It’s not often I tell you to DO something. Most of the time I’ll leave it up to you. After all it is your business, your brand and your customers. And ultimately, you know your brand best.
However, there’s one thing I insist you MUST do. That is, if you want a viable and successful business. And that’s to start building and serving an email list.
Email? I hear you say. That’s SOOO last century. But you know what? People are more engaged with email than any other platform. Yes, really. So before you go making excuses about not having enough time, here’s NINE compelling reasons why you need an (active) email list in your business…
There’s no email algorithm!
Fed up of social media algorithms deciding who exactly will see your posts? Well, guess what? There IS no email algorithm. Every single email you send out to your customers has the potential to be seen (as long as it doesn’t go to junk mail). In social media as little as 5% of your audience may be shown your posts. So that’s 5% compared to 100% of your audience. Even if you’re not great at maths, you can see that email’s a better bet for getting your audience to see your messages!
Your audience is engaged enough to be on your list, so more likely to buy
I’m not gonna lie. It’s not that easy to get people to sign up for your email list. Think about it, you don’t give out your email address willy-nilly, do you? But that does mean that people who’ve signed up have already bought into your brand. Which means that the people signed up for email updates are already your fans. They’re going to be much more likely to buy from you than the general public.
You can personalise your content
You have total control of what you write in your email. You can write what you like, put as many links as you like and customise it into your brand colours. There are way more restrictions on social media, but the sky is literally the limit with email.
Generating traffic to your site, and improving SEO
It is much easier to direct people to your website from an email, than a social media platform, where they’re likely to get distracted or you are limited on the number of links you can add. And more people to your website means it goes higher up the search engine rankings. Which means, yup you guessed it, even MORE people to your website.
People take more notice of email
According to a recent survey by marketing company Hubspot, a whopping 99 per cent of consumers check their email EVERY DAY. Yes every day. The truth is because our email belongs to us we’re a little bit less suspicious of it and more trusting than we are social media. And we also focus on it more than other platforms.
If Facebook closed tomorrow, you’ve still got your email list
Hard to believe I know, but social media sites gain and wane in popularity all the time. Do you remember Myspace? Remember Vine? What would you do if Facebook or Instagram closed tomorrow and you lost all your customer contacts? Social media sites belong to other people, so we ultimately have no control over them. But we do have control of our email list.
Sending regular emails to your customers helps to build a relationship with them, so they can get to know, like and trust you
One of the most important roles of marketing is to get your potential customers to like, know and trust you enough to buy your products. Regularly turning up in their inbox (on a consistent basis) helps to reinforce that trust and build a relationship with them.
You waste all your hard work if you don’t get your website visitors on your email list
How difficult is it to get people off social media and look at your website in the first place? Blooming difficult, I can tell you! And the chances are, if you don’t get them signed up to your email list, you may never see them again. Don’t let this happen! You owe it to yourself, AND your customers.
You’re more likely to be in your customer’s mind when they’re ready to buy.
How often have you wondered what to get your Mum for her birthday, when an email pops into your inbox and gives you an idea? Emails keep your brand front of mind. And as jewellery isn’t an every day purchase, it’s a good idea to regularly pop in people’s inboxes to remind them you exist! That way, when they ARE ready to buy, they’re much more likely to think of you.
I hope that helped you to realise how important email is to businesses, and the potential you can unlock.
Building an email list and regularly emailing your customers is such a valuable thing for you to do and will help you bring in more customers and revenue to your business.
No idea how to start building a list and serving it? I’d love to help you! I offer coaching sessions on all things marketing and can help guide you step by step in setting up your email list. Click here to find out more.
