How To Make Money With Your Email List As A Creative Small Business Owner
I’d like to start this blog by saying that collecting emails and sending newsletters from your business is not a requirement for success. In fact, for my business, I have yet to even set up an opt-in form or offer a valuable freebie in order to collect email addresses. As of writing this, there hasn’t been much need for me to do that, and it’s not something I want to take on if I don’t have the time to nurture it.
That being said, if you are ready to add a revenue stream via your email list (or if you’ve already started doing so), this blog is chock full of ideas for how to make money with your email list as a small creative business owner.
How Email Marketing Can Help Your Business Grow
1. Build a truly loyal audience.
The best part about email marketing is that your audience has actively chosen to be your audience. They decided to sign up for your email list, which means to some extent they actively want to hear from you. Now, your goal is to transform those casual followers to true fans of your brand.
2. Grow your customer’s engagement through storytelling.
Brand storytelling can look like a lot of different things, but, at its core, it means what you choose to share and how you share it. So by using your brand’s newsletters and emails to talk about how your business got to this point, what inspired your latest collection, and more about the values of your brand, your clients will start to feel more connected with you. That means, they’ll feel less trepidation about purchasing your goods or services.
3. Share exclusive offers with your biggest fans.
Reward your brand’s loyal fans with exclusivity. Offer them early access to new products/services, give them special discounts, and host giveaways that are only open to email subscribers. After all, why wouldn’t you want to celebrate the customers who so often celebrate you?
4. Dive deeper into your work and expertise.
A great website is a great meal. Your readers should get everything they need to feel content with your brand. That means your marketing emails are like special courses and desserts. You can really focus on smaller stories and details that don’t always make it to your main portfolio or social media pages. And, you can continue to highlight your business’s achievements, further showing you to be an experienced pro.
5. Nurture your client relationships.
Email marketing is a direct communication tool that allows you to speak more personally and emotionally to your community. You should be segmenting your email list based on how their needs/interests intersect with your brand. That way, you’re always giving them content that interests and engages them. This shows that you value their individual styles and personalities. Sharing client reviews and testimonials in your emails also shows that you maintain good relationships with your clients throughout the process.
How to Set Up Your Email Marketing To Make Money
Continue to point them to your shop or purchase opportunities.
For creative businesses with an e-commerce component, email marketing is a potent tool for boosting sales. Craft compelling email campaigns that entice subscribers to make a purchase.
Regularly introduce new products or services through visually appealing email campaigns. Include detailed descriptions, pricing information, and a clear call to action that encourages immediate purchase.
Automate emails.
As a small creative business owner, time is often a limited resource. Email marketing platforms offer automation features that can streamline your efforts, allowing you to maintain consistent communication with your audience without constant work and edits. You already have enough on your plate.
Abandoned Cart Recovery: Create and implement an automated email sequence to shoppers who put something in their cart but never finished checking out. Remind customers of the items they left behind and offer incentives, such as discounts or free shipping, to complete the purchase. A 10% discount is usually a great way to convert that almost sale into an actual sale.
Drip Campaigns: Drip campaigns nurture leads over time. So you can automate pre-written emails that start the moment someone subscribes to your list, and over time they receive a series of emails that gradually guide them toward a purchase decision. We all get a lot of looky-loos on our sites: people who are interested, but maybe not quite ready to dive in. This helps you keep in contact with a potential customer.
Demonstrate how your products/services can be used in real life.
Email marketing is a great place to get creative with your content marketing. Use it to share valuable content that resonates with your audience, sharing things that you’re maybe not ready to pour all over social media.
Offer tutorials, how-to guides, or tips related to your business and its products/services. Providing ideas or insights on how customers can use your work in their lives can establish you as a valuable resource and keep subscribers engaged.
Deliver a steady stream of visual inspiration to your audience’s inbox. Share mood boards, color palettes, design trends, or examples of how your products/services can be incorporated into their lives.
Include your affiliate links.
Sharing products that you love and get a kickback on is a great way to add more content to your email marketing. You want to make sure you’re not veering off your brand, but you can share products or services that complement your offerings. If you have a discount code, even better!
Please double check your affiliate policies before sharing. I believe several affiliate marketing policies require that you only share to your “shop” and not direct links to products in your marketing emails. So go back, and reread your agreement with each affiliate company before you add any links to your emails.
Track your email marketing analytics to learn about your customers.
Email marketing provides truly helpful insights through tracking and analytics. You can measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, check email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. With that information, you can make better decisions on what to include in future emails.
A great way to get analytic feedback is to utilize A/B testing, which means offering two slightly altered versions of essentially the same email. Send half of your email list one version (A) and send the second half the second version (B). Experiment with different email subject lines, content layouts, and calls to action using A/B testing. This helps you refine your approach for future email campaigns based on what resonates most with your audience.
Make sure you’re doing it all correctly and legally.
Responsible and ethical email marketing practices are essential. And, not following the rules and regulations of email marketing can get you into trouble. This is why, again, you don’t need to rush into this. When you’re ready to start your email marketing venture, start by brushing up on what regulations you need to follow.
