What is email list building? Email list building is collecting email addresses on a landing page, usually held on your website, from people already at least a little interested in your business so you can communicate to them freely through email.
Despite its simple explanation, it can make a big difference!
Here at PetBrainy, we want you to have all the information you need to make the best decisions for your pet sitting business. With a topic this important, we don’t want to miss a thing- so we’re going to dedicate several blog posts to this topic of email list building- starting with why you should care about building an email list in the first place. After all, before you decide if you want to put in your precious time, you need to be sure it’s going to have a good return!
So without further ado? Here are the 7 reasons why an Email List will improve your business and increase sales!
7 Reasons Why Email List Building is Important for Your Pet Sitting Business
You Own Your List
Do you know what the biggest problem with relying entirely on social media for your marketing is? You could lose your entire audience all at once! If something happens to Facebook or Instagram and they shut down, you’d lose everything you’ve built up! You only own your website and your email list, and if you don’t take advantage of that, your business could suffer.
Email List Building Saves You From the Algorithm
Not only is it better to own your list so nobody can take it away from you, but you’ll find that you can get a lot more done with your list when you aren’t being held hostage by the algorithm! At the time of this article, only about 2% of the people on your fan page will see your content! Social media platforms keep changing their algorithm, so you have to keep up with all those changes. Your email list doesn’t have any of those complications!
Your Email List Has Higher Quality Leads
Nobody likes talking to a wall. You can talk till you’re blue in the face, and if you are talking to uninterested people, you might as well be flushing your time -and money- right down the toilet. Because the people on your email list are at least interested in what you have to say, you won’t be wasting your time talking to uninterested people!
Using Email Marketing Helps Build Deeper Relationships
Because you are talking directly to your audience, it is more personal. When it comes to business relationships, you want to help build the like, know, and trust factor. When you’re talking to someone directly in their inbox, it feels more pointed and personal than an advertisement on Facebook, which makes the messages they receive from you far more effective than just open-ended ads!
Leverage Your Time With an Email List
You can’t write out individual emails to everybody on your list. You would spend all day, and you’ve got a business to run! By building an email list, you can contact everyone on it in one fell swoop. There are some great tools out there that make this process so easy. Email marketing software will save you so much time, so choose one that works best for your business.
Email List Building Helps You Sell Privately
With email marketing software, you can customize the messages you send out to your list by segmenting your email list by the services they are interested in, which allows you to customize the promotions that you send to them! After all, clients that are interested in cat sitting don’t need to get emails about dog walking! Not only does this save you from sending out wasted emails, but your list will appreciate not having irrelevant emails cluttering up their inbox! It also adds a personal touch. Your clients will feel like you know what their needs are if you don’t show up in their inbox trying to sell them a service they don’t need.
Email Is Always Relevant!
Some methods of marketing are fleeting. They’re just a flash in the pan. Either they are always changing, or the whole platform folds in on itself, wasting your time! Email, however, is universal. In modern times, everyone has an email address. Email isn’t going out of style! You can build this list, and it will continue to be useful next week, next month, and even next year and beyond!
See why you can’t afford to miss out on this valuable tool? Email never expires, it won’t go out of style, and it doesn’t cost any cash to build and maintain! Few marketing options can boast that.
Have we got your attention now? Keep reading to find out how to get started!
Ready to Start Building Your Email List for Your Pet Sitting Business?
We’ve talked about WHY you should be building and using an email list in your pet sitting business. Now, we’re going to talk about the ever-important HOW!
Don’t worry; it’s simple once you know what you’re doing. We’re here to help you figure it out! We’ve broken it down into seven simple steps. Keep reading!
Step 1: Build Trust by Being Consistent
Before you can get started, you need to determine what type of content you are going to create! If you pick a medium that you can’t be consistent in, you’re not going to be able to serve your clients properly. We recommend blogging, video, or podcast. For people to trust you, you need to be reliable and consistent. Having the same kind of content is a good thing in the eyes of the consumer.
If you go to a Michael Bay movie, you expect explosions. When you read a Nicholas Sparks book, you can expect to be emotionally touched. If either of those two creators suddenly did something different, that would rattle their fans! Are you trying to decide what kind of content to make? Check out our content marketing article to help you decide!
Step 2: Choose an Email Marketing Software
Email marketing software can help you stay in compliance with spam laws, so sign up with one of the many email marketing provider services. You’ve probably heard of them already. MailChimp, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, or ConvertKit are all big reputable names in the business. Many of them are even free for low subscriber amounts, so with a little bit of research, you can find a good match for your budget!
Step 3: Email Your List Every Single Week
Remember when we talked about consistency? That means more than just showing up in the same medium each time. It also means reaching out to your audience at the same time each week! You’ll use the email marketing provider you selected discussed in the last step to schedule your emails every single week.
Humans are creatures of habit and routine. They will naturally accept you more if you are consistent. You can pair the content you made with stories and other different things to help them get to know you. The more personal and humanizing, the better! Staying consistent will help you build the know, like, and trust factor that is key to marketing in the modern market!
Step 4: Create a Lead Magnet for Email List Building
People aren’t just going to give you their email addresses for nothing! Every person has a problem with annoying spam flooding their email. So, when it comes to them offering their email to strangers on the internet, can you blame them for hesitating?
How you encourage them to get over that hesitation is by offering something in exchange. A Lead Magnet, Freebie, or an Opt-In Offer, draws leads to you just by existing! It has to be something useful and valuable to them RIGHT then.
Step 5: Create a Landing Page
Once you’ve decided on what free offer you’d like to give your potential clients, you have to have a spot for the actual exchange to take place. Your landing page is a direct URL you can link people to, so they can see your opt-in offer. It’s the place where they do the ACTUAL signing up!
Generally, if you have a website, you can add a landing page to your site for free, or you can use a site like LeadPages or any other landing page host instead.
Step 6: Share Your Lead Magnet
Remember that age-old question, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound? The same thing applies to the lead magnet you just made.
If you make a lead magnet and no one knows about it, did you make it at all? In the eyes of the internet, you didn’t!
So you have to make sure that the message gets out. The best way to do that is social media! Pick the right social media platforms for your business, and make sure you tell the world! Are you trying to decide which ones to choose? Check out our article on the best social media platforms for your pet sitting business here!
Step 7: Treat Your List as Real People
A lot of people forget that every email address on your list leads to a real person. Even a small email list has power. Fifty people may sound like a small number of people when you think of those with thousands of subscribers, but picture all those people in your house! Does it feel like a lot more now?
A smaller email list allows you to form deeper connections because you can connect with your audience on a more intimate level by creating opportunities to interact with them and by sharing stories.
Are you excited to get started? Now that we’ve talked about the steps, we’ve got one more surprise for you- we’ve made you a cheat-sheet too! Check out our Email List Building Guide – It’s a great resource to guide you through the whole process from top to bottom. Claim your FREE guide here!
PetBrainy has made it our goal to help you grow your pet sitting business, and that means more goodies or you! Once you’ve picked up the Email List Building guide, check out our Content Calendar Template and Free list of 100 Social Media Post Ideas for Pet Sitting Businesses. They’re the missing link to a stress-free and streamlined social media experience!
PetBrainy is always here to help with your pet sitting business needs. We’re doing a whole series on email list building and the best ways to use email marketing to help you grow your business. So stay tuned- in our next article, we’ll dive even deeper into creating an ideal lead magnet for your business!
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