The Basics of Email Marketing For Authors
The importance of starting an email campaign, software recommendations, and content ideas!
photo by Stephen phillips on unsplash
Email marketing is a great way to create personalized content and grow your audience which is important as an author to get your name out there and effectively sell your books. if you haven’t set up an email list, what’s holding you back? let’s discuss the benefits of email marketing and how to start your email list today.
The importance of having an email list
While there’s benefits to promoting on social media, the downfall is that a social media platform can go down at any time, your account can get deleted and hacked, and you’ll have lost your entire audience. expanding to an email list ensures you don’t lose your content, as it’s your own property.
An email list also allows you to determine who your most engaged followers are so you can figure out your demographic. this is important in book marketing, and being able to see the analytics for your email campaigns is a huge benefit. for example, email marketing platforms often show the number of emails opened and read, engagement within the emails such as number of links clicked, and if anyone unsubscribes after receiving your emails. knowing this data, you can change things up if a certain type of post or email isn’t working so you can get your content to more people!
How to start an email list
1. Choose an email platform
With newsletters and email marketing on the rise, there are so many platforms to get you started with an email list. Here a few of the popular ones!
Substack - Substack offers a variety of formats to help you get your content to viewers including podcasting, blogging, comic books, and local news reporting. using this platform allows you to market to free and paid subscribers, allowing you to generate income as a creative! another bonus is that the site is free to use, so there’s no initial cost to worry about.
Mailerlite - (This is my platform of choice!) Mailerlite is a great site for first time email marketers. it offers different designers including the easy to navigate drag and drop editor, so no knowledge of web coding is required. you can also view your analytics from your dashboard to see what’s working for your campaigns. this site’s pricing plans are dependent on your subscriber count. if your mailing list is under 1k subscribers, you can use the free plan. they have a full breakdown of pricing options on their site.
Mailchimp - Mailchimp is an all-in-one site for website building and email marketing, so this could be a good option for anyone looking to start selling products as well. Within the site you can also create ads, landing pages, and of course, an automated newsletter for your subscribers. Mailchimp offers a few different pricing options depending on what you want to use the site for whether it be marketing, websites and commerce, or transactional email. Each has a free option to start you off, and the standard marketing option is $17/month for 500 contacts.
Flodesk - Flodesk is an automated email marketing system perfect for both beginners and experts looking to create an eye-catching visual experience for their audience. There’s also plenty of app integrations including Shopify, Zapier, Facebook, Instagram, and Wordpress. Flodesk offers a 30 day free trial with unlimited access, but after that, it starts at $38/month.
2. Create a schedule
With an email list, you’ll want to follow a schedule that you can be consistent with and isn’t overwhelming. A weekly campaign is common, but that can be a lot for some. Bimonthly or monthly is perfectly fine too, especially when you’re just starting out. Try to be consistent so your subscribers have an idea of when to expect your emails!
Types of content to include in your email newsletter
Unsure of what to discuss in your newsletter? Be sure to offer exclusive content that your readers can’t get elsewhere. Here are some suggestions:
Behind the scenes of your writing process: give updates about what you’re working on and give your subscribers a sneak peek before anyone else. This includes cover reveals, first chance to order preorders, etc.
Storytelling: Why you wrote your book, behind the scenes of certain poems, characters, chapters, etc.
Sell! Don’t be afraid to promote your book to your subscribers. Share links to buy your book, book reviews, photos of your book that readers have taken, etc. See your email list to expand your audience and find new readers!
There’s no better time than now to start growing your audience and marketing your book. Creating an email marketing plan will help you get your content out there so you can grow as a writer!
Inside the Creative’s Content Club, I not only provide a monthly content plan for social media, I also give you 4 weekly newsletter ideas so you never run out of content and always keep your audience engaged and ready to buy! Join the waitlist here to learn more about when the club is open for enrollment soon!
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