Over the last year or so email lists have become a major staple for most bloggers and business owners. When you think about how they can help you connect with your audience and generate more sales, there’s no surprise to the fact that everyone seems to be creating their own list.
However, there’s a little more planning that goes into creating a successful email list than what we typically do for our blogs. If you want to be generating more sales and building those relationships with your audience, then you have to be more intentional about the content that you’re sending.
Since there’s more thought that goes into creating an email list, today we’re sharing with you the 4 things to think about to help create a plan of attack for your list so you can be more successful in the long run.
1. Why are you starting an email list?
The first and most important thing you should ask yourself before you even think about starting your list is why you actually want to start one. There are a lot of people out there who say you “must” have an email list, but the truth is that not every single blogger necessarily needs one. So, if you get stuck listening to what other people say, you may end up creating something that doesn’t work quite as well for your audience.
On the other hand, if you’re starting a list because your blog and business really needs one, knowing the why is going to help you get an idea of the sorts of emails you’re going to be sending and how often you want to stay in touch with your audience, which will talk a little bit more about later.
A few reasons you might be interested in starting your email list:
- Send blog posts via email
- Promote services / products
- Build a community
2. Who is your email list for?
Once you know why you’re starting your email list, you can start thinking about who you’re actually creating it for. This should be fairly straight forward. For example, if you’re starting a list to send your posts via email, this question isn’t as important because obviously your list is for people who want to receive your posts in their inbox.
However, your audience may be different from just everyone who reads your blog or likes your brand. If you’re starting your email list to promote your services or products or even to create a community for your brand, then you might be creating your list for a specific target audience of people that follow you.
When you really dig into who you’re creating your list for, it’ll give you better ideas on what sort of opt-in incentives you can offer to encourage them to sign up as well as what sort of content you should be sending to keep them subscribed.
3. How will you provide value to your subscribers?
This is a big one, friends. If your emails have no value for your subscribers, then it’s going to be hard to keep them on your list. This is why it’s so important to think about how you’re going to provide value to your subscribers before you even get started.
The best way to make sure you’re providing value is to share exclusive content with your subscribers. This means you’re writing content for your email list that you don’t publish anywhere else. We both know that it can be hard to try to come up with so many different content ideas, which is why we encourage you to simplify things for yourself. For example, if you’re writing a blog post on how to organize a bedroom closet, maybe you write an email to your list on how having an organized closet will save time in your morning routine.
Obviously another way you can provide value to your subscribers is by offering them things like free downloads and discounts on your products and services. These things are great to mix in every other month or so depending on your niche and what you’re hoping to get out of having your email list.
4. When and how often will you send emails to your list?
One of the key ways to keep growing your email list is definitely to maintain consistency in sending to your audience. Both of us have been on several email lists before where we haven’t received anything for months, then randomly get an email and immediately unsubscribe because we no longer recognize who the email came from. If you want people to stay interested in what you have to say and sell, you have to be consistently writing to them.
When you’re just starting your email list, it’s totally okay to start with a schedule of writing 1-2 times per month. This will give you time to adjust to creating more content than you’re used to. Once you get a little more comfortable with your list, you can bump up your schedule to writing every week. However, if you feel like you have more content to share than you have space for on your blog, it wouldn’t hurt to start out by writing once per week.
After you’ve figured out that side of the schedule, experiment with what day and time your letters will go out to see what works best for your list. There’s no secret day or time that we can give you here, so think about your audience and when they’re spending time working and would like to hear from you.
Take Action
Now that you have your plan in place, you’re ready to create your email list, and we have the perfect resource for you! We created our Rock Your Email List workbook to go from no email list at all to having a stellar list that you’re sending to consistently over the coming months.
If you’re excited about the thought of creating an amazing list for your community, this workbook is for you! In it we cover:
- How to choose the right platform
- Creating the perfect opt-in incentive
- 4 types of content you can send
- Writing your first email to your list
- How to consistently grow your list
- 3 things to avoid doing
- Our favorite resources for our email lists
And so much more! This workbook is available right now for just $19! If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves, get your hands a little dirty, and make incredible things happen with your email list, head on over to grab the workbook now!
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