTICE. What Renewing Consent for Sales Emails Looks Like in Practice

3. HOW-TO. The Step-by-Step Guide for Creating The Prelaunch Refresh Consent Process*

4(a) FOLLOW UP. How to Continually Renew Consent after You Run The Refresh Consent Pre-Launch Process

4(b) SWIPE COPY. Swipe Copy for Refreshing Consent

5. OUTCOME. The Culture-Making, Business-Building, FEMINIST Impact of Refreshing Consent

6. CULTURE MAKING. Refreshing Consent is a Culture-Making Move…That Boosts Your Marketing Confidence (and Can Increase Sales!)

7. MORE RESOURCES re: Consent + Online Marketing and Feminist Marketing/Business Practices

8. DOWNLOAD. Get the Downloadable, Shareable Guide complete with examples and swipe copy

1. CONTEXT. The Politics of Consent in Our Email Marketing Practices — and Why It Matters

As a feminist, a survivor, and a HUMAN WITH A CONSCIENCE, I cherish consent. I want to live in a world where consent is a foundational practice. #endrapeculture

I’m also a content marketer and a marketing consultant. I took all.the.courses; got properly trained up; and now I have more than a decade of experience crafting campaigns and running launches.

So I know from intimate, first-hand professional experience that MANY of our standard online marketing tactics — the ones everyone uses, the ones that are standard in all the courses, the ones we take for granted as the norm — over-ride or devalue consent.

(I’ve written about this, A LOT — check out my list of resources at the end of this post.)

Here’s the problem with that: when we use these tactics, whole, then we are co-authoring a culture where it is NORMAL and routine to devalue consent.

Our current cultural and marketing norms are the norms of the rape culture we live in: do whatever it takes to get what you want (sex, a sale), even if it’s not in the best interests of the other person nor what they want.

In the culture I’m dreaming of, the norm will be : let’s get enthusiastic consent to do something that’s great for both of us (sex, a sale).

We can call that culture into being by living into it with our daily practices — including our feminist marketing and business practices.

And we all know by now that consent is not one-and-done. Circumstances change. People change their minds. The vibe changes — and we need to shift with it. Consent needs to be continually renewed and reaffirmed in our interactions with each other.

Including in our email marketing.

2. What Renewing Consent for Sales Emails Looks Like in Practice

Let’s use my biz and list as an example:

  • Some of the people who are subscribed to my email newsletter (#SundayLoveLetterByKellyDiels) have been on my list for TEN YEARS — so what they wanted when they signed up may not be what they want from me, now…nor even what I’m serving up
  • Some of the people on my list want my feminist analysis of our culture
  • Some of the people on my list want my feminist business/marketing tools
  • Some of the people are womxn trying to get out of shame and into power. They’re here for all my power-building, career-growing, self-authoring strategies and re-frames but don’t want to hear about my feminist marketing services or tools
  • Some people signed up for the weekly newsletter but do not want to get the mailers (the sales emails)

Side note: There’s a difference between an email newsletter and a sales email (“mailer”)

So before I initiate a new email marketing campaign that’s usually only relevant to one of those groups, I send a pre-launch “consent refresh” email.

  • In that email, I let readers know that I’m going to be promoting something over the next days/weeks/monthsand explicitly ask them if they want to hear about it
  • If they do NOT want to get those emails, I give them an opt-out link to click

IMPORTANT: this is different than clicking the universal unsubscribe link that’s embedded in all our newsletter, because the reader is choosing to stay subscribed. They will still get the newsletter. They just won’t get the sales mailers on this topic

  • They land on a thank you page confirming their choice and reminding them that although they are not going to get the mailers on this topic, they will continue to get my Sunday Love Letter
  • In the backend of my list software, if they click that link, they automatically get tagged and added to a segment
  • All future emails I send on that topic do NOT get sent to that segment (you have to define that in the user groups you select to send the communication to — and DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS)

3. The Step-by-Step Guide for Creating The Prelaunch Refresh Consent Process*

*This formula is based on the process in Convertkit, but you can do this in other providers, too, and you can probably find a tutorial from your provider showing you how to do this by googling using keywords like these ones:

[your provider name] + manage subscriber preferences

[your provider name] + refresh consent

[your provider name] + renew permission

[your provider name] + list hygiene

[your provider name] + permission reminder

  1. PAGE. Create an opt-out page on your website (hide it from search engines)
  2. TAG. In your list/email provider, create a subscriber tag
  3. SEGMENT. In your list/email provider, create a segment based on subscribers with that tag applied
  4. RULE/AUTOMATION. In your list/email provider,Create a “Rule” that says anytime anyone gets tagged with that tag, they get added to that segment
  5. DRAFT EMAIL. In your list/email provider, write your Refresh Consent Email
  6. EMAIL COPY. In that email, give people the option to opt-out of this campaign, but remain on your overall list
    • Ask them to click a link if they want to opt out (that link will go to the opt-out page on your website)
    • Clicking that link will trigger the rule/automation you just built to run in the background; these folks will get added to your opt-out segment
  7. FILTER. In your next marketing emails, make sure to create a filter that says do not include the subscribers in that segment

Voila! You just ran The Refresh Consent Pre-launch Process.

