I've heard from a lot of people that the hardest part about starting an email list is understanding why and how to do it.
The tech behind workflows, drip sequences and segments can feel overwhelming if you're new. But it's pretty easy once you're shown the ropes. I'm reintroducing grow your list, this time as a self paced course that you can go through on your own. It's only about 30 minutes total of content.
It's all transcribed. There's workbooks and other PDF resources for you, as well as welcome sequence templates for you to get started.
So in this course, you'll learn all about emails. You'll learn what a lead magnet does and we'll decide what kind of lead magnet is right for you, and create your first freebie.
You'll understand what a welcome sequence is, and how it's used and set up your first segment, and you'll make some plans around where you're going to share this stuff, to get more folks opting in downloading your freebie and getting on your own. So, if you are one of those folks that's just been putting off starting your email list, check out, “Grow Your List.”
It's $22. Just go to PhotoBizhelp.com/list to join the course, get started on your email list and get organized in 2022. Get started growing your email list, creating your lead magnet, setting up your welcome sequences and growing a relationship with your audience.
Hi, welcome to 2022! I hope this episode finds you well. We're in mid January, I think by the time that you hear this. I like the new year. I don't get super nuts about resolutions and stuff like that, but I do like to look back and sort of assess what worked and what didn't and kind of make adjustments.
It feels really fresh to me. My birthday is the day after Christmas. So it's just like this momentum I have, I think in my chart and in my life, that's always been, it's always felt really fresh for me this year.
I just celebrated 40, which is exciting.
Weird, weird to say that. But 40 years old, um, it feels good. I really am excited. I feel like sort of, this is a really sweet spot in life. The late thirties were great. The early thirties were great, but, uh, I think everybody's life is different, but I think that coming into more of myself, understanding more of what I'm all about, getting better at practicing the things I want to get better at getting better at saying no to the things I don't actually want to do.
All that stuff has somehow become easier. I'm looking forward to the next decade. And also this next year ahead, there's a lot of cool stuff going on, but there's also a lot of crap going on and I just lost a big contract, branding contract that hopefully it won't be lost for good, but you know, due to COVID and if you're in the Northern hemisphere, like–I'm staying in Minnesota, not doing the beach thing this year. It can be a huge bummer because you know, when the virus kicks up, stuff gets canceled.
People don't want to be indoors. And for photographers, it's too cold to shoot outdoors most of the time. So if you're feeling that bit of a bummer, I'm with you.
This is actually a really great time to focus on other stuff in your brain. Contracts, invoices, all the sort of logistical workflowy things that get buried under a shooting. This is a good time for that. So if that speaks to you, if that's something that you're planning on doing, then this episode and the next one are gonna hopefully be a little helpful for you.
I'm going to be talking about email lists exclusively. I've spoken about them before, but I'm gonna just give you a little bit of like the what and what's the deal with email lists for photographers and why are they important? And, hopefully that helps inspire you to get organized when it comes to your email list.
I say that because lists are so important to your business.
I've said this many times before, but I have brought in a lot of extra money when it's been needed. I did the pay it forward campaign in 2021. COVID hit and asked my list to purchase their family sessions ahead of time.
That got me through a huge lurch in income. And, I tend to sell out my mini-session, really really quickly. And that's also because I have a mini-session lists. So those are just two examples of as a photographer while your list can be really important. There are bigger reasons that you may want to consider having a list.
And the big one is obviously to connect with your audience. We can connect on social. That's true, but not everyone is on social. A lot of people are, but a lot of people aren't and a lot of people, even if they are, don't see your stuff. So the argument for getting something to go directly into someone's email box is pretty strong. You want to be regularly connecting with your audience.
You want to be sharing your story. You're a service provider. It's generally just you. It's not a million other people in an office.
When you can connect a little bit human to human with people, it just keeps you top of mind.
It makes it more fun and easier when you do get together to do those photo shoots.
You can go a lot more in depth in emails than you can on a lot of social media platforms. Sub stack is such a cool resource right now, and people are turning to long form communication.
If folks aren't on social or they're not seeing you pop up because of the algorithm and email is a great chance to like really like bring people to other places. It's really easy to share blog posts, offers, resources, anything that you want to do do that in an email, you can serve your audience and add value in email really well.
An example of that might be, let's say you're a family photographer and in your newsletter every week or every two weeks, you have a little section of products or toys or stores that you really love for kids. So if your clients are parents, which if you're a family photographer, they are that just, it's not photography related, but it adds value and it gives your audience something of value to look forward to.
It doesn't always have to be like, “this is what I'm doing as a photographer.” It should definitely include, “this is what I'm doing as a human, these are products or things that I think are cool. This is what I'm listening to. This is what I'm reading.” You get the point. So adding value is another thing that you can do in your newsletters.
And again, you can do this on social as well, but I coach a lot about how not everyone is seeing everything you put out there. And so if someone misses it on social, they'll get it in the newsletter and vice versa.
Maybe some people miss your newsletter, but they get it on social. You want to at least be reaching your audience where they are, and my audience opens their emails, so that's where I'm coming from. You can also share a little mini lessons, you can share tips and tricks like how to prepare for shoots.
It's just a way to build your relationship with folks outside of the time that you're shooting with them once or twice a year. So it's maintaining that relationship. It's building that relationship. It's warming them up when you do have an offer. So rather than just like mini sessions, you know, it's letting people know what's going on in between the mini sessions for me, for example.
So those are all reasons that having an email list is really useful. The big one of course, is that you have control and ownership over those emails. Once people opt into something, you have that list.
You don't want to depend solely on your followers on one platform in case that happens. So if you can get folks from social media to also be on your list so that you can communicate with them in a more controlled way, should anything happen.
If you check out my course, Grow Your List, you can go from zero to starting your list in a very short period of time with the information in this mini course.
