Replay: Learn how to start and grow your perfect email list!

Today’s episode of the podcast is a replay of a previous episode, talking all about the importance of building your own email list.

In this episode I answer the most frequently asked questions that I always get asked about how to build an email list and my top tips for getting it right!

 
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

what to email your list
the best day and time to send an email
how to stop your emails going to spam
how to stay consistent
the platform I’d suggest if you’re just starting out
the platform I’d actively avoid using


Please note that as this episode is a replay, the 5 day list building challenge that is mentioned has already taken place.

 
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out my Summer Sale bundle

Sign up to my emails

Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

 
Transcript
Teresa: Kind of obsessed with this building because for me, no matter what your business is, no matter what size it is, no matter where you are in your business, building a list is one of the most important things that you can do because you're basically gathering your community together. You are having another way to market to them. You are connecting with your audience and you're basically almost collecting people who are your perfect customer, which is amazing.

You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast Episode 249. You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. If you are a business owner who is striving to build a business and a life that you dream of on your own terms and doing something that you love, then this is the podcast for you. Each week, I will share with you business marketing and mindset, tools, and strategies that I have used to start and grow my own dream business, as well as the dream businesses of hundreds of business owners from around the world. So if you're ready, let's get started.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast. How are you doing? How's things? So today I'm gonna jump straight in and tell you that we're doing a podcast episode around the questions that I get asked around list building. Now, you know, if you've been listening to me for a while and if you haven't, welcome, I'm so grateful you're here, but I'm obsessed with list building. Because for me, no matter what your business is, no matter what size it is, no matter where you are in your business.

Building a list is one of the most important things that you can do, because you're basically gathering your community together. You are having another way to market to them. You are connecting with your audience and you are basically

Today’s episode of the podcast is a replay of a previous episode, talking all about the importance of building your own email list.

In this episode I answer the most frequently asked questions that I always get asked about how to build an email list and my top tips for getting it right!

 
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

what to email your list
the best day and time to send an email
how to stop your emails going to spam
how to stay consistent
the platform I’d suggest if you’re just starting out
the platform I’d actively avoid using


Please note that as this episode is a replay, the 5 day list building challenge that is mentioned has already taken place.

 
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out my Summer Sale bundle

Sign up to my emails

Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

 
Transcript
Teresa: Kind of obsessed with this building because for me, no matter what your business is, no matter what size it is, no matter where you are in your business, building a list is one of the most important things that you can do because you're basically gathering your community together. You are having another way to market to them. You are connecting with your audience and you're basically almost collecting people who are your perfect customer, which is amazing.

You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast Episode 249. You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. If you are a business owner who is striving to build a business and a life that you dream of on your own terms and doing something that you love, then this is the podcast for you. Each week, I will share with you business marketing and mindset, tools, and strategies that I have used to start and grow my own dream business, as well as the dream businesses of hundreds of business owners from around the world. So if you're ready, let's get started.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast. How are you doing? How's things? So today I'm gonna jump straight in and tell you that we're doing a podcast episode around the questions that I get asked around list building. Now, you know, if you've been listening to me for a while and if you haven't, welcome, I'm so grateful you're here, but I'm obsessed with list building. Because for me, no matter what your business is, no matter what size it is, no matter where you are in your business.

Building a list is one of the most important things that you can do, because you're basically gathering your community together. You are having another way to market to them. You are connecting with your audience and you are basically almost collecting people who are your perfect customer, which is amazing.

So I talk about it all the time and I'm going to be running a five day challenge soon, which I'm really excited about. So I thought it would be a great idea in order to run up to that challenge, to let you know about the challenge, to also go over some of the questions that I get asked all the time about list building.

And I'm hoping that as you listen to this, maybe some of the questions that you've had in your head about when should you post, is there a better time of day? How do you stop it going into the spam folder, how to stay consistent, what you should actually email people. I'm really hoping that some of these questions will be ones that you've got and that I will get answering them for you.

But first, let me quickly tell you about the challenge. So it starts on July the 11th and runs through for that week. And then there's a bonus call on the following Monday, just to kind of wrap up and answer any further questions that you might have. And basically over the five days, I'm gonna be walking you through the main steps that you need in order to get your list set up.

So if you've wanted a newsletter out to your customers, if you want to send emails to them, If you want to start building that community, then you need this five day challenge and you need an email list. So over the five days, like I said, each day, you'll get a lesson sent out to you. That'll be short and sweet, and they'll tell you exactly what you need to do.

There's also going to be prizes. So someone is going to win a free course of build my list. That explains how to do everything. And it's just gonna be great fun. We're gonna be hanging out for a week, talking all things list building. So if you wanna join me for that challenge, I would love to see you there.

It's gonna be great fun. Go to teresaheathwareing.com/challenge and you can find all the details there and you can sign up and join me for that. It's going to be fab. But anyway, let's get going with some of these questions. So, what I did is I went back through previous, build my list courses that I've done. Facebook groups from a previous challenge.