4(a) How to Continually Renew Consent after You Run The Refresh Consent Pre-Launch Process

Obviously, not everyone is going to open or read that one email.

So if you want to get more coverage for this message, you can repeat the refresh-consent process in your sales emails. Here’s a screen grab from a recent email I sent:

A screen capture from an email sent by Kelly Diels that reads "As always, if you DO NOT want to receive any more emails about Lightning Sessions, you can opt out by clicking here. (You'll still receive my weekly Sunday Love Letters -- and thank you!)"

4(b) Swipe Copy for Refreshing Consent

If you want to use that line of copy as swipe copy, feel free! Here it is:

As always, if you DO NOT want to receive any more emails about _______, you can opt out by clicking here, <insert link>. You’ll still receive my ________ every ______ — and thank you!

5. The Culture-Making, Business-Building, FEMINIST Impact of Refreshing Consent

There’s this narrative out there telling us that changing our business practices to produce a social good is bad for business. This narrative makes us fear our own principles and fear the consequences of building them into our marketing strategies and our business practices..

We hear it explicitly, regularly, in conversations about how executives “don’t want to lower standards” to hire for diversity. There’s obviously a racist/sexist assumption in that formula AND there’s a conclusion that not being an asshole is bad for business.

And so a lot of the time, there’s a subconscious, half-articulated fear in the back of our heads — especially if we’re running under-capitalized start-ups and bootstrapping our business growth out of cash flow, hope and grit — that if we use feminist business practices, and we do NOT use The Usual Non-Consent-Based Tactics, then we’re not going to make the sales.

I want to assure you, from my experience in my own business, and from being a coach and consultant to hundreds of organizations and solopreneurs, that YES WE CAN achieve our sales and revenue targets when we do business on our terms — based on our principles, using feminist business practices.

6. Refreshing Consent is a Culture-Making Move…That Boosts Your Marketing Confidence (and Can Increase Sales!)

Part of it is about confidence/alignment

When I feel good about my marketing, because it’s grounded in consent and feminist principles, then I market fluidly, with enthusiasm, and OFTEN. The result: way more sales. (Consistency is a feminist entrepreneur’s best friend.)

When I use status-quo marketing that over-rides consent, however, I feel ashamed of my marketing, worried that people think it’s sleazy, and then I don’t post or send or advocate for my own work. Because the marketing doesn’t align with my values.

Marketing WITH your feminist principles, instead of against them, is a power move that’s actually good for business.

Part of is TRUST and Leadership and CULTURE MAKING

When I send these Refresh Consent pre-launch emails, I get an amazing response.

  • People email me to thank me for practicing what I preach
  • People email me to ask me the process for doing this, so they can do it in their business, too (that’s why I wrote this up!)
  • People click through to my website and buy things I wasn’t even trying to promote — and then email me to say that the Refresh Consent was what sealed the deal for them. They saw my commitment-in-action to consent, and thought, yes this is the business teacher I want to learn from.
  • People forward the email to groups and networks and discuss it!

In those Refresh Consent Pre-launch emails, I’m not even pitching! And I still make sales. Honestly, the first couple of times I did this, I didn’t know that would happen. It was a happy accident. I’m telling you this does consistently happen, though, to reassure you that you CAN do business based on your principles, using feminist practices, and still flourish, financially.

Most recently, I sent The Pre-launch Consent Refresh Email and ended up making 1/3 of my stretch goal before even launching the campaign. This is big, because in my experience most launches bring in 90% of their revenue in the last 24 hours. I hadn’t even started launching and was already 30% of the way to my stretch goal!

So…attending to consent when you have an audience who cherishes consent will not degrade your sales. It might even increase them, without you having to grind it out. #antihustle #emergentstrategy

AND: when you do things like this, it has a culture-making impact. Other business leaders and feminist entrepreneurs decide to do it too.

