Hello friends! Today, I want to talk about that last bastion of communication that we have control over both as consumers and as marketers: email communication. 85% of adults in the US have an email. That includes my dad, and that says something. A lot of people will tell you that email is dead, and for them maybe it is. Maybe their email list is dead, but it’s not that way for everybody. Let’s talk about what email marketing is and why you need to be doing it. It’s not that I’m telling you what to do, I’m just making some suggestions.
Email vs. Social Media
Do you spend a lot of your time marketing your business through social media? I’m a huge fan of social media. I’m on social media, and I want to encourage you to consider rounding out your marketing channels by including email marketing. Why is that? Email is the one channel of communication that we have as consumers and as marketers that are not controlled by somebody else. Google still controls your email, but if you make a post on social media on your business page, how many people see that post? Five, ten, fifty, maybe? Are all of them related to you?
Especially this time of year when people are posting so much more content, Facebook organic reach is tough. I have a client who has 15,000 followers on his Facebook page. He boosted a post, meaning he put money behind a post, only to his 15,000 followers (not to the entire world), and he got fewer than a thousand views on that post. And that was with money behind it.
Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, all of those, there’s a big market for your attention. A lot of times, as a consumer, you don’t see all the posts that you may want to see. As a marketer or a business owner, most of the people following your page probably don’t see that post even if you’re putting money behind it.
Email Marketing
What do we do about that? We turn to that old standby, the online communication tool that has stood by us through thick and thin that we’ve had for, well, in my case, it’s been 22 years that I’ve had the same email address. Email marketing is one of the few places that we have control over. We have control over who sees it. Can we force people to open our email? No. But we can make cute subject lines that get their attention, or we can do promotions that give them discounts or giveaways. We can do things to increase the likelihood that they’re going to open our email. There are technical things on the back end that you can do to increase your email deliverability, but either way, the email at least got to the people on your email list.
Start An Email Marketing List
If you’re not doing email marketing right now, I understand. I am not the best when it comes to email marketing for myself, but I’m pretty darn good when it comes to my clients. I challenge you to start thinking about making an email list. You don’t have to make a decision right now, and you don’t have to take action right now. Although, you might as well if you do have an email list think about how you’re using that email list. When you think about it, your customer list is the value of your business. That’s why businesses buy other businesses. They buy them for their customer base. They don’t necessarily buy them for their technology. The value of your business is in your customer list, so don’t let that relationship with those people falter.
Communicate with them regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day. Actually, please don’t do it every day, maybe a couple of times a week. If you’re consistently communicating with them, your email list is going to grow. Those people are going to become raving fans. They will appreciate the relationship that they have with you, like and trust you more, and they’re more likely to buy from you. Think about how you can use email marketing in your business, and as always, I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.
