6 Reasons Why You MUST Build Your List Right NOW

Your list is your business money maker! Sure, your product or service combined with you and your experience is what people pay for but you have to get it TO them. Having a product and sitting it on a shelf where nobody could see is rather pointless so getting it out there to your consumers is key.

Short and true story…. I started my business when moving to Texas, from Virginia 2 years ago and was slow and steady in doing ALL the things entrepreneurs need to do for their business. I was hesitant on creating my list, my email marketing campaign because it was foreign to me and well, I had doubts and fears. Who would want to read what I have to say? Would folks opt in? What’s in it for them? I didn’t know where to start and how? What would I say? The list goes on, surely for you too. Funny thing, when reading stuff about successful entrepreneurs I would even say that they wished they had started their list sooner, I didn’t listen. I’m a hard head that way and then, there’s procrastination… ugh, one more thing to do, right? You know you say that too.

Well, I’m here to tell you, get off your rear, stop stalling and get that list started…and here’s why you need to stop what you are doing and get going… NOW:

1. Your website isn’t cutting it – sure, you may have a fabulous website, or even not so fab, but if you aren’t cutting it in the search engines and you aren’t paying for traffic with paid ads, how do you think they are finding it? Remember that “shelf” your products are sitting on? You need to get it out there, so along with the list building, be sure you are optimizing your website.
   1. Even so, let’s say you have this well-oiled machine, your consumers just aren’t going to your website every month to see what new pages you created and what blogs your wrote, right?
2. Social media isn’t always visible – social media can be very beneficial and provide traffic to your website however, it’s a numbers game. You pay to be visible and post X# times a day but how many of those posts are your consumers seeing on a regular basis? Could you imagine if you actually saw ALL of the posts, in one day, from your friends and the pages you liked? Holy cow, you think social media is a time suck, that would literally take all day just to see them all.
3. Top of mind – when you are sending out regular email blasts, you are putting yourself directly in front of each and every person that is on your list.
   1. You need to be consistent but careful to not overwhelm
   2. You can share specials about your products or services
   3. Those blogs that you spend so much time writing every week/month, you can push them out to them to be sure they see them.
4. What happens if? – What happens if the social media channel that you are spending all of your time on crashes, folds or changes completely **shutters** then you could lose all of those loyal followers. What happens if you go to social media jail for a week or if someone hacks your account – yes, that can happen and it has, … your business won’t be lost as you still have these names and email addresses of your fans, followers, loyal customers, friends and potential clients.
5. Rome wasn’t built in a day – it takes time to build it, people are funny that way. All of your followers on your social channels aren’t going to jump and all join… just like all of your friends on Facebook didn’t immediately Like your business page when you first created it, right? I know, frustrating! Plus, people that you might not have thought would subscribe just might but again, having it, the subscribe form, on your website, on your social or even in your email signature will give them all the opportunity to sign up when they are ready. it takes time so start now!
6. It’s just not going to happen by itself – yes, YOU need to get off your rump and create that email marketing campaign, get an auto-responder like Aweber (affiliate link), set up the subscribe form on your website where it is clearly visible on every page and over on your social as well and start sending out a regular mailing providing value to your consumers.
   1. I use Aweber, but surely MailChimp, iContact, Constant Contact and many others are find but I have been happy with the integration that Aweber has with my WordPress site, the price is right for me for the LONG term, not just while I am building my list, they have templates to use and their customer service has been spot on!

Bottom line:

Should you have any questions about how to set up your email marketing campaign or make your social media or website more visible and reader friendly, contact me as what I’d be happy to help with my marketing services or consulting.

Question – If you have your email list now, do you agree that it is important and valuable and when did you wake up to get it done? If not, what are you waiting on? Put your answer in the comments below.

~Kristen

Kristen Day

CEO/Founder of A Visual Business

Kristen is a small business owner and thus dedicated to other small business owners by helping them improve their online presence with search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing and pay per click advertising all of which are necessary 'evils' in the digital marketing sphere but enables small business owners the opportunity to compete with larger companies. When not in the digital arena, you can find her riding her Honda VTX1300 or drinking a margarita.