Email List Archives - Nadine MullingsNadine Mullings

April

14 2016

Is Email Marketing Dead?

I remember it like it was yesterday, it was 1998 and businesses were just starting to use this new thing called web-based email. I was working for a financial institution and we were using an AOL email address for business until the IT Department declared that we must use the new corporate email addresses.

In the beginning email was very much considered just a way to communicate with staff and vendors via the Internet. It was mainly used to communicate with other employees internally and a handful of vendors or partners.

However, a couple of years later email started to be considered a viable marketing communication channel for businesses. A way for businesses to communicate with customers and prospects.

Now fast forward almost 20 years later, and email is still an integral part of business communication, but some have been questioning whether it is still a viable marketing channel. Hence the question, “Is Email Marketing Dead?”

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Email Marketing

April

07 2016

Why You Shouldn’t Build Your Email List

Email Marketing is one of the B.E.S.T. modern marketing strategies and one that I always recommend for coaches, consultants, and service business owners.

However, having an effective email marketing strategy can be challenging. One of the key pieces of your email marketing puzzle is your email list. If you don’t have a list, then you won’t have anyone to send emails to, no one will read your emails, and you will never get any sales through email, so it is very important to build your email list.

However, you shouldn’t build your email list until you have an email marketing plan. Many people make the mistakes of building a list and then they don’t have a strategic email marketing plan that will allow them to get business from their email marketing.

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Blog, Business, Email Marketing, Email Results, Marketing, Marketing for Coaches, Marketing for Consultants

October

06 2015

7 Surefire Ways to Build an Awesome Email List

As an independent business owner, coach or consultant, if you want to build your business online, then email marketing should be a part of your marketing mix. If you already use email marketing, you know the importance of continuously growing your email list with interested and engaged prospects, but building an email list can be a difficult task.

In this blog post, I will share 7 Surefire Organic Ways to Build an Awesome Email List:

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Send an email invitation to your current database of contacts– You probably have a database of contacts with e-mail addresses. This is a great starting point to CREATE or GROW your opt-in e-mail list. Send an invitation to your ENTIRE database of email contacts INVITING them to opt-in to receive your e-mails. Be sure to let them know the valuable information you will be providing them so they will WANT to opt-in to receive your emails. One mistake I see a lot of people make is they just add their contacts to their e-mail list, don’t do this! Make sure they have opted in (you don’t want to be a spammer- someone who consistently sends e-mails to individuals who did not request it!)
Offer an AWESOME incentive for joining your email list (i.e. FREE report, e-Book, white paper, checklist, etc.). Everyone likes to get something for FREE, so provide information that will be VALUABLE to your contacts and use that as an incentive for them to opt-in to your e-mail list. Some people refer to this as your “lead magnet” because the right offer can act as a magnet for leads for your business.
Add a sign-up box on your website and on social media– A great tool that will help you grow your e-mail list is to have an e-mail sign-up form and place it on your website, blog, social networks, etc. You can use the same offer that you created in #2 as an incentive to sign-up for your e-mail list in these various places! Most email service providers offer an option and provide support on how to add an email sign-up box to your website, social media and your blog. Check with your email service provider to learn more about adding this function to your platforms. My email service provider is Constant Contact, they easily integrate with my website and blog with a simple WordPress plugin, and I’m able to connect my sign-up form with Facebook with a simple Facebook App.
Consistently promote joining your email list on all of your platforms– You have to promote joining your e-mail list on your social networks, e-mail, website, blog, etc. Create posts that will encourage individuals to sign-up to join your list. You can’t rely just on your initial list of contacts and the sign-up forms you have online, you have to continuously promote joining your e-mail list.
Promote joining your email list offline– The promotion of joining your e-mail list is not limited to just online; you can promote joining your e-mail list by including a QR Code (Quick Response Code) that links to your e-mail sign up form. The QR Code can be placed on your business card, brochures, flyers, etc. Check out my QR Code below:
Scan to join my email list!
You can also promote joining your list when you host events or have a booth or table at an event, be sure to have an email sign-up form at your table and ask people to join your email list. You can always use the item you created in #2 as an incentive to get people to join your email list offline too.
Use Text Message Marketing to promote joining your email list– Another way to promote joining your e-mail list offline is to offer a text to join feature. Make it easy to join your e-mail list by texting a special code to a shortcode, which will then allow them to sign-up via text. Most Email Marketing Service Providers offer this option to their customers. To see how it works, Text “JOINME” to “42828” to join my email list.
Add a pop-up box to your website– As annoying as pop-up boxes may be, they do work, so consider adding a pop-up box to your website. There are many different types of pop-up boxes. Some appear immediately once you land on someone’s website, others show up when you scroll down the page, and others appear when you are exiting the website. Whatever option you choose, pop-up boxes really work. There are several pop-up box tools available, but I use and recommend SumoMe. SumoMe has a free basic option that works well and has lot of other tools you can use to help to build your email list.

