EP 52 -  Collecting Email Addresses to GrowYour List

This is the second to last episode in our email marketing series. If you haven't listened to the others, I'd encourage you to start with episode 47 for the email marketing series and if you want to learn a little more about marketing, listen to episodes 44 and 45.

• In episode 47 we talked about list segmentation which is about managing your list, but it's important to always be growing your list as well - why because that is new prospects for you. That's part of marketing.
• In episode 47 we also talked about looking at your website for different ways you are collecting email addresses. Today we'll take that a little deeper.
• Getting email addresses doesn't just come from people visiting your website. You can ask on your social media posts, you can have give aways, contests, webinars, workshops, community events, things where people need to sign up for something and give you their email address in the process.  

Why do you need to grow your list? 

If you are someone that is investing in social media you might be thinking, "do I really need to do worry about email marketing?"

My answer to this is 

if you aren't, you might be out of business before everyone else.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and whatever new platform is developed is rented space for you. Today, they are all free. Today, they control what people see, unless you pay them. It's basically a pay to play game for them. So if you aren't paying, not many people are seeing your content.

When FB first started with the business pages, as a trainer, I was telling everyone to create one. Those that did, those early adopters, had their pages seen...for awhile. Then FB went public and then they needed to start making money. So then the business pages weren't seen as much and if you wanted your business page to be seen, you had to pay. Now its advertising

The newest thing is groups. Build your community in a group. For now, everyone is seeing what is posted in your group. Before long, FB will have ads in the groups and you'll have to decide how valuable it is. 

I don't fault FB. They are a business. Businesses need to make money. In the case of social media, it's offered to the consumer for free, they get use to things, it's almost like an addiction but AI decides what the consumer sees. The people you want to target might not be in their sightline. 

By having the email addresses, you own it. You aren't dependent on paying FB or even worrying about if FB exists because you reach your prospects and clients on your terms. Personally, I think that's much better than having your business dependent on another!

It's really important to understand that social media is rented. You don't really have people's contact information. It's hard for you to reach out to them. 

With email marketing, you are in their inbox and as long as you are sending valuable content, they'll keep you there!

Ok, enough about that. 

I've used Constant Contact as my ESP for many years and I've been one of their partners for a long time as well. Since I'm not actively doing marketing for others today, I reached out to other CTCT partners in our community and asked them what they see as good ways of growing your list today. 

Some of the ideas I'm discussing today are coming directly from them and these are people who are working with clients everyday, helping them with their marketing. If you want to check them out, check out the show notes at thebusinessofinsurance.com where I've linked to their websites where they were available. 

What can you do to grow your list?

Website - This is a no brainer and can be done a few different ways. In episode 47 I suggested you do a website audit. 

Where are you collecting email addresses on your website?

In my opinion, you should have some form of email capture on almost every page of your website. From giving things away to just getting more information, if you don't ask, you won't' collect. 

This ties into what Amy Morales of Kapeesh Marketing says because she feels that many small business owners feel embarrassed or too modest to ask customers to follow them online or join some kind of digital marketing effort. Just as these business owners champion "shop small" and "shop local," they should feel empowered and completely capable of asking friends and customers to support them online and join them on an email list.

I think some of this is because we don't want more emails in our inbox so why should we ask other people for their email. I understand this but if you are sending out valuable information, people should be happy to get your emails. It's the people that send out useless information that people will unsubscribe to. 

I've seen this a lot over the years myself. I even see it today with the clients in my CEO roundtables at Select Business Team. People don't want to seem pushy or upset anyone so they don't ask for the emails and they don't put the tools on the website or other platforms to get people's contact information. 

Just start with capturing an email, then you can get more sophisticated to capture other information. 

Now I'm in complete agreement with Vee Tanner of The Biz Tech Wiz   who says, don't put 'sign up to get my newsletter on your website. 

That worked 20 years ago, but it doesn't work today. Not many people are going to knowingly sign up for your newsletter today. Some will, but many of us are in email overload, so we only want emails that we can use or benefit from!

I recently started playing pickleball and I'm interested in playing in a particular community so when I found out someone was sending an email in that community about pickleball, I did sign up. It's valuable to me!

So while some people in certain circumstances will sign up when it says sign up for our newsletter, you would be better off calling it something else. If you just have the newsletter then say something like Get Information On Protecting Your Family or if you are focused on the B2B market, say something like  Get Details on Managing Your Business.

Ideally you want to say something about staying in touch and offering something to download or get my free checklist or tool that benefits you. Amy Morales says this is what is working and can be done in several different ways.

So, what can you give away? This is the million dollar question many of you will ponder. 

Throughout this email marketing series, I've given you a few ideas but here's a few more:

• Fire Escape route planning tool
• The most overlooked insurance purchases (cancer, umbrella, LTC, event, cyber
• Hiring a nurse advocate
• Caring for your Pets

The topics for what you can give away are unlimited. It will take time to develop or you can purchase a white labeled piece which will save you a lot of time and probably money if you purchase it this way.

Michael Loschke of Arista Advisors suggests that you have to have a compelling value proposition and the key objective is to become a close trusted advisor. He follows the advice of financier and philanthropist, Michael Milken's and suggests creating deep emotional relationships" (something to which every agent/sales pro should aspire) - Health, Wealth and Children. BTW, the latter is often pets for seniors and empty-nesters. ;) Ask people join your list  by phone or email or online zoom, "He'll say to people, our clients receive special email offers and content on health, wealth, and children. May I add you to our VIP list?"

Another way to Build your List is Webinars

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