[inaudible] it's going to happen if there isn't any more Facebook or Instagram. And I was like, Oh , hello. This is a wake up call. We cannot be dependent on social platforms that do not belong
Speaker 2to us. When I first
Speaker 1started my business in 2007 people told me to build my email list, but I didn't really understand why. So I simply put a sign up for my newsletter button on my blog. I would occasionally send newsletters about what I was up to, but I wasn't sending them with an intention or I definitely was not sending them with a strategy. It wasn't until 2016 that I really started to seriously build my email list and I'm going to tell you, I bummed I waited so long. I quickly realized my largest form of communication and my greatest way to build trust was by regularly popping into people's inboxes. And the best part is that a newsletter does not rely on gaining followers on somebody else's platform like pay Mark Zuckerberg. I can't always depend on that guy. You know what I'm saying? So here's some real talk. You can grow your business without social media. Now I know that it sounds crazy coming from me because I'm a huge proponent and an advocate of social media and I still am, but what I probably haven't mentioned so much so publicly is that I am a massive believer in using my website to showcase my brand, to build a strong email list and to use it as a division of my blog as well. Now these are platforms that belong entirely to my business. I think it's really important to make sure that I'm not dependent on platforms that do not belong to my business, so platforms that help me market my business, but I'm not dependent on our Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn. These platforms are meant to drive traffic to my platforms. I don't want to solely rely on social media. That's why I am here to diversify your approach with the best advice that I can give. On March 13th, 2018 Facebook and Instagram broke like legitimately completely went offline and what I saw online was stray bananas. People were freaking out about what it meant for their business. And I was like, wait, what? Why are all these people freaking out? They're like, Oh, what's going to happen if there isn't any more Facebook or Instagram? And I was like , uh , hello. This is a wake up call. We cannot be dependent on social platforms that do not belong to us. That day I recorded
Speaker 3my thoughts during the aftermath of this massive tech mishap on the Facebook and Instagram and I want you to listen in. So something crazy happened today and what I'm going to do is I'm going to show it to you cause it's one of the very hot topics in the social curator Facebook group. So this is a group where I go in and I teach tutorials, but we also get hot topic within the last hour. One of our admins , it said Instagram and Facebook are having both having tech issues right now, limiting options to post comment and tag . You're not alone. So a lot of people were struggling with this. Okay, friends. So this is brought up a very big topic within the group. But first I want to show you what date is there it is. March 13th, 2019 this is when Facebook and Instagram had some sort of Technis snafu that's not allowing people to post. So while it's slowing my progress, I'm not freaking out the way that some people are. So this is just a note and encouragement for y'all to continue building on your own platforms and owning your customer data. Now there are very few people who is a bigger fan than Facebook and Instagram and then yours truly, I love these platforms. I spend my days on these platforms. I teach people how to use these platforms. However, you've also probably hear me say how important it is to grow a newsletter list, how important it is to keep your website updated, how important it is to diversify your efforts in your business so that you're not reliant on one form of social media. If you have hundreds of thousands of followers and Instagram, that's amazing. I applaud you. Good on you. Clap that up. But if you don't have a diversified approach on how you're going to market your business, if on days like today Instagramming around, then this is a note, the writing is on the wall. We do not own Instagram and we do not own our Instagram followers or have access to them. However, it's an amazing platform to ensure that you are taking this content that you put on an Instagram and then also putting it on places that you also own. Other platforms that I have been building at the same time on Twitter, on YouTube, I'm diving into Pinterest and LinkedIn, so this is me taking a diversified approach. I call it an Easter egg approach. Why I want to fill up my Easter basket, AKA my business with a lot of different avenues and ways to be promoting and marketing my business. I don't want to have one Easter egg basket with one Easter egg in it. You know what I'm saying? I want a big basket with like 12 different eggs. I got my newsletter egg, I got my blog posts , egg , I got my Twitter egg and my Instagram, my Facebook, because when one of those arms of marketing and advertising isn't available to me, I am not beholden. I'm not stressed out. I'm saying I am taking and making the best decisions for my business to ensure that my diversified approach doesn't leave me shackled to somebody else's platform. This is a note of encouragement and word to the wise for you today.
