If you’re like so many clients I’ve talked to over the years, you may think email marketing is as dead as the dinosaur age …

… and I’m here to tell you that’s flawed thinking.

You don’t own your social media platforms (Facebook and Google do, and they can shut down your account whenever they want), but you DO own your email list.

Today, we’re going to cover the three basic components you need to have in place to get in front and stay in front of your customers using email.

Email Signature

Just like your social media platforms have a section for your company and/or personal bio, use that bio for your email signature. This is where you include your name, a little about you and how people can find you (i.e., link to your website or have them opt in for a “freebie”). If you’re a business owner, you need to communicate with people online about who you are, what you do, and how you’re an expert in your market.

Email Marketing

Building an email list ensures your message gets in front of those people who want to hear from you regardless if there’s an outage on Instagram. There are TWO steps you can take to get started with email marketing. First, pick an email marketing platform (e.g., MailChimp). Second, email your list weekly with valuable content.

Lead Magnet

Capturing customer email addresses can be challenging. People are very private with their email addresses. Therefore, in order to capture those emails, you’ve got to have something REALLY awesome as a token for their email address. We call this a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a free item or service given to a customer in return for their email address.

Think about your favorite retailer. You likely gave your email address in return for a one-time discount — that’s a lead magnet. But here’s the catch to lead magnets: your lead magnet has got to be valued enough (a FABULOUS deal or something really awesome for FREE) for someone to want to give you their email address.

This article was republished with permission from Heather Lisle. The original post can be found here.