When you’re new to the online biz life, nothing’s better than waking up to a ton of new followers! Not only is it confirmation that you’re making an impact – but it’s an opportunity to convert those followers into buyers!
Here’s the thing – to turn followers into buyers, you need a solid follow up strategy. You know, we don’t do business in Facebook Inboxes (where messages get filtered!), or via twitter (who can pitch in 140 characters?).
The easiest, and most professional, way to keep in contact with your audience is email.
Lean in, cause I’m covering the big deets – when to invest in an email marketing solution, which (ultra cost friendly) email marketing tool I love, and why it takes the guesswork out of sending emails.
When do I drop the coin for an ‘official’ email marketing product?
Back in the day (like 2009, ha!) you collected email addresses from your fans and followers, and then you would copy and paste them to a list or somehow save them in your email address book. From there, when you needed to send updates, you’d copy and paste them into the address line in your email. SUPER Old School. Emphasis on Old.
The copy and paste method is cool when you have 10-20 people on your list, but we’re fancypants entrepreneurs building mega tribes, right? We don’t have time for that! Not to mention the list of other issues:
- Strangers seeing your email addy.
- Who opened what email, and when?
- Manually unsubscribing people who don’t realize your awesomeness.
- And of course, we all know someone who always hits ‘reply all’ – and no one likes that person. Don’t be that person.
So it comes down to this – if you’re operating a business (no matter the size of your email list), and you plan on growing your brand – you need to invest in an email marketing solution.
Okay, I get it, Nicole – but WHICH email marketing system? And it better not be expensive!
Guys, you know I have you covered on the low business overhead! My two favorites – budget friendly, but value packed email marketing systems are MailChimp and ConvertKit. I’ve tried the fancypants guru favorites InfusionSoft and Aweber. They work – but between the cost, ultra basic templates and the 3-hour tutorial to get the most bang for your buck – they’re so not my style. Especially the cost. Ha!
ConvertKit & MailChimp. That’s easy – but what do they DO?
The real question, is what don’t they do! You can:
- Store all the email addresses you collect in a database.
- Create different customer lists i.e. Facebook lead list or Instagram lead list.
- Deliver emails to the people on your list – this is called a ‘broadcast.’
- Delegate your unsubscribe management to your mmail management system.
- Find out who actually opened your email and clicked the links to greatness you share!
Ok, so obviously all email management systems do these things – but what bells and whistles make Mailchimp and ConvertKit the hot stuff? Well…
MailChimp
- Simple pricing structure (basic level is FREE – my favorite price to pay!)
- Super easy to set up.
- VIDEOS! Their help center has tons of easy to follow videos that SHOW you how to do things.
- Dashboard amazingness – it’s so easy to tell how well an email does. You can tell how many people opened it and how many people leave your list – right at login.
Y’all, when I was a newbie, MailChimp stole my heart. I started with them when I had about 109 people on my list (reminder: I had a blog business BEFORE I launched my consulting company). I even stayed with MailChimp for over a year after that. As my list grew, I needed features that served my Richfriends more – features like ‘segmentation,’. Segmentation allows you to send personalized messages to different people on your list based on what they’ve clicked on or emails they’ve loved. Yep, not everyone wants to see all your business all the time. Once I had over 5000 people on my list, I ‘outgrew’ what I wanted from MailChimp…so I graduated to ConvertKit…well sorta.
The thing before, my newest love – ConvertKit!
I heard from industry greats that InfusionSoft was the way to go, so I had my team get on that ASAP (I don’t do tech). I dropped the coin, switched to InfusionSoft, and it was not my thing. Complicated, chock full of awesome features (that I had no idea how to use quickly) and my Richfriends were all waiting to hear from me! I needed a new option, and I needed one fast. 60 days later we found ConvertKit and made the switch.
Guys. Y’all. Richfriends…I’m obsessed.
ConvertKit does everything MailChimp does PLUS segmentation and it’s cheaper!!!!
What does this mean for you, my brilliant Richfriend?
Check it out for yourself, read up on ConvertKit here. If you do decide to opt for ConvertKit, I am a user and affiliate of their product (like I said- OBSESSED) so use my sign up link: http://mbsy.co/convertkit/22272554
If you have questions that I wasn’t able to answer in this post, please leave them below and let’s chat!
Do The Work and Get Your Coin!