Do You Really Need an Email List?

Do You Need an Email List? Let's Break it Down.

The Short Answer is Yes. The Long (not really) Answer is below…

Photograph by Christine Gosch Styling by Editor’s Course alum Kim Rico and Floral Design by Editor’s Course alum Ever Something at Spain Ranch

What’s having a great comeback? Well, flare jeans are, yes. But also, email lists. For the past few months, I have received more questions about email marketing and with all of the talk about it, it makes sense.

As social media platforms become more volatile and unreliable everyone is remembering what has been consistent and always there for them no matter what—email.

YOU OWN YOUR EMAIL LIST. YOU DON’T OWN YOUR INSTAGRAM FOLLOWING.

So, it makes sense to pay attention to the thing that has the most longevity potential in your marketing.

However, I keep getting asked, “Do I really need an email list?” Especially those who work in the wedding industry, their reasoning being,

“Shouldn’t my clients only be a one-time experience? So what good is having them on an email list if I can’t sell to them again?”

Such a good question. Let’s dive in:

AN EMAIL LIST IS MORE THAN A MARKETING TOOL—IT IS AN ASSET.

If you were to ever sell your business, an email list would be considered an asset in your business evaluation.

Regardless if you are in the wedding industry, or in your business you only work with clients once or some other reasoning—building your email list has value.

In Editor’s Course, I teach you how to build a sellable business. Why? What if something happened, God forbid, where you had to quit or sell—wouldn’t you want the option to sell and make some money off of your years of work? Even if you never intend to sell, building a sellable business is a wise strategy to ensure you are building a business of value.

YOU MAY WANT TO SWITCH FROM SERVICE TO PRODUCT OR PRODUCT TO SERVICE.

Having an email list, preferably a warm one, will help the transition.

Service to Product: Let’s say you are a wedding photographer. And you are right, couples should only book you once. But, after a decade or two in the business, you notice your back hurting a lot more than it used to every Sunday morning after a wedding. You love your job, but your body is starting to age—you can’t keep up like you used to.

Instead of quietly quitting, what if you had made a plan to create a product for couples, something that didn’t require so much physical labor? Even if that product was for new couples, wouldn’t it be nice to spread the word about it to the decades of couples you’ve been serving to start the word of mouth for you?

Product to Service: You are a business-to-business product-based company. Things are going great, but after a while, you notice a need in the market—the general public—that your product could serve. You find a way where you could sell directly to the general public int he form of a service that might make you more money that you’d like to pursue.

Instead of having to ask your business clients to spread the word, and are very likely not going to want to help you, wouldn’t it be nice if you had grown an email list of people who were genuinely interested in your product that may be more apt to purchase this new service?

YES, YOU SHOULD HAVE AN EMAIL LIST.

But how much you really need to work on it, to me, is dependent upon your short and long-term goals.

In Editor’s Course, I am ruthless in guiding you to focusing on the marketing platforms that actually yield an ROI for you. Yes, all of the research and stats are true that email can yield some of the highest and most direct sales. But with any research, stats can be skewed and not everyone has the same type of creative business.

Therefore, not everyone needs the same email marketing plan. Does it yield a direct ROI for you? Then you should put forth some effort and be consistent with it. Have you, after giving a decent effort, found that the numbers—and I mean sales numbers—were never worth your time investment? Then make a plan to just keep it up making your time investment and financial return equal.

Keep it simple. Don’t overthink it. Good things take time.