Email list building – Hangups, tips and stats.

Are you building your email list yet? I can tell you 100% hand on my heart, I’ve had my fair share of mailing list hangups.

Let me share a few…

I don’t need a mailing list, people will just follow me on social media…. Nobody opens them anyway (nobody meaning somewhere around 50%)… It’s not worth the time and effort…

Oh, there was more, but you get the idea.

All I can say to you now is that I wish I’d got my act together with my mailing list at the very start of my business.

The way I now see it is that building my mailing list is a wonderful way to build stronger relationships with people who are genuinely interested in my business.  As for sales and clicks, well it’s a numbers game.  

No, not everyone is going to open your emails and even less are going to click on your links and then even less are going to buy from you, ever!

But that doesn’t mean your list is not valuable.  Focus on the people who are opening.

FACT: Not everyone will open your emails.  And that’s fine.

Let’s deal with these mindset issues regarding building a mailing list.

For me, the biggest realization was this.  I OWN my mailing list and have 100% full control over it.  I don’t own social media platforms like Facebook and I certainly don’t have any control over who they actually show my posts to.

Invest in the thing you own more than the place you share space with millions of other people.  I know there may well be people who’ll have something to say about this, but that’s my opinion.

I also worried that people wouldn’t want me sending them emails too often. My advice here is to get a plan of action.  Set a schedule for your emails and stick to it.

How I do it

I have 3 blogs, this one, Ideal Weight Challenge and Life and Business With Wendy

I send emails to this blog and my ideal weight challenge when I add new content and I talk about the post on a slightly more personal level as well as sharing the blog post.  Also, I send subscribers regular updates with any information I feel will be helpful for the specific niche. 

My Life and Business with Wendy Blog is very focused on building my email list – I send out a Weekly Coaching email every Wednesday and I send out a roundup of new blog posts every week.  

All lists are growing nicely.  So, there is no one way to do this, just decide what you are going to do and go for it. 

People often tell me they’re not consistent with sending out emails and they will often leave it for months without sending anything.  I’ll ask them to schedule in when they will send emails out and they will often say “Yes, I’ll send a weekly email” full of excitement.

The intentions are good, but all too often the reality falls short.

My advice if you can relate to this scenario is to go for a monthly email on a set day each month.  Plan it out in advance and schedule it.  You can always add new things at the last minute.

Also, if there are things that come up during the month that are time-sensitive, such as an offer, you can then send a really quick email in between to let them know.  This helps build continuity and helps make your readers feel valued.

Let’s look at some email mailing list stats

People will often tell me that they are disheartened by their mailing list stats, saying things like hardly anyone opens my emails and even less ever click on anything.  Remember, I know that feeling well.

Well let me share these benchmark stats from Mailchimp and these are not just relevant to MailChimp users, do a search and you’ll see.

The first time I saw stats like this and was able to compare my stats with the average stats I was amazed.  My open rate and click rate were higher than the average.  So I wasn’t a failure after all?!?!

Click on the image to find your industry average.

Having this information really helped me put things into perspective and I hope it will help you too.

Some Stats From my own email list

I want to just give you an idea of a realistic open rate, click rate.  So I want to share the results for my last email sent out to my IDEALWEIGHTCHALLENGE.COM email list.

If you remember, until I understood that this was normal, I thought I was doing something wrong and it was a waste of time.

Now, this list isn’t huge at this time but it grows a little every week and I’m happy with that.  Again though, I wish I’d started much sooner.

The email was sent to 529 subscriber

The open rate was 25.2% (133 opens) 

The clicks (to links I shared in the email) was 3.8% – 20 clicks

Now on the surface, this doesn’t look great but I’m happy with these results.  I know that the link was to a recent blog post.  So 20 extra people visited my blog and read the post.  They’d already had a taster of the post and they really wanted to read more.  These people are your BEST AUDIENCE.  They opted into your email list, they opened the email, they read it and clicked on the link because they wanted more from you.  Reaching 20 people like this is much, much more beneficial for you compared to reaching 1000 people who are not really that interested in what you have to say.  

Now, in this case, the link was for a blog post but the links I share are often affiliate links recommending a service or product I’ve found super helpful or for a new download I’ve created for sale.  

Now my list is still quite small.  But you can see that as it grows, those really super interested people will grow too.

How many people do you need to get in front of to make the sales you want?

The resource I originally shared in this post is no longer available but I can still tell you how it helped me.

In the resource, you could type in how much you want to make and the price of your key product and it Magically (okay it’s not really magic) calculated and crucially told you how many people you need to get in front of.  The resource results were based on JUST 1% of people watching a sales video converting to an actual sale.

