Ask Annie: Why is my email list growing SO slowly?

I got this fabulous question from a client of mine recently: Why is my email list growing SO slowly 🐢, and how can I speed it up?!? ⚡️⚡️⚡ ✋This really breaks down into two separate questions ✋ Why is email marketing so important, and what are some foundational assumptions about it that may be slowing down the process?**** What to do if your email list is growing slowly, and what growth strategies can I use to speed that up!?! In this first email I'm going to cover all of Part I to this question. Follow up next week for Part II, where I will get into some awesome growth strategies that will help get your list going! ⚡ OK! Why is email marketing SO valuable and what is the importance of having a high quality list? "Your Money Is In Your List" ✏️ Everyone in online marketing will tell you that (including the smart and ethical ones 😅). Email Marketing As Your Core Tool 🔧 Email marketing is like your cast iron pan of the marketing world 🍳. It is an important building block in growing your business, and produces noticeable results. Email Marketing vs. Social Media 🗣 Other tools, including new social media platforms may seem more exciting, but they are more hit or miss. People are FAR more likely to buy your program from emails than from social. Email marketing has an excellent conversion rate, so it tends to give you a great return on your investment. 💸 Quality vs. Quantity 🏆 Your number of email list subscribers is not the whole story, and list size on its own can become a vanity metric. It is important to know what percentage of folks are opening your emails and what percentage are genuinely interested in what you are selling. It may be helpful to honestly reflect on how many people on your email list are friends and family 😁. Support is always important 💕, it's good to be aware if they accurately reflect the number of folks likely to buy when you are ready to sell? Side note: If you're only growing a traditional private practice, you don't need an email list. If you're creating a business beyond private practice, you probably do. How to create a HIGH quality emailing list 💎 Don't give in to the vanity metric of list size. To have a higher quality list, you have to clean and PRUNE it ✂️. When you prune your list, your open and engagement rates go up, and less of your emails will be tagged as spam. And don't worry about unsubscribes, they're no big deal! 😊It isn't a sign of failure or rejection, it's actually part of the process of creating a high quality list. Side note: One time I sent out an email with a subject heading mentioning that I play the ukulele, and it got more unsubscribes than any of my other emails! 😂 How a HIGH quality emailing list will help sustain your biz 💰 To explain what I mean, let's pretend we've got 2 people, each with a list of 100 people (a very small list). A list of 100 CAN be just barely enough to fill a small-group program (I know because I've done it), but only if you've got a very high quality list. Person A: When a list of 100 might work (high quality list) Folks on your list are interested in and anticipating what you're going to sell. Folks on your list have intentionally signed up to receive your weekly emails because they want to hear from YOU. Folks signed up for a free offer that is VERY closely related to your paid offer, and you have followed up with weekly emails containing content relevant to your program. You're selling a SMALL group program. Person B: When a list of 100 won't work (low quality list) Folks on your list signed up for a freebie that was too broad and would appeal to almost everyone (like how to save 5 hours a week in 5 minutes or less). Subscribers are specifically interested in the content that you are selling, and are unlikely to become future clients. You haven't been emailing regularly. Even a HIGH quality list of 100 will need to GROW in order to sustain your business. What to choose as your free offer 🎁(aka your lead magnet, freebie, or opt in) You want to create a freebie that is always available such as: a quiz a mini e-course (a short series of daily emails on a clear topic) or just your weekly emails Your freebie should be a high quality offer that leads logically to your paid offer and is created specifically for your niche. I encourage participants in CYP who don't already have a freebie to start with just their weekly emails. As their business develops I encourage people to create a more enticing freebie or set of freebies when they have the time and clarity to create them. BUT having an enticing freebie is the icing on the cake 🍰. The first and most important steps are providing a way for people to get on your email list and having a healthy, sustainable relationship with writing those weekly emails. How to have a healthy relationship with your email list 🪴 Your weekly emails are part of your "nurture" system, meaning the way you nurture people in your audience. Establish a rhythm and ritual that helps you generate quality content for your weekly emails. For example, in my Rebel Therapist Mastermind program (a follow up program for those who have completed CYP) we have a weekly 90 minute co-working sprint. This provides a dedicated block of time to produce a thoughtful email, or at the very least get it started! Establishing a healthy relationship with your email list while it's tiny will set you up to have a great relationship with it when it grows. OK! Now that we have the foundation set: You understand the value of email marketing and the importance of having a HIGH quality email