Your Top 5 Email Marketing Questions Answered!

Ok, ok, I know. We hear it ALL the time. Create an email list, they say. It will create income while you sleep, they say.

But we can quickly get overwhelmed with all the things. Like, what is the difference between a freebie, an opt-in, and a lead magnet (hint: they are the SAME THING!).

And what email marketing service provider do you choose? There are a gazillion of them.

Perhaps you have started your email list and know a little bit about all the things, or maybe you are just starting out.

Either way, let’s answer all of your burning questions about email marketing!

Here are your Top 5 Email Marketing Questions answered!

1. What opt-in / freebie / lead magnet is best for building my list?

Think about your audience. What is something that will be incredibly beneficial or valuable to them and their everyday tasks?

For example, if you are a photographer could it be a quick reference guide on how to style your family for family portraits? If a wedding photographer, then maybe a list of your top 10 favorite venues or florists for newly engaged brides.

Are you a shop owner? Then consider a percentage off of their first purchase.

For anything else, think about checklists or quick guide tutorials that are paired well with what you teach or provide.

2. Which email marketing provider is right for me?

From FloDesk to ConvertKit to MailChimp – how do you know which one is what you need for this stage in your business?

You first need to determine your budget, how quickly you anticipate growth, and what features are available to you with those providers to get what you want out of them.

There are several free options, both MailChimp and MailerLite offer these. When it comes to ease-of-use, MailerLite is at the top of the list! You will find their platform to be easy to learn.

FloDesk has a free-trial and then (at the time this post is written) it is $19 / month with a code you can get from just about any FloDesk member and that price is good for the life of your account, no matter how large your email list gets! In my experience, FloDesk is definitely one of the more aesthetically pleasing options when it comes to email marketing providers and is very user friendly.

For a more robust option, ConvertKit is a great way to go! It isn’t free, but aside from being more robust it is incredibly easy to learn for beginners. They include options that some of the other email marketing providers don’t, including tags to further segment your audiences.

3. What is the secret to email subject lines?

Oh, this is the most fun of all the top email marketing questions!

Subject Lines are definitely your secret weapon to getting those emails opened! You first want to think about your audience, really get in their heads. What do they watch? Read? Talk about? If you have ever done an exercise on finding your ideal client, then you likely already know the answers to these questions.

Here’s an example for you – my subscribers are fans of Gilmore Girls, Mean Girls, and Desperate Housewives. To this date, my highest open rate was an email that had the subject line, “Don’t be like Regina George” – instantly their interest was piqued.

Aside from piquing the interest of your email list, you also want to teach something. You can think about the name of blog posts you may already have like, “5 Steps to Start Your Podcast”.

Other things to think about when writing your subject lines are to create a sense of urgency and ask questions. Are you offering a limited time percentage off of a course, program, or certain piece of clothing in your boutique? Make sure that urgency is in your subject line and easy to read, “Today only: 50% off (insert your service/product here)”.

And while we are on the topic of email subject lines, also be mindful of using all uppercase – that can land you in the spam folders very quickly. Using all lowercase humanizes it a bit more and makes it feel more like an old friend sending over a quick email.

4. How often should I be emailing my list?

Definitely at least once a week. You always want to stay front of mind and keep them remembering you, so that when you are ready to launch a new product or service they aren’t sitting there asking themselves, “I don’t even remember how I got on this list and now they want my money?” Yikes, that is not the place we want to be.

If you already have your email list going and are thinking that it has been sitting there and hasn’t heard from you in a while, that’s ok. Start warming them back up now. You can create a new, quick sequence to get back to the front of their mind and remind them why they got on your list in the first place. Chock it full of good, valuable info – you can grab some former content and recycle it so you don’t feel like you are starting from scratch.

5. How long should my emails be to my email list?

We have all likely read that industry standards tell us that blogs should be 300 – 1,000 words for SEO, but they also tell us that for email copy 50-125 words perform better. Why? Because people are busy.

We are all likely on our our mobile devices when we check emails, and we need the person sending us an email to get to the point quick so we can see if we want to click on your call to action, whatever that may be, i.e., sending to your site to read a blog, sign up for a discovery call, or purchase a new product.

CampaignMonitor.com reports that emails between 500 – 2,000 words get a much lower response rate. This doesn’t mean they aren’t getting opened, this means they are not getting as much of a response for their Call to Action or click-throughs – why? It is likely due to not getting to the point quick enough for our busy lives.