How I'm Reviving My Email List
I have a confession to make–around the end of 2023, I completely ghosted my email list.
In my defense, I had a lot going on at the time. I was in the process of separating my freelance copywriting business from my DIY copywriting template shop. I was also facing down a bout of burnout that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Cortisol levels through the roof. Tension in the C-Suite (AKA my home office) at an all time high. Email list looming over me.
It wasn’t the best time to be Kori. But I’m back, and I’m ready to rumble with this email list.
By the way, if you want the fully immersive experience of me taking a defibrillator to my email marketing strategy, click here to subscribe and see what I’ve outlined here from the inside.
Either way, here’s my step-by-step action plan to reviving my long-neglected email list. If you’re like me and also left your list for dead, feel free to follow along and let me know how it goes:
The Platform Debate
As I’m writing this, I use Flodesk as the email marketing platform for both of my brands. I’d be lying if I said that it hadn’t served me well over the past couple of years. On paper, it has everything that I could possibly want or need in an email marketing tool. But as my business continues to grow, and as I continue to automate and funnel-ize more on the backend so that I can hopefully step out of certain areas of my business entirely someday soon… Flodesk leaves a little to be desired.
I was introduced to ConvertKit as a platform through a client of mine (I manage her content, including her email list and blog, which you can read here!) It was love at first click for ConvertKit and I. Is there a learning curve? Sure. Is it worth getting past? I think so.
The Pros and Cons of Flodesk
I’ve been using Flodesk for the past couple of years. In the online business community, it’s considered the creme de la creme of email marketing platforms. This is mostly because it’s insanely user-friendly, with almost zero learning curve to get started. People also love that the platform offers a lot of options when it comes to design. I work with a lot of brand and web designers, so aesthetics matter to them. They matter to me too, but not as much. Deliverability matters a whole lot more, and heavily designed emails often don’t deliver as well as plain ones.
Personally, I’m not crazy about Flodesk’s limitations when it comes to segmentation. It works. But it’s not as in-depth as I would like it to be. What I mean by this is that Flodesk doesn’t offer the option for people who click on a specific link to be added into a segment, tag, or workflow. There are many workarounds to this, but they’re kind of a pain. As my list continues to grow (my goal is 1,500 by the end of the year!) I can’t continue to do things manually like I have been. It’s not sustainable.
THE PROS OF FLODESK
- Affordable
- Intuitive & simple
- Beautiful design
THE CONS OF FLODESK
- Heavily designed emails tend to land in spam
- Doesn’t offer the advanced functionalities that I need
The Pros and Cons of ConvertKit
ConvertKit is relatively new on my radar, as I just started using it with one of my clients. I don’t have as much experience with the platform as I do with Flodesk. But I already know that I really enjoy it. The advanced workflows, automations, segmenting, and tagging features are right up my alley. The design elements are a little simple and honestly, can be incredibly frustrating (there’s literally not an undo button on the email builder???) but it’s not something that would prevent me from using the platform.
That said, the way that ConvertKit charges is not for me. From my understanding, they charge based on segment rather than subscriber. For someone like me who uses the tagging/segmentation features heavily, this could get really expensive really fast.
THE PROS OF CONVERTKIT
- More in-depth segmentation & tagging features
- Advanced automations & workflows
THE CONS OF CONVERTKIT
- Pricing model is not exactly budget-friendly
- Design features are simple
Other Platforms I’ve Considered
I’ve used Mailchimp in the past and honestly can’t say I recommend it. In my opinion, MailChimp is a good provider for handling volume, but I don’t do volume with my email list. I am, and always will be, a quality over quantity type of gal. It has all of the technical functionality that I would be looking for (and more than I, personally, would ever need) and none of the design function. It’s a no for me, dawg.
My friend Fran at The Passions Collective told me that she uses and enjoys Zoho Campaigns. At a glance, they have everything that I need–advanced tagging and segmenting, interactive design, and advanced automations and workflows. I also love that they offer features like email limits and SMS integration. Even eCommerce integration, which might be something that I’m interested in utilizing in the future. Overall, Zoho Campaigns looks like a great option for me.
My Final Decision
This decision did not come easy to me. Email marketing is going to be a major part of my marketing strategy for both of my brands moving forward, and it was important to me that I ended up on a platform that I’m able to grow with and into. This is the primary reason that I even considered moving away from Flodesk in the first place. It started to feel like I was outgrowing it.
Because of this, I’ve officially decided to bid a tearful farewell to Flodesk and migrate my list to Zoho Campaigns. There were three ultimate deciding factors for me here:
- ECommerce – Zoho Campaigns has native eCommerce features that Flodesk doesn’t (there are workarounds like integrating Zapier and setting up strategic workflows, but it can get messy very quickly). As I continue to implement eCommerce strategies into Cool Copy Club, I want features like cart abandonment workflows available to me.
- Pricing – Zoho Campaigns is insanely affordable, with a super functional free forever plan and more advanced plans that start at $3/month. For a list my size, the professional plan is $9/month, which is $10 less than my Flodesk subscription for substantially more features.
- Email design features – Zoho Campaigns is nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing as Flodesk in terms of email design, but it has better features. The thing that ultimately helped me make my decision to switch was Zoho’s “poll” feature, where you can quickly poll your audience in your emails to take their temperature and grab their opinion (without having to reroute them to a different page or form).
The List Purge
My list recently surpassed 1,000 subscribers. This was a major milestone for me, because it had been teetering around the 900 mark for about 6 months. But I have a higher unsubscribe rate than most because of an annual free resource that I release around Christmas time each year. People subscribe for that resource and then peace out, which is totally okay with me because honestly? I don’t want people on my email list who don’t want to be there.
