If Instagram disappeared overnight, how would you tell your customers?
I’m not saying that to frighten you. But platforms change. They get sold, they change the rules, they decide your posts should go to fewer people than they did last year. You’ve probably watched that happen at least once already.
You don’t own any of it. Not your followers, not your posts, not the way people get to see them.
Your email list is the one thing in your marketing that’s actually yours.
Somebody has typed their email address in and said yes, I’d like to hear from you. That’s a completely different thing from someone tapping follow while they’re waiting for the kettle. They’re expecting to hear from you. And when you’ve got something to sell, you can tell them about it without asking anyone’s permission.
So if you haven’t got round to starting one, here’s what I’d do.
I’d give people a reason to hand their address over. Something small and useful they can have straight away. A checklist. A short guide. A list of ideas. A discount code if you sell products. It doesn’t need to be a masterpiece and it doesn’t need to take you three weeks. It needs to sort out one small annoying problem for the sort of person you’d like to sell to.
Then I’d put it everywhere. On your website, on whatever page your Instagram link goes to, in your stories, on your Facebook page, and in what you post. Not once. Regularly. People don’t see things the first time.
And then I’d actually email them.
That’s the bit I fall down on too. You set the whole thing up, you get a few sign ups, and then you don’t email anybody for four months because you can’t think what to say and you don’t want to bother them. By the time you do send something, half of them have forgotten who you are.
Weekly if you can manage it. Every other week if you can’t. Tell them what you’ve been up to, what you’ve noticed, what’s new, what you’ve got on. Write it the way you’d say it to somebody sitting opposite you.
Start it even if there are only nine people on there. Nine people who want to hear from you will do more for your business than a thousand who scroll straight past.