And that’s how we start establishing a new business norm and a new cultural norm. We start chipping away at the foundations of rape culture. When we practice consent in all things — including our marketing — then we’re asserting that consent is non-negotiable, sacred, and belongs everywhere.

In our businesses, our inboxes and our lives. #WeAreTheCultureMakers

#feministmarketing #feministbusinesspractices

Essays and Feminist Marketing Tools From Me:
  • on the abuse of reciprocity and women by Kelly Diels— How the common online marketing tactic (called a “social trigger” or a “mental trigger”) called reciprocity replicates and reinforces rape culture
Leaders Working at the Intersection of Business/Liberation/Anti-Oppression:
  • Everything Toi Smith teaches about liberatory business and marketing practices is BRILLIANT
  • Bear Hebert is doing beautiful work on anti-oppressive business and livelihood
Books at The Intersection of Culture-Making/Business-Building/Org-Development

8. DOWNLOAD. Get the Downloadable, Shareable Guide complete with examples and swipe copy

coming soon!

Want more Feminist Marketing Tools to help you build your business? Check out the library of Feminist Marketing Tools, here

Alcohol-Signalling, Mommy Wine Culture, and how we use our culture making power on social media

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Some people close to me and some people I admire from afar are in recovery from alcohol.

And that raised my awareness around the way I’ve often signalled rebellion or relaxation in my social media using updates or images of wine or cocktails or other variants of “Mommy Wine Culture” (it’s a thing).

Two years ago, when Toi Smith and I were strategizing about the social media images and messages  I would share, we factored this in. I decided, in my own business and culture making, that I would no long include pro-alcohol signalling in my social media images or updates. Deciding not to alcohol-signal is one of my feminist marketing decisions.

I never want an “and now, a drink” post to be a trigger or a temptation for people in recovery.

And maybe I should be using my culture making power to foster a recovery culture in which alcohol isn’t a shorthand for coping with trauma or inhumane pressures or an occasion for relating to each other, socially. Maybe.

(I’m not advocating prohibition, I definitely do NOT land in the pro-drug-war camp, I’m just starting to noodle the long and destructive impact of alcohol in my family lineage as well as in our cultural and national histories — alcohol was literally used as a weapon of colonization!)

I’m not saying this is the answer or The Rule but it’s one of the ways I’m using my culture making power: by trying to support my beloveds (known and unknown) who are in recovery.

Perhaps explicitly considering the way we alcohol-signal, and making a decision about it, (yours may different than mine) might be a valuable process for other culture makers, too.

#WeAreTheCultureMakers #FeministMarketing #FeministMarketingPractices

More Tools for Culture Makers

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image consists of text spelling out "we are the culture makers" in red and yellow on a white background

When Gloria Steinem speaks or attends events, she always brings a few young feminists and activists with her.

That’s deliberate. She’s leveraging her fame and reputation to lift newcomers. This helps the rising stars get familiar and comfortable with the arena, and embeds them in a network of supporters and champions so they can do their work with more resources and community care.

Opportunity always has a face. We cannot rise without each other.

This strategy — using your resources and reputation to lift people starting out — is good for all of us.

It’s another culture-making tool.

And you don’t have be famous or established as Gloria Steinem to make these kind of moves.

Right now, from wherever you are in your journey, you can tweet and talk about and share the work of people whose voices you want to amplify. You can introduce people to each other. You can refer. You can mentor. You can get on the phone and fortify a friend right before she asks for a raise or pitches a proposal.

These are feminist work and business practices, and this is how we deliberately use our culture making power to grow a better future — one in which we all flourish.

Because we are the culture makers. And together we rise.

#FeministMarketing #TogetherWeRise #WeAreTheCultureMakers #ToolsForCultureMakers

Feminist Marketing Tip #1220: A Feminist Approach to Stock Photos

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Images are an essential business resource and they have culture-making power.

For a long time, I knew that but I didn’t know how to herd that set of kittens.

So I avoided images altogether.

I knew what I didn’t want to do — perpetuate the mandatory pretty that’s a form of internalized misogyny AND perpetuate the whitewashing and homogenizing of our culture — but I didn’t know what to do instead.

Stock photo banks didn’t much help. If you search “business woman”, for example, you get a slew of images of pretty white women in pencil skirts.

There wasn’t a lot of visual diversity, in ethnicity, in body shapes, in age, in gender presentation, in ability…

And I saw that playing out in the brands of Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brands and in the my peers.

People I respected a lot would put out empowerment images of ‘goddesses’…and time after time, image after image, those goddesses appeared to be 100lb, 20 year old white women in bikini tops and flowing skirts on a beach.

