7 Reasons Why You Need an Email List

Happy midweek! 🙂 As we start a new month of blogging tips I figure the focus could be about something I get asked about pretty frequently… my e-mail list. That’s one thing I would have started much sooner had I realized how much value it’s added to my daily readership and the direct connection I have to those who are subscribed. It’s such a great way to connect and stay connected. I feel like email marketing is consistently being overlooked and undervalued. Especially as bloggers, we’re so consumed with building our social media numbers, creating content and increasing traffic to our blog, that we forget about the one simple tool we use everyday…email!

Various reasons could be:

– Not enough time (setup, content, manage)
– Not very knowledgeable
– Don’t see value, low on the priority list

Which is completely fine, I was that way too. I didn’t pay attention to email marketing. I was focused on growing my Instagram and producing content for my blog.

It wasn’t until my hubby stressed the importance of having a solid email marketing plan that I finally took action. One regret I do have, like I said earlier- is that I wish I started it it sooner.. but woulda coulda shoulda right? That’s why I’m telling you now to get started with one if you don’t have one already! 🙂

What is an email list?

A list of people who have subscribed to your website in order to receive emails from you.

BTW, if you haven’t subscribed to my email list already, do so below as I would love to connect with you!

Here are 7 reasons why you need to start an email list:

Ownership

Unlike our Facebook page or Instagram account, an email list is 100% owned by you. No one can take it away nor will it randomly disappear one day (unless you forgot where you put it lol). Social media websites are out of our control and sometimes end up having a shelf life… who remembers MySpace??

Direct communication with our audience

One of the first things I do each morning after making my coffee is go through e-mails. For most of us, that’s how our morning starts…shut the alarm off and check emails.

Now imagine your email being one of the first things your subscriber wakes up to, a direct connection communicating your message. There’s no way to do that with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. That’s the power of having a subscriber base, being able to directly connect with your audience without your message being drowned by social media noise.

Higher Engagement

If someone has provided you with their email address, they have taken extra steps to receive more information from you. They want to hear more from you and trust you with their email address.

Subscribers have higher engagement than website visitors because they are showing you they want more.

I love it especially when my subscribers respond directly to an email blast I sent out. I enjoy having that direct communication and hearing what they have to say and what they want more of. Which brings me to my next point…

Building Relationships

I really do enjoy the emails I receive from my readers. Mostly they are very encouraging, others just needing help on their own blog.

I especially love hearing stories on how my blog has inspired them to follow their dream and even start a blog themselves. It’s stories like these that really keep me going to provide the best content and inspire others.

And that’s what I want, that direct communication to build a valuable relationship and listening to what my subscribers are looking for. I never want to lose sight of that and I’m always looking for ways to provide value.

How can I provide value if I don’t know what my readers want or where they’re coming from?

My subscribers can always reply directly to my e-mail blast and I’ll receive it.

Deliver Important Updates

Say your website goes down or your Instagram gets hacked. How will you let your audience know what’s going on?

Email comes in handy for important updates such as these to let your audience know what’s going on and to keep them in the loop. Also a great way to provide info about events or ways they can get involved.

For example, when I had speaking engagements and sent out all the info about how to attend to my subscribers… I had quite of bit of people at the event say my e-mail was the only way they heard of the event, even though I had promoted it a few times on social media. It was a great reminder just how valuable a direct connection is with my readers.

Increase website traffic

Before I had an email list, I would promote my blog posts using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat). It would be 1-2 times per day on each account.

I then realized…

1. Not everyone has the various social media accounts.

2. If they do, they may or may not have seen my post depending on the time of day they go on their feed.

When I started to incorporate an email list and promote my blog posts through that channel, I noticed a significant increase of traffic to my blog.

But why?

They are more likely to see and click my blog link when its sent directly to their email than if they happen to have seen it within their social media feeds. It’s easy, quick and convenient for them to either read then or save for later when they have more time.

Everyone has an email!

There is not a service on the internet that you can sign up for without an email address. Well ok, there are some you can sign up for using social media accounts (Facebook, Google+)…but then you need an email address to sign up for those social accounts.

You need an email address to do a majority of things on the internet and almost everyone has one… I think that’s a pretty good assumption. So learn from my mistake and put this on the top of your priority list and start building your subscribers now. I can’t stress how important it is!

Conclusion

Hopefully these 7 reasons will get you thinking about your own list. Also, don’t forget to subscribe below if you haven’t already, I would love to hear from you! Currently there’s three categories you can choose from in my e-mail subscription (or you can select all if you want):

1. Daily e-mails: These go out daily with info about my daily post and any pertinent announcement info, i.e. if I add a new area to my blog, any upcoming event info, new items added to my closet etc.

2. Weekly e-mails: Weekly recap of all blog posts

3. Blogging Tips: Any updates for blogging related posts go out to these subscribers. Also any PDFs that are
created for posts (i.e. how I edit my Instagram filters), are sent out first to this list before I post on my blog.

Coming soon will be Q&As, weekly finds, Snapchat finds etc, that I won’t be posting on my blog or Instagram. So much exclusive content is coming to my e-mail subscribers over the next few months, I’m pretty excited about it! Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions in this area as well of what you would like to see.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be showing you guys how I created my list and what strategies I’ve found to be the most effective. Stay tunnnned.

xx Brittany