The Pros and Cons to Growing an Email List

INTRO: After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host, Kathryn Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place. Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter, one size fits all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life. Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast. And here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, super stoked that you're tuning in to this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive into today's topic [00:01:00] because I'm going to be answering a very specific question that came from one of you amazing audiences.

Members, you know who you are and that is what are the pros and cons of having an email list? This particular audience member had asked if I had an episode where I kind of talked about this and I do not. So I decided to record an episode because I know a lot of people, whether you're just starting out in business, it's something that you're considering, or if you've been in business a while, you're like, man, It's something that I might want to add into my business.

And so I want to share with you my perspectives from running two very different businesses, a physical brick and mortar business and an online business and why I decided to really invest my time into cultivating my email list. But I'm also going to share with you some of the cons for you to consider.

But I am pro email list building. I think it's really, really important. And I did it very differently in both companies. [00:02:00] So the biggest pro for me and cultivating an email list is, is that you have direct communication with the people that have raised your, their hand to supporting you in some way, shape, or form.

And in my brick and mortar business, that looked like people that bought wine from us. So our email list with our brick and mortar just consisted of people that had purchased from us. And that way, I was able to directly communicate with them rather than only being able to communicate through social media.

And with my brick and mortar business, I didn't have a lot of time to create social media content. So when I was looking at how do I want to best communicate with my people, it was email list of my brick and mortar. It was similar to my online business as well, but my email list for my online business doesn't consist of just people that have invested to work with me.

[00:03:00] It consists of people that have raised their hand to learn from me, uh, opted into a free training or my quiz, and it really is designed to stay connected with the people that want to be with in my world or have raised my, their hand to be in my world. Right? So you can see the difference between that.

But the key pro in my opinion is that you have that direct communication with the people that are expressing that they want to be in your world, whether they've invested in you or not. Uh, it's a way to really directly communicate. with them. It's also a really cost effective way to market in comparison to running ads and that sort of thing.

Right? So I'm not talking about organic marketing and social media, but it is a lot cheaper than running any sort of paid media. And so in my brick and mortar, we did do some paid media initially, but it was quite expensive. It was radio and print, which [00:04:00] is very expensive ways of advertising. And we knew straight away that it just wasn't the best way to utilize our profits and our revenue, um, to market our business.

And so we decided to heavily focus on the email list building. And so anytime somebody purchased, we always asked if we could add them to our email list. If they said, yes, we added them. If they said, no, that was cool. We didn't add them, but it was a way then for us to share what was going on in the store, any promotions that we were running.

Anytime we were launching a barrel club, um, You name it, it was done all through the email list. And in all honesty, that email list of 700 when we sold our brick and mortar was the key generating revenue generating thing that we did in our business when it came to marketing was our email list. That's how people knew what was going on.

and the sales and all those sorts of things. And that's often what had people coming back in the store who potentially [00:05:00] hadn't bought in a while or who didn't buy the last time they were in the store and therefore were like, Oh yes, she's got a promotion going on, or she's launching a new barrel this week or whatever it might be.

And so the email list for us was really, really important. I will preface that the other really beautiful thing about having an email list is that you can segment it. So. Had we built a funnel for our brick and mortar business where we were, you know, putting out maybe freebies or promotional codes, you could get this promotional code if you sign up for the newsletter, that sort of thing, then we could segment our list with those that have bought from us and those that opted in maybe for that like discount code or something like that to join the newsletter.

Why this is really important is because when we can segment our lists, we can communicate to the different audiences differently. For example, in my brick and mortar business, uh, I did have a separate list for those that expressed interest to be in our barrel club and our [00:06:00] barrel club was very different than what we did regularly in the store.

And so people that raised their hand to be on our barrel club. I would announce any new barrels to them first, and those barrel spots would sell out often within an hour of me sending that email. So that email never got to our main list, and there was about a hundred people on that list when we actually sold our business, which is pretty wild, right?

