Jena Bagley’s Awesome Email Marketing Advice for Your Business

Why you Need Email Marketing for your Business and How you can get started.

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Jena Bagley is a Success Coach & Advocate Manager for AWeber.  Jena works closely with content creators, podcasters, social media strategists, coaches, entrepreneurs, and more.  Jena lives in Bucks County, PA with her husband and 3 children.

As a new business owner is it necessary for you to have email marketing? In this mobile technology world, email is pretty much dead, right? Today I have brought on Jena Bagley of AWeber to discuss Why you Need Email Marketing for your Business and How you can get started.

Here are the questions I asked Jena and her responses. This is a shortened version of our conversation. Please check out our podcast conversation. Check out the for full details of this show.

Is email marketing dead?

Jena: In regards to email being dead. You know, I get this question all the time and I’m here to tell you email is not dead. And, um, here’s why, uh, you know how many times you write you’re listening right now? How many times today have you checked your email? I know, like when I wake up the first thing I do, I check my email. The last thing I do before I go to bed, I check my email and I’m neurotic. I check my inbox probably close to 20 times a day. And that’s because I know that anything worth reading is going to be in my email. And, you know, people say email’s dead and it’s just not true because how many times can you check your email if it was dead, if it wasn’t important, we wouldn’t go there.

When was the last time you bought something from your email? I do it all the time. I get an email. I have a need. Solves my need. I go and I and I check out right then and there.

And for, those two very practical reasons, I do not believe email marketing is dead. What I do believe is that it is a tried and true, efficient way to communicate and reach your audience. It’s a vital part of every business owner’s kind of tool belt, right. Is having an email list where you can reach your ideal customer. And so, no, I do not believe email is dead.

Why should I use email marketing for my business?

Jena: Well, here’s the thing, and something that makes it so powerful, is that the reason I check my email so much is that those are the things that I have opted into receiving.

I want those messages, I’ve given my permission for those people to email me. And so I know for the most part that when I go to my inbox, it’s going to be information that I care about, or it’s going to be people that I want to hear from. And that’s, what’s so impactful about having an email list is you can reach people who have essentially directly opted in to hear your messaging, and you know, that’s super, super important, right?

We’re talking to people who say, yes, I care about what you have to say. Yes. I see you as an authority guest. I want to learn more about how you can help me. And if you’re doing email marketing the right way, it’s going to be 100% permission-based meaning someone has to actively, um, say, here’s my name, here’s my email address. I want what you were offering. I want you to pop into my inbox and you can’t say that about many other marketing platforms. And even if you have a website, that’s great, but it’s not enough because imagine this, someone comes to your website and they like what you have to offer.

They like your vibe. They have a problem. Maybe their problem hasn’t hit the point of like where they need to take action yet. But if you don’t have a way to capture their email addresses that person’s potentially gone forever. And that’s why you need to have somehow some way to capture their email address.

So you, as the business owner or brand, or, or entrepreneur can follow up with them again and again and again, so that when the timing is right, when they are ready for your solution, that they’re going to act. Wow. That’s, pretty amazing, pretty powerful.

What should the emails I send contain?

That’s another great, great question. And, the number one thing that your emails should contain is value. It’s value! As long as your emails are helpful to your audience, then that’s all you really need. People don’t want to be marketed to, but what people do want, they want value. They want something that’s entertaining or informational or educational. They want something that makes their life better in some way.

You know, email marketing should almost just be called email relationship building, because that is in its simplest form, the easiest way to think about it. And if you think, hey, I’m here to serve my customer, my clients, my audience, and I can serve them through their inbox through different valuable content. This could be in the form of a discount. It could be helpful in the way that it saves them time or money. It could be convenient for them. It could teach them something new. It could be a link to a blog. It could be an inspirational post. You want them to say, wow, if they’re giving me all of this value for free, how is my life going to change or be better if I start paying them?

What are some bad examples of emails I should not send?

Here are two things that you shouldn’t do. You should not just send sales emails. And we kind of talked a little bit on that a minute ago and you shouldn’t send infrequently, so not so much that content, but, um, I see a lot of people who, um, They’ll collect email subscribers.

