Why your business still needs an email list
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Let’s pretend you have an engaged Facebook group. You can make announcements there, sell there, attend members there, encourage members there, etc. It’s the number one place you have contact with these fans…
–and one day Facebook decides to shut it all down because someone complained about X, Y, or Z.
That really happened this year. Not to me, but to someone I know.
If that just made your heart pang and your stomach lurch, –now you see the importance of ALSO having an engaged email list. 🙌🏻
No, I’m not calling anyone out.
Ya don’t know what ya don’t know, and sometimes it takes an awful situation like this to learn & grow.
I genuinely hurt for this person when I found out what happened because they needed that group to be active for a myriad of reasons, and it got me thinking about this topic:
Are email lists still a thing?
Yes, and here are the advantages of having an email list
Advantages of an email list
Your subscribers trust you.
This is more valuable than you realize, truly.
In this day-and-age, people don’t just give up their email addresses willy-nilly. (Or they create junk-email addresses specifically for this reason. Guilty! 🙋🏻♀️)
If you have a list of anything greater than 1 person, you’ve got people who trust you for one or more of a few different things:
only send them content they’re interested in
don’t think you will send them spammy shit or too many emails
know you provided something really good in exchange for their address
want to hear more from you in general & stay in touch
they want to have a direct line to YOU
might be interested in buying a product/service from you, but want to get to know you first
You have a direct line to their inbox.
Along that same line of thought, because your subscribers trust you, they “let you in.”
If you have a survey to send out, a question to ask, a favor, a new service/product, sale announcements, new freebie –whatever, you can do any/all of that in your email list to a proven group of people, without algorithm limitations on who might see your post.
This direct line is also a two-way street. Just like you can email them, they can respond to you & THAT is one of the many things I love.
I may be aging myself here, but it’s a bit like Pen Pals. I write to them, and they can write back to me. There are few things better than getting an email reply to something I wrote the day before, like “OMG the fact that you remember Clippy cracks me up” the day after sending out an email with Clippy in a gif. #throwback
Comments like that totally make my day!
If [insert platform here] shut down, how else could you reach them?
This is the million-dollar question, right TF here. 😂
Luckily the person in the example I used early DID have an email list already in place, so that was a backup… but what if YOU don’t?
Without the platform giving you access to your page followers, your group members, or whoever, YOU CAN’T reach them without that platform.
Because you don’t own that platform, you ultimately can’t control the method of delivery –and you certainly have less control over who sees what when it’s based on an algorithm.
Email list myths
Email lists are sooo last [year]. False.
Email lists are STILL relevant today for the same reasons they’ve always been. Yes, they work and they work very well, but it’s all based on how you use it, what systems are in place and what your goals are. You can’t –well, you can, but you’d be wrong 😂– say that they don’t work if you’ve never tried marketing to your subscribers. Or if you have but only tried once, didn’t get the results you wanted, …and then never tried again. That’s now how this works; that’s not how any of this works! You have to tweak & repeat, so try it again if it failed you before! And if you’ve never tried it at all, I definitely encourage you to get started.
Email marketing is too sales-y & forward. False.
Email marketing is ONLY what you make it. That’s one of the many perks! If you don’t want to be sales-y, then don’t be! I mostly send blog posts on relevant & valuable topics to my list, if I sent anything that announces a sale, a new service, a new opt-in, –whatever, it’s fairly rare & my fans know that if they’ve been a “groupie” for a while.
I don’t have anything to say. False.
Just kidding. I can’t say that’s false, but I CAN say it’s probably not true. Forget what YOU know and try to step into your client’s/customer’s shoes: what do they need help with? How can you send them a note with info that could truly make their day? Maybe it’s encouragement that they can accomplish something they didn’t think they could. Maybe it’s sending tips you’ve learned through experience in your own business. Maybe you found an awesome new business tool you just HAVE to share with someone who’ll give a shit. 😂 If you really feel like you have nothing to say, –zilch, zero, nada –then send out a survey (anywhere) and ASK what your people want more of, what would help them most, and use that as a starting list. Once you build some momentum, it’s a lot easier to keep it going, I promise!
