5 Reasons to Build Your Email List
It’s May. Winter is finally over. The chill has retreated and tulips have replaced snow drifts on our front lawns. May is also the 5th month of the calendar year, so in honor of all things 5, we’re starting a new five-part series about building your email list.
Why should you bother? Well, here are 5 compelling reasons.
Your list is where the money is. Your list contains your best customers, i.e. those most likely to buy from you. The reason they want to buy from you is because you’ve already established a degree of trust. They have confidence that you’ll deliver the goods and stand behind your product. That degree of trust is one of the most essential parts of business.
Email is more common. Sure most tech-savvy customers wouldn’t be caught dead without their social media feeds, but there are still plenty of people who happily go about their lives without them. In fact, if they’re busy, many of those tech-savvy customers will only check in with their social media pages every few days, but you can bet they’ll keep daily tabs on their email. Simply put, using email gives you better access to a much wider variety of potential customers. Even people who hate Facebook still have email.
Your email list is yours. If you rely on Facebook, Pinterest and other social media to reach customers, you’re subject to their rules and restrictions. A change in policy by one of these social media giants can throw your carefully laid marketing plans into chaos. By contrast your email list is an asset you control for all time, no matter what the big boys do.
Email is targeted. With an email list you can specifically target customers with offers that are designed to appeal to their particular interests. Any good marketer will tell you that the more personal you can make your offer, the more likely you are to get results.
Email is easy to use. Social media can often seem intimidating if you’re not familiar with it. Even if posting messages and checking your feeds is as natural as breathing to you, using social media for marketing can be challenging. Email is a familiar technology. It’s easy to learn and easy to use, not only for you, but also for your customers. Email service providers make it simple to create an attractive, targeted message with hundreds of templates. These services often cost far less than comparable social media services, saving you both money and time, which for many businesspeople are one and the same.
Your email list is your best friend when it comes to marketing. So as the summer heats up, cultivate that list. It just might be the key to helping your business bloom.