And so you need to keep people engaged from the get-go. And so one of the biggest mistakes is not in the type of email they’re sending, but in the fact that they’re not sending an email at all, and there have been so many times where I’ve opted into someone’s email list, I signed up for their lead magnet or their freebie and I checked my email when I sign up for someone’s list, I go straight to my inbox. I refresh, I look for the email. I pulled a refresh Porter refresh until that email pops up. I’m excited. I want to get the email. I want to see what they have to say I want my freebie.

And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opted in to never get my freebie. Um, but never to get another email again until you guess it six months. And then it’s like, Hey, um, here’s an email buy the thing. And it’s like, no, I don’t want to buy the thing. I don’t know who you are. So, that’s my little soapbox moment. Don’t send all sales emails and make sure you email immediately. Once they joined to kind of capitalize on that excitement.

How frequently should you send emails?

I suggest doing whatever you can do on a consistent basis. I don’t think there’s really a magic formula or a one size fits all answer to this, unfortunately, you know. I think it also depends on what industry you’re in, who your audience is, but none of that really matters here.

Here’s what really is the key. Whatever you do set that expectation upfront and your audience will know what’s coming. So if you’re going to send every single day, tell them, Hey, I’m going to, I’m going to drop into your inbox every single day, uh, with all of these amazing, you know, tidbits of, of. Value and, and, you know, spell it out.

What do you think sets AWeber apart from other email service providers?

Well, there are so many awesome things about AWeber that really sets us apart. But I think the first thing that comes to mind and that really is a differentiator for us is our 24 seven customer solutions. And don’t know about you, but when I have a question I want it answered right then and there. I want to pick up the phone. I want to call someone and I want my answer and I want to hang up. And I like the quickest path to get my answer. And so, um, we have that option for people.

So that’s definitely the thing that, you know, pops in my mind first and foremost, we have an amazing, amazing team. They’re all US-based employees. We don’t outsource our customer solutions, like some of our competitors. So that really scores to who we are here at AWeber.

And our education and, you know, we’ve been around since 1998. We’re definitely innovators in the industry. We’re known for our leading deliverability. We want to make sure that we get all of your emails to the inbox and not the spam folder. And we have an entire team of engineers whose sole job is email deliverability.

And so that’s something that’s, that’s really, really important. We want to make sure your messages are getting seen, you know, and ultimately grow your business. And the last thing I’ll mention again, there are so many awesome reasons, but the last thing I’ll mention is that we have free migration services. Those are just a few things that, uh, are top of mind for me as to why a Webber is a great choice.

How can a person grow their email list?

I mean, I think a contest is a really fun outside-the-box idea in terms of how to grow your list and you can make it like the winners going to be announced in your email newsletter or you have to enter with your email address or something fun like that. Um, and then also sending great content is a really great way to grow your list, because guess what if your subscribers love it? What are they going to do? They’re going to tell their friends and then their friends are going to want to subscribe. And then, you know, they’re going to love it. Then they’re going to tell their friends.

And so that’s a really great way to grow your list and don’t be afraid to ask your subscribers to forward your emails to someone that’s going to find them valuable? I feel like a lot of people are really humble and they don’t want to ask for referrals, but that’s a great, great way to kind of crowdsource your own subscribers and get people that are just like them on, on your list. Also making sure your social channels are connected.

What is your favorite thing you love about your job?

Wow. I mean, I love my job and I do a lot of cool things here. I, so my, uh, title is advocate manager and I’m also an email marketing success coach. So kind of two-pronged here. Um, probably the thing I love the most. Is, um, teaching people about email marketing. And so I do lots of podcasts. I do webinars and workshops and masterminds and, um, all of those things.

And, and my passion is really teaching and serving others. So that really fills my cup by, doing that. I do a lot of clubhouse rooms if anyone’s on the clubhouse app. And I talk a lot about relationship building and how to, um, Just build that trust with your ideal audience. So I love, love, love, love that.

But then the second part of my role is I run our referral program. And so I help entrepreneurs and creators bring in an additional, uh, you know, stream of income as well. So, um, that’s really fulfilling too, because, you know, everyone loves bringing in additional revenue and I teach them how to promote email marketing through AWeber.