‘I don’t send many emails as I don’t want to annoy anyone and have them unsubscribe’. That’s what I hear with almost every email marketing meeting, and it fires me up. I’m going to be pretty direct here … Why do you care if someone unsubscribes? What does that do to you? So you have 324 subscribers and now you have 323? Even if 10 unsubscribe, you now have 314 … so what? Why are you focusing on the subscriber number? Ok, I know why, but first, let’s take a step back, why do we use email marketing in business? In this blog post, I’ll be diving into the power of email marketing in your business, why it matters, and HOW to do it for your business specifically. The Power of Email Marketing In Your Business If you have an email list in your business or are thinking about starting one, the main reason is to promote and share your business, right? You want people to see what you have to offer, add value, and ultimately get them to sign up because they want to learn from you! The best way to think about email marketing is like your VIP list – it’s your ownership list that gets you in front of your ideal audience. In this instance, “ideal” means they sign up for it because they have an interest in what you do and offer. To grow your email list, you may offer a discount or freebie for them providing their email address, and at first, they may only join your list for that. (We’ll talk about those in just a second!) But the way that you KEEP them there is by continuing to email them on a consistent basis. And no – that doesn’t mean you have to spam their inbox! (In fact, I would highly discourage you from doing so. One of the biggest myths I hear is that emailing your list over and over is annoying and might cause people to unsubscribe. But let me ask you: why would they unsubscribe when they CHOSE to sign up to hear from you?! Can you over send emails? Sure, if you do it every hour, multiple times in a day, every day for 365 days, maybe that can get overwhelming in someone’s inbox. But sending emails consistently, with value and information for your audience, is not overwhelming. They are waiting to hear from you, to see how you can help them. How To Decide How Often To Email Your List Knowing that mailing your list is a normal and expected thing, it’s time to decide how often you’re going to do it. The FIRST thing I want you to do is to stop thinking that you are annoying, and SECOND, look at your schedule and time. How quick can you write an email? What is your time capacity to sit down and write an email each week? Those things will play a part in the consistency. Once you’ve decided on your consistency, it’s time to consider, what information want to share with your audience, what your business goals are, and how email can help you reach those. When you’re thinking about what to promote in your emails, I want you to remember the Rule of 7. If you’re unfamiliar with this phenomenon, it essentially says that it takes a consumer 7 times to see a brand/product before they buy in. 7 times. There is more behind that 7 and the strategy, but let’s use that number for a minute. If you send an email once a month starting at the beginning of the year, it takes you until July to start to resonate with the consumers. When you think about it, that’s a long time – over half your year. Is that ok? Yes, it can be if that works for you and your business – that is something you will decide and plan based on your goals. If you are looking for more growth or sales, I would look into sending more emails. Let’s say you bump that up to bi-monthly, now you can at least grab them around April and see things start to grow sooner. And just think, what would once a week do for sales? Also, give this a thought – if you send once a week and your competitor sends bi-weekly, whose brand are they more familiar with? YOURS! And that’s the goal isn’t it? The point is, sit down and plan out a schedule for how it can work best for your business and goals, and be consistent with it. If you have a sale every 2 weeks, you need to tell them about that every 2 weeks, and that is NOT annoying. What is annoying is you have a sale and never tell your email list about it. Now…back to that unsubscribe possibility. Let’s say you create your plan, you work hard to create your email and content, you finally hit send and sit back to relax… And then you see it – the report says ‘2 unsubscribed’. When this happens, I BET YOU – do not panic. That simply means those 2 contacts do not need what you are offering right now, they kindly removed themselves and made room for others to join in. (no, there’s no cap on how many people can join your list, but you get the point.😉) For example, let’s say you own a kids' store and you offer 20% off 1 item when they sign up for your email list. Let’s say Kim is shopping for her niece because she drew her name for Christmas and needs a gift. She does not have any kids of her own and rarely buys kids gifts. She finds the perfect sweatshirt and sees the 20% off offer. She jumps in and signs up, makes her 20% off purchase, and is happy. Next week your email hits her inbox and she thinks to herself, ‘I already got the gift, I don’t need these emails in my inbox’ and hits unsubscribe. Is that ok? YES. Should we panic? No. She doesn’t need what you have right now. Could she down the road? Absolutely, and she will remember you for your offer and come back. She doesn’t fit the ideal audience right now and that’s okay –move on and create your next email to send to the people who DO. Overall, it is time to let the unsubscribe GO. It is OK. That ‘number’ doesn’t matter (just like the number of social followers you have doesn’t matter, but we can talk about that another time), so stop looking at it repeatedly and deciding how many emails to send based on it. You could have 1,000 subscribers and only 1 opens the email you sent – does that hurt? No, because it could take just 1 open email to give you a sale or a new client you serve for years to come. Can we work to increase the open rate and clicks? Yes, but that is for another time too. 😁 Bottom line, email marketing builds your business and loyalty with your customers so it should not be overlooked. An email list is owned by YOU , is a direct connection to your audience where you can not only share items or services you offer, but tell your audience about you, your business, events you will be at, your community, and more. Use this platform consistently to build your business, do NOT think it is annoying, DO send emails, and take NO worry in the unsubscribes. 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