Busting myths & setting the record straight on growing & serving the heck out of your email community. Today, we’re talking about how often you should REALLY email your list!
Reader! Hi there & Hello! I’m so happy you’re here. Look, I know blogs are many and hours are few, so let’s get straight to the point so you can know if this post is even worthy of your commitment to reading it on your lunch break.
This post is for you if you’ve ever thought or said:
“I want to utilize my email list….but I don’t want to be an annoying salesperson in someone’s inbox.”
This post is also for you if…
👉You have a steady, engaged Instagram following that you have poured your soul into building and shown up for consistently.
👉You sometimes get the ‘email bug’ and think about expanding your marketing efforts here…
…but that idea usually goes right out the window because:
I hate writing emails.
I hate receiving emails!
No one even wants to read my emails.
And, my favorite:
I don’t want to annoy my email subscribers.
Ring a bell?
All of the above have definitely run wild through my imagination before too.
Email is a loaded word in the online space and it’s something I know you feel a lot of pressure to take on. Every coach and her pet cat are telling you to build your email community, and they’re telling you this because they love you.
Launching a course, product, mastermind, new service or anything else to an engaged list of subscribers is a heckuva lot easier than having to wrestle Algorithm to the ground and hope the word gets out to your social media audience.
Even if you’re not launching anything yet, build the email community now, so you’re ready for those ‘someday’ launches!
But I’m getting off track here! Because this post is not about convincing you to start your email list or to start serving a ghosted email list (Whoops! No worries ~ we’ve all done it!).
This post is here to give you some email list-building facts that I’ve seen work for my own busines and for my clients.
To cut out the noise (both the noise inside your mind and from the outside world!) around email and what this can really look like for your business.
So you can make your own informed decision.
Ready?
Set!
Go!
Fact or Fiction: You have to email your list every single week.
The answer is….
Fiction!
Yep! That’s not a typo.
Tarzan Kay in her program Email Stars teaches this:
When it comes to determining how often you should email your list, think about two things.
1- What is the purpose of your email list for your subscribers? What are they hoping to get out of being on your list? What’s in it for them? Why are they here?
Maybe that’s a daily recipe or quote. A monthly check-in so they can hear a quick update on you and binge your latest content. A weekly win they can take and apply to their life plus a weekly meditation or prayer to close the week.
Think about the purpose of your list for your readers and determine how many emails you’d need to send every week/month to fulfill that.
2- Along with that, you also need to get clear on what is the purpose of your list for YOU. Your list is here to serve your readers but it’s also here to serve your business. How?
Is it a place for you to write creatively? Make friends? Make sales? Share your knowledge and build a community? Prime your audience for an upcoming launch?
Think about the purpose of your list for YOU and determine how many emails you’d need to send every week/month to fulfill that.
There is no ‘magic’ number of times you should email your list, and the answer to this question will be different for every business owner.
I have long been an advocate of the weekly email, and I think if you’re stuck that’s always a great place to start.
But lately, the purpose of my list has begun to change, and so has the number of emails I need to send out.
The following is my own personal example of this.
The purpose of my email list for my subscribers is:
1- To learn and get tips on copywriting for their business. So they can write more confidently and effectively for themselves, especially when it comes to email copywriting. I want my email list to be a special place where they can learn, get to know me, and receive some sweet copywriting templates and prompts that I don’t share anywhere else.
2- I also want my list to be a place that champions other women in business and the work they’re doing. I want to promote other businesses that I think my audience would love to know about and be a platform for these amazing businesses too. Recently, a coaching program I shared about enrolled a new member just because of an email I sent out to my list about it! This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I’m talkin’ about!
The purpose of my email list for ME is:
1- To connect with my audience and future clients on a more personal level, and to grow my personal brand in a way that feels good and true to me.
2- To have my own private community outside the competition and noise of social media, where I can share about my business, my life, and new things I’m working on. So when I go to launch new services in the future, I have a built-in audience for that launch, and it won’t feel weird promoting it because these are my people and I’m always here for them, whether they buy from me or not.
Using this information, I’m going to say that in order to serve my list in a capacity that makes sense and fulfills its purpose for my reader and for me, I want to send out two emails every week.
One newsletter update with a call to action to work with me.
And another that either promotes a fellow woman in business, is a free gift for my list (whether that’s a copy prompt, template, or another resource just for them), or highlights a piece of content that I have out there (such as a blog or podcast).
Boom! I better get busy if I’ll be writing two emails a week:).
Here’s the final takeaway I want to leave you with to tie this all up pretty with a bow:
Don’t get hung up on how often you ‘have to’ email your list.
Focus instead on the purpose of your list for readers and for YOU…
…and make a plan for how you can show up and serve in that capacity.
I hope this post was helpful to you! Stay tuned for Email List Building Fact or Fiction Part 2, coming soon!
In the meantime, the best way I’ve found to grow my email list is to have an effective, engaging automatic email welcome sequence that ushers in new subscribers with open arms and makes them feel like they’ve just found the best-kept email community secret! You’ll learn how to create a welcome sequence like this for your business inside my FREE 15-minute masterclass: How to Write an Effective and Engaging Email Welcome Sequence.