This didn’t feel terribly empowering to me. It felt pretty exclusive.

It felt like an affirmation of the sexist, racist status quo.

I believe that’s *not* what most of the culture makers I know are intending to do with our images or our work.

But we have to attend to the cultural consequences of those images rather than justify them with our intentions.

I’m not sure using stock images of professionally pretty young women or sanitized lifestyle shots is good for business, either.

How do we distinguish our work around female power or women & work (or, or, or) if we’re all using images of professional models in sheath dressses gazing into a phone or professional model goddesses in power poses on beaches?

I digress. (Not really.)

My point: there ARE image banks and collections that can help culture-making entrepreneurs find images that stand out; truly represent them and their clients; announce their work in the world; AND advance our culture-making objectives.

Here are a few to check out:

And also check out this post that has a seriously comprehensive list of inclusive stock photo banks and collections:
https://askwelmoed.com/free-paid-stockphotos-diversity-in-…/

ONE MORE THING:
I now need to nuance and complicate this marketing tip, so in this paragraph I’m specifically talking to entrepreneurs with dominant identities. (As as a white, cis, straight woman, I’m including myself here.) Diversifying the imagery in our businesses is one step. It’s not the entire job of dismantling systemic racism/sexism/heterosexism/transphobia/ableism/ageism. We have to build our analyses and become more culturally fluent. If people with dominant identities attract people into their businesses but don’t understand their experiences and are not equipped to support them, they can do harm. (h/t Melissa Toler; you can find her here.) And if we create marketing campaigns that look and sound progressive, but don’t change our internal practices, then it’s just window dressing, not substantive change. So yes, definitely, let’s change our imagery. But more importantly, let’s make sure we question and change our business practices so that the images we use align with how our companies and platforms actually function.

#FeministMarketing #WeAreTheCultureMakers #TogetherWeRise#DiverseStockImages

Feminist Marketing Tool #220

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One of my biggest expenses in my own business is apps and software, so it makes sense to me that I try, wherever possible, to use my tech budget for apps founded by feminists or founded and led by people of non-dominant identities.

That’s how I turn my apps and software into deliberate feminist decisions and feminist marketing tools.

It’s one of the ways we invest in and grow our feminist community (and an inclusive future!).

Feminist Marketing isn’t simply about wrapping external messages in a pink empowerment bow; it’s about our daily business practices — from what tech we use to which copywriting tactics we choose.

For me to choose these tools, the companies don’t need to be flawless (none are; this is capitalism; I’m trying to make the best choices possible in the system we have, not perfect choices) or tick off every single one of my desired social justice boxes…

…but they’re often so much better than their alternatives, both from a functional and community-impact perspective.

In the selection process — eg when I’m thinking I need an app or a software to solve a problem in my marketing or make it better — I use my diversity & inclusion criteria

(is the team diverse? are there people of colour in executive leadership positions? are the founders and/or CEOs people with non-dominant identities? what are their labour policies?)

as some of the ‘features’ I’m looking for in a product.

I use a Selection Matrix to compare functions of the  products/services I’m considering; it includes my inclusion criterion so I can make the best, most culture-making choice.

As with every purchasing decision, I might not get every feature and function I’m hoping for, but the more the better.

Side note: This is a sample Selection Matrix that I use. I regularly share it with my clients so they can implement this feminist business practice in their platforms, too.

If you’d like to get a customizable, form-fillable pdf version of my Selection Matrix so you can use it to evaluate YOUR apps, you can sign up to get mine, here:

Often my social justice criteria helps me find an app that I wouldn’t otherwise have discovered, that has the features I need, and so I can choose it — and in so doing, make an investment in an inclusive present and a fairer future.

So here are a few of my core feminist marketing tools that are also founded or led by women, POC, WOC…

1) When you teach and sell online courses…

Namastream

Namastream is an online teaching platform where you can store your courses AND sell them.

Cool feature: it integrates with Zoom so after a live class, you don’t have to manually upload your recordings, which has been the bane of my existence.

Namastream is founded by two feminists, Jennifer Barcelos in the USA and Sandy Connery in Canada. Sandy and Jenni declined Venture Capital from investors because it was going to distort their business model in ways they thought were destructive. So now, when they need to raise capital to finance the next round of product features, they hold low-cost workshops where they teach business skills to their user base and use that cash to cover development costs.

NOTE: Namastream is where I host my 1o week Feminist Copywriting Certification Program

Next Class Starts August 12, 2019

2) When you want to schedule social media…

MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is a social media scheduler that saves and then republishes your posts so you’ve got an ever-growing archive of reusable media. Massive time saver.

