Field Notes: Getting Started With Email Marketing

Phil Luza

Published in

Adventure Capitalists

5 min readJul 31, 2019

PREPARATION

“We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.”
― Thomas A. Edison

Vision. Goal. Voice

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”―Japanese Proverb

Ultra athlete David Goggins is no stranger to adversity.

No one said this was going to be easy.

There will always be some form of challenge along the way. Passion is temporary. Discipline and flexibility are key — but most of all, perseverance is necessary to achieve your objective.

To keep you on the right path you must have a vision and goal to strive for. It will keep you going and help you to find your voice. Your voice is the way you communicate your product to your customer. It is fine tuned with time, testing, open mind, and a bit of luck. To find your voice, start by taking the first steps.

Recommended Tools:

List Goal — https://listgoal.growthtools.com/

My Goal:
Get my first 100 email subscribers

Identify Your List-Building Strengths

“There are too many effective list-building strategies for you to spend time focusing on ones you hate or are not equipped to implement.”
— Bryan Harris (GrowthTools)

The Bryan Harris List of Strengths That Help with List-Building:

Writing: I’m not asking if you have what it takes to be a bestselling author. I never thought of myself as a “writer” before I started Videofruit, yet I wrote a blog post every week for 2+ years. Could you see yourself enjoying blogging? Does the idea of having an audience of people reading things you write excite you? Is it something you already do? Put writing down as a skill you might enjoy developing.
Talking: Do you enjoy conversations? Does getting in front of a camera or appearing on a podcast sound exciting to you? Could you see yourself wanting to speak at a conference? Mark yourself down as a talker. Because it’s about to come in handy big time.
Tech Stuff: Are you good at figuring out how to use new software tools? Do terms like “marketing funnels” and “analytics” and “WordPress integration” get you all hot and bothered? Do you geek out over numbers? You’re probably good at tech stuff, you nerd. Write it down.
Relationship-Building: Do you like meeting new people? Are you unafraid of striking up conversations? If we were in the ’80s right now, would you have a giant rolodex sitting on your desk? You’re a relationship builder.
Teaching: Do you like walking people through processes? Does it feel rewarding to show someone how to do something? Are you already pretty knowledgeable about the topic your email list is about? You’ll probably like teaching.

MY LIST BUILDING STRENGTHS:
Writing. Relationship Building. Tech Stuff

Resources That Help with List-Building:

Money: Do you have an existing marketing budget? Are you at a place where you can afford to invest in something like Facebook ads and be OK if they’re not instantly profitable?
Traffic: Do you have a website or social platform that’s already getting traffic? If so, write down a rough estimate of your average monthly visitors. Just ballpark it.
Existing Subscribers: Pretty straightforward. Do you already have existing email subscribers? I’m going to show you several ways to leverage them to grow your list faster. Put them down as a resource.
Relationships: Do you have an established relationship or social connection to any businesses, influencers, or companies in your industry?
Time: How much time do you have per day or week to focus on growing your email list? Again, just ballpark this. Even if it’s just 15 minutes per day, write it down.

MY RESOURCES
Money: $20 Per Month
Traffic: Small Instagram and Facebook following
Existing Subscribers: Almost 60 email addresses from previous ad campaigns
Relationships: Start reaching out more
Time: Next 30 Days

Find Your Audience

“Anticipated, personal, and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.”
– Seth Godin, Author, Entrepreneur, Marketer, and Public Speaker

Branding — Tim Ferriss

Forget about fixating on brand, and think instead about how you can own a category. So, own a category, and this can be own or create a category. This is rule №1. Forget about brand and either own a category or create a category, in the minds of specifically 1,000 diehard fans. I highly recommend you read an essay called 1,000 True Fans, by Kevin Kelly.

The Importance of Targeting — Neil Pattel

You’re not just building a list for the sake of building a list. You’re building a list to communicate with large numbers of people at the same time — in relation to a certain topic.

Sometimes, you’re going to be communicating to promote an offer, and sometimes, you’re going to be communicating just to add value. However, it’s likely that whatever your email content is, it will be content that is designed to help out a certain demographic.

It might be useful to people who don’t belong to that demographic — and later you can target other demographics.

But, for now, we’re going to really focus on who it is that we’re trying to help, and what their traits are.

How old are they? Are they male, female or both? Where do they live (nation, state, city, urban or rural)? Do they have a college degree? What are their hopes and dreams? Who do they respect the most? What influences their decisions? What are their problems?

73% of marketers agree that email marketing services are core to their business — those who manage to make email marketing work know EXACTLY who their audience is.

On top of that, 72% of consumers state that they prefer communications by email. But, you can bet that those consumers only enjoy receiving communications, from companies that send them relevant information.

So in short — know exactly who you want on your list, so that you can deliver exactly what they want and need.

Once you’ve nailed this sort of information down, everything else in this post is much easier to implement.

Tools To Validate To Your Audience

Tools Im Using
—Facebook Ads
— BuzzSumo
— Google Ad Words