I don’t know who needs to hear this but… email marketing is not dead.
It’s super easy to write off email because it seems like social media is king. But, newsflash, you don’t own your follower list on Insta and your peeps don’t come to Insta to shop (they come to be entertained).
And worse, if the servers went down tonight on Facebook, all those fans on your page would be down with it. Yikes.
When you lump all your eggs into one basket - like social media - you end up creating a risk in your biz. Not good.
Not to mention you give someone else all the power in terms of you sharing your message. Because the amount of control you have over the social media algorithms is about as strong as my willpower around a well made cacao latte with cayenne pepper right now.
Which means if you’re not putting just as much energy into building your email list, you’ve got a hole in your biz strategy.
The good news is, you can start shifting your focus to email right now.
And…..I’ve got three must-do’s that you can put into place right away.
These are going to make your list stronger, more engaged and primed for when you’re ready to promote your next product, promo or sale.
Ready for them? Let’s go.
Email Marketing Must-Do 1: Setup a basic welcome sequence
Please do this one thing today if you don’t already have it in place because it’s that important to the health of your email list and wealth of your pocketbook.
A welcome sequence is an automated series of emails that your email service provider sends to new subscribers for you.
Most email marketing systems have the ability to setup automated email sequences. In other words, you write the emails one time and your software does the rest for you. Whoohoo!
The idea behind a welcome sequence is that someone who is brand new to your list hasn’t really had a chance to get to know you very well. Yet. So, your welcome sequence fixes that.
Maybe you already knew you needed this but you were overwhelmed at the idea of having to write one.
Good news: it doesn’t have to be long… 3 or 4 emails will do just fine.
Include these emails in your welcome sequence to your new subscriber:
Welcome - 😂duh! Send a simple email welcoming her as your new subscriber.
Intro - Introduce yourself a little. You could combine this into the welcome email if you want.
Most popular resources - Let her know which posts are the most popular on your site, or what other resource areas of your site are popular.
Your services - Provide a brief overview of how you can help her.
Call to action - Invite her to reply to the email and share more about who she is.
Another optional add-on is if you use a lead magnet to bring peeps to your list, you can include a reminder email about that lead magnet.
A lot of subscribers download and forget it. Bummer, right? You worked so hard on that…. I know….
But you can have a reminder.
And by having a reminder email they’re more likely to return to that lead magnet and use it… which is good for them, but good for you too because it helps further emphasize your expertise.
Email Marketing Must-Do 2: Segment and/or tag your email list
This is another example of a task you need to implement in your email marketing strategy but it often gets skipped because it seems overly complicated.
But it’s not.
Just like your welcome sequence, most email software platforms provide you with a system to help you organize your list: some call it tagging, some call it segmenting, some do a mixture of both.
It doesn’t really matter what you call it. All that matters is you have a system in place to organize who is on your list and why they are there.
Here’s why… while there are definitely times you’ll email everyone on your email list, there are other times you’ll only want to email people who have a specific set of interests.
For example… some of my new customers don’t really care about content like email list building. Many are not trying to build a biz. Or they aren’t yet.
But they are interested in the healthy habits and holistic happiness hacks I provide. They want the goods that will help them feel even better.
But then there are others who have taken that passion for holistic wellness and are trying to turn it into a profitable reality. They totally want to know how to speak to their subscribers in a way that makes sense.
Is that now making sense to you?
You get to choose an organizational structure that fits your biz model (and brand), but I’ve found the best way to start is by grouping people based on what they’ve downloaded for free from your website.
Email Marketing Must-Do 3: Be consistent
Yep.
Consistency is king, babe. It’s just a fact.
The more you email your list, the more they get to know you. And the more they get to know you, the more they’ll trust you.
Email is another form of relationship building and that’s why I call it relationship marketing.
You showing up in your subscribers’ inboxes on a regular basis is so important that I’d go so far as to say if you’re only going to focus on one must-do… it should be this one.
Now listen, you don’t have to write an epic email every single time.
Find your style and experiment with it. You’ll know what’s working based on your email stats like your open rate and your click through rate.
An open rate of 15-25% is normal. This means if you have 100 subscribers, then 15-25 of them are opening your email.
A click through rate of 2-5% is normal. And that means of those 15-25 who opened, 2-3 of them are clicking the links.
Keep an eye on those stats as you test things like:
Short (and catchy) subject lines vs long ones
Short (but entertaining) email copy vs long email copy
Embedded images vs no images
You get the idea.
Now, it’s your turn to take action. Which of these three are you going to work on this week?
XO,
Hayley