If you’re starting an online business, this is what you need. An email list.
This should be the number one thing in marketing that you should be focused on. Not followers on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, SnapChat or Twitter. Yes, those are great too – but your real asset is your email list. Here are the main reasons why.
- You don’t own Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and all those other social media platforms.
Because you don’t own these platforms, you’re at the whim of their rules and algorithms. Not too long ago, Facebook was pushing brands and businesses to get “likes” and “followers” so that people would be notified of any promotions they had. But then Facebook later announced that users will mostly see news from their friends and family and sponsored ads.
Facebook would only show posts from business pages to less than 10% of their followers. According to this article, it’s only 6%.
So if you have 100 followers/fans on your Facebook page, less than 10 people will see it. How dismal. And who knows what Facebook will announce next year? It might even be lesser than what it is now by the time you’re reading this post.
When you have an email list, these people have actually given you their prized possession – their email address, because they want to hear from you. When you send an email to them, it’s not going to be pushed down to the bottom of their feeds. It’s going to be in their inbox. A person’s email inbox is likely less cluttered than a Facebook newsfeed too, so when they do see your emails, they’re more likely to click and read (especially if they enjoy getting your emails).
From Campaign Monitor:
Open rates for email marketing messages are generally in the 20 – 30% range, meaning your message is 5x more likely to be seen through email than Facebook.
- Your customers need to trust you before they even buy from you.
Customers will only buy from people and brands they trust. They have to read/view your content or see the value of your product or service several times before they make a decision. Of course, we do have impulse buyers, but most people (like myself) need to be fully convinced before investing in anything.
Now because Facebook, YouTube, Instagram have these algorithms which are changing all the time, it’s not likely that your potential customers will see you many times. Like I mentioned earlier, less than 10% of Facebook page followers will see the content of the Facebook page they follow. So your customers may see your post today, but they probably won’t see it the next time you post.
Since you can control when and how often your potential customers can hear from you through email, this becomes a great foundation to taking your potential customers on a relationship-building journey.
It’s kind of like having a romantic relationship. You need to have several connections with another person before you actually agree to take the friendship to the next level.
With email, you can do something like this, too. Provide valuable content, get them to know you or your brand, build trust, loyalty and then they’ll likely be interested in your services or products.
Plus, emails are also much more intimate – you can personalise emails with their name. Most people will know that you’re writing a mass email, but if you personalise an email with their name and write as if you were speaking to one person, your email subscribers will enjoy reading them. Provide value and quality content in those emails. This is so important – you need to build a relationship with your potential customers if you want to have a profitable business.
So I hope this post has convinced you on the importance of having an email list. If you’re still not convinced, I hope I’ve at least planted that seed in your mind.
But before you go, just answer me this. When you first signed up for Facebook, what did you have to give away to create your personal profile?
That’s right, you had to give away your email address.