Emails and email lists are like gold in the business marketing world. If you do not already know the importance of your email list, then you MUST read this post. You are doing your business a disservice and your customers a disservice by not having an email list that you send curated emails to consistently. Let’s talk about why this is vital to your business and your marketing plan even without a storefront.
It all begins with social media. Let’s be real. Social media is great. You can really build a community and a large following by using the power of social media, but social media is not always rainbows and cupcakes.
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To be successful in social media, you have to play the social media game. This requires you to continuously adapt to the ever-changing algorithms used by social media. In other words, you could be cruising along and growing on social media like Facebook. Then in a blink of an eye, Facebook may change the way their algorithm works.
This means what you were doing that worked great could essentially work against you. These continuous changes make social media unreliable when it comes to a long term marketing plan. Instead of building all your marketing around social media, you should focus on building an engaged email list, and here are the reasons why.
- If done properly, your email list is a fully engaged audience who wants to hear what you have to say. This group of people looks forward to your products and services. They look forward to being part of your community.
- Emails are not subjected to algorithms. That is right. There is no trick or code you have to crack every couple of months. Instead, you have a list of your people, and these people are waiting to hear from you.
- Again, this list is yours. You own it, and no one can take it away. If all social media were to cease to exist in the future, you would still have a curated group of people who want to be part of your community and your business
For these reasons, your email should be considered a valuable asset in your business even without a storefront. If you have not started building your email list, then please make that your main focus for the day. Yes, it is that important.
Getting people onto your email list may feel like an impossible feat, and because of this, many bakery owners resort to giving away free items to get people to sign up for their email lists. But.. what if there were better ways to get your customers to hand over their highly coveted emails?
We got together with several other bakery business owners and sat down to brain storm several ideas that you an have for free to use in your bakery business. We call it the Email Marketing Brain Power 1/2 Hour. If you want to sign up to get access to the free video click [here].
There are many different companies that you can use to collect and build your email lists, and there are several ways to collect emails to build your list.
We currently use an opt-in on our website, but we have several email opt-ins that we created in MailChimp. You can go here to sign up for a free account. MailChimp is not the only option. We personally do not use Convertkit, but it comes highly recommended in the blogging industry. You can learn more about them here.
We use these opt-ins to build an engaged audience who want to hear about the products and services we have to offer. Ok, now that you know why it is so important to build your email list, I want to challenge you to get started on this right away. Below you can find a list of ways to encourage people to sign up for an email list.
- Host a promotion that requires an email
- Offer coupons
- Offer a newsletter
- Content Opt-ins
- Utilize your POS system to obtain emails (Read more on why home bakeries should use a POS system here)
All of these are different ways that we use to build our email list. We not only are a bakery, but we want to help other entrepreneurs who want to have a baking business even without a storefront. Therefore, we create different opt-in options that we circulate on social media.
To help you get started with creating your own opt-in, you can find a quick list of ideas below to use for your opt-in.
- Newsletter
- Free recipes
- Free ebook
- Curated content for your audience
These are just a few ideas. It is important to think about the questions your audience has. Then you create the answers to these options. For example, if you want to find people who are interested in keto-friendly bakery options, then you may create a recipe ebook that people can sign- up to receive for free.
It doesn’t have to be a big book, and it doesn’t have to take much time to create. Grab three or four recipes and combine them into a recipe ebook. Then create an opt-in on your site or by using an email marketing platform like Mailchimp. You can sign up for a FREE account here. Then create a few images to circulate on social media to encourage people to opt into your email list.
Email marketing is important in our business. We challenge our team monthly to meet specific goals related to our email content. If you have not started your email list, then make sure you go immediately and get your list started.
If you have any more questions are comments regarding email marketing and growing your email list, please leave a comment on this post.
If you found this article helpful, then make sure you check out more on our baking business even without a storefront series like Reasons Why You Need A POS In A Home Bakery here.
Are you scared to start an email list or you are not sure how to grow your email list? We highly suggest Inbox Besties. Kate has great advice on growing your email list. Listen to her awesome podcast here.
Not only does she have an amazing podcast where she shares all of her valuable knowledge with us for FREE, but we invested in her Email Marketing Fairy Template Set. It was the best $27 we have probably spent in our business. She gives you a ton of email templates to use to up your email game.
She has templates for newsletters, welcome series, sales pages, and more. We feel it was worth every penny to improve our emails and our email marketing. If you need to figure how to email your list or what to email your list, then we HIGHLY recommend you checking her out here.
If you found this article helpful, have a question, or want to share your thoughts, then please feel free to comment below. We love to hear from all of you.
We want to congratulate you on your decision to be an entrepreneur and wish you luck on your journey. Don’t forget to check out all of our business advice articles like Price Your Products For A Bakery When You Don’t Have A Storefront [LINK].
