First, why should you focus on building an email list?
1. Email is personal
Your customers form a relationship with you, not your logo. That's why email is a great opportunity to showcase your personality and what makes you unique because it connects people to you AND your brand.
When you write your emails, you're not speaking to the masses. It's a 1:1 conversation.
Pro Tip: As you draft your emails, sometimes it helps to pull up a photo of one of your clients and keep it in the corner of your screen as you write. This can help you visualize who you're speaking to, think critically about what unique problems they're facing, and lead with empathy in your copy.
2. You own your email list
"An email list is critical because you can't build your content on rented land," Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute explained. "So many brands and companies build their audiences on Facebook and Google+, which is fine, but we don’t own those names – Facebook and Google do. If we are thinking like real media companies, the asset is in the audience. Getting an email address is the first critical step to figuring out who my reader is, and hopefully in the future, my customer of some sort. If our goal is to drive sales or keep customers happy in some way, we first need to get them as part of our audience. If I have one regret as a business owner, it’s not focusing on building our email list earlier in the process.”
Since "you can't build your content on rented land" put the same energy and focus - if not more - into your email list as you do your follower count.
3. You're writing to people who want to listen
Your subscribers are waving you into their inbox, and handing you the mic to tell them something interesting and helpful. They're proactively acknowledging you as the expert.
Your email list is often your most devoted audience.
This is why growing your email list is so important: When you send good emails, not only are you staying top-of-mind with your SOI, you are building trust with new subscribers and cultivating a loyal, long-term following that will fuel your business growth.
4. We're obsessed with our email
On average, professionals check their email 15X per day.
Most of us are plagued by the habit of obsessively tugging on our screens to refresh our inbox.
In a recent survey, 81% of people said they prefer to open emails on their smartphones. Which means that for the majority of your subscribers, there are no distractions. No other posts. No other brands. Just your message on their screen.
5. Emails have a long lifespan
Your email doesn't get bossed around by an algorithm. It sits in their inbox until it's read or deleted.
Emails are also easy to find. If a subscriber ever wants to revisit an email of yours, all it takes is a quick keyword search at the top of their inbox.
6. ROI
Email is your most lucrative marketing tool. In terms of ROI, companies can expect up to $45 for every $1 spent on email marketing.
When you send emails, you build credibility. When you build credibility, you start more conversations. When you start more conversations, you close more sales.
So once you've got an email list, how do you get it growing?
Head over to the Curaytor blog to learn 4 ways to grow your email list!