Are you growing your email list? If so, what methods are you using to grow your email list? Be sure to let us know by commenting below.

Need some help with your email marketing? Be sure to check out the Marketing Essentials Checklist of 21 Things You Must do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Email Marketing.

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 2 Comments | in Business, Email Marketing, Marketing, Marketing for Coaches, Marketing for Consultants

February

10 2015

Does List Size Really Matter?

When it comes to your email list, does the size of your list really matter? As a business owner, coach or consultant, you probably already know about the importance of having and growing an email list, but did you know that it’s not the size of your email list that is most important, but the quality of the people on your list? As the saying goes, it is better to have an email list of 100 interested prospects, than 1,000 uninterested people.

However, you still want to work on increasing the size of your list because you want to make sure your message is reaching a wider audience each month. Your goal should be to grow your email list with individuals who are interested in what you have to say, and what you have to offer. So the big question is how can you effectively and efficiently grow your email list?

Here are 6 tips to grow your email list:

Offline:

Events– whenever you conduct an event (workshop, seminar, etc.), or if you are presenting at an event, be sure to collect the email addresses of the attendees (or participants who expressed an interest in learning more) . Be sure to disclosure that by signing your list or providing their information they are agreeing to receiving emails from you.
Text Messages– Consider adding a text to join your email list option. Now-a-days people don’t leave home without their smart phones, so making it easy for them to join your email list by simply texting a word to a number and then providing their email address makes it easy to join your email list.
QR Codes- Consider adding QR Codes to your marketing material (business cards, brochures, flyers, etc.) It’s another way to make it easy for people to join your email list. However, I personally don’t really use QR Codes and haven’t gotten a lot of people through this method, but it is still something you could consider.

Online:

Webinars– a great list building strategy is webinars. When you conduct webinars, people have to give their information to sign up for the webinar. Just add a disclosure that signing up for this webinar also gives you permission to add them to your email list.
Lead Pages– Another great online list building strategy is to create a lead magnet (eBook, White Paper, Case Study, Checklist, etc.), and have people enter their information on a specially designed lead page that talks about how great your lead magnet is, and why they need to give you their contact information so they can receive your awesome lead magnet. This technique works really well because you know that you are getting people who are interested in the content that you have to offer
Social Media– Encourage people who follow you on social media to sign-up for your email list so that they can get additional and maybe even exclusive information that you provide only through email. This technique works really well, because if you already have a following on social media, it just makes sense that the next logically step for them is to receive your emails. This also allows the relationship to get stronger when they are not only connected to you via social media, but also receiving your emails.

For more tips, download this Guide Building Your List Can Be a Thing of Beauty by Constant Contact

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 2 Comments | in Business, Business Development, Email Marketing, Email Results, Marketing, Marketing for Coaches, Marketing for Consultants, Small Business, Uncategorized

January

06 2014

4 Reasons Email Marketing is Key to Your Online Marketing Success

Are you using online marketing to promote your business?
Is email marketing a part of your online marketing strategy?

No matter what type of online marketing you engage in, blogging, social media, sales pages, podcasting, video marketing, etc. You will find that one key element that can help in the success of your online marketing is Email Marketing. Some people are under the impression that Email Marketing is dead and that nobody really reads email anymore. Although it may be true that most of our inboxes are inundated with email messages, and it is getting harder and harder to get people’s attention in a crowded email box, email still plays an important role in our daily communication.

