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Why Email Marketing Matters

If you're not already convinced why email marketing matters, I think it's really important that we talk about it. Because again, you guys are pulled in so many directions, right? There's email, there's social media. Some of you might be sticking around for my blog class that's coming up, right? There's so many things. And it's hard to figure out where you're supposed to be spending your time. But at the end of the day, email marketing is still the best way to connect with your customers. Right, social media gets all the love. Instagram's so popular right now. You gotta be on Instagram, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. Email marketing is still the best way to connect. Because first of all, unlike with social media, you own your email list. It's yours. If you choose to go to a different platform, you can take the list with you. It's yours forever. That's crazy valuable, right? Instagram shuts down tomorrow, probably not gonna happen, but let's say it did. All of those followers just...

go away. Or, as I know happened to a lot of people, Instagram just changed their algorithm, right? And all those followers are still there, but they don't ever see your posts anymore, right? You own your email list, that's what makes it valuable. And the people who opt-in to your email list are your biggest fans and supporters, right? It's really easy to casually follow someone on social media. I follow like 2,000 people on Instagram, 'cause it's real easy. Follow, follow, follow. Guess what? I don't see most of what's happening. Even if I wanted to know what was happening, Instagram doesn't let me see it anymore, right? But it takes a little extra step of commitment to join an email list, right? And not only that, but they're saying, I like what you do enough that I'm gonna invite you into my inbox. That's my private space and I like your brand enough that I'm gonna let you come in. So, that makes those people way more valuable than your social media followers. And they want to hear from you. I get really mad when I join an email list and I don't hear from that person. Because I joined the list so I would not forget about them. If I joined your list, I want to hear from you. I don't want to forget your brand. But if I join your list and you never email me, I'm gonna forget and then I'm gonna never buy your stuff. And that's sad, right? We want people to give us their money. All right, the other thing that I think is really important, we're gonna be focusing mostly on using email marketing to drive traffic to your online store. But you don't have to sell online to make email marketing work in your business. You can use email marketing to drive customers to shows and events, right? You're gonna be at West Coast Craft, you're gonna tell people, hey guys, I'm gonna be at West Coast Craft. Come and shop. And you can also use email marketing to connect with wholesale customers. We're not gonna be talking about that in this class, because I have a whole other class on selling your products to retailers. But you can use a lot of these same strategies. Your stores need to know about your product too, right? They need to hear from you. So, you can use a lot of these same strategies with your store list. I do recommend, just 'cause I know this question comes up every time I mention it, I keep two separate lists. So I keep one for my retail customers, that's the big list that people sign up to from my website. And then I keep a separate list for my wholesale accounts that are actually stores that buy from me. So, just a little detail there that I know people always ask about. The other thing ... I'm gonna keep saying this over and over and over again, 'cause it's true. Email marketing makes money, that's really why we're doing this. And I want to give you guys a couple of examples from my own business so you can see just how valuable email marketing is compared to other platforms. So, a couple years ago I did a birthday sale. And at the time, I didn't have a way to track where traffic was coming from. I was on the lower level of Shopify's plan, so I didn't see conversion data. And so I decided I was gonna create three separate discount codes. One for Facebook, one for Instagram, and one that went out to me email list. That way I would know where my sales were coming from. My Facebook discount code was used three times, my Instagram discount code was used one time, and the email discount code was used 48 times. I think I maybe sent two emails to my list. I know I posted a bunch on both of those social media platforms that day, right. Gotta post, gotta post. Who does that, right? They're running a sale, they're having an event, gotta post all the time on social media, gotta post all the time on social media. Nobody on social media cares. Like literally, nobody cares. I didn't do the math on that, but that is a ridiculous disproportionate amount of sales coming from email. So, if that doesn't convince you, let me give you another one. So, a couple of years ago, I launched the Contra collection. You guys have probably ... If you've been to any of my classes you've heard me talk about this, this is my line with the stones. And when I first launched this collection, I sold out... All the pieces were one of a kind. I sold out 50% of the collection in the first six hours. My ADS, which was my average dollars per sale, was $389. Normally, it's about $120. 