Is your email list non-existent? Does a weekly or monthly newsletter continue to get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list? If so, this is the episode for you!

At Tique, we’re passionate about creating on-brand marketing that directly and positively impacts your company’s bottom line. In fact, our business is largely reliant on regularly communicating through our email lists. Read on (or listen) for our simple tips for beginning an email list on your own!

Start Anywhere… But Just Start!

They say when you’re at the bottom, there’s only one way to go…UP! And that’s where we started with an email marketing strategy. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that you had to get consent for all marketing emails. Our first email blasts were met with unsubscribe notifications and a warning from Flodesk that we would be locked out of the platform if we continued to send emails with such a high SPAM report.

Enter: Flodesk

We love Flodesk because of its intuitive functionality and beautiful aesthetics with the need for complex coding. It also has the ability to create audience segmenting, where you can bring in leads from various places and utilize those segments to send audience-specific marketing. Among the other aspects of the system, one key ingredient is the ability to create nurture sequences that welcome your audience into your email list.

Why Should You Create An Email List

Email marketing is the only actual marketing platform that you own. In reality, you do not own any other form of social media (remember that time that Instagram crashed?!). Ask yourself, “how would you market to your ideal audience if social media disappeared tomorrow?” You can not build a business on a platform that you do not control! Email marketing ensures that you 1) own the rights to your audience and 2) are serving the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Keep Top Of Mind

One of the most important benefits of email marketing is to maintain the eye of your audience, particularly when you are the subject matter expert. Since it takes an average of ten “touches” for a potential client to purchase a new product/service, it’s important to continuously show up in front of your target audience. A subscriber may not be ready to plan a vacation when they initially consent to receive marketing, but making consistent content assures that you are the first company that they think about once they are ready.

Increase Company Value

When a company is presented for sale, one of the “assets” that a buyer will want to evaluate is the audience reach. By ensuring that you are collecting emails, you will be creating value in the company. If someone does not have an email list, this could indicate to a buyer that there is lack of brand loyalty.

Showcase The Personality Of the Brand

Email shows personality & builds trust. Considering that (yes, we say it all the time) people join people, your email is yet another way for your audience to get to know you. While travel advisors sell travel, travel is not the actual product- it is the service that advisors offer.

Ways To Build Your List

A few ways that you can create your email list are:

• Create a free resource on your website as an email opt-in
• Incorporate an invitation to subscribe within your client experience workflow
• Promote your list on social media and ask for emails via text box on stories

An important thing to remember is not to focus on the number of subscribers, but to focus on the engagement of the audience. If you see that someone has never opened a newsletter, feel free to remove them from your marketing list. This will ensure that you are constantly fine-tuning your list to those who truly want to receive information from you.

Creating A Nurture Sequence

A nurture sequence (sometimes called a funnel) is the process of converting traffic with a lead magnet or freebie, and then using automation in your email marketing platform to deliver a series of emails. This sequence is initiated at the point of delivering the initial resource and then follows up with related content sent in a series of emails over a period of time (typically 3-5 emails). 50% of your leads are not yet ready to buy when they opt-in to your email list – they are just looking for information, which means that this nurture sequence is your opportunity to prove your value.

Your welcome or nurture sequence is a living/breathing thing so you should be looking at your open rates and tweaking your copy or headlines periodically. You’ll want to evaluate metrics and adjust until you have found a nurture sequence that has people banging down the door excited to work with you!

Share your email marketing successes in the comments!