Last year around this time, we talked about how August is the time you should start planning for the holidays. (Read that blog post here!) This year, I want to focus on an essential part of pre-holiday prep work that often gets forgotten: growing your email list.
Now, you might be thinking, what on earth does my email list have to do with the holidays? Well, the anser is…everything. In order for your holiday promotions to be successful, you’re going to want a strong pool of email subscribers and potential clients already invested in you and your business by the time the holidays roll around. Promotions are WAY more effective with people you already have established lines of communication with.
So now is the time to start amping up and infusing your email list with new life and new contacts. If you’ve been inconsistent with communications, start getting more consistent now so it’s not out of the blue when you need it most. But regardless of how consistent you’ve been this year, getting new emails on that list is going to be a huge part of your success come December, so let’s chat about how to do that!
If you think you don’t have an email list, let me assure you that you do! It’s just not compiled yet. So step one is compiling your list. Go back through the email that you use to conduct business and start a spreadsheet database. You’ll want to include all the clients that you currently work with, as well as those that you used to work with. Put them in a spreadsheet with their first name, last name (if you have it), and email. You can then use that list to either copy/paste into an email or upload directly with an email service provider.
I would personally recommend choosing an email service provider for all of your mass business communications – newsletters, sale announcements, and the like. Your emails will look better, you’ll be able to stay more organized, and you’ll get insights on how well your emails are doing. Your list will also be maintained more effectively on a provider platform, as it can keep track of all the subscribes and unsubscribes, making sure you’re always sending to your most updated list.
There is a lot that goes into choosing an email service provider, but if you’re just getting started I would recommend finding one that can integrate into the backend of your website with a signup form. If you don’t know what that means, find someone who does and let them help you! You will also need an email address set up with your website domain, which I would absolutely outsource if you’re not tech savvy. That will be worth every penny.
Probably the most important thing you can do is have a contact info capture system set up. You need a way for people to sign up for your emails! And more importantly, you need to know where that information is going.
If you have an email service provider, that should be fairly easy to do. But if you had a signup form previously added to your website by your designer, make sure you know where that form goes to as well. Just because something is in place doesn’t mean it’s actually useful to you! I would recommend taking your personal or burner email and signing up on your forms, just to make sure they work the way you want them to.
Make sure there is an easy way to sign up for your email list everywhere you can think of. You’ll want it all over your website, including a prominent spot on your home page and your contact page. Link it in all your social media profiles, put it in your email signature, and add a QR code to all of your printed assets.
Also don’t be afraid to offer value to get more email signups! Offering something like a freebie in exchange for an email address is a very effective way to grow your list. We’ll talk about this more next week, but the possibilities are endless once the logistics are set up!
I’m excited to dive into this topic even deeper as the month goes on, but in the meantime I hope these tips help you get started on infusing your email list with new life in preparation for a booming holiday season!
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With over 15 years of experience, I've worked with countless small businesses just like yours. I can provide you with the tools and resources that will help make marketing less overwhelming.