190: Your email list is a gateway to opportunity

Email marketing is a subject that I covered in depth earlier on in the podcast… I would recommend after you listen to this episode that you head back to the series: https://techofbusiness.com/series/email-marketing/

The episodes are 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63.

This episode is about using your email list in order to accomplish your online music studio goals.

It's not a matter of just having an email list, it's a matter of using that email list effectively…what it means for you and what it means for the recipients!

{Before we get into things… remember to book your free no-pitch call with me: http://callwithjaime.com)

A few definitions: Email list is a list of email addresses (name, email address, and maybe some more info). Email marketing is the mechanism for sending emails out. EMS (email management system or email marketing system) is the tool that you're going to use to send your broadcast messages or your automations out to people who have said YES to your freebie or another product that you are offering.

Action Item: Using an EMS is pretty much required at this point. No more Gmail or Outlook. If you’re not signed up for an EMS, sign up for ConvertKit right now. Your business growth requires these people to opt-in to your email list to say “YES, I want to receive marketing promotional and informational emails from you.” You run a business, an online business, and this is a hard line -- use an EMS!

To help folks get onto your email list, reach out to them individually and say something like:

“Hey, I'm moving my email communication out of my inbox and into a service. Do I have your permission?”

or

“I have a brand new freebie! Click here to opt-in!”

Add a link or button for them to click, they enter their email address right into the form that's associated with your email marketing system, and BOOM! They’re in.

Now let’s talk about using your email list effectively.

Using EMS, we can store a lot more information about our students and about our prospects than just their name and email address. You can store things like:

what freebies they signed up for what workshops they have signed up for if they attended a trial class if they are in a program what instrument they play and they're self-professed abilities what desires they have what goals they have

You name it, we can store it… seriously! Your EMS is a customer relationship database if you set it up that way, which is a whole lot more effective than just having names and email addresses and just sending out emails blind. We want to be smart about sending out emails.

There are three different types of emails that we send through our EMS:

Informational emails Sales emails Transactional emails. Informational emails

These should be between 60 and 80% of the emails that you send. These are emails that are going to help them do more with their music study. This is also where we would send people to a YouTube video, something that's on IGTV, your Instagram feed, your Facebook group, or your Facebook page. You're sharing something in these emails that is for the entire benefit of the person who is receiving it. They are getting information from you. They are getting insight from you. They are gaining knowledge from your content.

The marketers call these value-add emails.

We want to be sending these emails regularly in order for people to have you as a constant presence in their lives. They can get the emails from you every single week or you could do them once a month. Having a regular schedule is a great way to make sure that we are getting the information out to them in a timely manner so that they continue to rely on you.

Whether someone is an active or past student or they're just on your list and haven't paid you a dime, we want them to feel like they have an investment with you so that they are receiving from you so that when it comes time for them to make a financial investment or double their efforts or whatever it might be, you are the first teacher that they are going to come to.

Use these informational emails to showcase what we know and how we can help people by actually helping them. These informational emails don't have to be long but they do have to be regular.

My recommendation is to send emails every single week. Pick a day and time of the week. (My emails to my list go out on Thursdays. There are very few occasions where I skip a week. If I'm not going to be working that day, I'll generally just schedule it ahead. That's up to you. If you’re not on my list, click here now to sign up)

Sales emails

These sales emails introduce our programs, letting people know that they can sign up for a workshop, a masterclass, lessons, a group program, or a membership site. I recommend  keeping them to 20% or so of your regularly scheduled emails.

Remember, we are trying to foster a relationship through all those information emails. We don't have to have a huge number of sales emails -- we have their attention already. They know they're getting regular communication from us, which of course means that they are more likely to open your sales emails and more likely to act on them.

Whether an email recipient purchases or not, they're going to see these emails and the opportunities housed within. They might engage with you on social media, or through replying to your email or going to your sales page or whatever it might be.

We want to make sure that when we are sending emails to our email list, that they are ALWAYS talking to the person where they are right now.

This episode is being released right at the beginning of fall, right? So I want to make sure that any informational email that I send tomorrow or otherwise brings fall into the conversation.

Are the leaves changing color around you? I want people to say, “Oh yeah, she's not just creating these and sending out information for information sake. She actually cares about what's going on in my life.”

When we're communicating through our email list, we are writing one message and we're sending it to a lot of people. We have to be careful that we're not making it sound general and while also not making it so specific that people feel alienated because you're not including them in the conversation. We want to always make sure that when we're sending messages that we truly understand who is receiving them.

Whether you're using ConvertKit or ActiveCampaign or any other email marketing platform out there, you have the ability to send to segments of your population, segments of your email list.

Here’s what I mean…

If you are sending an informational email related to the piano, but you also teach voice, you can exclude all the people who have said, “I am only interested in your emails for voice.” You can send separate emails that week -- one that is specifically for piano and one that is specifically for voice. That way, you can make things very relevant to those separate populations. When we segment our list and send to a subset of our entire list, we can get more specific.

Another example...

Let's say that you’re tracking who is in your local area. You want to do a jam session in the park a mile from your house. Segment your list by all the people who live in a certain zip code or certain city and you'll be able to only send that to people who have the ability to actually be there. And then send an email to everybody else saying that you're doing this jam session and that you're recording to put on YouTube.

We are always working to build relationships through our email list.

We are building connections. We are taking people from “Oh, this freebie sounds interesting” to “I really like her style. I think I want to take lessons or take her course or join her next group program or this workshop that she's got coming up. Yeah, that sounds really great!”

Transactional emails

These can be emails with receipt of payment, a reminder of a call, access information, or log-in information. They can also be surveys or quizzes, or even asking for a testimonial. They can be an inquiry into progress, like a progress report. Transactional emails often lead from the one to many into one on one. So expect that when you send transactional emails from your EMS that you’ll be continuing the conversation in your inbox or on social media.

Remember this: Our email list is a vehicle to get in front of the people who have already said, “I think I might be interested.”

Now, before I let you go today… I have a couple more things to share with you.

There is no guarantee that someone's going to open that email right when they receive it. But if you're sending it first thing Monday morning, where are they at? What is going on in their lives? If you're sending it midday on Wednesdays, where are they at? How much time do they have to read it? What's going on in their life? Just be aware of how they're going to take that email. Are they reading it on their phone? Are they reading it on a computer? Are they reading it on a tablet? There is no one right way to do this. Just like everything online, it's trial and error, and trial and trial and trial again. You're not going to figure this out just by listening to today's episode. You're not going to figure this out just by having 10 people on your email list.

Growing an email list, nurturing an email list, that's what it's all about. Once we've got people who are steadily joining our email list, feeling inspired and motivated by your informational content on a regular basis, the more likely we are going to be to grow our student base and be able to offer everything that you want to offer.

An email list is a gateway to opportunity.

What you do with it is going to directly impact your studio. If you're not sending informational emails to your list right now, make it an action item to start sending regular communications.

I know a lot of studio teachers want to know -- what is it that I should be sending in these emails? Think about things that you've been going over with your students. Generalize them enough so that they become relevant to a broader cross-section of the population.

A final thought: your emails do not have to be epic in length, they just have to have something of substance so that your recipients open them and get something tangible from them and then get excited when they see your name.

I love email list strategy… really ALL kinds of strategy! Send me a message over on Instagram @jaimeslutzky or connect me at http://callwithjaime.com and we can figure out how to proceed and help you with strategy on just about anything.

Don’t forget -- my email list workshop is coming up on October 1st! Sign up at https://expandonlinenow.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.