100% of the orders on that launch day, clicked through via email. Yes, some of those people on my email list were warmed up through social media. And we'll talk about that. We'll talk about how to get your social media followers to join your email list. So social media was part of the process, but at the end of the day what made them take action and buy, and not just buy but spend a lot of money, was the fact that they were on my email list. One more thing to think about. So over the past year, I looked, I did a little math. I emailed my list an average of once a week. I say an average of once a week because I don't use a weekly strategy. We're gonna talk about this later in the class. Is a weekly strategy right? Is it more of a hot and heavy and a week or two off? We'll talk about what works for you. But on average, I email my list a little more than once a week. And nearly half of my online sales in this period came directly from my email marketing. Directly as in they clicked the button and they bought. So that doesn't even count people who maybe looked at the email and a couple hours later were like, oh yeah, Megan's having that thing. Or, Megan launched that thing. And then typed my name into Google, right? Doesn't even count that. Literally, directly clicked. And that accounted for half my sales. Which, if you want to extrapolate it another way, and I can't promise you that this will be the result. But think about it, if you're not emailing your list regularly and you start, could you double your sales? Right? So how many times in the last year did you email your list? I'm seeing some grimaces. Does anyone have an idea, like how many times do you think in the last year you've emailed your list? Annette? Twice? (laughs) I don't even know what to do with that. I'm so glad you're here. I don't even know what to do with that, okay. Yeah, so we've got some room for improvement. Caitlin. Probably about 10. Okay. So a little less than once a month, all right we can work on that. You're starting to email a little more regularly Toni, where are you at? I'm at once a week. Perfect. Like starting from the beginning of last year, I've been once a week. Starting from when you were hanging out in some of my classes a little bit more. A little bit, yeah. Good, I like to see that happening. Then on top of that, the other thing to think about is how frequently did you encourage people to join your email list? How often are you making calls to action on social media, that say, hey, go join my list. Toni's probably doing it more, which is a good strategy. Do your social media followers know you have an email list? (audience laughs) Right? Do they know that they should be joining? Alright. So these are the things that we're gonna fix in this class. But I want you to think about ... And again, I can't guarantee your results. But if you go from never emailing your list and never telling people to join your list to emailing your list and encouraging people to join it, you're gonna grow your business, right? So how would your business be different if you could double your online sales over the next year? I want you to actually take a second to think about what that would look like. How would your business, how would your life be different if you could double your online sales over the next year? I want you guys to actually share that with me. Annette, what would be different for you if you could double your online sales? Buy more supplies and make more stuff. Perfect. Yes. Caitlin. I am always stressed about money. So I think that that would take down my stress level. Yeah! (Caitlin laughs) Heidi, you don't have any sales yet. Yeah, so it'd be nice to actually make money. Well, there you go. (Everyone laughs) It'd be nice to scale and hire help so I could focus on making. Yeah. I'd ... yeah, it'd be great. (Everyone laughs) Toni's like, I got nothing. It would be awesome. Make money, actually make money. Yeah, and I think that's the nice thing ... You mentioned scale, right? This is such a scalable strategy, because with one email you can reach 10 people. But as your list grows, you can reach a hundred people, a thousand people. And the beauty of email marketing is you can reach a lot of people and make it seem like you're talking to them individually, which makes it so powerful. When people get that email and it feels like it was written just for them, that's what compels them to buy, right? Oh my gosh, this was the thing I needed at this moment. I totally need the T-shirt that says, run all the miles, drink all the champagne. Except that I bought the beer one instead, (audience laughs) because I'm actually a beer girl. Right, like I totally need this in that moment. So that's really the power of email, right? It's a totally scalable marketing strategy. How would you like to push a button and make like a thousand bucks in an hour? That's fun. I gotta tell you, that's a fun day when you're like, oh, oh, there they ... Yup, that's awesome. That's a fun day. That's what I want for you guys. What are we seeing from our ... Is anyone from our online talking about how things are gonna be different for them? Yeah, so aworkofcards says, "I'd definitely be one step closer to leaving my day job "and focusing solely on my business. "Perhaps I'd get to the point of working on my business "full time." Yes, yeah. This is a really good strategy to get you there.