Creative businesses make 5 mistakes when growing an email list. Let’s be honest. There are more than 5, but we will start with the ones that I continually see. Emails mistakes can be common when first starting out a creative business, but they do not have to be. The key is to identify you are making these email mistakes and then change your habits for the best list of subscribers you have ever had before.

1.) Finding reasons not to start.

Growing an email list can make everyone squirm. Reasons can be anywhere we choose to find them. Some of the most common ones I see are that they think their business is too small or too new before they start. Most successful businesses would tell you to start before you’re ready. It doesn’t matter how long you have been creating or being an entrepreneur, it just matters that you gain a direct line fo communication through an email list.

One of the other reasons I have heard is not knowing what content to put into emails once someone hops on a list. I completely understand the time it takes to to come up with relevant content for an email. You not only want it to be relevant, but an accurate reflection of your creative business. You might think of the imagery that goes into that email, the messaging of that email, and most of all, how to convert that subscriber into a customer.

If you are needing some email content creation ideas, I have 120 free email topics to get you started!

Let me tell you a secret. People do not need another person selling to them. They want someone that will serve them first. Serving someone well in between the launches, nurtures relationships and makes them trust you as a business. If you take on the mindset of providing value, it relieves the stress of selling. Nurturing an email list can just look like providing value and giving your audience a behind the scenes of what you do.

What does “value” look like? It depends on your business. It can come in the form of tips of how the subscriber can be successful, how to create something, or even how to plan for success. You can do monthly challenges, live question and answer forums, or telling them when you are going live online. The key is to give away enough for them to know you are knowledgable, but not the “how” of doing something.

2.) Not being consistent in sending out weekly emails.

When first starting to truly nurture my email list, I thought it looked like monthly emails. Monthly email newsletters seem less intimidating, but hear me out. There is a huge chance that the amount of content you are loading into that one newsletter can be broken apart into 4 pieces of content for the entire month. By breaking down your content, you can send the emails out more consistently. It’s more important in the long run to be focus on frequency over quantity. That way, your call to actions are right to the point and they can consume your email without overwhelm.

For the first year or so after growing an email list, I decided I would start with monthly emails. Do you know what happened? My open rates were low and important emails were missed. When my launches of products came, the subscribers didn’t know me, and did not want to buy what I offered. Then, I decided to start sending out weekly emails. My subscribers started consistently opening my emails, with double the industry standard. The industry standard for an email being opened is around 20% whereas my emails are now being opened 50% of the time.

3.) Not setting yearly email goals is a definite email mistake.

I think email content creation seems to be intimidating, because creative businesses think they don’t know what to write. So here is my challenge for you so that you don’t make this email mistake. Download the “annual planner” page of the 120 free email topic ideas freebie. Once you do that, you can write in the email topic idea you want to use for a particular month and week of the year. Set aside a few empty weeks for launch emails, and fill the rest with nurturing emails.

If you truly want to make this consistent, you need to write in at least 4 topics for each month (with less than 5 words each). You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with coming up with the detailed emails yet. You are just making a yearly plan. Inside the Gather Membership, show you my exact process for planning out yearly email content without a hitch. That includes showing them the exact calendar I use for yearly planning, and the software that makes it easier for planning out specific emails.

4.) Not repurposing social media content.

This one gets my every time. Let me ask you. How many posts have you created this month for social media or for Pinterest? If your answer is more than 4, then you have unintentionally written out your email content. You see, your are already creating a ton of content for marketing your business, and it just takes pulling that same content into emails to make your time worthwhile.

I challenge you to go back through your best performing posts on Instagram, and pins on Pinterest. What does your audience respond to the most? Once you have pointed that out, look at the caption or blog post it’s linked to. Then, take some of that content and insert it into four emails for the month. It can be looked at like a story that you are sharing, one email at a time, over the course of a month. If you don’t want to do that, then you can talk briefly about the content you have created and then link where the rest of that content is located. That makes them have to jump over to your website to drive more traffic there, or hop over to the social media platform it’s located on to follow you there.

5.) Too many calls to action.

The main mistake I see is that creative businesses think they need to write a novel for each email. They hide their fear of weekly emails under the “monthly newsletter.” Let me be honest here. Monthly emails will not keep you top of mind for your subscribers. Not only that, but monthly newsletters are contain too much information and too many calls to action. You are trying to cram all the information for the month to keep your subscriber updated, but you are causing overwhelm. You don’t have to make this email mistake.

Instead, break that one email up into four emails for the month. That way, you are lessening the amount of information going into it, and will get most engagement with your calls to action from a lack of choices. Make each email with the end in mind. What are you creating this email for? Entertainment, information, nurturing, or selling. Within the 120 free email topic idea freebie, I share an individual email dump page that helps you plan out individual emails by their purpose.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it’s important to simply start creating weekly emails as a creative professional. It does’t matter how long you have been in business, or how many sales you have had. You have an amazing story to tell and it will impact every subscriber that comes your way. Maintain the mentality of serving over selling, and watch your email list grow with raving fans for you and your business.