Good morning and welcome to the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. I'm Esther.
And I'm Melanie.
And today we're talking about email marketing, the fun stuff.
This is the real fun stuff. This is the hardcore stuff to marketing. And it's something I don't know that well. So ever to you, Esther.
"Laughs" OK, so where do you want me to start, Melanie?
OK, why is it still necessary in today's day and age to do email marketing?.
OK, your email list along with your website is the only part of your marketing that you truly own of your digital marketing. It just adds up and that's the only part of your digital marketing that you own 100 percent. So when people have signed up for your email list and we get to that point in a minute, they are there because they want to be there, not because they got a piece of paper shoved through their front door, not because they saw an ad on Facebook or Instagram or anywhere else. They are there because they want to be there. So it is highly important to look after your email list.
So let's say I'm a relatively new business and obviously I don't have any real contacts as yet, how as a new business can I encourage people to give me their email address and what's in it for them?
So a great way to do that is on your website or through Facebook as well. They have a way to get people onto your email lists, and it's by giving away something of value, not something that is necessarily monetary value or something that would cost you a lot of money, but something that people find valuable. So it could be "top tips", it could be a short ebook. It could be a 30 minute discovery call with you. It could be the list is endless of things that you can promote on your website or on your social media for people to click through and end up on your email marketing list.
So you're talking about lead magnets?
In a way, yes. But not all lead magnets lead people to your email list. A lot of lead magnets can just lead them to buy directly on the website or to book a call with you and not end up on your email marketing list, to get them directly onto the list, you have to... It has to be GDPR compliant, I hit the things I keep saying. And, having a GDPR compliant means that they could actually download something from your website and not end up on your list because it's not 100 percent necessary for them to be on your list to get it.
Now, you're saying the best places would be Facebook and your website to create your email list, but how hard is it to collect this information being GDPR compliant, I mean, what kind of services would you use? I know you're not advocating particular names or saying they're better than others and we're not being paid. This is not a sponsored podcast.
No,
But who would you recommend?
Yeah, the best place to start is with a software that is free to use for up to a certain number of email addresses. So ones like those would be MailChimp, Miller Lite. HubSpot is also up there with it and they are free to use for a certain number of email addresses now, there are ways to have the same email address in different lists and that will like lists are a great way to say "right, this person came in through my website, this person was interested in the free download, this person was interested in a discovery call, this person was interested in one of the other things that I give away or I met this person at a marketing event or a networking event"
So it's like CRM what you're talking about then.
Yes, yeah. I'm talking about a customer relationship management tool. But the best ones are ones that also interact with emails. And you can send out bulk emails to the one list. So, for example, if you have OK, so if you have a membership site, for example, you are running, a course, on your website, obviously you need to inform the people who are on the course, who have paid for the course that they have got their course details, and you would do that quickly and easily through an email that you have pre-established and pre set up in your email server in your email... What's called? Software. So when they sign up, they automatically get an email saying "thank you for signing up. Here's the link to get into the" or "here's the password" or "here's the information you need to continue on to your course" or to join the membership and once it's become part of the course, part of the membership, then they want to get regular updates as to what's in it for them. Why are they still paying for this? Why are they still looking at your information? Why? What has been added? What is new? What is coming up? Is there any events that they want to go to? Are there any things that, or people that are new to the group that they can connect with as well? So a regular email that goes out, say, once a week, twice a week, you know, depending on what it is that they're signed up for, that can help them to realize that they have. made the right decision for signing up for it and that they're getting a lot more value because they have this extra information that they're getting from you to say "don't forget about this, "join us in this group", "join us at this time, we have this event". "Don't forget to connect with so-and-so", et cetera, et cetera.
It sounds massively time consuming, you know, you're creating landing pages and lead pages and, you know, it's kind of like, it sounds like it's like if this then that will happen in the event that you've signed up a particular time. Is that something you can construct within the email list?