MeetEdgar is founded by Laura Roeder (who cofounded B-school with Marie Forleo back in the day). The MeetEdgar team includes people of color in leadership positions and the team 60+ people is substantially diverse.

3) When you want to make it easy for clients to book time with you…

Calendly

Calendly is a scheduling app that integrates with your calendar. You give people a link and they can see when you’re available and book that time with you. (No more back and forth by email!)

Calendly is founded by Babatope (Tope) Awotona, a first-generation immigrant to the US from Nigeria; his company offers medical and dental coverage, flexible hours, work-from-home options, and “inclusive parental leave”.

4) When you want to create great-looking images…

Canva

I don’t have a lot of graphic design skill (none, really) and Canva makes it easy for me to put together polished images that I can quickly resize for the various platforms I use.

Canva is a bit of a unicorn, meaning it’s a company with a billion dollar valuation. Other unicorns include Google and Facebook — they’re so rare that they’re mythical creatures.

Even rarer in the realm of the unicorn: companies founded by women of colour. Women founders receive a paltry 2.2% of Venture Capital investments; the ratio is even worse when you break out the figures that apply to women of colour. According to reports from #ProjectDiane, in the last decade, startups led by black women received only .0006% of Venture Capital investment and Latinx founders received a paltry 0.32%. 

Which makes the success of Canva, which was founded by Melanie Perkins, a young woman of colour from Australia, a truly remarkable story.

5) When you want to host events and sell tickets…

Eventbrite

I use Eventbrite frequently, mostly for in-person events but also for online events. It hosts an event description, collects payment, allows you to have applications/surveys, and sends reminder emails to registrants.

Eventbrite is cofounded by Julia Hartz who is also the CEO; Eventbrite won awards for having great workplace practices and culture.

6) When you want to STOP wasting paper on printed programs for your events…

Yapp

This one is a new discovery (h/t Misha Gallagher). Yapp is an app that attendees of your event/conference can download on their phones and follow the conference agenda, get additional notes/slides/resources and even connect with each other. You can also poll and survey people to get feedback on presentations and your event.

I like this a lot because it pains me to see 200 paper booklets left behind on tables after an event. That environmental waste can be prevented by using Yapp,

Yapp was cofounded in 2012 by Maria Seidman.

7) When You Want to Sell Your Creative or Digital Products Online…

Gumroad

Gumroad is especially good for artists and makers, but I’ve used Gumroad for Virtual/Online Summits where I’m offering tiered packages of virtual services.

For me, the great thing about Gumroad is that it does preorders. The person places their order but their card doesn’t get charged until the day of the event.

Gumroad was founded and is led by Sahil Lavingia, who was born in the US to immigrant parents from India and grew up mostly in Singapore. He founded Gumroad when he was 19 and it was originally funded by VC; since then he’s changed his business model and bought out some of his original investors so he could pursue a path of organic growth rather than striving to become a monopoly that dominates an industry. He also donates 8% of his profits to social causes, including hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, relief efforts for floods in Kerala, funding the Presence-of-Blackness project in speculative fiction, and a Mexicanx publication.

8) When You Want to Build an Online Community but You Hate Facebook…

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is pretty robust, functionally, and way less addictive/noisy than Facebook so it’s a great place to host online groups, which is what it was specifically designed to do. Mighty Networks is founded and led by Gina Bianchi.

Want to use my Selection Matrix to evaluate YOUR apps and subscriptions?

Sign up to download your customizable Selection Matrix for free, here:

One more thing…

If making sure your MARKETING PRACTICES are feminist is a non-negotiable for you…

then you might find the Feminist Copywriting Certification Program REALLY USEFUL.

It’s a 10 week course that helps you build a new copywriting foundation on informed consent, shared values, vision, and deliberate ACTION. (Quite a change from the status-quo copywriting that presses pain points, manufactures authority, fakes scarcity, leverages privilege, and deliberately triggers unconscious buying.)

The next Feminist Copywriting class starts March 11, 2020 and you can learn more, here.

You might also like these related posts:

Are Feminist Marketing Tools useful in your business? You can find more, here.

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Every week, I email you a Sunday Love Letter
and they are blazing epistles of righteousness.
I write them to galvanize and encourage us.
Because we are the culture-makers and together we rise.
Are you in?





Fortify.

Every week, I email you a Sunday Love Letter

and they are blazing epistles of righteousness.

I write them to galvanize and encourage us.
Because we are the culture-makers and together we rise.
Are you in?

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