So why is email marketing so important to the success of your online marketing? The simple answer is own, control, personalize, and act. So let’s look at these four reasons in detail:

You Own Your Email List– Compared to other online marketing mediums, email is one of the only mediums that allows you to own the information that you collect on your contacts. Therefore, the goal of your email list is to own a large list of people who are interested in what you have to say and are engaged with your brand. The larger your list is with engaged, interested subscribers, the higher your chances of successful email marketing. It is also important to use all of your online marketing channels to encourage your loyal followers, fans, etc to join your email list. As the saying goes, the money is in your list!
Control of the Visibility of your Content– compared to the social network platforms, email marketing gives you more control of who sees your information, and the actual information that they receive. Almost on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, some major social network is making changes to its algorithm, which influences, how, when or if your posts, tweets or whatever is being seen by the audience that you have on that network. Therefore, there is limited control as to how much of your information that your audience will see. Let’s face it, these networks are looking for ways to monetize every area, so the visibility of your posts will be less and less unless you plan to spend some advertising dollars. Take control of how often and what information your followers see by consistently sending valuable email marketing campaigns (the keyword here is valuable).
Personalization– Most online marketing efforts have a “one-to-many” feel. When we are on large social networks it feels like you are at an online event, or an online party and although the marketing messages are geared to be personal, it still feels public. Email on the other hand although it may be “one-to-many”, it feels more “personal”. Especially if you add various personalization throughout the email like the person’s name, business name, etc. This gives email marketing more of a stronger relationship building feel for a brand than other forms of online marketing.
Strong Calls to Action– Email Marketing is also the best place to use strong calls to actions and to inspire your audience to take the next step with your company. Whether that next step is purchasing, learning more, referring business or just having your company top of mind. After all the end results of good marketing should be consistent exposure, which leads to consistent sales.

Do you feel email marketing is important to the success of your online marketing? Be sure to share your comments below.

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 1 Comment | in Blog, Email Marketing, Email Results, Marketing

July

26 2013

21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Email Marketing Results (Part 1)

If you are using email marketing to promote your business, or you are thinking about using email marketing to promote your business, then the first step to being successful in your email marketing efforts is to BUILD YOUR LIST:

The money is in your list and it is important for you to consistently build your e-mail list. Here are 7 tips on how to successful build your e-mail list:

Send an invitation to join your e-mail list to the contacts that you have e-mail addresses for. INVITE them to opt-in to receive your e-mails, don’t just add your contacts to your e-mail list, make sure they have opted in (you don’t want to be a spammer- someone who consistently sends e-mails to individuals who did not request it).** A big pet peeve of mine is do not add individuals whom you met at a networking event to your e-mail list unless they have requested to join your list or they have opted in! **
Offer a good incentive that people in your target market would be interested in receiving if they opt in to your e-mail list (i.e. FREE report, e-Book, white paper, checklist, etc.)
Concentrate on QUALITY not just QUANTITY when it comes to your list size. The size of your list doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the people on your list.** ideally you do want to grow your list into a large list with lots of quality individuals from your target market **
Create an e-mail sign-up form and place it on your website, blog, social networks, etc.
In order for your list to grow, you have to promote joining your list. Promote joining your e-mail list on your social networks, e-mail, website, blog, etc.
Don’t limit the promotion of joining your e-mail list to just your online activities, but also promote joining your e-mail list on your offline marketing material by including a QR Code that links to your e-mail sign up form on your business card, brochures, etc.
Make it easy for people to join your email list by including easy joining methods like join via text message

What techniques and ways do you use for people to join your e-mail list?

Just as equally important as growing your e-mail list is the content in your e-mail. The next blog post in this series will discuss how to create engaging content that will make people want to open your e-mails and give you business. Stay tuned for the next blog post or click here to download the complete checklist of 21 Things You Must Do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Email Marketing!

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 5 Comments | in Business, Business Development, Email Marketing, Email Results, Marketing

Email List

How to Spring Clean Your Email List To Improve Your Email Marketing Results