Absolutely. Absolutely. There are a lot of automation's that you can do inside. Now, setting up automation's is time consuming, but once it's set up, then it's set up to run without fault and without missing an email and without a lot of extra work from you. So say, for example, that you want to get people on your email list and part of that email list or part of the offering that you're giving them to get onto the mailing list is a 30 day, 30 days of short tips into their inbox. So you would have to go in and set up 30 separate emails to go out automatically because it's more time consuming to go right, did anybody new sign up today? Do I have to go and started again? Do I have to go and do this? Do I have to click here? Who do I have to send it to? Whereas if it's already automated on a platform like MailChimp, Active Campaign and Constant Contact, there are so many that you can choose from. If it's already set up and automated to go out, then it will work like clockwork.
Is it expensive?
It depends. OK, so some of the platforms, it depends on how many people are in your list, other people are sorry, other platforms, it depends on how many lists you have or how many automations you have or how many emails you're sending out in the month. OK, so all of this you have to take all of this into consideration when you're choosing a platform. A lot of platforms are giving more for less money because there is so much more competition. It used to be just down to one or two big guys. And they are now saying that there are a lot of competition coming through for email marketing because people are in their emails. How often you read your email every day, Melanie?.
Oh, constantly,
Constantly. So if you can get the right time and they all come with analytics, which we love, they all come with analytics, that you can see what time works best, where your audience is, where when they're opening it, how often they're opening it, what they're clicking when they go through it. Because if you have links inside your email, send them to somewhere else, another part of your website then that could entice them to buy something else from you as well.
You know, this is the longest I have managed to keep sensible in a podcast in a long time, and it's mostly down to the fact that this is genuinely interesting and, you know, you are, this occasion genuinely interesting.
Oh, thanks, "laughs" on this occasion, let that just be noted.
But now so do you think GDPR when that came in on my birthday all those years ago. Thanks, guys. Was that massively impactful to businesses then or has actually improved things?
It was massively impactful, but it has improved things drastically. You will notice a huge decrease in the amount of spam that you're getting into your inbox. You will notice that people who have their lists and they look after their lists are more likely to protect their list and more likely to send valuable information to their email lists. So it has helped, although it was a lot of stress and it still is a bit of stress because not every country in the world has GDPR.
No, that is true, actually. So
but that's for another time.
Wherever you're listening to this, it will have some impact where you are in the world, potentially. But all of us need an email list. It is part of a marketing tool. It's a way of moving people through the sales funnel, just like they have in the Facebook Ads section. You've got the awareness. You've got the consideration, you've got the conversion. And that's the journey we're taking people through, whether we're doing an ad or not. And this is definitely part of that, isn't it?
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And your email list can just grow and grow and grow, whether it be people coming onto your website and signing up or whether it be you promoting it through your website, through your social media, your email list can grow to as big as you want it to be. Just make sure that you have it right from the start
Yeah, and it needs to be an engaged email list. We could all have hundreds of thousands of names on there, but it's meaningless if they don't actually engage with it.
Yeah.
Now, as as we first started this podcast, I said you were the person to speak to about email lists so Esther, how can people find you?
They can find me at IPAgroup.co, not com, .co, or find me on Facebook at IPA grp, IPA grp
You're just lazy, then? Just missed a couple of letters, huh?
Yeah, yeah. Group was already taken for some reason so.
Yeah. You weren't quick enough kid.
No.
So yes. If you've got any questions or queries about email lists, if you'd like some guidance or some support then Esther is your lady, give her, send her an email or send her a message through Facebook. But if you'd like to speak to both of us about any suggestions for topics leading up over the next few months, it's going to be fun as we've got the next year's audit. Then do message us through all of our social channels and we'd love some more five stars, five-star reviews on our Google My Business account. We're doing well there, guys. Thank you so much. And do join us on our next podcast next week. I'm not going to tell you what it is yet because it's going to be a surprise.
Thanks for joining us, guys. Bye, bye.
Bye.