Have you ever heard ‘the money’s in the list’?
And it’s all about creating and marketing to your email list.
But how do you create an email list?
Gone are the days when you cc people into an email (GDPR legislation would have you strung up and hit you with thousands of pounds worth of fines!) it’s all about ethically collecting email addresses off people that are interested in what you do so that you can send them newsletters and promotional material via email.
Du to GDPR legislation you also need to prove they have consented to these emails, have a privacy policy on your website (which you should have anyway) and obviously not spam them or pass their email addresses on.
How do you create an email list the right way?
To create an email list you need email marketing software, of which we always recommend Mailerlite for people starting out. It’s easy to use and it’s also free for up to 1000 subscribers.
To sign up to Mailerlite just go to mailerlite.com and register for an account. If you have a website you will need to put that in and make sure that you have a home page, contact information and a privacy policy. You will also need a domain email address so that an email address ending in @yourwebsitename.com etc.
Due to changes in anti spam laws it’s no longer permitted to use personal email addresses such as hotmail, gmail, yahoo etc., whether you have your business name in them or not they are still personal email addresses and have very little security settings so are no longer able to be used to mass send out emails using email marketing tools.
If you don’t have a website then you can create landing and opt in pages with Mailerlite. You will also need to fill in how what you will be sending out in your emails so that they can see that you are not intending to spam people. Mailerlite will then check all your details before approving your account.
Once approve you can start collecting email addresses and sending out newsletters or even creating funnel automations for when people purchase a product or service or sign up for a freebie such as a PDF or video course.
You can also import an email list in spreadsheet format or add subscribers one by one, although you will need to retain proof that they have consented to be added to your mailing list, such as a form they have filled in with. a consent tick box.
Forms are easy to create and can then be embedded on your website, whatever website platform you are using. Once you have subscribers you can start sending out newsletters. When talking about how to create an email list I always get asked how often should you send out newsletters and my answer is always however you can be consistent. If you know you will never send them out weekly then don’t promise weekly newsletters.
I try and send mine out once a week, I have missed a few, but I know then that it’s something I put in my calendar to do each week. I also have a format that I stick to for each newsletter (a bit about my week or whats going on in the website world, a blog post and then a tip or something I’m promoting). The advice I would give is to keep it real, don’t overthink it. It’s not like social media where you are putting posts out there and hoping someone is interested, these people have signed up as they have already decided that they want to learn more.
You can also send up automated campaigns in Mailerlite, so for example, you may have an opt in incentive (which is good to have as most people don’t just sign up to a mailing list for the sake of it). So something like a free PDF (check out mine in the footer below). This is to give them a little encouragement to sign up to your list. But make sure that it’s something they would be interested in or they will probably just unsubscribe straight away.
You also need to give them the option of signing up for the freebie and consenting to the email list, if you want to know more about how to set up an email list you can purchase our Mailerlite course below. This course takes you through everything you need to know about Mailerlite from signing up to everything we have talked about in this blog!Â