Why You Might be Growing Your Email List Wrong
And how to fix those mistakes before they happen
I have a question for you, why are you growing an email list? Is it because everybody else is doing it, or is it because you plan on nurturing them to sell them something in the future?
I want you to think about that question because I made this mistake myself. When I first got started, I had an email list that was all over the place.
What I Did Wrong
When I launched my first website, I wanted it to be all about self-improvement, finance, entrepreneurship, career, and college. However, those are unrelated niches with completely different audiences who require different care.
Every time I sent out an email, I sent it to ALL OF THEM! What happened? Most unsubscribed, marked my emails as spam, and many of them did not bother to open or read my emails.
That’s because most of them were not relating to the content inside my emails even when I assumed they were helpful.
I was clearly growing an email list that was not segmented at all. This was a failure.
Can you relate?
But the biggest mistake aside from lack of segmentation was not growing a targeted email list.
A Targeted Email List
A targeted email list is a list that you grow with the intention of nurturing with the purpose of selling them an offer in the future.
This means that before you even think about creating or growing an email list, you first think about something you are going to release in the future.
A targeted email list is perfect because people who opt-in are qualified leads that will be willing to buy from you in the future once they gain your trust. This makes it a profitable list.
It’s also very niched down and can be a segment of a larger list, which is where segmentation comes in place.
With that said, here is what you might be doing wrong, and how to fix it.
If you are not selling from your email list, why do you even bother to grow a list? Of course, email lists are used to nurture your subscribers and send them valuable resources, but that would all be a waste of time if you are not planning on monetizing your business. This is the first mistake.
Segmentation is the act of separating your email list into sub-lists with specific people around specific interests. It’s like creating mini-lists inside of your list. Not segmenting your list can cost you money in the long run because you will be sending emails to people that are not within that specific niche.
Just like I did!
This can be done with your email marketing provider and it is incredibly easy! I use Flodesk as my email marketing provider because they have all of the basic and advanced tools every online business needs, and the monthly price never changes no matter how big or small your list is.
After people opt-in, what happens next? You need to accept the fact that the most important time to keep your new email audience engaged and build loyalty is right after they opt-in. Keep sending them free resources, updates, personal stories, and important links.
Forgetting about your email subscribers is a costly mistake! It will be hard to gain back their trust.
I always tell my clients and students to have a welcome and nurture sequence pre-written and scheduled to go before they create their opt-in forms and freebie. This alone takes some pressure off and allows you to focus on growing your business while your email works for you.
If you want to go more in-depth about building a targeted email list and learn how simple it is, which includes driving FREE traffic, I want to invite you to join the 3-day video series where I cover that and much more.
You’ll gain access to a new video every day for 3 days, starting today.
Originally published at https://elennyfrometa.com on July 22, 2020.
