In business you have to find a way to talk to your potential clients. This could be through social media, networking, or email marketing. But we need to remember that it can take someone 12 touch points of “seeing you” before they decide to invest. So I believe that as many of those touchpoints as you can automate the better.
And while networking is great it becomes tiresome work if you need 12 good touchpoints – especially now that it is all online. Social Media is great but the algorithms can mean only 10% of your audience see your posts. Which is why I think email marketing is key for any small business.
I know you have questions, what is it, how hard it is to get set up, can I even do it! The answer in short – Yes!
But lets break this down! And you can get more information here.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is more than just sending emails. It is about building an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you. It is about directing that audience to support bigger goals and reach. And it is about making sales. When looking at starting you need a good system, I use MailChimp but other options are Convertkit, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, or loads more.
The basic idea behind using a platform is that the emails can be scheduled. This takes out the manual labour in sending daily, weekly, monthly or promotional emails. As you can plan your whole process and then just schedule everything to happen at the right time. The systems can also “tag” audience members to ensure they see certain emails. This is really great for targeted sales to interested parties.
When you are in the world of email marketing there are things called campaigns. These are an amazing piece of genius. They take a customer on a journey that you choose. An example would be, a customer downloads you free guide by giving you an email address. As soon as they do this they trigger a sequence. This could be 5 emails over 6 days. And would send automatically without you doing anything. At the end of the email chain you would give another instruction like email back, sign for a discovery call, or buy this product or service. And you have a automatic way to get only the interest parties in front of you!
So how hard is it to set up?
I can only speak for MailChimp, but honestly, it is not hard to get an account! Most of the platforms will allow you to start for free with limited capability. MailChimp is only about £12 the package up from free until you reach 500 subscribers. By which point you are making money from your list – if you are using a good strategy.
When you set up your account, the system will automatically set up your first audience. This is great because it is all you will need. Most people go wrong instead of tagging they create new audiences. This is problematic for two main reasons. Firstly you might end up paying for the 1 contact multiple times I.E if I am on 4 of lists you might hit 500 much faster. Secondly you might end up breaching GDPR because is someone unsubscribes from one list you would need to manually remove them from all lists, failing to do this means you might contact them without their consent. Which is just not cool.
Then you move onto actually using it! Which again is mostly a drag and drop format, that is easy to get your head around. They also have a support section were you can watch videos. And if all else fails then YouTube is your friend.
Honestly if you can work Outlook then MailChimp will be easy once you understand the different things are called.
Can I even do it?
Yes you can! For so many reasons!
Email Marketing is by far the easiest way to warm up your audience. To help them get to know you and move to the point of trusting and buying. For some customers it can take months, even years for them to need what you sell. And getting them on your email list means you can show up in their email box regularly until they are ready to buy.
You can also use it to promote certain things, like a blog, podcast, book, webinar. And that can help get numbers up, meaning you reach more people. And ideally, move those people over onto your email list.
Every business should have a list, mainly because you then owner that data. So if your social media account got deleted you wouldn’t loss all the people that follow you. Instead you would have a way to continue to talk to them. It also gives you control over what people see. So you could do a sale to your email list that no one on social media ever knows about. And you could be selling to part of your list and not another with good tags. Meaning you have control, which is key in business.
Your email list is also a great way to build a relationship with your audience. Telling them stories, showing them behind the scenes, giving them extra offers or exclusive access. If you do this well, you end up with a loyal following. Which is a dream for any small business.
Want to know more?
So if you think this might be a good idea for your business but want to read of bit more about email lists, then check out my eBook – email lists are number 1 on the index! If you know this is for you and want to work 1:1 to create your list, start warming up an audience and start earning money then just drop your email in here and we will make that happen.