So you’ve got an email list and some subscribers, but something is still holding you back from emailing them regularly. Do you feel email marketing is pushy, that you’re bothering people or even being a little spammy? Let me give you five reasons why you should change your mind:
1) They want to hear from you
Seriously, they do. It’s become harder to get people to subscribe to your mailing list over the last few years, but the positive thing about this is that people only join your list if they really want to. In other words, they really do want to hear from you.
2) It’s more than just broadcasting
It may feel like a one-way blast of information from you to them but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can check your stats to see how open and click rates to see what’s popular and what isn’t, then send more of what your subscribers like. You can ask your subscribers to hit reply and give you their opinion. You can do surveys to ask what they’d like to know. It’s not all that different to social media, really.
Tip: encourage your new subscribers the engage with you by signing off your welcome email with a question e.g. ” Hit reply and tell me what’s your biggest challenge with X right now?” where X is the main problem you solve in your business. Then make sure you reply to any responses you receive.
3) People only hate bad emails
Most of the ‘I hate email’ comments come from people who are receiving bad, boring, pushy emails. That’s because the emails that people notice are the bad ones. It’s completely different if you send emails people want to receive. Think about the emails you always open – what do you like about them? What makes you open them? If there are none then it’s well worth subscribing to some good, relevant email newsletters to pick up some tips.
Aim to send emails that your subscribers want to open because they know you send emails that give value or entertain them.
Tip: See if your email marketing service has a short code for the page and date your subscribers signed up and put that in the footer of your messages. People are forgetful and this reminds them that they genuinely did subscribe to your list. In Aweber you would type this:
You subscribed to this list on this page {!add_url} and on this date {!signdate abb}.
But other email services will have different short codes.
4) They already know you
I’m going to take a guess that your subscribers have come via social media, a workshop or maybe your blog, so they already know you when they join your list? This is entirely different from buying a list of cold leads and hitting them with emails as a stranger – which is mostly against the law anyway!
If you feel awkward and uncomfortable about mailing your subscribers, try to change your mindset from ‘sleazy marketer’ (which you’re absolutely not) to someone who wants to help your subscribers solve their problems.
5) It’s still really effective
Despite all the shenanigans over GDPR and the gurus saying email is dead, it still has a great return on investment. According the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing’s return on investment (ROI) in 2018 was ‘up to £32.28 for every £1 spent, from £30.03 the previous year’ (read more here). This was despite fears about the introduction of GDPR.
If you’d like to know more, please take a look at the recording of my ‘Email marketing for Micro Businesses’ workshop here.
Great post Helen – you’ve really addressed a lot of issues that people small businesses strugle with. Looking forward to the work shop next week to see what other information comes out!
Thank you and definitely, the workshop is going to be really interesting.
I am glad I bumped into this post as I am the worst when it comes to sending out newsletters to my list. For me you hit the nail on the head with point number 1: all my subscribers are there because they chose to be and want to hear from me. Whenever I dither on whether I should get in touch or not I am actually doing them a disservice by not emailing them. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by! Yes, that’s a great point – if you can help them then you really are doing a disservice by not getting in touch.
Thank you for the great post. This has been one of my biggest struggles. Will there be a replay of the workshop as I missed this one?
You’re welcome! Yes, I’m sorting out the replay now and I’ll update the post with the details once it’s ready.