Secrets To Email Marketing For Building & Perfecting Your List
Call after call, I talk to my clients about the importance of establishing a well rounded brand that includes more than just Instagram. With that, however, comes balancing and juggling about (what seems like) one million different things that comes with owning and running your own website & blog.
One of those incredibly important tasks includes learning to build your email list to maximize traffic, keep in touch with your audience, and for many of us— how we perfect being able to monetize our businesses.
Establishing a solid email marketing list (most commonly known as subscribers) is a cornerstone of expanding your brand and communicating with the audiace you have worked so hard to build. The million dolla questions is — But, Pam. How do I do that? How do I get subscribers? How often should I be sending emails? Why do people unsubscribe?
Totally get it. So lets us dig deep into some strategies you want to keep in mind when building, nurturing and maximizing your email marketing list. Friends, this is GOLD.
First of all— your email marketing list is all yours. Yup! Unlike your Instagram followers or Facebook likes, your email subscribers are your own property and your way to make sure that should anything happen to any of your other social platforms, you have a way to communicate with your community. This is nothing to joke about, ya’ll! You have to take into your own hands the importance of how your business and brand are represented and protected outside of fickle social platforms.
Did you know? The average open rate is only 18%. Several reasons for a low open rate include things such as:
Emails being delivered to spam
A list with inactive subscribers
Poor subject lines
Let’s cover how to avoid these and not only build your email list, but how nurturing it can actually help it do its job!
Let’s dig into where we even start in terms of building your email list. One of the best ways to attract subscribers is being able to provide valuable and knowledgeable resources that your audience is going to enjoy. Resources they know they can expect to receive and enjoy from being a part of your email marketing list. However, before we get there— you have to choose your platform.
Choosing A Platform
I won’t go into too much detail about each individual platform, but you can click through each one to learn more. Choosing a platform to collect your subscribers and host email marketing campaigns is going to depends on several factors including your list size, your budget and your overall preferred aesthetics.
“A good email marketing service should enable you to create highly engaging email newsletters with an easy user interface (ideally drag-and-drop editor). You should be able to easily send bulk emails that are actually personalized and targeted without a lot of work. This is also known as marketing automation. Aside from that, your email marketing service must make it easy to manage your contact list, segment users into groups, and track the performance of your email marketing campaigns. Most importantly, a good email service provider ensures that your email campaigns do not end up in the spam folder.”
Flodesk - Personal Fav!
Freebies
When starting out your list, a great way to promote your blog is offering Freebies! Freebies are the way to our hearts! We love when we get the opportunity to build relationships with brands by seeing exactly what it is they have to offer…fo free! This is especially important if you are planning on using this list to market some sort of product or service in the future. The key is create free resource that solve a problem, make someone feel good and/or provides “evergreen” content.
Promotions
If you’re a client of mine then this is a no brainer for you. You know my favorite thing ever to promote is consistency. The best way to build and grow your email list is consistent exposure of your blog & website. I use Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook groups, my Facebook page, linked to it on blog posts and even work it into everyday content to remind people across all my platforms the benefits to subscribing to my email list. Yes, that even means “hoping” on your Instagram stories to talk about your most recent email, the freebie you are currently providing and being very specific on how people can join your mailing list.
Accessibility
Making access to subscribing should be stupid simple. Seriously. It should be so easy and so accessible that even the most internet illiterate person can find it and participate. Pop ups are a great way to make it super hard to miss. Aside from a pop up, there should always be a static place on your blog where someone can find it. When promoting yourself on other platforms, the easier you make it to find—the more likely they are to actually fulfill your call to action to subscribe.
Make It Happen
Listen. You know how much I harp on the importance of having your own website & owning your own content. In this case though, the reality is—you don’t need to have a website to have an email list. You can easily create a simple landing page from your email software that can be linked back and used on all your other platforms. A landing page can be created to gather names and emails. Start building out your list out like…yesterday.
Relationship Sequencing (I think I may have just made this phrase up— but go with me here) refers to the marketing plan that follows once someone subscribes to your blog & website. It’s how you communicate with your list and nurture the relationship that develops trust, loyalty & reputation with you audience.
After all, what’s the point of a list if no one knows, cares or trusts to open your emails.
