Your email list is the only part of your business you truly own — and it matters more than social media, no matter what stage you’re in.
In this episode, we break down why even a small list can make a real difference, what actually builds trust over time, and how to figure out which stage of email growth you’re in so you can take the next right step without pressure.
In this episode, we’ll explore:
- Why email outperforms social media for connection, trust, and sales
- What makes an email list genuinely effective (and what doesn’t)
- How to identify your current email-growth stage
- The three pillars of a healthy email strategy: consistency, helpful content, and personal connection
- A peek at upcoming episodes on handling unsubscribes, intentional list growth, and keeping email personal and grounded
Links Mentioned:
Get Your Free Action Guide: Email Growth Pathway: Find Your Stage & Take Your Next Step
Join the Smart Soulful Business Facebook Community:
www.smartbusiness.thrivecart.com/soulful-strategy-community
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011: Why Every Small Business Needs an Email List (And Why It Matters More Than Social Media)
Becky Brown 0:01
If you’re a Christian woman, building a business and want it to be purposeful and profitable, we’ve got you covered. I’m Becky.
Laurie Graham 0:08
And I’m Laurie. We have both built successful businesses that we love without losing our faith, humor or our sanity. This is Smart Soulful Business.
Becky Brown 0:17
Real conversations to help your business fit your life, and not the other way around.
Laurie Graham 0:27
Hey, hey. Welcome back to Smart Soulful Business. We are Becky and Laurie.
Becky Brown 0:32
Together, we help Christian women build businesses that are soulful, strategic, and successful.
Laurie Graham 0:38
I’m laughing right now because we always start or so far, we’ve started the episode with soulful, strategic and successful. But I just have to say, if you can hear us, when we start these episodes, we’re usually laughing because Becky and I are having a lot of fun. And somebody had reached out this past week and loved our website, and they said, ‘It just looks like business could be fun.’ and like this is part of who we are.
We want your business to be fun, whether you’re just getting started or you’re already, like, zooming along. Like, let’s get out of the stress mentality where we’ve got to make everything painful, right? Like, let’s have some fun.
Becky Brown 1:11
Power through, do the thing.
Laurie Graham 1:14
Yeah, no, let’s get to, like, we get to do what we do.
So all right, today we’re talking about one of the most foundational parts of your business, of all of our businesses, and sometimes it gets neglected, and people don’t realize it’s what’s holding them back. And this is having an email list. And listen, if you just cringed a little, or you’ve been avoiding the topic, or you think you’re an exception, and maybe you have an Etsy shop, or maybe have a podcast, you’re like, why would I need an email list? If you’ve thought, Do I really need one, or I do need to focus on it, or do I need to make it better? This is absolutely your episode. By the end of the episode today, you’re going to understand why email matters much, much more than social media. Ah, yeah, I said it.
What actually makes an email list effective, and even how to figure out what stage you’re in so that you can take the next right step with your email list, without pressure, without stress, just confidently and jumping into next steps. So let’s start at the very beginning. Email is the one thing in your business that you actually own. I’m just going to say it again. It’s the one thing in your business that you actually own. Now, I know you might own your computer, like, we know you might own a microphone, but we’re talking about lists, customers, your store.
So many things change around us. Platforms change, algorithms shift. I don’t know if you’ve been around when Facebook actually shut down for a day? Like, I remember that was just a year ago, Becky? People were freaking out. Websites crash. Have you had your website crashed before, Becky?
Becky Brown 2:48
Absolutely, several times.
Laurie Graham 2:50
And email is this direct access we have to our customers, to our clients, for me, to my friends, like I really look at the people I serve as friends as well, and email is a place that we build trust really, one message at a time, one email at a time. And honestly, even a small email list can outperform a big social media following because it’s deeper and it’s more intentional.
So Becky, let’s get personal before we jump into some strategies and stuff, because I love to talk about what we’re doing. Like, yeah, you all. We are in this with you. We’re in this together. Becky and I both have several businesses that we are building. Different streams of revenue, a couple different lists, at least now, we do. So let’s get a little personal. Becky, talk about email lists, maybe real numbers, real timeline, whatever you want to share. What matters most to you when as we jump into email list?
Becky Brown 3:48
Yeah, well, I think the most important thing that I can share is my beginning, because I started blogging back in the day where RSS feeds were more of a thing, where people signed up for an RSS feed so that they instantly, automatically got an email with your new blog posts. And so I, for the longest time, was like, I don’t need an email list. Why would I even do that? They’re already getting my posts. Why would I add something else to my schedule write another email after I’ve already written the blog post? How does that even make sense? And so I heard people, like I was, I was listening as people were encouraging me to start an email list. And for the longest time, I was just like, No, no. What’s the point? What a waste of my time.
Laurie Graham 4:29
I did not know this about you, because you’re the one who made me like, start with an email list. So I love that you went before me. Okay, keep going.
Becky Brown 4:37
Yeah, and so yeah, I just didn’t see the point. So I started with zero. I had people who had signed up for my RSS feed. And I don’t even know how many people had, but that just, yeah, so I don’t I’m trying to remember when that actually shifted for me, when somebody actually got through to me.
But there was a point where I think it was when people actually started emailing me personally behind the scenes, because it used to be that commenting on blogs was more the way that you went back and forth with your readers. And there was a shift where it became more, more email connection. And I started seeing, Oh my goodness, and people were reaching out to me asking, Well, what was your new blog post? I didn’t see it. I didn’t see that you posted something else. And so I think it was a slow, you know, I’m a one-small-change person, so I think it was a slow realization. It was not an instant light bulb moment for me with email list, but I started seeing, Oh, my goodness, this, like, it’s behind the scenes, where I’m developing these real connections with my actual readers.