You know, I am very much pro email because it just allows me to have that sort of direct communication with people. And like I was saying, you can have very targeted messages when you start to segment your list in different ways. In my online business, my lists are segmented based on how people came into my world.

For example, if you've opted into my quiz, you are segmented via the quiz. If you opted into my selling the invisible training, You're segmented via that way. So I know what you're interested in. If you opted into my private podcast, if you've boughten [00:07:00] something from me, I know all of the people that have invested with me so I can communicate very differently to different people through this segmentation.

So that's also really key. Whereas on social media, for example, when you're posting on Instagram or Facebook, It's more of a push message that's going out and you're hoping and praying that the algorithm delivers it to the people that you want it to deliver to, but you can't get really targeted with your messaging, which is why a lot of people then pay for media, right?

So if you're running Facebook ads, you can hyper target your audience to only put that ad in front of specific people, which is great. It's really great. But that's paid media, right? So there's no really other way to get that targeted. I mean, hashtags will allow you to do that. Keyword searching or SEO will allow you to do that.

But again, um, it's not really targeted to people that have raised their hands specifically to [00:08:00] hear from you. SEO. Organic marketing, hashtags, all those sorts of things. You're relying on somebody else's algorithm. You're also relying on somebody else's platform or system to build that audience for you.

Again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that you don't quote unquote, um, really have access or you don't own that audience. So to speak. And owning sounds like a really controlling, harsh sort of word. It's not that you like, own the people on your email list, but they have raised their hand and expressed interest, whether they've bought from you or not, those that have come on there have raised their hand to want to hear from you.

And one of the things that I've been hearing a lot lately, Specifically with bigger brands, there was a musician recently that posted on social media, has hundreds of thousands of followers and had spent many, many, many years selling his tickets and announcing his live [00:09:00] shows to his audience. Instagram Following.

And that's where a lot of his sales came from. Majority of his sales. I don't even think he had an email list because he said, I'm now going to start an email list because engagement on Instagram has been really crappy lately. And it's really beautiful to see Big brands coming out and speaking against it because oftentimes as small creators, we're led to believe, well, your content's just shitty.

And then we spin our tails trying to create content to get higher reach and higher views. And in reality, you know, people with hundreds of thousands of followers are now saying how bad their reach is and that a lot of people that would have naturally gone to his live show, have reached out going, I didn't even know you were performing live at X, Y, and Z.

Like, I would have bought a ticket, man. Like, what the heck? And so now he's saying, I'm starting a email list so that I can email you guys directly to let you know when my live shows are and when tickets go on sale. [00:10:00] Right? And so this is, again, why I believe email list is so powerful because, you know, We don't have control over the algorithm.

We don't know how Instagram and Facebook and Meta are doing it. And so if that's out of our hands, so we don't actually own the audience there, but we also don't have control over the algorithm. Now, with email, there are some cons here. but I think they're cons for a good reason and I'll get into those.

The other thing about, um, email is that there's a lot more specific measurements or data that you can garner from emails. For example, one of the biggest things I hear from people that come into my world is, Kathryn, my engagement has gone down and my reach isn't the same as it used to be. And I'm pouring my heart and soul into creating content, but what's the point when I'm getting three likes or ten likes?

And I want to say that disappointment is a very valid feeling in that [00:11:00] regard, and I also want to say that oftentimes, you know, the rhetoric is gaslighting because it's like, oh, well, you just got to change your perception, you've got to detach from the outcome. And I totally get that, but I also get, we don't want to be putting in tons and tons of effort with very little return on that.

That, to me, is an inefficient use of our time and our resources. And we can't garner from a social media post, when we put that out there, what people are really digesting, but we're also relying on that push method. We're pushing the content out and hoping people are reading it, liking it, saving it, all those sorts of things.

But just because someone says something, we don't actually really know. what they're kind of doing with that. We don't know if they click through then to our website. For example, if I say click the link in my bio to watch this podcast episode, I have no idea how many people are actually clicking on that with, without more sophisticated tracking data, [00:12:00] which is possible.

