When you have an email list, it allows you to reach your customers and prospects whenever you want. It’s a great way to let them get to know you better, trust you more, and like you more. It’s also a great way to make more sales – whether your own or of affiliate products. Since almost everyone uses email, it’s a great way to stay in touch with your customers.
Creating an email list allows you to teach your audience, as well as share other important things with them. If you’re just starting to create a list, you may wonder what you should be doing. Here are six things that you should do when first creating an email list.
1. Start with a Purpose or Goal
It’s important to have a purpose or goal in order to create an effective email marketing campaign. Your purpose may be to gain more subscribers. It could also be to teach people. Another purpose could be to encourage your audience to purchase a product or service. In fact, you can have multiple purposes when creating an email list.
By knowing what your goals are, it makes it a lot easier for you to accomplish them. If you want to get more people on your list and make sure they stay on it, you’ll want to make sure you offer a lot of great content. You’ll want to email them consistently so that they are used to getting emails from you. If your goal is to get your list to purchase a product or service, you’ll want to make sure you promote that product or service.
2. Come up with a Good Free Opt-in
The easiest way to get someone on your list is to give them something for free for signing up. Depending on your niche, it can be a checklist, eBook, piece of software, course, or anything else you can think of. It has to be exciting enough that they’re willing to give you their email address in order to get it. It also has to be something within your niche, as they’ll start getting emails from you about that subject.
This is also a great way to know that the people that are on your list are interested in the things you want to talk about. If they are willing to give you their email to get the free opt-in, they’re probably willing to get emails about that topic as well.
3. Form a List of Subscribers
Once you have something to give away, you can start building your list. Create a box on your website that lets visitors know they can sign up to get that free opt-in. Post about what you’re giving away for free everywhere you can…social media, in forums, and more. Consider putting a link in your About the Author box if you have articles on other places than your own website.
Your goal is to get as many people as possible to see the free opt-in, and sign up for it. If you’d like, you can also pay to have an ad in someone else’s email, or to send out an email that you wrote to someone else’s list. Consider trading with someone else once you have some people on your list. They’ll send an email with your opt-in link to their list, and you’ll do the same with their opt-in link. There are many ways to start building your list, and many of them don’t cost anything.
4. Create Unique Content
Once you’ve started building your list, the next thing to do is create unique content for your list. You’ll want to teach them things and be helpful in anything that someone on your list would be interested in.
Think of things you wish you knew when you were starting out in your niche, and share some of them. If you’ve found some products that you love within your niche, share those as well. There are many things that you can share with your audience that they’ll appreciate and start to look forward to.
5. Share Information about Yourself
While it’s most helpful to share content about the niche you’re in, people are also interested in you. There is a reason that someone else signed up for your list in particular, and that is because they liked what you had to say.
So when you’re writing your list, make sure you’re talking about yourself somewhat. Share what you’ve been up to. Share stories about yourself, especially those that have something to do with your niche. You can also share stories about yourself that aren’t specific to your niche. People will appreciate hearing more about you and what you do with your time. This is a great way for people to get to know you better, like you more, and trust you more as well.
6. Use the Right Software
The right email marketing software allows you to create, send and track your emails. It lets you know the open rates, click rates, and other metrics. It also helps with automation as it can schedule when to send emails.
It’s great to be able to set up a set of emails that every new subscriber gets. You write it once, set it up once, and then from then on, any time you get a new subscriber, they’ll all get the same new beginning emails. This way you know they’ve all learned the same basic things you’ve wanted to share with them. You can also send out blog broadcasts that you write and send. This way you can share something only to those who are on your list at that time. What’s great is that there is also a feature so you can send an email in the future too. So if you want to write a bunch of emails at once, and have them go out over the next few days, weeks, or months, you can do that as well.
A few popular email marketing software choices include MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Aweber. I’ve been using Aweber for over 15 years now, and really like and recommend them.
7. Send and Keep Track of Results
Once you’ve done all of the above, it’s time to send out your first email. The most helpful part of email marketing is to keep track of your results. Pay attention to how often your emails are being opened, and their click-through rates. You’ll learn a lot about what people think of your subject lines. If they don’t open your emails, there is a good chance they didn’t like them. You’ll also find out if your audience is interested enough in any of what you say in your emails to click on the links for them.
This information can help you determine where you need to improve to see a better results, and where you’re doing a good job.
Starting your first email marketing campaign does not need to be complicated or overwhelming. Take your time to learn how to use the right software, and be sure to create content your target audience wants to read. Email marketing is a highly valuable form of marketing that doesn’t cost much and can help you grow your audience and your relationships with them.
Enjoy,
