Email Marketing Crash Course

Email marketing is very much alive and well in 2022. Here are some ways you can grow your list to connect with your audience off of social media, and ideas for what to send them.

 

If you are new to email marketing, this is a blog for you. I will be going over why you should have an email list. Actually, I don’t like shoulding on people. I’m going to go over why you might want an email list and also exactly what to send out when you start building your list.

 

I’m going to get really specific with software and tools that can help you make your very first freebie offer. If you have never done this before, I’m going to teach you one way you can approach this. There are an infinite amount of ways that you can do all this marketing stuff, so this is just the way that I have found to be effective with my own marketing and my clients too, especially if you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur in the DIY phase of business, which is such a fun place to be. Once you make it huge you’ll be nostalgic for these moments, and if you are already out there, look at you, crushin it, I love that. 

 

Why Have an Email List?

 

Why have an email list in the first place? I personally think that social media is at kind of a tipping point right now with Web 3.0 coming in hot. Web 3.0 is something that I have my radar on. I mean, Facebook changed their name to Meta, so it’s obviously on their pulse too. I feel like an email list is a smart thing to build so that we are not leaning so heavily on social media because the future is always unknown and it’s especially different than where it was maybe 5 years ago. 

 

It’s also nice to have a focused audience that you know is there on purpose for you, because they signed up intentionally to be on your list. Whereas on social media, people are scrolling, and you can set up ads so that you make people see you. But email lists are different because it’s more of a focused targeted audience which makes it really awesome. Also, stuff happens with social. Remember about a year and a half ago, Instagram and Facebook totally shut down and people were freaking out. When you have an email list, at least you can pop in and be like, hey we’re still here, still kickin it, I’m here for you even though social media decided to glitch and go away for a bit. 

 

Getting Started

 

So how do you even start with an email list, starting from zero? First of all, having some kind of social media presence is going to be really helpful because that is how you are going to communicate with your audience and fans. The oldest way, which also makes the most sense, is to offer something in exchange for an email address. A little freebie, a goodie, something that people will value and will want to exchange their information for. It’s like Marketing 101 right?

 

Ideas for Growing Your List

 

So how do you come up with your freebie offer? I want you to think about what it is that people come to you for help with the most. It depends on what your business is, but maybe you are selling some kind of food related product and you love posting recipes online of the food you make for your kids, and people are always asking you about that. It would be a really good idea to create a freebie shopping list, checklist, or how-to document to offer people. 

 

I’m really digging the free downloads, I feel like we don’t have to give away the whole world with our offer. You can do a pdf download or a free mini crash course video training if you want. But I feel like lists, checklists, guides, cheat sheets, and templates are really awesome. I know a lot of copywriters will offer swipe files for email headlines, headline ideas, and stuff like that, those are really popular and I have signed up for tons of those myself. Get creative with it and really focus on where the person is coming from and how you can create something that is really going to help them and be of value.

 

My little freebie is a content repurposing guide. I have given it to people and they are always happily surprised and grateful for all the different ideas on there. So those are some ideas for you to create and send out as your freebie opt-in.

 

How to Create Your Freebie Offer

 

Now that you have your idea, you are going to write it all out in a Google Doc, or Word I guess if you want to use Word, but I prefer Google Docs. You have your list all written out in a Google Doc, now have someone look it over, so you can make sure that spelling, grammar, and punctuation are all looking tippy-top shape, so you come off as really professional. It’s probably because I’m a copywriter, but I get a lot of presentation slide pdfs. I sign up for freebies all the time because I love them, but there will be typos in there all the time from these million-dollar industry leaders. And I’m like guys can we just hire a proofreader? Goodness, gracious. It’s important to look professional and polished. 

 

Once you have your copy all set and proofread, you’ll go into Canva. So far the 2 easy and free software programs we are using are Google Docs and Canva. You’ll go into Canva and search for a template you really like to put your copy into. Find the design, and update the colors so that they are your brand colors. 

 

Now, hex codes, get to know them, and get to love them. There is an area in Canva where you can set up your branding. If you don’t know what colors you are using yet, they have some really nice color combinations that you can choose from or you can customize your own. But there is little code that starts with a # and has numbers after it. Get those written down somewhere so that your branding colors stay consistent. There are an infinite amount of shades of yellow and purple. You want yours to be specific and consistent. Ok, so that’s my little tangent on branding. It’s brand recognition, you are training people to recognize you even subconsciously. They are not going to consciously be like – wow that purple sure reminds me of Amy. These little cues are going to help you stand out and help people remember you.

 

Opt-In Page

 

Now that you have turned your Google Doc into a beautifully designed pdf, you are going to save that pdf to your desktop, or wherever you want to save it, but I like the desktop. Then go into your email service provider. I use Kajabi. I have used MailChimp and my clients have used tons and tons of other stuff, but the ones that I have DIY’d my way through for these opt-in pages are Kajabi and MailChimp and they are pretty easy to figure out. 

