EXTRA SERVICE: Outsourcing Your Email List Building

One of the main pieces of advice for authors these days is to build an email list. The key reasons we use email, as authors, are as follows:

 

It’s cheap. Many mailing systems, such as Mailchimp, allow you to manage a few thousand email addresses free. Mailchimp’s free limit is 2,000 list members. Costs go up after that, but are still low. We suggest you use an online mail management system such as Mailchimp, as they have templates for email design, manage unsubscribes without your intervention, and allow you to time your mailings. Without a system such as Mailchimp your email system, such as Gmail, will restrict you to sending only 500 emails a day. Email is subject to legal requirements, in data protection and list management, so be careful how you manage your email lists. Letting a professional service like Mailchimp handle the list is the easy answer.

It’s wide ranging. Emails can be used to contact people who have already purchased a book, are interested in more books or people who have never read your book, all held in separate email lists.

Email is personal. Email is far from dead. The number of email addresses around the world is still rising. Many of us get our most important communications through email, such as job offers and book representation offers. Mailchimp allows us to insert each recipients’ name at the top of an email, in the salutation, and insert other personal information, such as what book the person purchased, if you have that information in your mailing list.

High return on investment. Email provides an opportunity to get orders from 0-10% of the email list, depending on how often you email and what you are promoting. Sales can be driven up by new releases, special offers, bundling with an ebook, relaunches and seasonal specials.

It’s measurable. Typically you will see a boost in your book sales numbers on the day your email goes out. The increased numbers reflect the sales due to your email. You can therefore directly relate the costs to the outcome. Email addresses are also not subject to changes in the terms of a service, in the way Facebook Likes or Twitter followers might be.

For an author the things to consider when deciding whether to create an email list are as follows:

Do you need one at all? Do you plan to write further books? Do you plan to relaunch your current book? If you aren’t planning either of these email lists may not be for you.

Do you want the chore of setting up, then promoting the list to sign ups, then sending out the emails? BooksGoSocial can set up a series of promotions at a low cost for one week ($25- see details below) to build your list, if you already have a sign up page, with an incentive for people to sign up to receive emails from you. If you want us also to set up the email list system, create an incentive and manage the list for you, there will be an additional cost, depending on what aspects you want done. Our aim is to keep the cost low and save you time.

What incentive will you use to get people to sign up? Often an offer of a free few chapters, entry into a draw for a signed first edition by post, or some other similar low cost incentive will work. There must be an incentive mentioned, as your sign ups will be very low if not.

What content will you email people after they sign up? Normally a Thank You email is sent, also asking people to confirm they wish to be on the email list. After that you may send updates about when your next book is coming out or about a new offer. You can also use these emails to tell people about your book related blog posts, Facebook posts or other social media initiatives.

The simple solution to building a list is to get BookGoSocial to promote your list by Twitter, Facebook and email.

Here is a description of the plan.

Fast Follower Growth Plan – $25 – includes:

Boost your email list or your Facebook Likes or Twitter followers with a week of promotion!