And that was a really big shift for me, and now, yeah, by the time you started your business, I was a firm, hardcore believer in, oh my goodness. You have to do email, and you have to do it well, because the connection, the connection, is so, so important. So yeah, that’s, I mean, yeah, my growth was slow, and it started late in the game. I think that that’s my trend in business, is that I have to hear how important it is a whole lot before I actually do something about it and put my time into it.
Laurie Graham 6:08
Yeah, I think that’s with everybody though. Like, you think.
Becky Brown 6:12
I think you’re a much faster responder than I am.
Laurie Graham 6:15
It’s because you taught me from your mistakes. So because you were so confident, you’re like, oh, this can’t even happen, like, without it. So can I share about mine now? Is it? Did I cut you off? Cool.
So I just right now, while we’re recording, I just pulled up Kit statistics to see what my email did over the years. Like, I just pulled it up, so I’m looking at it. So on May 14, in 2019 I had 11 subscribers. Is anybody out there with an email list of eleven or five or two or twenty or thirty? And as I kind of interrupted Becky earlier and said, Becky told me straight up that I had to have an email list. And if you’ve heard my story, I didn’t really start trying to make money till 2020 but I had an email list before that when I had a blog, and that is that interesting. So I had 10 subscribers, 11, in May of 2019, and by March of 2020, I had 500. Isn’t that interesting? Yeah, so these people were just coming from my blog and then it zoomed up from there, and I have, I’ve, like, around 35,000 on my Small Church Ministry email list.
Now, if that number just freaked you out, I want to tell you, for numbers are just all, what do you call it? Perspective? Like it’s, it’s all subjective. That’s what I mean. Subjective. Numbers mean less than you think they mean, but they mean more than we want them to mean. Yeah, it’s just kind of confusing right, because we’re going to unpack in a little bit, why the big number doesn’t mean as much.
But like for me, I remember seeing somebody with an email list of 20,000. I remember I have her name in my head, and I was like, she has 20,000! I can’t believe it. And now that I’m at 35,000 it means much less to me than it used to, but I also see people with email lists of 200,000 and 500,000. And so this isn’t about hitting a certain number, or about hitting a growth sign, or that email list of 35,000 is better than 9000 because it’s not actually about the final number.
Smaller numbers can actually bring in more revenue, more committed clients, more super fans than you think. But that’s a little bit of my story, as far as, like, where the numbers went. But again, it’s well, and so relative and subjective.
Becky Brown 8:36
And we’ll talk about that a little bit more, but let’s lean into that part now. So having an email list that is the foundation, having some of your people, whatever that number looks like. So the next question is, okay, what actually makes an email list effective? Because, like you said, not every email list is healthy. Not every email list is effective. So yeah, I would say there are three pillars that help it to become effective, right?
Laurie Graham 9:04
So Becky, before you tell your three pillars, because I love this part, but what are we judging our effectiveness on? Like, before we talk about how to do that, right? Like, yeah, for me, it’s effective if I’m building community, I think if I’m finding the right people, because we don’t want numbers that aren’t the right people, but we also, I think we need to talk a little bit about revenue, like we’re building businesses that bring in revenue. That’s the point. And so I think also that plays in here. Would you agree with that?
Becky Brown 9:34
Well, I think that that what you’re saying is it’s not about the numbers alone, but it’s not not about the numbers either. So I feel like there’s two parts here, right? So there’s, there is playing nicely with the systems, like, if you are not getting the open rates, those numbers, they matter. If you’re, if people can’t, if all of your emails are going to spam in boxes, something needs to shift. And, yeah, so there’s kind of the structural system playing nice with the technology, and there’s the piece of okay, is how I’m saying, what I’m saying, is it resonating? Is it connecting with my audience? So there’s both of those things going on here, yeah.
Laurie Graham 10:14
Because the main point of building this email list, why it’s so foundational, is these are our people. We’re finding our people, we’re connecting with our people so that we can serve them better. And Becky’s gonna run through a little bit of like, what makes your email list effective in order to reach those people that we want.
Becky Brown 10:32
Yeah, yeah. And so let’s get back to these three pillars that we think are really important when it comes to email lists. So consistency, number one. Helpful content, number two. And personal connection.
So people stay on your list when they feel like there’s a human on the other side, when they feel connection with you, they unsubscribe when it feels robotic or random or just not applicable to them. And like honestly, a lot of email frustration comes from inconsistency, not necessarily holes in your messaging, but like if they, if your audience doesn’t hear from you for six months, and then all of a sudden, you send them this amazing offer that you’re selling that might not hit right, right? Relationally, if somebody’s in your face with a sale when you haven’t heard from them, that just that just doesn’t, that doesn’t feel as good.
Laurie Graham 11:24
So yeah, you know, it’s interesting when you mentioned those three, consistency, helpful content and personal connection, because I’m thinking of people who have one of those, but not all three. And I unsubscribe. Like, I don’t know about you, but I’m literally subscribed to a couple email lists that I just I have nothing to do with their industries, but I like them. I think they’re fun. I think it’s how, you know, it’s so funny that people that I’m still on their list and they have these three things. So I know people who are very consistent in their emails, but they don’t have helpful content. I unsubscribe. Unsubscribe. You know, they pump it out as though that’s the point. I know people who have helpful content, but they’re so incredibly inconsistent or not personal. Like that. that, like you mentioned, that robotic feeling that it’s like I’m talking to a business and not a person.