But again, it's a lot more complicated, um, and sophisticated marketing. And if you're just starting out, again, all of this can be quite overwhelming. Whereas an email, you can see who opens, you can see who click throughs, you can see all of that. You can't see that on, on social media. I can't see whether or not you're following through and clicking on the links.

And again, someone might say, well, I don't really want to track people's behavior like that, but. You do want to get a sense of whether or not your content's landing and those are metrics, more specific metrics that you can track in email that allows you to really see what is truly landing. Because there's nothing more frustrating than posting something, getting, you know, 20 views on something and then going, well, I don't know what I'm missing here.

There's I don't know what's working and what isn't working. And the data is the thing that's going to show you that. The other thing about email is for me, I feel like it's just [00:13:00] a really beautiful way to form deeper relationships. And the reason I say that is because social media, Facebook, Insta, TikTok, you name it, is really designed to grab attention.

and create awareness for sure, but it's that attention grabbing. It's that dopamine hitting, right? Everything's short form, snappy, three seconds. Otherwise people are going to, you know, you're going to lose them. Whereas email allows you to, to create more longer form content. And to me, longer form content is a, is a way to really kind of highlight and showcase who you are, what you stand for, what your values are.

And that allows you to build, I think, deeper sort of relationships where. For me, a lot of social media is pushing out content, right? You're pushing out a message. Of course, you can have conversations in the DMs and all those sorts of things. However, it's not long form content. Facebook allows you to have longer form content, but I do think that there is sort of like a personal, deeper connection there [00:14:00] because they're providing you with their email.

So you're dropping into their inbox. So to me, it's a beautiful way to form deeper, connections with your people. Now, The other really great benefit of it is, is that you're able to really email specific people with your offers. Therefore you have the opportunity to increase sales, especially if you're finding social media isn't really great for you.

working for you when it comes to selling your offer. You're hearing crickets, maybe you're in the friend zone, maybe you feel like you're speaking to the void. Again, email is another beautiful way to sort of like directly communicate with your people, segment that list, and really target your messaging in that way.

Now, the cons in email is, is number one, I think the biggest one for people is it's time consuming. So There's a lot of discipline, commitment, and also creative output that goes [00:15:00] into crafting a well crafted email. And it is that longer form content. So, for example, on Instagram, if you're doing like a catchy hook with like a caption, that's like, save this as a reminder, that's like really short form, right?

There's not a It's not as much energetic output as writing a longer form email. I'm not saying all emails have to be long, um, and take a lot of time, but it can be time consuming to come up with the idea to it, to write it, to sit down, and all those sorts of things, to schedule it, you name it. And so, I just want to preface that, but, it also can take you time creating social media content as well.

And so that's something to consider. The other thing to consider is, is that there are heightened privacy and spam filters happening all the time with email. I think this is actually a really good thing because I feel like it's really important to be in integrity with who you're emailing, getting permission, following all of the privacy legislation and all that that is required when emailing.

Thank you. Based on [00:16:00] the country that you're in and that sort of thing. So some might look at that as like, well, deliverability is down or there's spam filters or all the things, but at the end of the day, and the privacy stuff that has gone across the board in both of my businesses never impacted my open rates and never impacted my click through rates.

So I just want you to consider that, that the number of people on my email list, my open rates are exactly the same and they have been for six years, right? I mean, they've improved and they, they fluctuate from time to time, but they're really great. They're anywhere from 50 to 70 percent open rate, which is phenomenal, right?

And the click through rate is, is right on par as well. And so. We can complain about spam and all of that. I don't feel like I've been sort of hit with that. I've heard other people have been hit with it. So that is a con to consider. Um, and then of course there's unsubscribes and, and whatnot, and that can.

You know, play a factor with people depending on your mindset and sort of where you're at. Um, I don't care about [00:17:00] unsubscribes. If people want to unsubscribe, I'm like, cool, but I do know that that can wreak havoc on people's mindset where they're like, Oh my gosh, I had 10 unsubscribes. Like what's going on?