Here’s where the second big A-HA came in for me.

If just 1% of my email list actually buys anything I tell them about, how many people do I need to have on my list?

Keep this in mind.

That’s when I got cracking on my mailing list.  Now I’m not saying I’m the email list building pro. No way, not by any stretch of the imagination.  But I know now how valuable my mailing list is and lucky for us, I know someone who is a pro when it comes to email list building and email marketing.

Introducing the wonderful Kate Barrett from Shine a Light Media

3 awesome tips to make sure you’re sending out great emails to your list from Kate Barrett

1.Utilise the pre-header to back up your subject line

The first line of text that appears in your email above all of your other content is called your pre-header text and in many email clients it is pulled in underneath the subject line in the inbox to give a preview of the emails content and help the reader decide whether or not to fully open the email. You’ll notice in your own inbox that many companies don’t optimise this text and use it to its full advantage; instead, you’ll see the usual ‘view this email online’ copy displayed here which should come after your optimised text. Take full advantage of this extra space and make sure that your pre-header backs up your subject line.

2. Bear in mind many people now read emails on a mobile device

Many mobile devices start to truncate subject lines at around 35 characters, so when a subscriber is reading your email on one of these devices anything after that will not be seen unless they open the email. Make sure that you front load your subject line with the important information you want them to know and that will entice them to open the email fully. That’s not to say that longer subject lines can’t be beneficial though, so make sure you follow tip 3….

3. Test, Test and Test again

Even for similar businesses, different copy, designs, content and more can work better for some than for others. It is therefore important to make sure you are continuously testing different elements of your campaigns (one at a time so you can see the results of each test individually) to ensure that you are making the most of each and every send opportunity.  

The best place to start is with A/B testing – taking two versions of your email with one element different (such as the subject line) and sending this to a smaller subsection of your database. After analysing the results of this test you can then decide on a ‘winning’ version (whether that be in terms of the highest number of opens, clicks or conversions for example), which can then be rolled out to the remainder of your database.

Alternatively, you could run a straight 50/50 split on your whole database and use the learning’s for future campaigns.   Try testing different subject lines by length, technique used, specific words used, personalisation and much more to see what really resonates with your audience.  

Kate has been kind enough to give us this FREEBIE 7-Day to create an irresistible Opt-in challenge

About Kate and how to get in touch with her.

Kate Barrett is the founder of Shine a Light Media and The Email Marketing Academy, providing email marketing consultancy and training. With over 10 years’ experience working directly on client email marketing programs for organisations including Nissan, M&S and adidas, Kate has a proven track record – increasing results from opens and clicks to sales. Speaking, blogging and being a member of the DMA Email Council mean that Kate is always up to date with the latest email marketing news to feed her passion for the industry.

www.shinealightmedia.com

3 Tips From Me To Build Your Email List

Set yourself two goals

I recommend that you set two types of goals for your email list.  Set one actionable goal ~ This would be something like I will send an email out to my list on the 5th of every month or I will have my opt-in set up by the end of this week.

Then set an intention goal ~ This is a goal you intend to reach by a certain date.  Such as.  I intend to have over 1,000 on my mailing list by the end of the year.

Be consistent.

I have to put my hands up, I haven’t always done this but I now make it a priority.  It makes a difference.

Plan it in

Schedule your time for creating your email and don’t leave it until the last minute. You can prepare your email over the course of a few days or even a few weeks, then on the day you have scheduled your email to be sent out to your list, you can simply read through the email you’ve already prepared and add anything relevant to that day.

Resources I find useful to build my email list

ConvertKit – I was really hesitant to pay to send emails but I am so pleased I took the plunge. ConvertKit is so much more professional and easy to use compared to free services I’ve used. Also, I find there ongoing training and support is really good. They genuinely want you to do well.

If you’d like to try ConvertKit for free, use my referral link FREE CONVERTKIT TRIAL. If you do purchase a plan, I will receive a commission, it’s a nice win, win for everyone.

Beacon – I use Beacon to create my opt-ins (from the Life and Business With Wendy Blog) – I wish I’d found this resource years ago, it would have saved me so much time. I tend to have it for a month every few months when I want to create new downloads. You can pause at any time.

I encourage you to start today

If you don’t already have an email list set up, I strongly encourage you to get started today. Create an opt-in and start collected people who are really interested in what you have to say.

And I couldn’t finish up without offering you my opt-in – Get my Ideal Business Workbook when you subscribe to receive my emails. Enjoy.

Recommended reading – Have some fun with this post to attract email subscriber

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