So as you were saying those, I literally had people that I unsubscribe from, and people who I have stayed on the list for who knows why, right? But those three things are key, all three of them. Consistency, helpful content, and that personal connection, okay? Becky, break it down for us.
Becky Brown 12:32
Yeah, yeah. So, you know a lot of this is so when we’re talking about consistency, right? Consistency and balancing your real life, because we want you creating your business to support your whole life, your life as a whole, not the other way around.
We don’t want your business sucking your entire life away. And this is an area like I tell Laurie often that these online businesses can be like a black hole if you let it. Like you are the only one who can lay the boundaries, because just your email list alone, you could spend your entire life over like, like, 100 hours a week, just on your email list.
So here is, here are some, some boundaries, some things that can really help you in the area of emails, scheduling emails ahead of time. So incredibly helpful. Your job is not to sit at your computer and be a live, responsive person 24/7. You are not AI, you are not a robot, you are a human being, and you get to lay boundaries. You get to think and decide ahead of time and let that email send out, even when you are laying asleep in bed on Tuesday mornings. I think that deciding on a rhythm can be really helpful, whatever that looks like for your business, a weekly email is, it tends to be a pretty good practice. It can be bi-weekly, but again, that just that really depends on your current season and where you are right now. And just to be able to be consistent, it has to be doable. And for us, we found that repeatable templates can be really, really helpful. So just like, copy and paste that last email, change the content to whatever you’re sending this week, but use that same structure so you’re not reinventing the wheel every single week. That just helps you become more regular, and it’s just easier to show up when you have kind of a basic format that you’re following and not getting hung up on the details.
You know, like, I think there was a time where you and I have gone back and forth. How long are emails supposed to be? Should it too long? Is this too short? And we get so hung up on the emails, on specific details that we never actually press send. And so if you find yourself getting hung up on something like that. There’s usually not a clear right or wrong. And most people in the industry, you can find somebody on one end of the spectrum or the other. Most times.
Laurie Graham 14:50
I love what you just shared, because I think you just hit every objection to consistency. You know, the things why we’re not consistent. You know, we overthink things we’re you know. I mean, just so many different things, or we think we don’t have enough time. So I love the tips you just gave. Those are really good.
Becky Brown 15:06
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, Laurie, talk to us about personal connection. Can you share a time where you just realized that people this was this was personal. It wasn’t just about your content or your offers, and things like that.
Laurie Graham 15:19
Yeah, it’s almost every single email I send. Like and you taught me this early on in some of the early learnings I had, but again, I’ve learned so many things from your mistakes, Becky. It’s fun hearing you tell your stories now I’m like, Oh, I didn’t know she didn’t do that. Because when I met you, you taught me what you were doing now, which was so good, but yeah, personal connection is so interesting.
I do a lot of asking people to share their stories with me, which is so interesting. Like, what happened with you? Like, there’s an email with some kind of helpful content, where are you? And people do respond. No, everybody doesn’t respond, but people do respond. Sometimes, very personally. I have received many emails that have said, I’m betting a real person doesn’t even read this, but here’s where I’m at, and you have somebody pour their heart out like, I can almost feel tears coming down from their face, literally talking to somebody that they don’t even think is going to read it. Like, what does that tell us about the hearts of people? You know that they’re willing to pour their heart out thinking nobody’s even going to read it. And when I get to respond to that, it’s really beautiful. And some of I really do have many friends I have met. My first meeting with with them was through an email that they responded to, and I responded back. And over the years, a connection has built. So it’s pretty beautiful.
So we just talked about consistency and personal connection. The other C of helpful content is one thing that we haven’t really addressed. What can we share about that like we’re saying there’s three pillars, the consistency, the personal connection and the helpful content. I think one thing for me that you kind of hit when you talked about consistency, Becky was just not overthinking it, right? Because our helpful content. Sometimes I get in my own head about, oh, everybody knows this, and then I’m so shocked when people respond to something and say, I never thought of it that way. Because we each have a different voice. So even when we think we’re talking about, I don’t know if you do card making, or maybe you make juice boxes, or whatever you do, like we think every there’s nothing new under the sun, but your uniqueness with what you are selling or what you’re producing or what you’re teaching, is unique because of you. Do you have any other tips about content, Becky?
Laurie Graham 16:05
Yeah, well, and I would say content, my most helpful content, often, not every time. There are some exceptions to this, but often come from relationship with my readers, where I will be talking to them about something, or they will respond to a post and have a follow up question, and I’ll say I need to write a post on that. Or, yeah, it’s relationship with my readers. It’s kind of getting a pulse on what’s resonating with you, what do you want more of, and responding to it and creating that. And my content gets better and better because I know what I’m listening to them I’m responding to the needs of the people in front of me. Yeah.
Laurie Graham 16:28
100%. Love it. Okay. So we don’t just arrive at effective lists. So if you’re sitting here going, I want that, right? Well, Becky and I are getting better all the time. And, you know, we definitely have our, you know, wins and losses now and then, right? But what happens is, we build these over time, like we just get better. We serve better. We learn our audience better. We get better at consistency. We get better at helpful content. We get better at what’s the other one, connection with people and the real power is really knowing where you’re at right now. Like Becky and I talk a lot about one small change, one small step, do one thing.
So excuse me, the real power is really knowing where we are right now, not doing everything, but just taking the next step for the stage that we’re at. So there isn’t one right way to build a list. If you’re here for five easy steps, you’re not going to get them. But there are predictable stages, and knowing that stage can keep you first off out of comparing yourself with everyone else. It can also keep us focused on what the next step is.
