If you own a business, you probably understand the importance of your email list.
It can be challenging to know how to engage with your audience and give them what they need, but it doesn’t have to be.
There are strategies and tips you can use to better understand and nurture your audience.
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What can you do to provide value to your list and make it responsive as well as profitable?
Let’s talk about specific tips and strategies to help you provide actual value to your mailing list.
Be sure to take note of anything you can implement right away.
Tip #1 – Figuring Out Mailing Frequency
Let’s start by talking about how often you should email your list.
A lot of it depends on what you do, how much information your readers want and need and quite simply varies from target market to target market.
You want to find a balance between mailing often enough that your readers remember you and keep an eye out for your emails.
Emailing too often overwhelms them.
Once that happens, your subscribers will be quick to unsubscribe.
A little testing is your best option.
Email only on occasion?
Start to slowly ramp things up until you’re regularly mailing once or twice a week.
Next, step it up to three to four times per week. That’s a good place to be for many of us.
If there’s a lot of information and offers, you may want to give mailing daily a try.
No more than that.
Try each approach for a week or two and see what kinds of results you get.
Did you get large numbers of unsubscribes or complaints as you step it up?
Are you seeing a big drop in open rates, or end up making fewer sales even though you’re mailing more often?
If so, it may be time to slow things down.
Test and tweak until you find your personal sweet spot.
Then stick with that for your future mailings.
Tip #2 – Set and Meet Expectations
Be clear about how often your readers can expect to hear from you.
They will be looking for your emails.
Setting and then meeting your readers’ expectations not only builds trust and a loyal following, but it also helps with email open rates.
Which in turn will help with the overall deliverability of your emails to your lists.
Tip #3 – Striking A Balance Between Offers and Free Content
No one likes to be constantly sold to.
That’s why it’s important to strike a good balance between free, helpful content and the offers you send to your subscribers.
A good way to accomplish this is to simply alternate between the two.
Send some helpful free advice or a couple of tips, followed by an offer for a related product.
Or combine helpful content with an offer.
For example a review or case study of a product, along with a link on where to buy it.
Better yet, link to a product to your free content.
Tip #4 – Find Out What Your Readers Need And Provide It
One of the best ways to serve your market is to simply find out what your readers need and then provide it to them.
This requires two things.
- You need to know who your target market is
- You need to know what challenges, problems, and obstacles they face
Do your research.
Find the best products and solutions for them.
Try the products and services you find and if they are a good fit and work as advertised, send the offer out to your list.
Tip #5 – Listen To Feedback (with a grain of salt)
Listen to the feedback they send you.
It’s also a great way to start a conversation with individual readers and learn even more.
However, take the information with a grain of salt.
While you can learn a lot about your readers, you can’t count on them to know what solutions they are really looking for.
They may be talking about one thing but it’s caused by a larger, underlying issue.
Find out what that is and you become the resource they didn’t know they needed.
Tip #6 – Be the Gatekeeper and Curator
Go out there and find the best experts, content, products, and services for them and then present it in an organized fashion.
The big advantage of these types of emails is that you don’t have to write all the content and create any products you present to your readers.
Instead, you find out what they need, and then go out and find a good solution for them.
For example, instead of writing an ebook on how to deal with temper tantrums, you introduce them to the leading expert on the topic and share his or her content along with an affiliate link for their products.
Tip #7 – Make A Connection With Your Readers
Making a connection with your readers allows you to get to know them and their needs better.
It allows them to get to know you.
Over time, as you grow and nurture your relationship with your list, they will not only know you but also like and finally trust you.
It’s that trust that you need to make your list truly profitable.
Once you earn their trust and loyalty and then present them with offers for products and services they need and want, it’s easy to close the sale.
Pick one and start adding value to your list and your email marketing.
Then come back and focus on something else.
Keep coming back until building, growing and maintaining a highly valuable and profitable email marketing list has become second nature and an integral part of your online business.
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