I’m learning something new and I thought you might want to follow along. No doubt you have heard about list building or the need to have an email list to grow your business so I decided to look into the process of list building. This is the first of ten posts about list building. Today let’s talk about why you need to build a list in the first place. It doesn’t matter what form your online presence takes – be it blogging, creating video content, running an online store, or growing a social media presence – any online business can benefit from having a list and focusing on growing a subscriber base.

What makes email lists so special?

It gives you a chance to talk directly to your audience. You don’t have to wait for them to come to your blog or log in to Instagram to see your content, your message, and your offers. Instead, you get to go to them … their email inbox to be more specific.

While blog posts, videos, and social media posts lend themselves to talking to your entire audience at once, email… even when you’re writing an email to a larger list, allows you to talk to each reader individually. While your blog posts for example are written to a whole segment of your audience, you can sound more personal and personable with your list. Establishing relationships is important when building your email list.

I learned that regardless of industry, experts agree that email marketing converts better than any other form of marketing and it’s the main reason why all your other marketing efforts should focus on growing and expanding your list. In other words, the list allows you to make a living from your online business. And it’s also a safety net. Let me explain.

How Is Your Email List A Safety Net?

I found the idea of a safety net comforting. I am a “ducks in a row” type and having a backup plan for when things go awry is important to me. Let’s face it, things happen. What would you do if Facebook decides to close down your account, your website gets hacked and you lose a lot of the content? Who knows? Search engines may one day decide they no longer love you and stop sending you free traffic. Murphy’s Law holds true, even on the web…. Anything that can go wrong will eventually go wrong, right? The beauty of having an email list is that you always have a way to recover. Back-up plan? Yes Please!

There’s Value in Nurturing Your Email List

Building your email list and then nurturing those relationships provides so much more than conversions. Think about it. When you nurture these relationships, through the daily or weekly emails you send to them (and the conversations that develop from interacting with them), you start to build trust with your audience. Why is that important? Because once you have earned that trust, they will gladly take you up on the offers you sent them via email, and provided you treat your list well and share great stuff, it’s sustainable. You can make offers for things they want and need over and over again.

Up Next…The Automation of Email List Responses

Join me next week as I take a look at 3 auto-responder/email providers and compared their services. I’ll let you know which one I chose and why. Until next time.

All the Best,

Patricia