So Becky, can you speak, the woman who’s listening right now, who hears our numbers and goes, I don’t, I only have 10, I only have a 100. I only have, you know, a 1000. I only have two. I don’t have any. So can you speak to this woman who starts off really tiny, like, very tiny. Because both of us did that.
Laurie Graham 16:28
We absolutely did. And I’m actually gonna bring up. You remember yesterday, that so I’ve been sick recently, and I was frustrated. I was like, Man, this cough was supposed to be gone two weeks ago. And I told Laurie, but I guess I should respond to the body I actually have, instead of the body I wish I had. Do you remember that comment?
Yeah, so I’m going to apply that to email lists right now, because if you are trying to write, there are, there are different strategies for every stage, and we’re going to help you with that in the action guide today. But what I want you to do, I want to give you permission to be where you are and respond to the email list you have right now, I want to give you full permission if you have those two readers on your email list, that’s a powerful place to start. Start with those two people. There was a business coach I hired way back in the day, and she said, serve the people well who are at your table. Start there. Uh huh. I know. I know. And so if you have 10, serve those 10 well, and we’re we’ll talk to you just a touch today about like how strategies can change at different stages. But I am going to give you full permission. It is okay. It is good to be where you are.
There is purpose in right here, where you are in tiny, minuscule, if you haven’t started like this, there is purpose in where you are. There’s purpose in your journey, in every single step. And the answer isn’t just, oh, I wish I had 30,000 people on my email list, like, start where you are, and grow your business one step at a time, because your business, like Laurie was talking about earlier, with your content, your business, your readers, you, your content, it is all so unique. So just allow space for your growth, your speed of growth, to look different for your people as well serving them well, every step of the way.
Laurie Graham 21:39
Love that. Love that. And Becky, how about somebody who already has a big, a bigger list, or a decent sized list, you know, maybe hundreds or 1000s. Or what does growth look like here? Because I know, for me, this has happened. I’m going to use the word lazy, and it’s probably a bad word, but maybe stagnant, like we can get kind of stagnant and kind of sit in the momentum we used to have, where we’re not paying attention and actually losing engagement. Like, yeah, I know, as my list got bigger, I was like, wait, wait, I’m not getting more sales. I’m not like, the percentage didn’t go up with the growth, and I had to start looking at other things. But what would you just say to somebody like that who’s listening right now?
Becky Brown 22:17
Yeah, well, and that, my advice is exactly the same, which is pay attention to the stage that you are on and be responsive to the struggles in front of you. So if you continue to try to use the same strategies from two subscribers, when you have 20,000 subscribers, those strategies might not look exactly the same, because often you do need to change your strategies as your list grows because this is, this is part of that systems part. As your list grows bigger, your delivery is probably going to go down, your open rates are probably going to go down, and it can feel really discouraging, but it’s just your focus needs to shift a little bit, right?
So once you get that foundation of, oh my goodness, I have regularly created helpful content for my readers. That’s not the issue. Maybe my issue is changing the subject line so that I get a better open rate. Maybe my issue is changing the title on the links or the button in my email so that I get more click throughs. So you can focus, you can you can troubleshoot, allow yourself to be where you are in your business, whether that’s two or 20,000 and just look at what’s in front of you, and be responsive to your people and to the numbers in front of you.
So yeah, your goals might change. I had an email list of, I don’t know, like 70,000 and it was a very not responsive list. I can’t even remember for sure, and I’m so. I would hate to ever share false information. I can’t even remember the number. It was a huge list. It felt like a huge list. And it didn’t feel like a huge list because they weren’t opening their emails, they weren’t clicking the content, they weren’t responding to us, they weren’t engaging with us. And so it was like, okay, that number sounds really impressive, but it wasn’t, and so and so anyways, like, but, but there’s troubleshooting wherever you are, there are good responses wherever you are. And the best part about all of this is that you don’t have to guess on your next step. We mapped it out for you, like I hinted at earlier. We have some great resources for you.
Laurie Graham 24:18
We do. We’ve got a great action guide that you can download today for free, like with all of our podcast episodes. I want to throw out a number though, and because this is when numbers help me, is when they actually help me feel like I’m not feeling if you have an email list and you’re like, nobody is answering, nobody’s responding, or nobody’s opening, I just want to tell you a 30% open rate. And by the way, you should know your open rate. Yes, you should be able to know your open rate. 30% open rate is great. Yeah, a 1% purchase rate is great. Like, sometimes we’re like, oh, you know, so knowing a little bit of numbers is pretty good, but we’re getting we have so much more to teach you and share with you and learn together about emails.
We’ve talked so far today about why emails matter more than social media. They really do. What makes a little, what makes an email list effective? Tons more to say about growth and effectiveness. We have a mini series of podcasts planned coming down the road soon that talk about specifically unsubscribes, how to increase your list, lead magnets and tons more. On top of that, if you’re ready to make some bigger leaps, we are working on an entire paid course specifically about email lists that are going to take you video module through video module, short, bite-sized video modules to help you literally put the things together to take you confidently where you are to where you want to go.
And like we mentioned today, there’s a free action guide to get you started that’s going to help you identify your stage without comparing yourself to anyone else. So your challenge this week is easy. It’s simple, identify your stage and then take one small action. It is in the free action guide that we have, it literally gives you stages to map out based right on where you are, and gives you those steps that you can take that are really easy. So make sure you download that.