I’m just shouting into the void. False.
You can do something for a long time, and never hear/receive any positive feedback until you stop. You literally never know who you’re helping, or with what. It also greatly depends on the content you send out. If you literally never get responses and your open and click-through rates are almost zero, then yes, you’re probably shouting into the void, but it can be fixed! All you have to do is change who you are!
🤣 No––I’m totally kidding. Don’t do that.
For real though, all you have to do is provide content your audience WANTS. If they aren’t engaging, aren’t opening, aren’t clicking, aren’t visiting, –then your content is landing on deaf ears because clearly nobody GAF. Just change up your content, ask your audience (I’ll say this again and again until I’m blue in the face) what THEY WANT from you so you can have that engaging relationship and find more value in your work through genuinely helping.
Which email marketing platform(s) do I recommend?
If you’ve been around the block in my little corner of the interwebs, you’ll know I have lots of posts on using FloDesk, but that’s not the only platform I recommend to people & I no longer use it myself. That said, here are the basics for each of the ones I do recommend & have used myself in different seasons of my business, or for my clients. If you want a more detailed overview of these 5 platforms, check out this post too.
SQUARESPACE EMAIL CAMPAIGNS: best for newbies & beginners
You don’t get much for the price, but it is very convenient being literally in the same place as your website IF all you want is to start building a list somewhere and you don’t know ANYthing at all about email marketing yet. Great for dipping your toes in the water, starting to build your list, and isn’t overwhelming. Best for very simple use-cases, like letting your list know when there’s a new blog post, or product in the shop… and not much else. 😉MAILERLITE: great for beginners that want to grow their list
MailerLite is great for beginners or high-level users because it scales well with the business. It’s not quite up to par with ConvertKit, but VERY close and much more affordable. I used it for the first 2-3 years of my business and still recommend it to clients that want to build their lists. It’s very user-friendly but feature-rich. The price increases with your list size in increments, but at about 1/3 the cost of ConvertKit and you get almost the same set of features, but with a drag-and-drop email editor/builder.FLODESK: best for designers that don’t need to monetize their list yet
I used it for almost 2 years, switching from MailerLite just for the unique focus on design. I have a couple blog posts on what I learned and why I left. It’s just $19/mo (with someone’s affiliate code or link (*cough* → DAMN50 ← *cough*) for the first year, but then it goes up to $38/mo which is the highest starting price of all of these options. The (positive) catch is that it DOESN’T increase with the size of your list, and to date, I think they’re the only company with a flat-rate pricing model. Their email builder can create gorgeous layouts that will make designers really happy! But the rest of it is lacking in features that even MailerLite has. Not for heavy-email marketers or someone that wants to monetize their list because it’s just missing too many features to handle that kind of use-case.CONVERTKIT: best for content creators that have at least 500+ subscribers & plan to monetize & grow their list
It’s the priciest of these options, starting at $29/mo, and that price grows with the size of your list in increments, but it’s also the most feature-rich. Segmenting your list is very easy (into groups for this or that topic, bought this thing but not that, etc), and automating that grouping, sequences (ie: welcome sequence, etc), and email campaigns for practically anything. It definitely gives you the most bang for your buck, IF you’re in the right growth season for it. Not recommended for newbies (quite yet). Try the free plan up to 1,000 subscribers or full-featured for two weeks!*
Why I don’t recommend Mailchimp:
They’ve tried to put too much into it and it’s not user-friendly at all (IMHO). The way it handles lists is weird for new/small business owners and that will be confusing to you. The way they handle the signup forms is very confusing too. The only upside from my POV is that it directly integrates with Squarespace in a different way than MailerLite, ConvertKit, or FloDesk. That said, EVERY email marketing service can integrate with your website because (as far as I know) all of them have embeddable forms that you can place on you website, which sends the signup info directly into your email marketing service account. Sooo… that direct integration “perk” isn’t really a perk as much as it’s just slightly more convenient. Do yourself a favor & skip it. 😜
