Are you treating your e-mail list well?

E-mail marketing (like all marketing) is about building relationship and engagement with your audience. The people who have subscribed to your e-mail list are valuable. These are the people who have “invested” (even if just by giving their e-mail address) into you and your business. If you treat them well… your e-mail list members will become your valued customers.

Is your list full of zombies?

A list full of zombies is an e-mail list that is unresponsive to your engagement attempts.  A few questions to ask to determine if you have a zombie list?

• Is your open rate is less than 10%?
• Do you ask for engagement and feedback and nobody engages?
• Are your list members responding to your offers?

In this post, I'm going to show you 5 ways to treat your list well so that you can build a relationship with them.

5 Tips for Treating Your List Well:

1.  E-mail Them  

In the beginning, a lot of my coaching clients are afraid of regularly e-mailing their list.  I know what it is – they actually say it all the time “I feel like I am bothering them.” The truth is unless you are making contact at least weekly, you audience forgets who you are – they are more likely to unsubscribe when they get that rare message from you.

2. Become Their Secret Weapon

It is your job to provide great content and how can you become their secret weapon? Become a content curator. At Decisive Minds that means that we share tons of information that is ours but also content created by other people that we know our audience will like. It's not about always being the creator of what you share with your list, it is about sharing great content no matter who created it.

3. Don't Send Everything to Everyone

Every single e-mail you send should not go to everyone on your e-mail list. You should segment your list. Segmenting your list simply means that you are sending emails to specific groups of people based on their interests, purchase habits or past activities. If I am going to teach a class on how to write a marketing message then I could look at my list and see who has showed previous interest in other webinars with that topic or maybe they have previously purchased my Business Building Bootcamp program which was about marketing your small business.

4.  Ask Questions 

 Don't be afraid to ask your audience questions.  Find out what their biggest problems and struggles are – this will help you to serve them better.  Also, asking questions boosts engagement.

5.  Give Them a Chance to Buy From You

When people sign up for your e-mail list, they know that you will be selling something to them soon. This is not a surprise. Make sure you offer them ways to buy from you early so that you set the tone for the list (and also so your audience recognizes the value of the information you are giving them for free on your list).  If you don't have a product – it is easy enough to create one.

Original post July 2012. Post Updated August 2018