Ensure that your email marketing efforts comply with relevant regulations, such as the CAN-SPAM Act or GDPR, and respect subscriber preferences regarding frequency and content. Have a transparent opt-in process. Don’t get cutesy or tricksy here. Let people know what to expect from you, how often you’ll send emails, and what those emails will be about before they opt-in. Include an easy-to-find unsubscribe link in every email. Honoring unsubscribe requests promptly is not only ethical but also helps maintain a healthy email list.
This is one of the reasons I love Flodesk. They’ll walk you through all of the opt-in process and unsubscribe options are automatically included in all of the emails you send through them. It’s always nice for something to happen automatically!
The Basics of Setting Up Your Email Marketing
For creative small business owners like yourself, there’s just a lot that feels like it has to get done. And it all feels like it has to have been done yesterday. Take a deep breath. You will get to this, when your business is ready for it. And, if you’re ready for it, here’s a simple break down of how to set up your email marketing.
1. Choose an email marketing platform.
Selecting the right email marketing platform is the foundation of your email marketing strategy. There are various platforms available, each with its own features and pricing. You can delve through all of them, or you can hear me out and go with Flodesk. I LOVE Flodesk. I recommend it for all of my clients because it’s easy to set up, their pre-made templates are excellent, and the price is beyond reasonable.
2. Plan out the segments of your email list and make the necessary forms.
Your email list is, frankly, the most valuable part of your email marketing efforts. Segmenting means creating multiple email lists within your overall email list. For example, if you’re an interior designer who specializes in new builds and renovating historic homes, you’d want to have a list for each of those communities. Sometimes, you’ll want to send an email to both lists (and you can always do this with Flodesk), while other times you’ll want to create separate content that appeals to those separate lists (which you can also do in Flodesk).
So it’s easy to see why segmenting your email list is crucial for sending targeted and relevant content. Here’s how to get started:
Create an Opt-In Form: Usually, you’ll want this to be something simple, like just asking for their name and email. Offer an incentive like a free downloadable resource or exclusive updates. And make sure that freebie is related to the segmented list you’re creating. So if it’s for your interior design business’ email list for historic home rentals, your freebie might be about best cleaners for 100 year old wood.
If you plan to segment your list, you’ll likely need multiple email opt-in forms so you can direct those people to that segment while still using automation.
Segment Your List: This is an easy to set up option on the backend of your email marketing platform. You give each segment a name and connect it to the right opt-in form when you make your automated workflows.
3. Set Up Automated Workflows
Automated workflows are set up in your email marketing platform, and basically mean that you’re setting it so that if someone signs up for your opt-in they immediately get a relevant email. Flodesk can walk you through all of this! It sounds complicated, but is actually SO easy!
Automated workflows save you tons of time and guarantee that your subscribers receive the right emails at the right times. Here are some essential workflows for creative businesses:
Welcome Series: Send a series of emails to new subscribers introducing your business, sharing your story, and highlighting your best work.
Abandoned Cart Recovery: For e-commerce businesses, set up an automated workflow to remind customers about items left in their shopping cart and offer incentives to complete the purchase.
Post-Purchase Follow-up: After a purchase, send a series of emails to thank customers, request reviews, and suggest related products or services.
Drip Campaigns: Create educational drip campaigns that gradually introduce subscribers to your products or services, providing value and building trust over time.
4. Connect your forms to your website.
Look, y’all, this is one of those things that could keep you up at night. But luckily, if you’re using Showit and Flodesk, this is going to be crazy easy!
On your Showit website, add “embed code” from the square block in your bottom tool bar. Set the dimensions and location for that embed code block where you want it. Then, go to Flodesk and get the code for the from you want to show up in that embed code box. Copy the code. Go back to your Showit site and paste the code into the right side toolbar. Done!
Click “publish” on your Showit site to see it on your site in real life. If you need to, go back and alter the dimensions of your embed code box to fit your whole form on your site. Easy peasy.
5. Comply with Email Marketing Regulations
Again, following the regulations for email marketing is important. Ensure that your email marketing practices comply with relevant regulations, such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States or GDPR in Europe: Only send emails to subscribers who have given you explicit permission to contact them; Include an easy-to-find unsubscribe link in every email. Honor unsubscribe requests promptly; Have a clear and accessible privacy policy that explains how you collect, use, and protect subscriber data.
Email marketing is an incredible tool for small creative businesses. It’s a way to connect with your loyal customers and offer more direct sales opportunities. Because of that, it should definitely be on your business plan. And, with Flodesk, you can even schedule out all of your emails for the entire year! I do love a batch creation of just about anything. So, when you’re ready, I hope this blog helps you learn how to make money with your email list.
Helpful Links
- See all my small business resources
- Work with me on your brand and website design
- Shop my illustrations and graphics
- Find inspiration on my Pinterest
- Connect with me on Instagram
Quietly doing good work in my own little corner of the internet.
Having been a visual artist for over 10 years, I know that every part of a brand (even the parts that are often unseen) deserve to be expressed with honesty and beauty. I am happiest standing behind the scenes, creating every design and detail for focused and intentional business owners. I created EP Design to stand beside visionaries and thought leaders who are fueled by joy.
