In this workshop, Made By James will be giving you all the tools you need to nurture your relationships and upsell your services and products to an established audience of buyers. There is a reason that the world's top creatives rave about their newsletter! It is a great source of income and integral to building trust in your brand… After this session you will wish you started a newsletter sooner.James Martin, AKA Made By James, is the owner of a brand and animation studio based in the UK called Baby Giant Design Co. He has amassed an online audience of hundreds of thousands across multiple platforms and he has over 320K followers on instagram alone. He is a designer that helps other designers and his mission is simple, he is here to help alleviate the daily struggles of creative humans through honest and engaging educational content.
Benefits of Growing Your Newsletter
Your email list is one of the most valuable assets for any business or personal brand. Some key benefitsinclude:
You own your audience. Unlike social media where you're on "rented land", your email list cannot be taken away from you.
Email drives more conversions than other channels.** According to research, email marketing consistently converts better than any other digital marketing channel like search or social media.
It allows you to build value and nurture relationships.** By providing useful, valuable content on a consistent basis, a newsletter helps prove your expertise while strengthening connections with your audience.
It's a direct line of communication. You have a direct channel to reach your entire audience that doesn't depend on algorithms. This allows you to promote your products, services, launches and more directly.
It can become a profitable ecosystem. With the right cadence of both free and premium offers, a newsletter allows you to build a self-sustaining business through repeated customer interactions over time.
Keys to Newsletter Success
The keys to growing a successful newsletter include:
Provide value first, sell second. About 80-90% of your newsletter content should be free value and ideas. Selling should make up a small minority to build trust.
Consistently deliver high-quality, useful content. Take the time to craft content that truly helps and educates readers with industry insights, tips, lessons learned and other expertise.
Build it as a relationship, not just a broadcast. Take the time to engage and respond to readers to nurture the connections and foster goodwill over time.
Get readers onto your list through lead magnets. Offer valuable free downloads, checklists, templates etc. in exchange for an email opt-in to begin the relationship.
Use cadence strategically. Vary your frequency and content types (e.g. weekly, biweekly) and strategically weave in premium offers at optimal points in this rhythm.
Framework for Growing Your List
The following steps will help grow an engaged subscriber base over time:
1. Create a Lead Magnet. Develop a valuable free asset (guide, template etc.) to entice opt-ins.
2. Drive Traffic to an Opt-in Page. Promote your lead magnet on social media, your website or blog to generate interest and capture leads.
3. Welcome & Onboard New Subscribers. Send a welcome series to introduce yourself and contextualize future emails.
4. Deliver Consistent Valuable Content. Share high-quality industry insights, lessons learned, tutorials etc. on a frequent cadence (e.g. weekly).
5. Weave in Strategic Offers. At appropriate cadence intervals, promote premium offers by building perceived value first over time.
6. Nurture Relationships. Engage readers through personal touches like thank you notes, reader polls and comments.
7. Measure & Refine.** Analyze open and click rates plus conversion data to optimize and test new content/offer strategies.
Action Steps
1. Brainstorm 3-5 ideas for a valuable lead magnet you could offer readers for opt-ins.
2. Draft a welcome series outline to introduce your brand's voice and value to new subscribers.
3. Map out content topics and a publishing schedule for the next 3 months of your newsletter.
4. Research email marketing best practices and analytics tools to measure engagement over time.
5. Interview successful entrepreneurs about how they strategically nurture reader relationships.
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