 

Go in there and create an opt-in page. A lot of them have a template you can use. Just craft up some copy about what the freebie download is and you’ll want to come up with a title that is enticing. So, why do people want to grab this freebie offer? Most of your promotion of this is going to be on social media. No one is going to find you via Google probably for this one little opt-in page on the internet. But it’s still nice when someone gets there to explain what they are opting in for. Then you set it up so that when they enter their email it’s really simple. I like to just ask for a first name and email address. I don’t need to know your last name, phone number, address, keep it simple with fewer decisions. So, they put in their email and name, and in exchange for that information, they will get the pdf pop-up right away. That’s typically a good option for these opt-in pages. Or you can have it set up to where an email is sent to them immediately with the pdf downland in it. Again, I like to spell it out really basic and simple for people when they get the email. Like download here or if it’s attached, explain that, or direct them wherever they need to go, but have them get immediate access to your freebie offer.

 

What to do With Your Email List

 

So now you have their email address, yay! They are officially on your list, so now what? What do we do with these people who are on your list? If they get the pdf right away, then it’s nice to send them a separate welcome email. Say something like thank you for grabbing the pdf, welcome to my community, here is who I am, this is what I do, here is how I can help you, and all those fun things. So that can be a one-and-done welcome email, welcoming them to the crew, club, or whatever. Or it can be a welcome series of about 5-7 emails, which is a nice marketing number. We need more and more touch points these days, especially for people to even recognize you. But they did do the opt-in, so there is that recognition already. They chose to be on this list. 

 

Some things you can do for your welcome email is a little About You, or send out some resources for them, like blogs you have done, other places you have been published, your podcast episodes, other places you have been featured, or just any resources they can keep regarding whatever you help people do. Then you can send out where to find you, if you are on Tik Tok or Facebook, you can tell them about what you are offering, and more about your back story. Give them tons and tons of value, just like pow, pow, pow, and get them warmed up to who you are.

 

Nurture Your Email List

 

Then you want to Nurture your list. Come up with a schedule that works for you as far as sending out emails. If you are on your own, especially as a service provider who is creating content for clients all day long, it can get really tiring and hard to create content for your business and audience, so it takes some trial and error. Go through and see what works best for you, and get support where you need it.  Bring on a virtual assistant or maybe someone who is just in charge of your email list, if you are ready for that. 

 

Choose the frequency that works best for you. So maybe you are sending out an email newsletter once a week, or you are sending out a couple of more informal check-in messages twice a week, or every other week, or every month. Play around with it, but try to be as consistent as you can so that you are at the top of people’s mind. When people come up with the problem that you help them solve, they are going to think of you. And then we all think of Ice Ice Baby – if you gotta problem, yo I’ll solve it. That’s you in their inbox.

 

Don’t Sell Yourself Short

 

Don’t be scared to sell in your emails. You are sending out all this value and helpful information out of the kindness of your heart for free, so it’s fine to promote yourself too in all your emails. It can be a little – ps this is how we can work together. You are just giving people the opportunity to reach out, you aren’t forcing anyone to do anything. And then when you are launching something, or you are in a harder push for sales, then push a little harder in your emails. Do more sales-forward and sales-focused emails. It’s fine. You are providing an amazing service. Their life will be better after they purchase from you or work with you, so don’t be scared to sell in your emails. 

 

Remember that if someone gets mad that you are selling, or they are offended for some reason, they have the option to opt-out. It’s not your responsibility to worry about how they are receiving it. We want to focus on the people who are excited to learn about how to work with us. So, anyone who gets annoyed about having sales pitches included in emails, that’s on them, that’s not on you. You are just doing your thing out there. We have to sell in order to keep our business running. That’s how it works.  

 

Build It

 

That is my little email list, freebie, opt-in, nurture blog for the year. Things are going to change, I’m telling you. I’m keeping my eye on Web 3 because I think it’s going to be a huge shift in how we market, how we do business, and all the things, but for now this will work great for anyone so go give it a try. 

 

Remember that email lists are important in your business because they create a backup plan for contacting your clients when social media suddenly glitches, as it sometimes does, and gives you the opportunity to sell to a more focused and targeted audience that has chosen to be there. Invite your audience in and build that list, by creating a nice valuable freebie to offer in exchange for them opting into your email list. Then once you have a list going, introduce yourself, what you do, and show them how they can work with you within a nicely curated welcome series of emails. Nurture that list by sending out valuable info and resources they can use consistently, and don’t be afraid to sell yourself within those emails either. Afterall, you are here to grow your business and building an email list is one of the simplest and smartest ways to do that.

 

If you want to check out the fun little freebie that I offer in my business, it’s called Spread Your Magic, and you can grab it here. It’s a content repurposing guide that gives you over 20 ways to repurpose your long form content, which I can’t say enough about. Don’t let your valuable content only live in one place. Check out my guide and learn how to repurpose all over your content marketing, on all your social media, emails, video, all the things! 

 

Also, for copywriters specifically, The Copywriter’s Girls Club on Facebook is poppin. It’s super fun and I invite you to join us over there to network, get advice, support, and all those fun things. It can be a little lonely as a freelance copywriter ya know? So it’s nice to have a group of people who kind of get it, where you can vent, ask questions, get feedback, and all that fun stuff. So pop on in there, I’d love to see you. Youmight even find some peeps to invite onto your email list!

 

You can also connect with me on Instagram @amyleisner and Tik Tok @amy.leisner. And if you want to work with me in any capacity, you can check out my website which is A18media.com.