5 Things You Should Be Doing with Your Email List
Whether you’re just starting an email list or you’ve had one for a while, don’t miss these 5 tips to keep your list engaged!
Something I see happen all the time is people will spend all their time and effort on growing the email list and getting subscribers to sign up, but then once they’re on their list, they slowly start to get disengaged because there’s no real plan in place for nurturing them once they’re subscribed!
So I have 5 tips to help you will this!
Prefer to watch? Check this out on YouTube instead!
1. Have a welcome sequence in place
A welcome sequence is a series of emails that get sent out to new subscribers automatically, and it’s very easy to set these up no matter what email marketing platform you’re using. This sequence can be as long or as short as you like (some people go crazy with months worth of emails all automated, and some people just want one or two!).
My recommendation would be to kick off with sharing a high-value tip straight away, so that your new subscribers are reminded why they should definitely stay on your list, and then follow up with introducing yourself and what you do - because remember many people may have just signed up to get your freebie or opt-in incentive, and they may not actually have a clue who you are!
Further reading: How to grow your email list with opt-in incentives
2. Start selling to your list immediately
On that note, make sure that you start selling to your email list from the get go.
This might sound controversial, but obviously I don’t mean using super pushy, in-your-face tactics to just promote your stuff. What I mean is that along with providing free value tips and resources (giving them a reason to stay on your list as mentioned above), you want to pair this with also mentioning your paid products or services and how they are relevant and can help them.
Failing to do this is a HUGE mistake I made back when I grew an email list of over 10,000 email subscribers. I ended up deleting the list (full details on why I did that in this blog post), but long story short, this was largely due to the fact that whenever I sent promotional emails or tried to mention a paid service/product to my email subscribers, they completely checked out and weren’t interested.
And this is because from the very start, all I delivered to them was free content; valuable tips each week and no sign of mentioning what I actually offer as a paid service. I was therefore training them to be used to free stuff, so that when I mentioned anything that cost money, they didn’t want to hear it.
You need to train your audience from the start that you do have paid offerings (as WELL as high value free content) so that when the time comes to sell and promote yourself properly, it doesn’t seem that strange to them.
3. Cleanse your list regularly
I shared all about exactly why this is important (and how to actually do it!) in last week’s blog post and YouTube video about why I deleted 1000 subscribers off my email list the other week.
Essentially, once your email list starts growing, you will see your ‘open rate’ (the % of people who actually open the emails you send) slowly decline and this can have a snowball effect on the overall dis-engagement of your email list. If someone consistently doesn’t open your emails, this sends a signal to Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail etc. saying that your business isn’t sending very good quality emails, and this in turn will start hiding your emails in the Promotions folder, or even spam box, for other people. Then those people stop opening your emails too… and it becomes a vicious cycle.
So every 2 months or so, you need to go through your list and get rid of anyone who has stopped opening your emails over that period of time. You can send a ‘re-engagement’ email first (something I explain more about in last week’s post), which can help ‘save’ people who do really still want to stay on your list, but while I know it can be hard because you’ve spent so much time and effort growing your list, it really will help your list engagement in the long run.
4. Send freebies & resources to your list first
Whenever you create new resources or freebies that you might share on social media, or use on your website to incentivise new people to sign up to your list, do your existing email list a favour and give them first access to this!
Your subscribers signed up for your list in order to get a more personal experience with you, so start treating them like VIPs! Give them priority access to new offers, freebies or even paid services you’re launching, and you’ll see your engagement improve.
Further Reading: Building Your List with Opt-In Offers
5. Use personalisations in your emails
This is when you send an email and in the subject line or in the email content, you can use the subscriber’s name so it appears like this ‘Hey Anna, ….’ or ‘Anna, I have something to tell you’.
Most email service providers offer this feature, using something called a ‘Data Field’, and it’s pretty easy to use! Adding in these personalisations just gives your emails a more authentic feel and makes your subscribers more likely to engage with your content (although don’t over-use it!).
Flodesk also offers this, although it’s a feature a lot of people don’t know about!
Further reading: Mailchimp vs. Flodesk (and why Flodesk is my preferred email service provider!)
Want to learn how to use Email Marketing for your business?
CHECK OUT MY ONLINE COURSE, EMAIL MARKETING WITH FLODESK
This course is a great choice if you’re looking for something that will teach you the concepts and strategies of email marketing, whilst also showing you the step-by-step tech tutorials too.
IN THE COURSE YOU’LL LEARN HOW TO:
📓Understand the legal/GDPR information surrounding email marketing
☑️ Set up Flodesk correctly and add/move over your subscribers
🏷 Organise subscribers with tags and segments
📈 Grow your list with sign up forms and opt-in incentives
☕️ Set up automated email sequences and workflows
💌 Plan, design & write amazing emails that get read and clicked on
🌟 Understand email analytics and track behaviours
Made up of video tutorials, slides and a 20+ page workbook, the course is self-paced, downloadable (to go through without internet), has lifetime access and free updates.
