You NEED an email list

Snagging people’s emails is super important nowadays. It doesn’t have to be spammy and it doesn’t have to feel sleazy. To be clear, this is not a call for us to start acting like spam bots. This is a sternly encouraging missive to get proactive about sharing the best parts of your organization with your fans. We all have fans, even if we don’t know so yet. There are people out there who need exactly what you offer and weep on the regular because they haven’t found you yet. Tears. All the time. Give them a tissue by giving them your very best content in the form of a newsletter.

If you can’t already tell, I’m a huge fan of email lists. The list members are the people who might have been on your site once but were not quite ready to commit. You can’t make anyone commit, but you can up those chances by snagging their email and reminding them that you are just what they need. That means sending them your latest blogs, some great events and of course helpful tips that are of service. People on your email list want to hear from you.You want to be able to share your big wins with people who are so happy to hear about it. When you have that big charity drive, your email list will be among the first to chip in. When you need some hella solid volunteers, check your email list. When you want people to know more, to hang on until you have more to offer them… Email list!

One of the easiest services to get an email list up and running is Mail Chimp. They’ve got a wealth of great training materials and are super beginner friendly. Mail Chimp is what I use for my mailing list, which you can sign up for at end of this blog post. One really great tip for ramping up your email list is to give something away for free. We all have an area of expertise around something and this is a very good way to showcase it. It doesn’t have to be long, a handy one page guide is just fine and dandy. Get yourself and what you know out there! Put together a quick freebie and get that email list set up!