The Welcome Email
There are a couple of different ways to handle welcome emails, but no matter which route your choose— this is one of the more important emails you will sending to your email marketing list. A welcome email should be meaty and resourceful to establish credibility without being overwhelming. You want your welcome email to be a solid introduction of who you are, a gracious Thank You for joining and a peak into what they can expect from you in the future. Welcome emails can be set up to be sent automatically as people subscribe to your website or can be done manually by you. You would think the logical and no brainer would be to have it be set up manually, but actually— there are many benefits of individual, manual emails as well. It’s just about what works best for you, your business and your schedule.
The Follow Up
All your communication should come with a purpose. Your follow up email (scheduled 1-2 weeks after the Welcome Email) is to continue providing that noticeability & identification of your brand. Again, working to establish the trust you will need for all future communication. Your follow up email should be worked around a specific end goal of driving traffic to your website and social platforms with definable call to actions. This is the perfect place for a freebie. A downloadable PDF meal planning recipe, a peek into your toddler crafting ebook or a special discount code for your favorite Amazon finds.
The Value Point Email
This one is a biggie. This one is much less about you and all about your content. Think of it as an extension of the follow up email. Again, making sure we are providing a purpose. The value point email is there to reiterate why your content is important and why they should always be opening up your emails. For me, my value point emails always include an opportunity for a free social media audit call. This gives future and prospective clients a chance to get to know my coaching style, we can build a solid starting relationship and it’s a value point that people genuinely care about. Think about what the biggest value point is for your platform and how you can turn that into a real way to get to know your audience by also continuing to provide reason for them to trust you.
The Subject Line
“Your subject line will determine whether or not your email gets opened, so don’t spend 2 hours on your letter and 2 minutes on your subject.” — some of the best advice I have ever gotten about email marketing.
Much like the time you spend determining a great blog title, a solid Pinterest description, or the perfect IG caption— your email subject line is that important. What are the keywords that describe your email? What are you trying to convey and how do you want to get that message across?
If you have a genuine time sensitive offer, then there’s no reason not to emphasise this in the subject line. Please, though, avoid the clickbate crap that you also hate. Don’t offer info, sales, bad promos— that aren’t actually in your email just for attention.
Exterageratons aren’t cute either. I probably won’t open an email with a subject that says “THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD” … So many questions here, but nah, prob no opening.
Humor though, is another way to grab someone’s attention, making them laugh or smile before they open the email.
Planning out your email marketing strategy is pretty simple. A lot like planning content, you want it to be a delicate balance of genuine information and not too “pre-planned”— but planned enough that you aren’t stumbling over topic ideas and scrambling to send emails at midnight on a Friday night.
Once a month, sit down and make a list of a few things you want to focus on promoting that month. Do you have new resources, a round up of last month’s blog posts, freebies, PDF downloadable?
What do you have to provide this month that brings value and new content to your subscribers.
Decide on Timing
There are a lot of different theories out here abut what is “right” when it comes to how many emails you should be sending. I challenge you to think about it this way. More than just the “amount” of email you send—more importantly is that you are consistent. Are you a once a month emailer? Are you a bi-weekly emailer? Weekly emailer? You have to find a groove that works best for you.
I know. I know. You're here for answers. My personal opinion—bi-weekly is my favorite sweet spot. I had to establish a plan that worked best for my time and platforms, and what produced the best results for my business. However, more than once a week—is more of a no for me. I don’t care how valuable your emails are, if I am getting 2-3 emails from you a week, it’s a little much. It becomes harder to produce that much original content.
For small businesses and most platforms, the key is to get quality over quantity of emails. Emails once a week that helps and informs your readers is better than three times a week with little to nothing to say (or worse, being repetitive). Plus, you may increase your chances of them opening the email if you aren’t bombarding them, and we all know how it feels to be on the other side of that.
A quick list of ideas you can send your subscribers —
Provide exclusive content - something that nothing else on your normal platforms will be getting. Promotion or deal tailed specifically to your readers. That could be a special coupon code to a product or a freebie you aren’t sharing anywhere else.
Bring them behind the scenes of your business. Share an inside look the future of you platform or business and keep them informed on what’s to come.