And we hyper focus on the unsubscribes rather than on the people that are continuing to decide to stay on your list. Um, so that's something to navigate, but you can also see when people unfollow you on social media. So that plays a factor there as well. To me, it's not really a con, um, in my opinion, because it happens across the board.

People unfollow you on social media, people unsubscribe on your email list. That's, that's the thing. Um, one could say there's competition for attention, meaning our inboxes are full of stuff, but I would also say that there's a competition for attention on social media, if not more, to be, to be honest, right?

I mean, if not more, I think that it's getting noisier and noisier out there and simultaneously can be in your inbox as well. I think I come from the [00:18:00] mindset of like, you know, I truly trust and believe that the people that want to be on my list will be on my list. And those that open my emails or read them will find them valuable and all those sorts of things.

And I really want to work with people that prioritize what they want. And not be distracted by all the shiny object syndrome out there, don't have an inbox full of hundreds of the same people saying similar things, right? That like, I'm really looking to work with people that are focused, um, that are, you know, carving out time and prioritizing time on what they want and what they desire.

And if that's my, in my emails, great. And if it's not great, um, and I also work with people who aren't distracted by all the shiny objects, like this person saying this, and this person saying this, and this person saying this, like that's not the energy that I sort of bring into my, into my business. So if my emails get lost in the shuffle of somebody's inbox, because it's jam packed and they're not opening my emails, then.[00:19:00] 

then that's cool. That's on them, right? So there is a level of organization and a level of prioritizing and a discipline to stay focused on what it is that they want to co create in their business. And they aren't distracted by all the shiny object syndrome. So those just aren't my people. Um, yeah. And then I think, like I said, there, there can be technical issues with, with emails, but there could also be technical issues with social media.

I mean, I don't know if anybody paid attention recently, but anybody that was hooked up with many chat on Instagram, all of a sudden their DM started sending really weird code out and lots of big influencers were like, what the heck's going on? I'm talking people that have hundreds of thousands of followers because they're just their people, um, their audience were getting these weird coded messages.

I mean, things can happen. That's tech. And again, we can't control when things break down or, or we have issues or that sort of thing. And again, the more we can, uh, relinquish the control of trying to control all the things, [00:20:00] and the more we can surrender to the idea of it, rather than being worrisome with it, um, the easier you're going to have with business in general, because there's pros and cons to everything, right?

There's pros and cons to social media. There's pros and cons to email. There's pros and cons to, you name it, the way that you deliver your programs, the business model that you use, you name it. And so all I can say is, is that the important thing for you to consider is how do you want to communicate with your people?

Where do you want to spend your time communicating with your people? If it's social media, great. If it's a combination of email and social media, great, but I often will say, you know, pick a lane, pick a channel of communication that's really important to you and focus on that channel and multiple channels and diversifying channels is important.

However, [00:21:00] if you're a solopreneur just starting out, pick one. When I started my brick and mortar, it was like, I am going to focus on building an email list of people that have bought wine from us. I don't have time to be on social media all the time because I was in my store operating my business and running it.

So I didn't have the time to post on social media. So it wasn't an effective channel for me. Did we have social media? Yes. But it wasn't something I could consistently do and consistently rely on. Um, okay. promoting my business via. So email was it an email of people that purchased because those were the most captivated, hot audience, right?

They already raised their hand by buying wine from us. And so it was about nurturing them and keeping them in the loop of what was going on and regularly communicating with them via email. That email list, like I said, when we sold it with 700 people, my barrel club email list was a hundred. And we would sell out within an hour of [00:22:00] launching a barrel club.

So I just want to preface that you don't need a big email list. You don't even need a big following. You just need to commit to building the relationships via that communication channel, email, social media. Paid ads is just the vehicle for communication. So how do you want to communicate and why do you want to communicate via that channel?