And if you’re not in with us, in Soulful Strategy Community, come join us to get the ongoing support that’s going to make your business more fun and successful. It’s a paid membership. We’ve made it super affordable, so everybody starting out can join us. It’s just $9 a month. We go deeper with every episode. You have access to Becky and I, and our community, we’re literally building a community, walking this through together, step by step, so we don’t have to do it alone anymore. Yeah. So thanks for listening to Smart Soulful Business. If this conversation encouraged you, please share it with a friend who’s building something meaningful too. We, you don’t have to build it alone, not with us.
So we’ll see you next time on Smart Soulful Business, until next week. Go team.
Becky Brown 0:01
If you’re a Christian woman, building a business and want it to be purposeful and profitable, we’ve got you covered. I’m Becky.
Laurie Graham 0:08
And I’m Laurie. We have both built successful businesses that we love without losing our faith, humor or our sanity. This is Smart Soulful Business.
Becky Brown 0:17
Real conversations to help your business fit your life, and not the other way around.
Laurie Graham 0:27
Hey, hey. Welcome back to Smart Soulful Business. We are Becky and Laurie.
Becky Brown 0:32
Together, we help Christian women build businesses that are soulful, strategic, and successful.
Laurie Graham 0:38
I’m laughing right now because we always start or so far, we’ve started the episode with soulful, strategic and successful. But I just have to say, if you can hear us, when we start these episodes, we’re usually laughing because Becky and I are having a lot of fun. And somebody had reached out this past week and loved our website, and they said, ‘It just looks like business could be fun.’ and like this is part of who we are.
We want your business to be fun, whether you’re just getting started or you’re already, like, zooming along. Like, let’s get out of the stress mentality where we’ve got to make everything painful, right? Like, let’s have some fun.
Becky Brown 1:11
Power through, do the thing.
Laurie Graham 1:14
Yeah, no, let’s get to, like, we get to do what we do.
So all right, today we’re talking about one of the most foundational parts of your business, of all of our businesses, and sometimes it gets neglected, and people don’t realize it’s what’s holding them back. And this is having an email list. And listen, if you just cringed a little, or you’ve been avoiding the topic, or you think you’re an exception, and maybe you have an Etsy shop, or maybe have a podcast, you’re like, why would I need an email list? If you’ve thought, Do I really need one, or I do need to focus on it, or do I need to make it better? This is absolutely your episode. By the end of the episode today, you’re going to understand why email matters much, much more than social media. Ah, yeah, I said it.
What actually makes an email list effective, and even how to figure out what stage you’re in so that you can take the next right step with your email list, without pressure, without stress, just confidently and jumping into next steps. So let’s start at the very beginning. Email is the one thing in your business that you actually own. I’m just going to say it again. It’s the one thing in your business that you actually own. Now, I know you might own your computer, like, we know you might own a microphone, but we’re talking about lists, customers, your store.
So many things change around us. Platforms change, algorithms shift. I don’t know if you’ve been around when Facebook actually shut down for a day? Like, I remember that was just a year ago, Becky? People were freaking out. Websites crash. Have you had your website crashed before, Becky?
Becky Brown 2:48
Absolutely, several times.
Laurie Graham 2:50
And email is this direct access we have to our customers, to our clients, for me, to my friends, like I really look at the people I serve as friends as well, and email is a place that we build trust really, one message at a time, one email at a time. And honestly, even a small email list can outperform a big social media following because it’s deeper and it’s more intentional.
So Becky, let’s get personal before we jump into some strategies and stuff, because I love to talk about what we’re doing. Like, yeah, you all. We are in this with you. We’re in this together. Becky and I both have several businesses that we are building. Different streams of revenue, a couple different lists, at least now, we do. So let’s get a little personal. Becky, talk about email lists, maybe real numbers, real timeline, whatever you want to share. What matters most to you when as we jump into email list?
Becky Brown 3:48
Yeah, well, I think the most important thing that I can share is my beginning, because I started blogging back in the day where RSS feeds were more of a thing, where people signed up for an RSS feed so that they instantly, automatically got an email with your new blog posts. And so I, for the longest time, was like, I don’t need an email list. Why would I even do that? They’re already getting my posts. Why would I add something else to my schedule write another email after I’ve already written the blog post? How does that even make sense? And so I heard people, like I was, I was listening as people were encouraging me to start an email list. And for the longest time, I was just like, No, no. What’s the point? What a waste of my time.
Laurie Graham 4:29
I did not know this about you, because you’re the one who made me like, start with an email list. So I love that you went before me. Okay, keep going.
Becky Brown 4:37
Yeah, and so yeah, I just didn’t see the point. So I started with zero. I had people who had signed up for my RSS feed. And I don’t even know how many people had, but that just, yeah, so I don’t I’m trying to remember when that actually shifted for me, when somebody actually got through to me.
But there was a point where I think it was when people actually started emailing me personally behind the scenes, because it used to be that commenting on blogs was more the way that you went back and forth with your readers. And there was a shift where it became more, more email connection. And I started seeing, Oh my goodness, and people were reaching out to me asking, Well, what was your new blog post? I didn’t see it. I didn’t see that you posted something else. And so I think it was a slow, you know, I’m a one-small-change person, so I think it was a slow realization. It was not an instant light bulb moment for me with email list, but I started seeing, Oh, my goodness, this, like, it’s behind the scenes, where I’m developing these real connections with my actual readers.
And that was a really big shift for me, and now, yeah, by the time you started your business, I was a firm, hardcore believer in, oh my goodness. You have to do email, and you have to do it well, because the connection, the connection, is so, so important. So yeah, that’s, I mean, yeah, my growth was slow, and it started late in the game. I think that that’s my trend in business, is that I have to hear how important it is a whole lot before I actually do something about it and put my time into it.