All that is to say, I CLAWED my way to 1,000 subscribers. I celebrated that milestone. Now it’s time for a list purge.
People love to brag about their high email list subscription numbers. But they won’t share their open and click-through rates because they’re most likely abominable. My small-yet-mighty list has always boasted a 50%+ open rate (usually it hovers somewhere between 60-70%), and at least a 1% click-through rate (my best emails get a 13%+ CTR). Those statistics are impressive for email, and I want to keep it that way. I want an engaged email list who likes opening and clicking through my emails. So purge I must.
Part of the reason I considered moving away from Flodesk in the first place is because I found it difficult to purge my list effectively. There’s no way to link people to an unsubscribe page in an email (they would have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the email to click the “unsubscribe” link). But I literally want to give people the option: CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO SAY GOODBYE.
The Updated Email Marketing Strategy
Part of my biggest strategy push for 2024 was to spend more time being candid, open, and honest with my audience. I hate what personal branding has done to my personality over the past few years, and I’m sick of constantly feeling the need to show up as a hyper-curated “cool girl” version of myself. Not to say that I’m not cool, I’m the coolest. But I hate how anesthetized I’ve become online over the years.
That said, email marketing does require you to lean into the marketing half of that sentence. If I want to make sales from my email list, then I have to sell. No shame in that. But I also want a space where I can have conversations and build genuine community without selling. So, just like I split my two brands at the beginning of the year, I’ve also decided to split my email lists.
The first newsletter, Business Casual Chronicles (get it? Like BCC heheh) is going to be a sales-free, candid look at being a human being that’s building a business. I plan to write about topics like:
- How to navigate business as a sensitive human being
- What to do when your personal morals and business goals feel unaligned
- My plan for reclaiming my personality in my business and in real life
- Books that made me a better writer, human, and entrepreneur
I want BCC to feel like an ongoing conversation with your friend’s cool older sister. And I plan to never utter a single word selling my own services or templates in this bi-weekly broadcast. If that sounds like your speed, click here to subscribe.
The second newsletter (which doesn’t have a name yet, open to any and all suggestions), will be much more copywriting and messaging focused. This is the segment of people that come from my template shop, rather than my DFY copywriting brand. They’re green entrepreneurs (or simply entrepreneurs who are just now focusing some time and energy on their copy) who want straightforward advice and support. The ultimate internal goal for this newsletter is to get it SPONSORED by aligned brand partners like Notion, Dubsado, and whatever email marketing platform I’m using. This bi-weekly newsletter will cover topics like:
- How to use Market Research to warm up a cold audience
- The must-haves in your website copy
- Email marketing strategy for service-based entrepreneurs
Of course, you can (and maybe should?) be subscribed to both in order to get the most out of my personal and professional skill set. But my updated email marketing strategy for 2024 is to give people a space to get whatever they need without having to leave my community.
The Results I’m Hoping For
More than anything, I want to create something (or in this case, two somethings) that people genuinely enjoy, care about, and find useful. There is SO much online noise. Especially inbox noise. We’re always dodging bad/useless emails (literally, ask the 4,000+ unread emails in my personal inbox). I don’t want to contribute to that noise. I want to create something meaningful.
That said, it would be nice if email marketing became a consistent revenue stream for the Cool Copy Club. When it comes to my DFY services, the booking process is less straightforward. There’s so much talking, planning, and strategizing that happens before the contract is signed and the project is started. Have I booked clients from my email marketing in the past? Yes. Do I hope to do it again in the future? Sure. But I don’t anticipate it being as consistent of a revenue stream as I can create for the copy shop. Especially considering that I’ll be “selling” templates and copy shop resources so much more.
Advice for Aspiring Email Marketers
If you’ve made it all the way down here and you’re ready to revive your list (or start it!), go you! Email marketing is a fulfilling and lucrative marketing channel. If you’re like me and get easily drained by social media and want a way to build a deeper, closer connection with your audience then you’ve made a great choice. As someone who has helped clients grow lists from scratch, and stepped in and seen unheard of results with lists of 40,000+ subscribers, I’ve learned a thing or two about email marketing over the course of my career.
Here are my top tips for starting and scaling your email list:
- Give people a reason to subscribe. Having a piece of copy at the bottom of your website that says “join our newsletter” simply isn’t enough incentive for a person to invite yet another brand into their inbox. Depending on your business, you could offer a free resource, masterclass, digital download, or even just a 10% off discount code to incentivize people to sign up.
- Put some thought into every step of your user journey. From the copy you use to convince people to sign up, to the welcome sequence you have in place. If you don’t give your readers a great experience from the beginning, you’re more likely to lose them.
- Stay consistent with your outreach. Don’t be like me. Don’t ghost your list. I personally don’t think that there’s a limit to the amount of quality content that you can send to your email list (keyword: quality). But aim for 2x a month, minimum.
- Take feedback and run with it. If you’re building your list right, you’ll eventually build a rapport with your most loyal readers. When they reach out with feedback, questions, or ideas, don’t just say “thank you” and move on. That’s the most valuable information you’ll ever be handed in your business. Use it.
And, of course, don’t forget to have fun! Marketing isn’t always fun. Sometimes it feels more like a necessary evil than anything. But when you’re enjoying yourself with your marketing, your audience can tell the difference.
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I know that this list revival will work. But the extent to which it will work is still to be determined. I will most definitely keep you in the loop. In the meantime, you can follow along with my refreshed email marketing strategy in real time by subscribing to my email list! Promise not to ghost you anytime soon.