And then make that decision based on that. But spreading yourself too thin across all communication channels, especially when you're just starting out, we'll then just create that sort of scattered spread too thin energy, right? And so again, when I come back to, well, I'm competing for people's attention.

No, I'm not competing for anybody's attention because I'm not even putting that energy into it. I trust that people that want to pay attention will pay attention. I'm not competing for anybody's attention. I'm putting out my message out into the world and I [00:23:00] trust that those that resonate with it want to hear it.

I'm not going to sit here and dance and play into that realm of I'm competing for somebody else's attention. I don't have control over that. And I think I shared that on last week's episode, right? It's a really It's an icky energy for me to be in, to even consider to live in, that I have control over whose attention I grab, who I influence, how I influence them.

That's control at its finest, and so I'm not playing into the realm of I'm going to compete for anybody's attention. Those that want to listen to me will listen to me. Those that want to prioritize opening my emails will prioritize opening my emails. Those that want to listen to my podcast will prioritize listening to my podcast.

I'm not, I'm not going to dance. like a monkey on screen and perform to grab somebody's attention. That's not the energy that I'm grounded in or embodied in. And so [00:24:00] that's something for you to consider. Where is my energy? What am I grounded in? And what am I embodied in? And then own that, just own it. And so make the decision on what channel you want to communicate on because there is Pros and cons to everything.

There's absolutely pros to cons to everything, and I could probably do a whole episode on pros and cons on business model, pros and cons on email versus social media, you name it. Um, I could do it. I've tried a lot. And then, of course, in my online business, I, really focused on building my email list so that I could really communicate with people in a more, um, narrow and specific way, right?

We can call it targeted, right? As I knew who was coming into my world and I knew where they were coming into my world from, and I knew what They raised their hand being interested in so that I could really kind of communicate to them in a specific way. And I think that that's really important, but I also, I am somebody again, who's not wanting to [00:25:00] push out content and push out a message.

So. That was huge for me. Like, do I create social media content? Absolutely. Is it a channel that I communicate with? Yes, but I picked Instagram and for the last six years in my business, I think I might be eight years now, um, six years or eight years, I focused primarily on Instagram. Yes, I have a presence on Facebook, but I just cross promote over there.

And then I focused on my podcast and my email, but the podcast came way later. Like the podcast has only been running, it'll be four years this summer. And my email was a primary thing that I wanted to sort of create. And the reason why I created it where it's not just for people that have invested, because in the online world, it's a way to reach your people by putting out things like a quiz or a masterclass.

or an opt in of some sort. With my brick and mortar, I had a physical location. So that was the storefront and there was signage and we were in a high traffic area. So we were [00:26:00] highly visible to our ideal audience, right? It's all about the visibility. And so in the online business, creating a quiz or creating a masterclass is that form of visibility.

In my opinion, and that's the thing that helped me build the email list, but I love, I love communicating via my email list, and I love receiving the responses that I get, and I get a lot of responses, not always. people buying from me, but people just being like, I love your message, or I love what you had to say in this email, or oof, that really hit, or that really landed, or whatever, right?

I love that engagement. And I'm not saying I don't get that on social media, because I do from time to time, but there's just something really personal about an email landing in my personal inbox, rather than a DM that's coming through. Again, it's my personal DMs, but there's something really personal about my email.

Maybe it's just my age. And, you know, I grew up in email. I communicated via email for my, you know, when I was in corporate and all of that. And so maybe I just have a different, um, [00:27:00] soft spot for email. But anyways, to me, it really is our ability to directly communicate with people that have showed interest in one way or another in our company.

And I'm such a fan of email. cultivating an email list. And I hear more and more bigger names, like I said, that say, I wish I would have done it sooner. I wish I would have done it at the beginning of my business. So if I was starting over again, I would focus my energy on email hands down. So with that, I hope this has been really helpful.

And of course, if you have any questions about this, reach out to me in the DMs or shoot me an email. I am there. I respond to everything. Cheers. Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at CreativelyOwned and online at CreativelyOwned. com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic [00:28:00] self.