Laurie Graham 6:08
Yeah, I think that’s with everybody though. Like, you think.
Becky Brown 6:12
I think you’re a much faster responder than I am.
Laurie Graham 6:15
It’s because you taught me from your mistakes. So because you were so confident, you’re like, oh, this can’t even happen, like, without it. So can I share about mine now? Is it? Did I cut you off? Cool.
So I just right now, while we’re recording, I just pulled up Kit statistics to see what my email did over the years. Like, I just pulled it up, so I’m looking at it. So on May 14, in 2019 I had 11 subscribers. Is anybody out there with an email list of eleven or five or two or twenty or thirty? And as I kind of interrupted Becky earlier and said, Becky told me straight up that I had to have an email list. And if you’ve heard my story, I didn’t really start trying to make money till 2020 but I had an email list before that when I had a blog, and that is that interesting. So I had 10 subscribers, 11, in May of 2019, and by March of 2020, I had 500. Isn’t that interesting? Yeah, so these people were just coming from my blog and then it zoomed up from there, and I have, I’ve, like, around 35,000 on my Small Church Ministry email list.
Now, if that number just freaked you out, I want to tell you, for numbers are just all, what do you call it? Perspective? Like it’s, it’s all subjective. That’s what I mean. Subjective. Numbers mean less than you think they mean, but they mean more than we want them to mean. Yeah, it’s just kind of confusing right, because we’re going to unpack in a little bit, why the big number doesn’t mean as much.
But like for me, I remember seeing somebody with an email list of 20,000. I remember I have her name in my head, and I was like, she has 20,000! I can’t believe it. And now that I’m at 35,000 it means much less to me than it used to, but I also see people with email lists of 200,000 and 500,000. And so this isn’t about hitting a certain number, or about hitting a growth sign, or that email list of 35,000 is better than 9000 because it’s not actually about the final number.
Smaller numbers can actually bring in more revenue, more committed clients, more super fans than you think. But that’s a little bit of my story, as far as, like, where the numbers went. But again, it’s well, and so relative and subjective.
Becky Brown 8:36
And we’ll talk about that a little bit more, but let’s lean into that part now. So having an email list that is the foundation, having some of your people, whatever that number looks like. So the next question is, okay, what actually makes an email list effective? Because, like you said, not every email list is healthy. Not every email list is effective. So yeah, I would say there are three pillars that help it to become effective, right?
Laurie Graham 9:04
So Becky, before you tell your three pillars, because I love this part, but what are we judging our effectiveness on? Like, before we talk about how to do that, right? Like, yeah, for me, it’s effective if I’m building community, I think if I’m finding the right people, because we don’t want numbers that aren’t the right people, but we also, I think we need to talk a little bit about revenue, like we’re building businesses that bring in revenue. That’s the point. And so I think also that plays in here. Would you agree with that?
Becky Brown 9:34
Well, I think that that what you’re saying is it’s not about the numbers alone, but it’s not not about the numbers either. So I feel like there’s two parts here, right? So there’s, there is playing nicely with the systems, like, if you are not getting the open rates, those numbers, they matter. If you’re, if people can’t, if all of your emails are going to spam in boxes, something needs to shift. And, yeah, so there’s kind of the structural system playing nice with the technology, and there’s the piece of okay, is how I’m saying, what I’m saying, is it resonating? Is it connecting with my audience? So there’s both of those things going on here, yeah.
Laurie Graham 10:14
Because the main point of building this email list, why it’s so foundational, is these are our people. We’re finding our people, we’re connecting with our people so that we can serve them better. And Becky’s gonna run through a little bit of like, what makes your email list effective in order to reach those people that we want.
Becky Brown 10:32
Yeah, yeah. And so let’s get back to these three pillars that we think are really important when it comes to email lists. So consistency, number one. Helpful content, number two. And personal connection.
So people stay on your list when they feel like there’s a human on the other side, when they feel connection with you, they unsubscribe when it feels robotic or random or just not applicable to them. And like honestly, a lot of email frustration comes from inconsistency, not necessarily holes in your messaging, but like if they, if your audience doesn’t hear from you for six months, and then all of a sudden, you send them this amazing offer that you’re selling that might not hit right, right? Relationally, if somebody’s in your face with a sale when you haven’t heard from them, that just that just doesn’t, that doesn’t feel as good.
Laurie Graham 11:24
So yeah, you know, it’s interesting when you mentioned those three, consistency, helpful content and personal connection, because I’m thinking of people who have one of those, but not all three. And I unsubscribe. Like, I don’t know about you, but I’m literally subscribed to a couple email lists that I just I have nothing to do with their industries, but I like them. I think they’re fun. I think it’s how, you know, it’s so funny that people that I’m still on their list and they have these three things. So I know people who are very consistent in their emails, but they don’t have helpful content. I unsubscribe. Unsubscribe. You know, they pump it out as though that’s the point. I know people who have helpful content, but they’re so incredibly inconsistent or not personal. Like that. that, like you mentioned, that robotic feeling that it’s like I’m talking to a business and not a person.
So as you were saying those, I literally had people that I unsubscribe from, and people who I have stayed on the list for who knows why, right? But those three things are key, all three of them. Consistency, helpful content, and that personal connection, okay? Becky, break it down for us.
Becky Brown 12:32
Yeah, yeah. So, you know a lot of this is so when we’re talking about consistency, right? Consistency and balancing your real life, because we want you creating your business to support your whole life, your life as a whole, not the other way around.
