Did you know that according to the Campaign Monitor for the last 10 years email has generated the highest ROI for entrepreneurs and marketers?
Not having an audience to read your books, or to interact and engage with is no fun. Not having an audience is also detrimental to your business.
In fact, the single biggest difference between successful authors and authors who aren’t as successful is an audience.
The good news is today anyone can build an email list and audience for their business.
How do you build an audience?
The fastest and most profitable way to build an audience is to focus on growing your email list.
Building an email list provides several benefits that other marketing channels do not.
1) Email is one of the best ways to build and sustain a relationship with an audience.
According to the Direct Marketing Association companies using email to nurture leads generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost.
The key to building relationships with your list is to email at least once per week and always provide value in each email.
Remember to always advocate for the people on your list. If you constantly respect and focus on the wants, needs, and desires of your list, then they will continue to open and click on the links in your emails.
Advocating for your list includes:
- The content you share
- The offers you make
- The sponsors you accept
- How often you communicate
- And every other aspect of how you build and engage with your email list.
Do the emails you send only contain a coupon or remind the people on your list of a specially priced product week after week?
Or do your emails provide helpful content that is beneficial? Do the offers in your emails relate to the content you shared in the email?
Leading with value is the key to consistently driving open rates and having people click and eagerly purchase the offers in your emails.
Ask these 3 questions before sending any email.
- Does this email advocate for the people on my email list?
- Does the content in the email provide a benefit to the audience?
- Does the offer in my email provide value to the person on my list?
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2) Email can provide consistent steady revenue.
For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment yields $44.25 according to ExactTarget.
Email provides unique opportunities that few other marketing channels provide.
There are essentially two types of emails: automated and broadcast.
Broadcast emails include newsletters and promotional emails. These are emails that you either manually send or schedule.
Automated emails are emails that you set up and are sent when a specific action is taken or are sent at a specific time. These are known as triggered emails.
A triggered email can be sent based on when someone opt-ins into your list, lands on a shopping cart page, but doesn’t purchase or visits a certain page, or is sent based on who does not take a certain action like open or click on a link in an email, etc.
Automated emails can build relationships and provide a systematic way to generate revenue and move the person through the customer journey.
2) Email can help you build other marketing channels.
If you want to populate a Facebook group, then email your list. If you want people to watch a YouTube video, then send an email. If you want people to purchase your book, then send an email. If you want people to join your coaching program, then send an email.
Chances are you can achieve your goals if your email list size is large enough and the people on your list are engaged. As long as the people on your list continue to open, click, and purchase then, you have a valuable asset. You have a community that is responsive to you. Building a community or audience is the most valuable resource for a business.
3) Email allows you to communicate with people on your list in a cost-effective and profitable way.
Every marketing channel has a cost associated with it. If you reach new customers via offline channels such as TV, radio, print or direct mail, they all incur a cost. Even if you send a print newsletter to your customers via snail mail, then you must pay for postage and printing. This can cost several thousand dollars even if you have a small list of just a few hundred customers.
Email allows you to communicate for just pennies per subscriber.
4) Email is not one and done marketing.
With most marketing channels every time you communicate with prospects and customers there is a cost involved.
Email allows you to build relationships over time. Once someone is on your list you can communicate with them as often as you want or until they unsubscribe.
These emails can be in automated messages or broadcast emails. Just make sure each email you send is providing value to your list.
So, remember email marketing yields on average a 4,300% return on investment according to the Direct Marketing Association. So if you are going to focus on one marketing channel, then it should be to build an engaged email list. Having an email list that is always eager to hear from you is one of the most valuable assets you can achieve online.
If you want to take your business to the next level, then focus on increasing the size of your email list. Download this free report by Charles Discover 101 Ways to Build Your Email List. Inside this report, it will show you how to supercharge your list building efforts with Free and Paid ways to build your email list.