And I've basically looked at all the questions I get asked, which is lots and lots, which is great about list building. And I've picked some of the ones I thought are probably the most common they come up the most and that I think you might have. Okay. So let's start by talking about. Actually emailing them.

What do you send someone when you email them? This is a question I get a lot. So often they will come and think about doing, build my list or they'll come and they'll be list building or they'll create something in order to get people onto their emails, but then they don't email them. And I did exactly the same.

And I've talked about this, a millions times before. I'm sure you have heard me talk about it, but I did. I built an email list and I didn't email them, which was a really stupid thing to do. So hands up, I did the stupid thing first. So you lot don't have to, you can now just take my advice. So the first thing is that you do have to email them from, from day one.

I get people saying to me, you know, "Well, there's only 10 people on my list." Well, they don't know they're only 1 of 10. So all they know is they signed up and they want to receive something. So make sure you send them something. In terms of what to send them. I often teach between love letters and newsletters.

Now neither is right or wrong. They are personal preferences to which you think would be most appropriate for you and your business. But basically a newsletter is what you would traditionally see where there are. Where it's quite a designed looking thing. There tends to be lots of links and the, and they tend to be less frequent because instead of like talking about one thing, they talk about lots of things.

So they only send out maybe every other week or once a month or whatever it is. And whereas when I talk about love letters, I talk about the kind of emails I send. And obviously if you're not on my list, then please do. Go ahead to my website and you'll be able to find a sign up there. But love letters for me are I write them as if I'm writing them for one person.

I literally think of people in my audience as I'm writing it. And I imagine I'm talking directly to them. And then I tend to talk around one subject, one thing. And then I tend to only give one call to action or one link in each email. So like I said, it doesn't matter whether it's one or the other, it doesn't matter.

There's not a right or wrong. It's just what fits with you. And what fits better with me is that kind of style. If you are a product, if you're selling products, then probably a newsletter style might be better. If you don't want to email very often, but I'm coming to that. Then again, a newsletter style might be better.

If you think about like what you might put in a newsletter, so you might talk about an achievement of someone who bought your thing, a testimonial or a case study. You might talk about a new service you're offering. You might talk about a tip or a frequently asked question. They can all be broken up into individual emails.

So I can literally take that one tip and write an entire email around it and just talk about why that tip is important, how I've come to that tip, what I've done. So you can see how like those bigger things can be pulled down into one email. Also, when you're thinking about what you put in these emails, think it's just another content.

Okay. Previously many, many, many, many years ago when I first started marketing and we would use, I think we used constant contact back in the day and I would send emails for Landover or whatever it was. Like, they were so different then. It wasn't seen as content as such. Because emails were really specific often it was your work email address.

You'd only see it on a computer. You'd only see it during work days and therefore things like, you know, what time you sent it would matter more than it does now. But, it's not. Now your emails tend to be on your phone. You tend to almost go in them as often as you would go into your social media. So just see it as another arm.

If you've put a post on social media about a case study, then why wouldn't you send an email about that? So often I think when people think about what to send, they get really heads up in terms of, you know, they've gotta write war and peace. You absolutely don't. They can be long, they can be short, they can be whatever you want.

So it purely depends on you and what you prefer. So, how do you stay consistent when you're emailing? Well, the thing that I had to do is I had to commit myself to the world and basically say, I say the world, like my very small audience, but I had to say to them, I'm going to email you this amount of times or on this day or this time or whatever it was.

I had to make that decision kind of public. I had to come out and go, this is what I'm going to do, because that would hold me accountable. If I didn't, I wouldn't have done it. So sometimes just having that accountability of promising that you're gonna show up in a certain way or a certain time or a certain whatever.

Even if you think someone's paying attention or not, it just really helps. So that's what I did. I committed to saying. And when I first started probably emailing, I emailed once a week on a Wednesday. So I committed to saying this is what's, you know, happened that this is what I'm gonna do. And, and I'm gonna email every single week. And I did.

Apart from actually, when my mom passed away, I was, I missed two weeks, but then I emailed to go. This is why I've missed two weeks. I'm sorry. And I'm back. For me saying it out loud, telling people really helps about consistency. The other thing that helps me now, because I do three emails a week, I do a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday, and we'll get to frequency and how often you should email and that sort of thing in a bit.

But when I do those days, now, the only way I can stay consistent is by batching those emails. So literally right before, it's like my batching day today, as I'm recording this. I did a month's worth of emails and I'm doing a month's worth of podcast. So for me, I tend to put it all together because when you are doing one style of things, so when I'm writing, it's much easier to just write one email then another, then another, then another.

And you get in the zone, the same with podcasting. Once I've kind of got into the flow of doing it, it's so much easier to just knock out the four podcasts at once. So for me, that's how I stay consistent. I batch those things together and to the point where you could even write them and schedule them ready.

So you don't even have to think about it. My only slight thing with this is. That sometimes when I want to be spontaneous or something's come up, then obviously my whole thing is planned and all of it's written. Now it's not to say that I don't change it sometimes or tweak it, but it's just, it's just another thing.

But if I didn't batch, I know I wouldn't do it. So that kind of downside of occasionally have to tweak and move things is well worth that effort because it's getting done.

