Are you leaving money on the table?

Many businesses are leaving easy money on the table! Is yours?

Want to know how you can easily increase sales without much outlay?

I am talking about creating and building an email list of clients, leads and prospects for marketing via a simple and inexpensive newsletter. Keeping in touch with your list can produce an excellent return on investment. For many businesses. The gold is in the list!

For 10 years I had a training and development business which became an RTO - Registered Training Organisation. It was part of a franchise so the IP in the programs and the delivery process was owned by the franchisor. When my partner and I came to sell our business, potential buyers had the option to buy a 'virgin' franchise from the franchisor or buy our established business at a much higher price. We sold our business and got 100% of our asking price. Why?

The buyer was able to get the programs and everything from the franchisor but the value in our business was in our list - our client and prospect list. We regularly engaged with our list through a simple newsletter and kept ourselves "front of mind". You see, not everyone is ready to buy right now. But when they are ready then you need to be the one they think of.

Why email and not just social media? It always pays to be building your list and staying in touch. It's probably the lowest cost form of marketing that you can do. With an email list, you are in control. If you rely on social media for your marketing, then Google, Facebook or someone else is in control. They decide who sees your add and they can turn your account off at any time. And they do! Remember Google ads, Facebook / Instagram ads and Twitter Business were created to make money for Google and Facebook - NOT YOU!

"So why aren't more small businesses using an email list?" you ask.

It's the START that stops most people. They don't know how to start or they make a start and then give up. I am working with a client who did an email newsletter for Christmas 2017 and has not done one since! That's not exactly staying in touch.

When I ask clients why they don't "nurture their clients and prospects" with email newsletters, the most common reply is "How do I build a list? What is the process? How do I get started?" Below I have outlined a process to at least get you started if you have nothing at the moment.

Here is what I did in my business and encourage clients to do. It's an outline to keep this article short. Contact me if you want help...

• Look for lists that you may already have. A common 'hidden list' is one that has been building in the back-end of your website. If you have an enquiry form or pop-up on your website that asks for people's email address AND informs them that they will receive marketing emails then there is your first list. Remember, you need to conform with the spam laws in your country! (e.g. Australia Spam Laws)  Look for other areas in your business where people give you their email address and are informed about marketing emails
• Gather all spam compliant lists into separate excel spreadsheet lists to enable grouping and targeted campaigns if relevant to your business
• Clean up the lists by putting them through an email checker. This will identify hard bounce addresses and catch-all addresses (e.g. admin@, sales@ etc.). If you use my recommended email marketing app then that has an integrated mail checker
• Remove duplicates which you can do in Excel
• Import each separate list into an email marketing package and establish groups or categories. I strongly recommend the app I use, MailerLite (This is an affiliate link. Affiliate Disclosure)
• Create your first (if it is your first) email newsletter. Decide what is relevant and of interest to your list that will get them opening the email. Make sure you have a "call for action" included.
• Test your newsletter or email for deliverability and spam rating and send test emails to check it
• "Ready to send" - send it! Now monitor the stats over the coming days. That's a whole new process.
• If successful, turn your newsletter in to a template to make life easy going forward

Related topics to come in future blogs include strategies for building your list and what content to use.

I am happy to help get you started with the steps up to this point. Content is your responsibility.  I know people who can do that with you if you want help. As I say, "It's the START that stops most people". Be a business owner taking action and get started. Happy to help. Book a chat with me to see if an email list is right for your business.