Here’s an important observation that we’ve seen countless times in our 10+ years of consulting parent entrepreneurs with online-based businesses: email lists are ESSENTIAL to parent entrepreneurship.
Not convinced? Pay attention the next time you are engaging with content online. Whether it is a blog, podcast, social media or webinar the goal of each piece of high-performing digital content you’re consuming is the same: to get your email.
The keys to a successful online business are identifying hot leads, nurturing those leads + converting them to paying clients. Today, there are a lot of options at an entrepreneur’s disposal to communicate with the market + we know that email is the most effective of those options.
Why?
Because email gives the entrepreneur full control over all aspects of the communication. There is no powers-that-be algorithm change that can bring views crashing down or any censorship in your messaging.
“With email, you get to say what you want to say, however you want to say it, whenever you want to say it.”
And because email is so personal — it’s like the digital version of your home address — the likelihood of your email being opened is substantially greater than any social media post.
Today, we’re walking through 4 reasons why every parent entrepreneur needs to build, nurture + grow their email list for maximum visibility + high-converting results.
Let’s go!
No. 1 — Ownership
The importance of utilizing email is often overlooked by new parent entrepreneurs. Social media — such as Instagram + Tik Tok — gets a lot of attention as the main marketing tool to grow an audience + convert consumers into clients.
Rightfully so, social media can be extremely effective if that is part of your strategy. However, there is a challenge that will always be looming while operating within these platforms: You can’t control what happens next.
Entrepreneurs are one algorithm or policy update away from having their social media audience completely eliminated.
Fortunately, utilizing an email list gives that control back to entrepreneurs. Even if the algorithms change or social media goes away tomorrow, you will still have a direct line to a list of loyal followers that you can’t be locked out of.
No. 2 — Intimacy
Personal contact information is sacred. People are not out there giving away their phone numbers to simply anyone who asks them to be friends. The same goes for when asking for an email. The vast majority of consumers are not signing up for generic email updates.
So when someone does give you their email, you can assume they are “picking up what you’re putting down” — aka, they want to hear from you in your unique way.
Think about email as having access to someone’s virtual home: the place they start every day to check on the top priorities in their life. Directly engaging with your audience via email is like being invited to Sunday family dinner every day of the week.
Email done well can create an intimate connection with the reader, which can then build loyalty, which can then turn into a conversion. This is sales nurturing done with intention.
No. 3 — Engagement
Once you have ownership of how you can connect with your ideal audience, you’re building an intimate relationship that can strengthen with consistent engagement.
[Related: Why Parent Entrepreneurs Need to Use Webinars in Their Online-Based Businesses]
There is no guarantee that people will go to a blog or podcast on a daily basis, but you can guarantee that they are going to check email nearly every day.
Combine that with the fact that email open rates are between 20%-30% on average, you will be able to quickly identify what your audience is eager to hear more of from you.
And this is where you get to fine-tune your business marketing + product development for the ultimate return on investment. The numbers won’t lie.
The higher open rates in email not only benefit your bottom line + engagement, but they can help you with the mental game of parent entrepreneurship as well.
Parent entrepreneurs often look to justify the time they’re spending away from their family when they’re working. (Working parent guilt, anyone?!) When you leverage your open rates as a tool for telling you where to move in your business next, you’re affirming that your time is getting the best return on investment. Need we say more?
Probably not, but we will! Let’s continue with this:
No. 4 — Conversion
Email subscribers are more likely to buy a product or service than arbitrary followers on social media or cold leads.
Consider this: How much more willing are you to scroll through endless news feeds of photos without ever double-tapping to like a post, let alone click a link to purchase a program or product?
You probably scrolled through HOURS of promotional content in the last week + never once got irritated or unfollowed people. You probably just moved right along…
But email is very different.
The personal email inbox is much more curated. People are not willing to deal with spam in their personal space. You could say “the cream rises to the top” in a personal inbox.
The more consistently you’re emailing an ideal customer + the more they’re consistently opening those emails, the greater your likelihood of conversion to a sale.
Why? Because you were invited into this person’s personal space, showed up with value + then continued to build trust through ongoing value.
You built the open-my-email habit.
Your subscribers are your hot leads. They are interested in what you are offering + are openly telling you that. Taking care of your email subscribers is extremely important because they are only a few valuable pieces of information away from converting from subscribers to clients.
“Marketing your business does not have a one-size-fits-all solution, but your marketing should always include email.”
You will find that a lot of different marketing tactics can play well together. Social media can lead to more email subscribers, more email subscribers can lead to more podcast subscribers + the dance can continue.
Regardless of your chosen tactics, the goal of all marketing is to consistently get valuable content to the market + navigate the noise + target the ideal client in a way that builds the trust that makes the sale.
We believe that email is the most effective way to organize + target the ideal client for any online-based business. Owning the process, building intimate relationships, creating an engaged audience + putting it all together for high conversion rates are just a few of the reasons why parent entrepreneurs can benefit from focusing on building an email list.
So, now, we’d love to know: have you been prioritizing your email list building? What systems do you have in-place for doing so?
We’re huge fans of time-saving templates + offer a number of curated email templates in The OFC Shop.
Want our entire set of 90% done-for-you templates? Consider joining Passive Income Parenthood™ where we not only give you our full template library + coach you through customizing those assets for your business but step in with our agency to put the tech together for you.