Why Email Marketing Matters for your content marketing business

This is episode#47 of The Goodness Squad podcast. Today I am going to be teaching you not just how to turn $1 into $2, but how to turn $1 into $42. I hope that I’ve caught your interest because this is a real and reliable statistic. 

A different approach to email marketing

This is season 3 of The Goodness Squad podcast. During this season, we are going to be focusing on all things email marketing as it pertains to your content marketing business. And again, content marketing just means you create content like blog posts, podcasts, Instagram posts – all of that is content.

But this is not going to be the same old stuff that you’ve heard about email marketing before. My approach to email marketing is unique. I believe that a small list, that you take really good care of, is far more powerful than a large list that feels disconnected from you. When done right, email marketing can help you create personal touches and build meaningful relationships at scale.

So turning $1 into $42, what would you give if I told you there was something out there that could do this for you? Would you put a dollar into that machine? I sure as heck would! I would put a whole lot more than $1 into that machine.

This is email marketing. I get this statistic from a company called Litmus and they have done this study multiple times. In 2018, they found that you would get $38 for every $1. They’ve redone it recently and found that on average people are earning $42 for every $1 that they spend on email marketing. That’s crazy. 

You know, from season 2 of The Goodness Squad podcast, that I believe that you should make money from your business. Email marketing can help you do that. And that is one reason why I want you to dig deep with me into email marketing during season 3 of The Goodness Squad podcast, because I want you to make money.

3 Reasons email marketing matters as a content marketer

But there are three other reasons why email marketing is such an important thing for your business. So I want you to stay with me today. During this episode, we’re going to dive into all three reasons. And the third one, the third one is the one that I believe to be the most important.

Reason #1

Earning money is the first reason.

Reason #2

The second reason is that you can earn money while you sleep through email marketing. You’ve heard that phrase before, and it sounds a little bit spammy or, click bait, right? Earn money while you sleep. But email marketing is what actually makes this possible because it can be so highly automated.

You can set up a welcome series. So when someone joins your email list, you send them a series of welcome emails that can happen automatically. You do not have to be there for that to happen. You don’t have to go in and manually do it. As you learn and grow, you can get even more advanced than that.

You can send an email to somebody when they click on a certain link on your website or in your email. Or you can send an email to someone when they purchase a specific product, or you can send an email to someone when they add that product to cart but don’t purchase it. Or you can send an email to someone when they forward your email, or when they respond to an email. You can automate all of that.

Now I know, or I’m guessing, that you might be hyperventilating a little bit thinking about how that sounds like a lot of work and you would be right. I don’t suggest you automate at that level from day one, but as you learn and grow in email marketing, you will be able to add more of this automation into your system.

And while it does take work to set up. It’s one and done. You set it up, and then it is there for you. It runs for you while you are not there. This is so important for us as Latter-day Saint moms who really care about being there for our kids. We need to be able to automate much of our business so that we can be there for our kids when they need us. And so that we can be there for God and do what He has asked us to do to fulfill our callings and our ministry and assignments. Automation can help with that.

How social media is different from email marketing

Social media does not work this way. It is much more difficult to automate. Yes, you can go in and preschedule posts that will go up while you were not there. That type of automation can happen. That is similar to a welcome series email, but it is much more difficult.

You have no control over who sees your posts. You simply don’t. You post something on Instagram and you do not have control over who sees that. Instagram does. Same thing on Facebook. So this creates a situation where it is much more difficult for you to send somebody a message when they like, or click, on a post. This type of automation, true customization, is far easier in email marketing.

Reason #3

The third way in which email marketing is important for your business is that it will allow you to reach more people. I’ll tell you a quick story. During the Tech School launch, I put up an Instagram post and sat there for about 10 minutes waiting for people to interact on it so that I could interact with them. Nobody did. Nobody was engaging. I had spent a lot of time on this post and I really thought it was a helpful high-quality post.

I walked away after 10 minutes or so of nobody engaging. I came back an hour later and guess how many people had seen it? Eight. That is just over 1% of my current followers. My Instagram following is not that big right now. Most of you know why because I have recently sold a business and started from scratch.

I don’t have a lot of followers at the time of this recording, but still. Just over 1%, and some of my posts, not all of them, but some of my posts stay right around that level. I might get 10 or 15 or 20, which is a little bit higher percentage. Or maybe we’re looking at 3%. I am not reaching that many people with each post that I send out.

Now let’s compare that to email marketing. Even a ho-hum email marketer, who’s really not trying, is going to get an open rate of 15 to 20%. I have around 650 Instagram followers. If I were to send an email to 650 people, I am going to get around a hundred of those who opened it and who at least see it.

If you are good at your email marketing and you do the things that I am going to teach you in this podcast season, your open rate is going to be significantly higher. My current open rate is around 65%. So if I were to send an email to 650 people, I would have around 400 of them who would open that. Isn’t that crazy?

So I post something on Instagram and I get maybe 20 people who see it. And I send it in an email instead, and I get 400 people. Now, I know I do have some Instagram posts that do much better than that, but I have never had over 30% of those who see Instagram posts ever.