The “How Can I Help You” Email - Struggling to figure out what they want. Ask them….
A survey. Using a platform like Google Forms is a great way to survey your readers about an endless array of subjects. This could be a great way to gauge what they want to read, hear and see from you.
Blog Posts Recaps - This is great for anyone who posts multiple blogs a week. Give you readers a quick insider look at each post which links that lead back to each one. Let them choose which ones they want to sink their teeth into!
An Inspirational Story - It’s a great way to help your readers get to know you on a more personal level.
Results / Testimonials - This is amazing for small business with products or services. Let people know how business is growing and what you clients are saying!
What is an email marketing funnel?
An email marketing funnel is a sequence of emails sent on a predefined schedule to readers for converting them into customers, clients or who take action on your call to actions. To run successful email marketing strategies, you have to personalize your email campaigns. Reaching out the right contact, at the right time with the appropriate content.
Planning
When planning your email campaigns post Relationship Sequencing— sit down and think about the overall goal of each individual communication email. Like I mentioned before, you want to make sure your main goal is always to provide value. Now you want to plan what topics and type of content you want to share with your subscribers.
Awareness
Building awareness with your email marketing list comes from consistency. This is where we decide how often and when your email campaigns are actually going to go live and be sent. The awareness that your audience gets from each individual email is what builds trust and commonality for you and your brand.
Engagement
Engagement from you subscribers is a critical part of building trust and keeping readers around month after month. Engagement comes from using strategies like Call To Actions, clickable links and/or downloadable resources. The more engaged your readers are, the more likely they are to actually perform those actions. Remember, email campaigns have an end goal. Drive traffic, build clients and establish credibility.
Action
If you have properly set yourself up for success with the right planning & execution— your audience will be ready to take action on your email marketing. That means you have successfully gained their trust enough to take action from opening your email, reading and performing call to actions.
Advocacy
Advocacy happens when your customers become something more than customers. They become fans who do word of mouth marketing for you. This typically comes in the form of customer feedback, following / sharing your social media accounts, word of mouth of your platform, content and/or services. Loyal readers promote on behalf of you to their network to expand your business reach.
Don’t
Sell during the relationship sequencing emails
Sell before a solid relationship has been built
Sell in every single email
Do
Provide value in ALL emails
Add selling factors at the end the of the email with a solid call to action that sets up the sale
Phew. Well thats a relief. Cause, really, who does? Let me let you in on a little secret. (I’m talking to you, Enneagram 2) — you’re value is not based on what the masses think of you! If you are building an email list of genuine followers and an audience that truly cares about that you have to say— this typically won’t ever be a problem. However, there are things you want to do or avoid to make sure you aren’t over-stimulating your marketing list.
Be sure you’re not bombarding them with too many emails. Like we mentioned before, find that sweet spot. For most of us, that’s going to be weekly or bi-weekly.
Know appropriate times to sell & promote your services
Always, always, always provide deep value in each piece of communication.
Make your emails clean, aesthetically pleasing and easy to read!
Use bold text and a larger font to highlight important parts of your email. This helps with readability.
Provide entertainment values. A good GIF or meme can go a long way as long as you don’t over due it.
Always give a call to action. Encourage readers to reply to your email, download something, click on a link that takes them somewhere useful.
Creating meaningful writing and communication habits from the very beginning of your Relationship Sequencing, establishes a sense of “norm” that your readers will come to love and enjoy week after week.
There you have it, bestie. You know me— I could go on forever, but I am hoping this sets you on the right path and helps jumpstart your Email Marketing Strategies journey!
Needing a little guidance to get your brand off the ground or help with a slump? Private coaching could be the perfect option for you. Spending some time working with me one-on-one will help elevate your strategies to the next level. Perhaps you are starting from scratch, needing serious help with content planning, blog post ideas, feed aesthetics or figuring out how to collaborate and negotiate with brands. Maybe you are just looking for someone to keep you accountable for your goals and learn the best ways to keep your audience engaged. Whatever is on the dock for you and your business— a solid sales and creative strategy will help you with the long term knowledge + boost you are looking for.
Until next time!
Do you have any other questions or points? Drop them below! Let’s keep learning, pushing and being boss babes!