You’ve probably heard by now that you NEED an email list, right? If you ask me, it should be your #1 priority as an entrepreneur. I’ve been singing the praises of email lists for years upon years alongside my entrepreneur and educator friends, but have you ever wondered why? What’s the big deal? How could an email list really impact your business and your bottom line?
Here’s the truth: All efforts should point to your email list. As someone who markets, your marketing should be focused on two things: your email list and getting people off of the apps that they follow you on and onto that list. You don’t own your social platforms, you’re renting space. Likes and comments don’t pay the bills! Email lists mean you don’t have to battle algorithms and tons of other in-feed faces and voices to get your message to your audience, you get to intimately connect in the inbox!
Let me simplify your efforts! You should have only two focuses in marketing:
1.) Showing up on social media to be the introduction that connects you to someone, builds awareness around you and your offer, and a place that gives them the invitation to join your email list (by offering something of value!)
2.) Nurturing that relationship through a consistent email strategy. All roads lead to the list because it’s your #1 asset in your business and lets you speak DIRECTLY to your audience, on your time, in your own way.
Here are the top 5 reasons I’d urge you to grow an email list starting ASAP! Let 2023 be your year to get started!
01. You can control the experience your audience has with emails.
With more changes dropping on social media and the algorithm constantly giving us a run for our money, it’s important that we have a place that we can control with an experience that only we can offer.
When you’re communicating with your audience via email, you get to choose when to show up and what to say. And the odds of them seeing it is way higher than posting on social media.
You don’t need to worry so much about the day and time you send emails (there’s some strategy there, but for the most part, you can send emails when you want). You don’t have to worry about standing out among millions of people on social media. Inboxes can get crowded, sure, but they’re a whole lot less saturated than social media feeds.
Plus, there are way fewer “rules” to showing up using email. Whereas social media is all about video content these days, email is so much more about connection — meaning you can shoot off a short video if you want, or you can send out a long-form story, a brief survey, a quick anecdote, or (really!) whatever else you want. As long as you’re consistent and aim to serve, you’ll be golden.
02. Email has higher returns & engagement than social media.
There are 3.8 billion email users in the world vs. 3.4 billion social media users, AND 60% of people prefer email channels to receive promotional content. On top of that, email’s conversion rate is 6.05% on average vs. social media’s conversion rate of 1.9%. And get this, email has an ROI of 4400% (!!!) while social media’s ROI is unknown (source).
As though all of that isn’t enough evidence to get you on the email train, people also use email daily for work and personal reasons, while users are becoming more jaded and tired of social media. Social media cleanses and breaks are becoming more common, while email is never going away.
And social media engagement rates are pretty dang sad – around 0.58%, yikes – while email reaches around 85% of the people you send it to with an average open rate of nearly 23%. People are there, YOUR people are there, so meet them in a more intimate place with messages tailored to them.
That’s not to say social media isn’t important – you still want and need to show up there, but make it with the goal to direct people to your email list to develop that longer-lasting relationship!
03. You can link directly to other resources.
An email list allows you to directly link to places you want to guide people to. The path to purchase is far simpler and more likely to convert. Sure, you can link things in your Instagram stories or social bios, but social media platforms were intentionally designed for users to STAY on the platform.
Even though there are opportunities to link away to other places, email click-through rates are 50 to 100 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter (source). Meanwhile, we OPEN emails with the intent to learn something, buy something, or get more information. Psychologically, a customer is more ready to click links in an email than they are on social media, where they’re likely just there to scroll and kill some time.
04. You can connect and sell (& write what you wanna write).
I always recommend serving, serving, serving, and then inviting them to take the next step with you. If you serve your subscribers well, they will be excited and eager to accept your invite into whatever comes next! Long-form content is STILL king (no matter what anyone says).
Stop trying to sell on social, but instead use social as the meeting point, a place to connect, and then the place to share an invitation to join your list. Provide an incentive for people to click off of the app they know you on and join you in the inbox! Email will be the place where you connect and sell. You can explain things so much better in an email — there’s more room, and people are willing to spend more time reading one email vs. one social post.
05. You have ownership of your email list.
If social media disappeared today, would you have a way to get in touch with your community? How would your business survive? It’s important that your marketing isn’t dependent on just one or two platforms.
Further to this, remember when social was DOWN last year for a time? It was a wake-up call that we don’t own our channels or followings in the same way that we do our email list. It’s not ours. The platform could shut down, break, or disappear — and our business with it. Email data is something we own and allows us to have a direct line of communication to our most engaged audience.
If all of that doesn’t make you excited to start your list and show up on email, I don’t know what will! Except for maybe this… Did you know I have a FREE one-week list-building challenge that will take you from 0 subscribers to 250 in a month? I’ll walk you through all of the tech, getting set up, getting people ON your list, and even what to say in your emails! Let’s do this — join here!
Ready to kickstart your email list the easy way?
Join Zero-250: My FREE Email List Building Challenge to start and grow your list today!