I am guessing that your Instagram account is similar. And this creates a need to overproduce content. You feel like you have to say the same thing five different times so that you make sure that everybody’s seen it and you don’t know who’s seen what, and it kind of creates this panicky anxiety feeling. Like you just have to keep posting on Instagram and eventually people are going to want it or see it, or do what I want.

Email marketing is different.

When you send out an email, not only do more people see it, you know exactly who didn’t open it and you can resend it to them, change the headline and resend it to them again and see if they opened it that time.  Email marketing allows you to reach so many more people, which is one reason why it can help you earn so much money.

But again, we aren’t talking about just money here. I want you to think about the impact you want to have. The people you want to help. The way in which you want to change their lives. They actually have to interact with you – read or listen or watch – in order for you to be able to change their life. Email marketing allows you to reach more people, which allows you to have a bigger impact.

A Bonus Reason

The fourth way that email marketing is going to help you in your business and make a significant impact for you is that it helps you to build a relationship with the people you are following. This is because you can automate things with emails. So not only does automation allow you to “make money while you’re sleeping,” but it also allows you to send people what they need, exactly when they need.

And what this does is it builds trust, right? You’re not just bombarding them with enormous amounts of information. You are able to really customize what they get based on what they do inside of your emails, inside of your membership,  on your website, any of that. You can then customize the emails that they are receiving. This is going to help them to know, like, and trust you. And that has two results.

2 things the KLAT helps with

First,

When people know, like and trust you, they buy more from you because we purchase from people who we know we can trust. That’s human nature.

Second,

And possibly more important, the trust that you build with people allows you to build a relationship with people. And when people feel like they have a relationship with you, then they feel like you know them and you understand their problems and they feel like they know you because they’re reading these emails that you’re sending them.

And guess what? You are going to have a better chance at being seen as distinct and different in happy ways. That quote, “seen as distinct and different in happy ways” comes from Spencer W Kimball. President Nelson has recently quoted that again. 

We have been told that the good women of the world will be drawn to the church as the women of the church are seen as distinct in different in happy ways. As you build trust with the people you are serving, they are going to see you more often and have a better chance of seeing you as distinct and different in happy ways.

That is powerful.

And it is the number one reason why I believe email marketing is so important for you as a Latter-day Saint woman. Email marketing is important for any business for the other reasons that I’ve talked about, but for us as Latter-day Saint women, our goal is two fold. It is not just to make money. It is also to have an impact, to change lives, to be seen as distinct and different in happy ways. And I believe that email marketing helps you do that.

If people get to know you through email, if they feel like you understand them, because you send them emails that you need at a certain time, then when they see you on social media in a way that is maybe more human, they’re going to be more likely to stop, listen, look and see you.

Coming Up on The Goodness Squad Podcast

I want to end today’s episode by giving you a little preview of what you’re going to get over the next 16 episodes of season 3 of The Goodness Squad podcast. My view on email marketing is different than what you may have heard before. You have probably been taught, or believe, that you need to grow your email list, grow it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger because the money’s in the list. Right?

You may have heard the phrase, if you’ve been in the content marketing world for any period of time, ‘the money is in the list.’ You have heard that you need to improve your freemium and get more people on your list. I do not believe that that is what email marketing is all about.

I believe there is far more value in a small list, that trusts you and has a relationship with you than a large list that feels extremely disconnected from you. If your list becomes very large, very quickly, it can be very difficult to keep it that more intimate feel and build that know, like, and trust factor.

I am not saying that your list should not ever become large. What I am saying is that it should not be your number one goal and that you should appreciate your small list while you have it, because it will help you to tweak and personalize all that automation in a way that will truly benefit your audience.

Don’t be afraid of the fact that your email list isn’t huge overnight.

In this season of the podcast, I am not going to be talking a lot about how to add more people to your list. We will touch on it, but my focus is going to be on how to improve the quality of your email marketing so that you build trust with those that follow you so that you can both earn more money and have more impact without having to be there live all the time.

Ladies, I am so excited for this season. Email marketing is one of my very favorite topics and I cannot wait to dive into it with you. Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast. And if you do me a quick favor, I would really appreciate it.

If you would tell just one person, I know you know somebody else who is in business, I know you do, tell them about this season of the podcast. Tell them to go subscribe to The Goodness Squad podcast,  because we are diving deep into email marketing in a way that really matters.

The Subject Line Blueprint

And as part of the new podcast season, I have a new freemium for you. So this freemium is going to help you dive deep into your email subject lines, which are an essential part of your business. We are going to have an entire podcast episode on subject lines, but this freemium can help you get an early jump on that.

If you don’t nail your subject line. No one is going to read that email. So you’ve got to nail your subject lines and I have a lot to say about this inside of this freemium. It’s called The Subject Line Blueprint and you can find it at TheGoodnessSquad.com/subjectlineblueprint.

If you’re already on my email list, you already have access to this inside the Resource Library. No need to sign up again. But if you are not yet on my email list, please visit TheGoodnessSquad.com/subjectlineblueprint. There will be a link in the show notes.

In the next episode

we are going to be talking all about email service providers. What are they, why do you need one, and which one should you choose? I’ll see you there.