We don’t want your business sucking your entire life away. And this is an area like I tell Laurie often that these online businesses can be like a black hole if you let it. Like you are the only one who can lay the boundaries, because just your email list alone, you could spend your entire life over like, like, 100 hours a week, just on your email list.
So here is, here are some, some boundaries, some things that can really help you in the area of emails, scheduling emails ahead of time. So incredibly helpful. Your job is not to sit at your computer and be a live, responsive person 24/7. You are not AI, you are not a robot, you are a human being, and you get to lay boundaries. You get to think and decide ahead of time and let that email send out, even when you are laying asleep in bed on Tuesday mornings. I think that deciding on a rhythm can be really helpful, whatever that looks like for your business, a weekly email is, it tends to be a pretty good practice. It can be bi-weekly, but again, that just that really depends on your current season and where you are right now. And just to be able to be consistent, it has to be doable. And for us, we found that repeatable templates can be really, really helpful. So just like, copy and paste that last email, change the content to whatever you’re sending this week, but use that same structure so you’re not reinventing the wheel every single week. That just helps you become more regular, and it’s just easier to show up when you have kind of a basic format that you’re following and not getting hung up on the details.
You know, like, I think there was a time where you and I have gone back and forth. How long are emails supposed to be? Should it too long? Is this too short? And we get so hung up on the emails, on specific details that we never actually press send. And so if you find yourself getting hung up on something like that. There’s usually not a clear right or wrong. And most people in the industry, you can find somebody on one end of the spectrum or the other. Most times.
Laurie Graham 14:50
I love what you just shared, because I think you just hit every objection to consistency. You know, the things why we’re not consistent. You know, we overthink things we’re you know. I mean, just so many different things, or we think we don’t have enough time. So I love the tips you just gave. Those are really good.
Becky Brown 15:06
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, Laurie, talk to us about personal connection. Can you share a time where you just realized that people this was this was personal. It wasn’t just about your content or your offers, and things like that.
Laurie Graham 15:19
Yeah, it’s almost every single email I send. Like and you taught me this early on in some of the early learnings I had, but again, I’ve learned so many things from your mistakes, Becky. It’s fun hearing you tell your stories now I’m like, Oh, I didn’t know she didn’t do that. Because when I met you, you taught me what you were doing now, which was so good, but yeah, personal connection is so interesting.
I do a lot of asking people to share their stories with me, which is so interesting. Like, what happened with you? Like, there’s an email with some kind of helpful content, where are you? And people do respond. No, everybody doesn’t respond, but people do respond. Sometimes, very personally. I have received many emails that have said, I’m betting a real person doesn’t even read this, but here’s where I’m at, and you have somebody pour their heart out like, I can almost feel tears coming down from their face, literally talking to somebody that they don’t even think is going to read it. Like, what does that tell us about the hearts of people? You know that they’re willing to pour their heart out thinking nobody’s even going to read it. And when I get to respond to that, it’s really beautiful. And some of I really do have many friends I have met. My first meeting with with them was through an email that they responded to, and I responded back. And over the years, a connection has built. So it’s pretty beautiful.
So we just talked about consistency and personal connection. The other C of helpful content is one thing that we haven’t really addressed. What can we share about that like we’re saying there’s three pillars, the consistency, the personal connection and the helpful content. I think one thing for me that you kind of hit when you talked about consistency, Becky was just not overthinking it, right? Because our helpful content. Sometimes I get in my own head about, oh, everybody knows this, and then I’m so shocked when people respond to something and say, I never thought of it that way. Because we each have a different voice. So even when we think we’re talking about, I don’t know if you do card making, or maybe you make juice boxes, or whatever you do, like we think every there’s nothing new under the sun, but your uniqueness with what you are selling or what you’re producing or what you’re teaching, is unique because of you. Do you have any other tips about content, Becky?
Laurie Graham 16:05
Yeah, well, and I would say content, my most helpful content, often, not every time. There are some exceptions to this, but often come from relationship with my readers, where I will be talking to them about something, or they will respond to a post and have a follow up question, and I’ll say I need to write a post on that. Or, yeah, it’s relationship with my readers. It’s kind of getting a pulse on what’s resonating with you, what do you want more of, and responding to it and creating that. And my content gets better and better because I know what I’m listening to them I’m responding to the needs of the people in front of me. Yeah.
Laurie Graham 16:28
100%. Love it. Okay. So we don’t just arrive at effective lists. So if you’re sitting here going, I want that, right? Well, Becky and I are getting better all the time. And, you know, we definitely have our, you know, wins and losses now and then, right? But what happens is, we build these over time, like we just get better. We serve better. We learn our audience better. We get better at consistency. We get better at helpful content. We get better at what’s the other one, connection with people and the real power is really knowing where you’re at right now. Like Becky and I talk a lot about one small change, one small step, do one thing.
So excuse me, the real power is really knowing where we are right now, not doing everything, but just taking the next step for the stage that we’re at. So there isn’t one right way to build a list. If you’re here for five easy steps, you’re not going to get them. But there are predictable stages, and knowing that stage can keep you first off out of comparing yourself with everyone else. It can also keep us focused on what the next step is.
So Becky, can you speak, the woman who’s listening right now, who hears our numbers and goes, I don’t, I only have 10, I only have a 100. I only have, you know, a 1000. I only have two. I don’t have any. So can you speak to this woman who starts off really tiny, like, very tiny. Because both of us did that.
Laurie Graham 16:28
We absolutely did. And I’m actually gonna bring up. You remember yesterday, that so I’ve been sick recently, and I was frustrated. I was like, Man, this cough was supposed to be gone two weeks ago. And I told Laurie, but I guess I should respond to the body I actually have, instead of the body I wish I had. Do you remember that comment?
