If I've said it once, I've said it a million times:
You've gotta have an email list.
Did you notice there was an outage on Instagram and Facebook last week?
Those outages are just one example of why social media cannot be your ONLY method of marketing your business! You *need* to have a website (or landing page), and/or email marketing solution for your business. Ideally, you'll have both. You need to make sure you have several reliable channels to be able to reach your customers, without relying solely on having all your eggs in social media's basket.
Remember: You do not own your social media followers.
Any social media platform can change its rules & regulations at any time. Any platform can shut down at any time. Any pages or accounts can be deleted at any time. Any content can be removed at any time.
How do you reach your followers, and do you even know who they are?
EMAIL MARKETING IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BRAND, BECAUSE YOU OWN YOUR LIST.
Make no mistake: social media remains an important part of online marketing and I am very passionate about managing my social media presence (as well as my clients' accounts), and I use social media as part of my list-building strategy.
But did you know that less than 10% of your followers will actually regularly SEE your social posts? (And btw, OptinMonster found that less than 1% of your social media followers actually engage with your post.) With email, you can expect much better results in terms of open rates, click-thru rates, and overall engagement.
Reminder: For best results, with both social media *AND* email, you'll need to repeat yourself by replicating content and creating multiple impressions of your message (whether it's a sale, new product, company announcement, event, etc).
Plus: anyone who signs up for your email list is automatically more invested and more interested in receiving content from you b/c they’ve already determined that you have something of value to provide. According to OptinMonster, this also means that the folks on your email list are 3 times more likely to purchase from you than are your social media followers.
Who is motivated to start collecting those email addresses???
There are tons of ways to start this list-building process, including online & offline methods of email collection. Whether it's a sign-up sheet in your store or at your craft fair table, a line of text on your receipts, a pop-up form on your website, or a link on your Instagram bio... you can start putting multiple methods into place so you have the best chance of growing your list quicker.
For email marketing, I cannot recommend Flodesk highly enough.
Flodesk is my email platform of choice. If you're on my list already, you probably have noticed my fun email templates that look like custom designs. I made the switch from MailChimp to Flodesk last year and it has been a game changer for my business.
My fave thing about the platform is how easy it is to design high converting, actually PRETTY emails that perfectly match my brand. Plus, there is just one monthly price, with unlimited subscribers. Unlike competitors, Flodesk doesn’t penalize you for growing your list. Whether you’re looking to start a small newsletter or build an email marketing empire, you pay the same monthly price. Also, they allow you to use custom fonts and image collages.
Yes please!
I like my marketing on-brand. And, the click and drag email builder couldn't be easier. Want to look like you have an entire marketing team crafting and coding your every email? Look no further! Flodesk puts the power of a professional designer in your pocket. Their click and drag email builder makes it easier than ever to create beautifully branded emails (no coding required).
Plus, they've got lots of templates that actually convert. To get you started, Flodesk has a library of gorgeous templates to help you welcome, nurture, and convert subscribers into customers. Built in partnership with other successful entrepreneurs, each template is designed to help you up your email game. Oh, and customizing them is simple. A few clicks and the templates transform to match your brand’s unique look and feel.
And they just released Flodesk University, which is an "online campus" that teaches you the ins/outs of the program and features and helps you up your marketing game. The university is free w/ the subscription.
Want to try it out? You can grab 50% off your subscription with my affiliate link!
So even if you're not yet ready to begin actually sending out marketing emails, at least start the process of building your list in the meantime!
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