Why you need an email marketing strategy (Email workshop series part 1) | Ep. 30 Content Magic with Lindsay Smith

Welcome to the kickoff episode for my special 5-episode series, How to Have a Love Affair with Email Marketing.

In today's episode, we delve into why email marketing is crucial for your business and how it offers a higher ROI compared to other forms of marketing. I almost never use the word should when it comes to creating content. Except for email marketing! You really do need an email list.

And over the next few days, I'm going to share how to build one, nurture it and maintain it . And, we will explore topics such as lead magnets, storytelling, subject lines, and nurture sequences.

 Don't forget to grab the free workbook to  come up with your own email marketing strategy as you follow along with this special series. 

Freebie: Workbook

Lindsay [00:00:00]:
Writing emails is not like a willy nilly thing. There is a bit of an art to it, and that's what I'm going to share with you. If you have an online business, you're creating content.

Lindsay [00:00:13]:
And the way you create content is more important than ever. It's really noisy out there and learning to stand out is the only way. Hey, I'm Lindsay and I'm the host of the content Magic podcast, all about.

Lindsay [00:00:26]:
Being an entrepreneur and creating kick ass.

Lindsay [00:00:28]:
Content to market yourself and your business. I have a the not so secret superpower for copywriting, marketing and content, and I've helped hundreds of folks just like.

Lindsay [00:00:38]:
You show up with a ton of.

Lindsay [00:00:40]:
Confidence in the online space. I've been doing this content thing for 20 years and I believe the real magic is a combo of intuition, creativity and strategy. You can create content for your business without losing your mind, I promise. So tune in every week for tangible content tips, inspiring guests, and some real spicy opinions. Probably mine.

Lindsay [00:01:02]:
Ready to dive in?

Lindsay [00:01:04]:
Let's go.

Lindsay [00:01:05]:
Well, hello and welcome back to the podcast. And I'm very excited today to kick off a special series called how to start a love affair with email marketing. So this is a five episode series, and today is episode one in the series. And in addition to this episode, I have four more over the next five days, one after the other. And we're going to be talking about, guess what? Email marketing. And I'm going to teach you how to have a love affair with it. So wherever you are, if you are in the process of building a list, if you've built a list and you've kind of, you're not feeling consistent with it or you've ghosted it, wherever you are, these next couple of episodes are going to be super helpful. And if you have not yet grabbed the workbook, I'm going to encourage you to do that.

Lindsay [00:01:58]:
So go on over to lindsaysmithcreative CA workbook and download it and print it up. And so as we move through the next couple of episodes and trainings, this is really going to help you narrow down your own email strategy and a couple of ideas that you can put into place immediately so you can feel some clarity about what to do with your list. So let's jump in. So why do we care about email marketing? This is a bit of a loaded question, but I'm going to be transparent here. I love email. I love emailing my own list. I love writing emails on behalf of my clients. I think I'm a bit of an anomaly.

Lindsay [00:02:47]:
And then it takes me like ten to 20 minutes to write an email to my own list. It's a little bit longer when I'm doing it on behalf of somebody else, but to me, it's a super easy way to communicate with an engaged audience, and I'm going to share a statistic with you. So the ROI in email marketing is much higher than any other form of marketing. So for every dollar that you spend on email marketing, you're earning back an average of $40. And this is much higher than any kind of, like, this is much higher than any kind of social media marketing. And I don't want to poo poo on social media because it is an incredible tool. And I think, you know, and I've said this before, it is sort of free ish. And I kind of say that in brackets because it does take time, and our time is not really free.

Lindsay [00:03:43]:
Yes, of course you can buy ads. I'm not really going to get into it, but it is an incredible tool. And usually when I work with clients, either one on one or through my group program, I'm always encouraging them to choose one type of short form content and one type of long form content. And more often than not, the most popular choices are Instagram for short form and email for long form. So, you know, back in the day when I even started on Instagram, like, it kind of felt like a mini blog. So I tried to look at it the same way and I said this in my previous episode. So social media is just one tool. It's just one tool in your marketing toolbox.

Lindsay [00:04:26]:
You do need to have more. So if you don't have anybody, if you don't have any other leads, quality leads outside of social media, then, well, you don't really have a business because, you know, you are sort of talking to strangers on social platforms, which, you know, you can build community. I believe you can build community. It takes a while. It is a long game. However, you, you know, you don't own Instagram, you don't own Facebook, you don't own LinkedIn, you don't own those things. So, you know, whereas email, it's your own URL, you do own it, and you have a bit more control. So, you know, essentially what I teach my clients is usually some sort of strategy to move people off of their social platforms into some sort of content that they own, which is email.

Lindsay [00:05:30]:
And the other thing about social is, well, there is this thing called the algorithm. And while I often I teach people to create quality content and to sort of forget about the algorithm, the thing is our content is only visible to a very small percentage of people, you know? So whereas, you know, when somebody opts into you, whatever it is, a free thing, a lead magnet, or, you know, they just really want to receive your emails, you, it's a little bit more personal because those people are exchanging something personal, their email address with you, and they're basically saying, okay, I think you're cool, and I want to receive more communication from you. So that is like a very precious thing that you have to treat preciously. And so what we're going to talk about over the next couple of days is three things. We're going to talk about building the list, nurturing the list, and maintaining that list, usually in that order, and then rinse and repeat. So the next episode in this series, we're going to be talking about lead magnets, freebies and opt ins. And we're going to talk a little bit about sort of the traditional ways of building a list and sort of some of the non traditional ways. And then in the third episode of this series, we're going to be talking about storytelling, which is one way to write emails that are memorable and relatable.

Lindsay [00:07:06]:
And this word storytelling kind of gets thrown around a lot. So I'm going to talk about what it actually means and how to work backwards to make it work for you. There's a little bit of journalism, Lindsay, in that one. And then in the fourth episode, we're going to be talking about one of my favorite things, subject lines. I have a superpower for writing really good subject lines. We're going to talk about Marco Polo, not the game you play in the pool, something else. I'm going to expand on that. And then in the fifth episode, we're going to be talking about nurture sequence and welcome sequences and how getting these right will help the bottom line in your business because we're business owners, we're entrepreneurs, we want to make money, right? So that's what we're going to be talking about.

Lindsay [00:07:58]:
And so the thing is, writing emails is, is not like a willy nilly thing. There is a bit of an art to it. And that's what I'm going to share with you because I've been a copywriter for so long, I have a sense of how to write an email that gives the reader some breathing space, that gives the reader a couple of quick wins and will have your people writing you back, being like, oh, my God, this is the best. You're going to get a ton of replies and you're going to make some money. So again, if you have not grabbed the workbook yet, please go ahead and do that. Lindsaysmithcreative CA workbook and I'm very excited to move through the next couple of episodes together and help you figure out this email thing and to love doing it. All right, until next time, folks. We'll see ya.

Lindsay [00:08:57]:
Thank you so much for listening.

Lindsay [00:08:58]:
If you loved what you heard, don't.

Lindsay [00:09:00]:
Forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share this episode on social media. And don't forget to tag me on Instagram. Lindsey Smith Creative and if you do.

Lindsay [00:09:08]:
All three, I'll be your best friend.

Lindsay [00:09:09]:
Forever and invite you to all my birthday parties. That's it for today, and I'll see you next time.

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