Yeah, so I’m going to apply that to email lists right now, because if you are trying to write, there are, there are different strategies for every stage, and we’re going to help you with that in the action guide today. But what I want you to do, I want to give you permission to be where you are and respond to the email list you have right now, I want to give you full permission if you have those two readers on your email list, that’s a powerful place to start. Start with those two people. There was a business coach I hired way back in the day, and she said, serve the people well who are at your table. Start there. Uh huh. I know. I know. And so if you have 10, serve those 10 well, and we’re we’ll talk to you just a touch today about like how strategies can change at different stages. But I am going to give you full permission. It is okay. It is good to be where you are.
There is purpose in right here, where you are in tiny, minuscule, if you haven’t started like this, there is purpose in where you are. There’s purpose in your journey, in every single step. And the answer isn’t just, oh, I wish I had 30,000 people on my email list, like, start where you are, and grow your business one step at a time, because your business, like Laurie was talking about earlier, with your content, your business, your readers, you, your content, it is all so unique. So just allow space for your growth, your speed of growth, to look different for your people as well serving them well, every step of the way.
Laurie Graham 21:39
Love that. Love that. And Becky, how about somebody who already has a big, a bigger list, or a decent sized list, you know, maybe hundreds or 1000s. Or what does growth look like here? Because I know, for me, this has happened. I’m going to use the word lazy, and it’s probably a bad word, but maybe stagnant, like we can get kind of stagnant and kind of sit in the momentum we used to have, where we’re not paying attention and actually losing engagement. Like, yeah, I know, as my list got bigger, I was like, wait, wait, I’m not getting more sales. I’m not like, the percentage didn’t go up with the growth, and I had to start looking at other things. But what would you just say to somebody like that who’s listening right now?
Becky Brown 22:17
Yeah, well, and that, my advice is exactly the same, which is pay attention to the stage that you are on and be responsive to the struggles in front of you. So if you continue to try to use the same strategies from two subscribers, when you have 20,000 subscribers, those strategies might not look exactly the same, because often you do need to change your strategies as your list grows because this is, this is part of that systems part. As your list grows bigger, your delivery is probably going to go down, your open rates are probably going to go down, and it can feel really discouraging, but it’s just your focus needs to shift a little bit, right?
So once you get that foundation of, oh my goodness, I have regularly created helpful content for my readers. That’s not the issue. Maybe my issue is changing the subject line so that I get a better open rate. Maybe my issue is changing the title on the links or the button in my email so that I get more click throughs. So you can focus, you can you can troubleshoot, allow yourself to be where you are in your business, whether that’s two or 20,000 and just look at what’s in front of you, and be responsive to your people and to the numbers in front of you.
So yeah, your goals might change. I had an email list of, I don’t know, like 70,000 and it was a very not responsive list. I can’t even remember for sure, and I’m so. I would hate to ever share false information. I can’t even remember the number. It was a huge list. It felt like a huge list. And it didn’t feel like a huge list because they weren’t opening their emails, they weren’t clicking the content, they weren’t responding to us, they weren’t engaging with us. And so it was like, okay, that number sounds really impressive, but it wasn’t, and so and so anyways, like, but, but there’s troubleshooting wherever you are, there are good responses wherever you are. And the best part about all of this is that you don’t have to guess on your next step. We mapped it out for you, like I hinted at earlier. We have some great resources for you.
Laurie Graham 24:18
We do. We’ve got a great action guide that you can download today for free, like with all of our podcast episodes. I want to throw out a number though, and because this is when numbers help me, is when they actually help me feel like I’m not feeling if you have an email list and you’re like, nobody is answering, nobody’s responding, or nobody’s opening, I just want to tell you a 30% open rate. And by the way, you should know your open rate. Yes, you should be able to know your open rate. 30% open rate is great. Yeah, a 1% purchase rate is great. Like, sometimes we’re like, oh, you know, so knowing a little bit of numbers is pretty good, but we’re getting we have so much more to teach you and share with you and learn together about emails.
We’ve talked so far today about why emails matter more than social media. They really do. What makes a little, what makes an email list effective? Tons more to say about growth and effectiveness. We have a mini series of podcasts planned coming down the road soon that talk about specifically unsubscribes, how to increase your list, lead magnets and tons more. On top of that, if you’re ready to make some bigger leaps, we are working on an entire paid course specifically about email lists that are going to take you video module through video module, short, bite-sized video modules to help you literally put the things together to take you confidently where you are to where you want to go.
And like we mentioned today, there’s a free action guide to get you started that’s going to help you identify your stage without comparing yourself to anyone else. So your challenge this week is easy. It’s simple, identify your stage and then take one small action. It is in the free action guide that we have, it literally gives you stages to map out based right on where you are, and gives you those steps that you can take that are really easy. So make sure you download that.
And if you’re not in with us, in Soulful Strategy Community, come join us to get the ongoing support that’s going to make your business more fun and successful. It’s a paid membership. We’ve made it super affordable, so everybody starting out can join us. It’s just $9 a month. We go deeper with every episode. You have access to Becky and I, and our community, we’re literally building a community, walking this through together, step by step, so we don’t have to do it alone anymore. Yeah. So thanks for listening to Smart Soulful Business. If this conversation encouraged you, please share it with a friend who’s building something meaningful too. We, you don’t have to build it alone, not with us.
So we’ll see you next time on Smart Soulful Business, until next week. Go team.