Okay. Next question I hear a lot is how often should you send emails? This is a big one. So it used to be, like I said, back in the day, I've been around a long time that like once a month was when you sent an email. And that was fine back in the day.

The problem with it now is if I said to you, you can only post on social media once a month. And do you think it'll do anything for your business? Like I'd be laughed out the room. Of course. There's no way we would think that. There's no way we would consider just posting once a month and think that that's going to be okay.

And I'm really sorry to tell you that that's kind of the same for emails. Once a month is not really gonna cut it because it's almost too far away. And also it's 12, that's it? 12 emails in one year. You know, whereas I'm doing 12, am I doing 12 in a month? That's quick maths. I should be able to do that maths, three times four.

Yeah. That's 12. No, it's not. 2, 4, 8, 2, 8 to 16. I can't believe you were actually listening to me. Do my maths on the podcast. I am so sorry. I'm actually doing a minimum of 16 a month. You probably sat there shouting at me before this going. That's not 12 Teresa. So, so yeah, so 12 emails, that's it. 12 posts in a year.

That's it? That is not enough. So once a month, for me really now I would say is not enough. Every other week could be okay. Every week could be okay. Obviously I email three times a week and I know some people who email every single day. And when I first heard that, I literally like couldn't believe that they did that and thought it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

But the truth is, as long as you tell people what to, you know, what to expect, then it's going to be okay. Cuz if you sign up to my emails and you get three emails a week and you don't like it, you'll unsubscribe. I did have someone message me saying they find three too much and was there an option to drop to less?

But the problem is the way I write my emails. I tend to write them in a theme for the week. So normally I'll talk about something on Monday and then Wednesday's emails relating to it and so's Fridays. So it's really tricky to just pick, which would be the most important for you to get. So, unfortunately that's not the case and as is they didn't unsubscribe and they're still, they're still getting my emails.

But I do get for some people that will be too much, but as long as I'm consistent and I tell them. Also the other thing that you don't wanna do, regardless of what you choose of your frequency, you don't want to suddenly go from once a week or every other week to five times in a week, because you've got something to say.

So it's about that consistency of you showing up in their inbox. So if I rarely email on a day that isn't a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I will, I will say, you know, I don't normally email you today, but I wanted to share this or I wanted to do this. And it's normally, if something extra's come up, like I said, you know, because a do batch ahead, sometimes if something extra has come up, I really wanna get it out there.

Then I will add an extra email in. So like I said, it's not about how often really it's about being consistent and not when you go into a sales mode or a launch mode that suddenly you absolutely bombard people, cuz you're going to suddenly see a really big unsubscribe. In those times when you are doing that, cuz they're not used to it.

Okay. So then the next question I get asked a lot is, is there a better time or day to send? Now, it's a bit like social media really? Yes and no. And, and it's so personal to you if you know, so for instance, if you are running a restaurant and you wanna be getting bookings for the weekend, then maybe Wednesday would be a good day to send it.

If you are talking to businesses and you want to let them settle into the week, then maybe a Tuesday could be good. Friday afternoon probably not. If you're talking to business people. Monday morning, probably not. If you're talking to business people just because obviously Fridays and Mondays tend to be the days that they're either gearing up for the day or finishing for the week.

So, so yeah, I think it really doesn't matter so much now, like I said, unless you could see a reason such as. The restaurant example I gave then really it doesn't matter. It more matters what day you are likely to be able to get it out. So if you know that on a Tuesday, you're always quiet because you don't book in clients or whatever, then do it on a Tuesday, cuz I'd much rather you do it on a day that suits you, but you get it out than not.

So yeah, in terms of day or time, it doesn't really matter a whole lot. It used to back in the day, not so much now. Okay. Another one I'm I get all the time is how do you stop the emails going into junk or spam? Now, this is a tricky one because at the end of the day, no one can really control what happens once they send the email. Because you are going into different email systems and different email systems, look at different things and require different things.

So it's kind of impossible to say, this is what you should do to get it, to stop going to junk. Cuz there's really nothing you can do. Other than using a reputable email provider, which you know, all the ones I would talk about are reputable and, and great. Also the fact of, you know, make sure your content is good.

So no one's marking it as spam. Make sure you're not emailing people whose addresses you don't, you haven't collected properly. And again, those people might mark you with spam and that's gonna affect your whole email list. I'm not saying it's gonna put it all in spam, but it might affect the deliverability of it.

The thing that I do do is I always ask for responses. Now I ask for responses cause I genuinely love getting responses and I genuinely love hearing from people. And I like replying to people. But one of the benefits of people doing that is that you almost get put on their safe senders. You can also ask them to put you on their safe sender.

But to be honest, I think, I don't know how many people do that. I don't think I've ever done it, but if you reply, then your email is kind of acknowledging that this is a proper email and it's more likely to go into the inbox. So do ask for replies that will help. But unfortunately there's not a whole lot.

I can say about getting at the junk and spam other than the other thing. So if you are getting people to sign up to a lead magnet or a freebie or whatever it is. In the thank you page, make sure...