Hi Reader,
Let’s get back to basics this week by asking yourself one question:
“What do my potential customers want or need, and how do I let them know I have it?”
Is the answer obvious, or do you struggle to come up with a good one?
If it’s the latter, you may be suffering from the curse of knowledge.
The Curse of Knowledge
Sometimes, we become so immersed in our own business that we struggle to see it from our customers’ perspective.
We know what we do, how everything works and why it matters. The problem is that our potential customers don’t necessarily see any of that.
Here’s a simple four-step process you can use today. Start by asking:
“If I were one of my potential customers, what would I need from me next?”
Here’s how that looks in my business:
- Decide who I want on my email list. For me, that’s solopreneurs who want help with email marketing and Kit.
- Identify one of the most common challenges they face. Many of them know email marketing matters, but don’t know where to start.
- Create something that helps them take that first step. That’s why I created The Email Marketer’s Starter Guide and made it available for free.
- Welcome each new subscriber and show them what comes next. Let them know they’re in the right place, then guide them towards the next useful step.
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That’s it.
There’s nothing particularly complicated about it. The value comes from doing it consistently.
Keep doing that and, one day, you’ll realise you’ve built one of the most valuable assets in your business: an email list filled with potential future clients.
👉 By the way, if you’d like the starter guide I mentioned above, you can download it here.
Give your subscribers small, safe next steps
Put yourself in your subscriber’s shoes... 👣
They may have come across some of your content, followed you on social media or visited your website, but they probably don’t know you particularly well yet. They may not fully understand what you do, how you can help them or whether they can trust you.
That’s especially true of people who are naturally cautious about where they invest their time, attention or money.
Instead of expecting them to make a big commitment straight away, give them a series of small, low-risk steps they can take at their own pace.
For example:
- Click through to a useful web page
- Watch a short video
- Download a free guide
- Attend a webinar
- Try your community for a week
- Book a call with you
Each step asks for a little more time, attention or trust than the one before it.
No single interaction will build complete trust on its own. But when someone repeatedly finds your content useful, follows one invitation and then another, something wonderful starts to happen.
They begin to understand how you think. They see how you can help. Gradually, they become more comfortable allowing you into their world.
Everyone on your email list will move at a different pace, so don’t try to force them towards the biggest commitment immediately.
Keep offering useful next steps, then let them choose when they’re ready to take one.
Learn a little more with each step
When someone first joins your email list, you usually know very little about them.
You might have their name and email address, but you probably don’t know what they’re trying to achieve, what they’re struggling with or which of your services might be relevant to them.
That’s where zero-party data can help.
Zero-party data is simply information someone chooses to share with you. You’re not tracking them around the internet or making assumptions based on their behaviour. You’re asking them directly, then using their answers to make their experience more relevant.
You might ask:
- What would you most like help with?
- Which best describes your business?
- What stage are you currently at?
- Which topics are most useful to you?
- How often would you like to hear from me?
You don’t need to ask everything when they first subscribe. In fact, a long form filled with questions may stop them subscribing at all.
Instead, learn a little more over time.
Ask one simple question in your welcome email and invite them to click the option that best describes their current challenge. Later, you might ask another question or offer a short survey once they’ve had time to get to know you.
Each answer adds a little more detail to what began as little more than a name and email address.
Over time, you’ll develop a better understanding of what that subscriber needs. You can then send them content, offers and invitations that are more relevant, while avoiding the things they’ve shown little interest in.
There is one important rule, though:
Only ask a question when you know how you’ll use the answer to improve that subscriber’s experience.
The goal isn’t to collect as much data as possible. It’s to learn enough to become more useful and make it easier for the right people to find the right next step.
Want some help figuring things out?
If you're working through your email marketing and perhaps just feeling a bit lost, book a free call with me and I'll talk you through some options to consider.
I'll share what works for me and many of my customers, and likely to work for you too.
It's free and there's nothing to buy.
It's just me listening to you, and then sharing helpful suggestions of how you can make your business even more successful using email marketing.
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Whatever you're up to this weekend, enjoy!
Cheers,
John