list! ✅ You've got a HIGH quality list! ✅ You've got a freebie that you feel good offering to people who are a great fit for your paid offer! ✅ You've got a healthy relationship with your email list! ✅ You're producing high quality emails every week! ✅ BUT, my email list is still growing really SLOWLY, which brings us to our original question: How can I speed it up?!? ⚡️⚡️⚡️ How to grow your email list: A high quality summit. Any speaking engagement (probably online at the moment 🦠😬) Where you have your call to action ready, your opt in ready, and can offer it while you are sharing. Guest teaching in another person's program. Being interviewed for a podcast and presenting your clear and enticing opt in when asked where people can find you learn more about you and your work. Collaborating on a presentation with a partner. Where everybody who signs up for that collaborative event will be added to both email lists, and will be notified) Swapping webinars. Then everyone who signs up for your guest's webinar is added to their list, and the guest sends an email out for your webinar and subscribers who sign up are added to YOUR list) Using social media, which tends to grow your audience more more slowly. Ultimately it's about REPETITION and CONSISTENCY: Picking at least one of these things and doing it over and over and over again. It is NOT about getting "discovered" by someone with a huge audience. You can get really creative with your growth strategy. And whenever there is a new opportunity, ask yourself: Does this get me in front of someone else's audience? If the answer is yes, then it likely fits into your growth strategy. As an introvert, these growth activities are the ones I have to remind myself, and even push myself to do. Before I had my growth and nurturing strategy established, I would send out announcements about webinars to my email list and tiny social media following, and kept talking to the same 10 people over and over. That was TOO SLOW. I needed a growth strategy. And now I have one 🎉 Sidebar ✋ Yes, you can pay for ads, BUT wait until you know your system works organically. If you pay for ads before you know that your whole system works, is going to waste a ton of money. It's almost like trying out a new recipe for the first time and cooking it for a large dinner party...risky! 😬 However, if your system works well AND you are selling to the right people without ads, then you might want to consider increasing the number of eyeballs on your work by incorporating paid ads 👀. I've grown my business without ads, but am considering in 2022 stepping back into some paid ads, in a limited way. Here's how I grow and nurture my own email list: My personal nurture strategy 🪴 I have a healthy relationship with my email ritual. I follow a schedule that works for me where I email once a week always on Tuesday morning PT, and I write my email for next week on the prior Tuesday. When I'm in launch mode and I have an offer that is about to close, then I am emailing about every day in that final week. My own growth strategy 🌱 Mostly guesting on podcasts with a freebie that is easy to find and relevant to my future clients. I also host my own free events at least 4 times a year. Then I also always have, running in the background, the option to sign up for my free mini course or simply sign up for my email list. I also consider my podcast to be another sort of cast iron pan tool, similar to email marketing. It's incredibly foundational to my business, attracts an audience that grows slowly, and gives listeners everything they need to in order to decide if they want to work with me. Email strategies from other fabulous people Jeff Geunther's strategy 📣 (most recently featured on RT podcast) He uses his emails to get more subscribers by grabbing people's attention with ridiculously dishy, attractive, vulnerable, and opinionated weekly emails. He then sends this email to his list of subscribers with a link to his TherapyDen blog, where that same piece of writing is listed as a post. Because the blog post is so enticing, folks then often share it to social media, bringing back more viewers to the blog and increasing his list of subscribers. This strategy relies heavily on their emails being interesting, controversial, and conversation starters. Podge Thomas' strategy 🌺 (another recent RT podcast guest) She does what feels interesting and valuable to HER. You need to have a long term relationship with your email list, so you also need to feel interested in what you're writing. Her niche is in management, team building, and thought leadership, so she focuses on drawing people in through thoughtful, remarkable, and candid emails. Giving people the chance to ****see if she is the thought leader they want to be learning from. Podge embraces candid communication with her subscribers, which also strengthens her work as a thought leader. Katie Nasherson 🧡 She is another great example of someone who focuses on strategies that interest her and fosters a healthy, joyful relationship with her marketing. For instance, she just started a free weekly book group as part of her audience growth strategy. As people sign up for the book group, they are then added to her email list. These books are relevant to her niche, which is rebuilding your life after a catastrophe, and are also books she herself wants to be reading. This is a great example of experimenting with new ideas and looking at how marketing could be an interesting and joyful practice for you. Show notes at http://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/168