So many business mistakenly prioritise building a big email list. They rely on the traditional printed media strategy… spending 20% of their focus on delivering the right message to the right people, and 80% on increasing distribution.
This is especially true of ecommerce websites, where everything boils down to pushing more and more people towards a known conversion rate.
If our website converts at 2.5%, we need to drive an additional 50,000 visits next quarter. We should focus on growing the email list and sending more newsletters.
Sound familiar?
There are a number of dials you can adjust to improve email marketing… template design, subjects, subscriber list size etc. But nothing is more important than building an engaged and relevant list of people who find value in every email you send.
Attracting the right subscribers — and offering value that speaks to their immediate needs, wants and desires — is the single most powerful multiplier of all your efforts.
If you gave me the choice between 1,000,000 random email addresses or 500 super-engaged and relevant subscribers, I wouldn’t need to think twice. Those 500 people would drive:
I want to share a quick maths exercise. It really hammers home how valuable engaged subscribers are who are ready to recommend your brand or product to their friends.
Starting with only 1 subscriber — and assuming each subscriber recommends your brand to just 1 new person each day — how many days do you think it would take for the entire 7 billion population of Earth to hear about you?
A year perhaps? A few months?
Nope… just 34 days.
Of course, this scenario isn’t realistic (no one recommends a brand every day and not everyone is interested in your niche) but if you can achieve even a tiny bit of this level of engagement, it will skyrocket every aspect of your email marketing.
By spending time identifying your ideal subscriber, identifying their needs, and giving them consistent value, you will boost nearly every key business metric and leave industry averages to your competition.