When it comes to managing your website, the items on your ‘to do’ list are probably:
- Create quality content
- Optimize for search engines
- Promote on social media
But there’s one thing that’s missing and that’s building your email list.
EMAIL VS. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Far too many entrepreneur think that because they’re active on social media and building up a big following that they don’t need to build an email list. Sure, you’re probably doing pretty well with social media engagement and referrals (if you’re putting the effort in) but believe it or not you could be doing ten times better if only you had an email list too!
Facebook may boast over one billion active users a month and Twitter 255 million but did you know that the total number of worldwide email accounts was 3.9 billion in 2013? This is expected to rise to 4.9 billion by 2017. To save you doing the math, that’s three times more email accounts than Facebook and Twitter accounts combined.
Of course it’s not all about the reach but engagement too. Organic engagement on Facebook is only about 6% but opening rates for emails tend to be between 20 – 30%. Click through rates from Tweets are in the 0.5% range, which is relatively small compared to email’s 3%. Are you starting to see why building an email list is so important?
BENEFITS OF BUILDING YOUR EMAIL LIST
CONTROL
One of the main benefits of building your email list for your business is that you’ll have full control over it. Whilst Twitter or Facebook can change their privacy or user settings on their own accord, an email list is in your hands alone.
PERMISSION BASED
Another benefit of building your email list is that you’ll have already got subscribers’ permission to send them emails. This means that they actually want you to share your content and communicate with them. This puts you in a great position!
DRIVES TRAFFIC AND ENGAGEMENT
Sending out emails to people on your email list is likely to drive traffic to your blog and build reader loyalty, keeping you in your readers’ minds. Blog competition is more and more and new visitors to your blog may forget you exist after the first time they go to your site, however if you can convert them by getting them on your email list, you can send them friendly reminders in the form of an email newsletter.
CONVERTING VISITORS INTO EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS
So now you know the benefits of building your email list for your business, you’re probably wondering how to get started? Well after signing up to an email marketing solution like MailChimp, which you’ll use to manage your email list, you’ll need to find ways to convert visitors into email subscribers.
Below I’ve bullet pointed some of the best ways to do this:
- Inform your blog visitors of the benefits of signing up to your email list e.g. exclusive content
- Use a simple form and clear call to action button
- Offer an incentive e.g. entry into a competition or free e-book
We hope this post has helped you to see the benefits of creating an email list and its importance!