Speaker 1Now you know why it isn't wise to only rely on social media to build your business because at any moment your social media could be poof, gone and then would your business be gone to heck no. I cultivate an email list because I know that the consistency and the relate-ability is what makes people care about me and my brand. In one of my ask me anything, Facebook live sessions, I answered somebody's question about why a newsletter list is important and the four things I've learned in building it for over a decade.
Speaker 3Let's segue into our next press question. This one, it was uploaded four times the most popular question of the day. Jordan. Hi Jasmine. How important do you think it is to really prioritize building an email list and what are some of the best practices to do so Jordan and anybody else who's watching? I, I, I started my business officially in 2007 and people can talking about, Oh, you need an email, you'll need a , you need an or email us . And I was like, okay. And so then on my blog I just put to sign up for my newsletter and that was it. And I would occasionally send like newsletters about what I was doing, what I was up to, and I just felt lost. Like I didn't really feel like I was doing it with intentionality. So as I continued building my business, the thing that I realized was that our largest form of communication and to build trust was by way of a newsletter. Now you're saying this and you're like Jasmine, but like you've built out such a platform on Facebook and you built out a platform on Instagram and on YouTube and on Twitter. And guess what? That is all true, but I still cultivate my newsletter list because those people care about what I doing and what social curator is doing in a far greater, in a far greater way. Those are my hottest leads. Those are my hottest audience. Those are the people who are more inclined to go with me on my journey, so do I think it is important? Ooh , baby boo . I think it is so important. Let's go through the four lessons that I have learned in over a decade of creating a newsletter. Number one, keep it consistent. What does this mean is that I don't care how many times you're sending a newsletter, but whatever number you choose, you have to stick with it. For a long time. I was sending a newsletter once a month and then I started realizing how important it was and so then it went to twice a month and now I'm sending a newsletter once a week. Every single Tuesday you will get an email in your inbox. I write all of them myself. I use them to communicate and we're going to get into that in point number two. But point number one is keep it consistent. And now we're going to get to point number two and that's to keep it different. What do I mean by that? Well, recently I did this a personality test. It's called disc D. I. S. C it's through Tony Robbins. If you just Google disc and Robbins, you will get this free test. And I'm telling you, it blew my mind. Like it's so amazing to kind of see how your brain works and how you process. And I scored very, very high on the individualistic capacity, which means I want to do things like number one on my own terms. And number two things that people have not done before. So as I was working on building up my newsletter list, because I realized that this was my hottest audience, I looked at all of the other emails that I was getting in my inbox from other people in, I mean other companies, clothes that I bought , um, uh, appointments that I have made other people in, online business management and marketing. And I was looking at all of their emails and I was just like, okay, the pattern seems I'm going to send you an email and I'm going to sell you something. Like everybody was like, Hey go and take an action on behalf of my business. Go and listen to this podcast, go and buy this thing. Go and sign up for this course. Go and do this. And I was like, okay but I am less likely to open that email cause I just know that you're going to sell me something. So I have made a very active decision to offer value every single time I send an email sometimes like just yesterday, what's today? Wednesday? Yes. Just yesterday I sent an email. I didn't have a call to action. I did not say I didn't have any links, I didn't have any photos. I just said I'm sending you something. And it was kind of like a big hug and a kick in the pants at the same time. And people actually emailed us back and said, Hey, thank you for not selling me something. So you need to look at what other people are doing in your industry and be different because the minute you're different is the minute that your emails dicks out. Let's get into point number three to keep it valuable, you have to ask yourself, what do people on my newsletter list want to hear? And for a while it took me, it took me about a year. So I started seriously using my email list in 2016 seriously use my email list. And it took me a year to understand what people really wanted to see. So what was happening was I was sending these long, lengthy emails and they were so about here's how you strategically use Instagram and this is the Facebook algorithm update. And they were great, like they weren't a waste of time. But I realized that the one, the emails that got shared the most open, the most posted about the most were the ones that were just like, Hey, you're doing just fine. Hey, this is something I learned on a personal level and look how it's pearling in my business. Hey, get off your butt and do something. And I started realizing that people wanted to get an email. That was just for me being like, considering the circumstances you're doing. Okay. Oftentimes we hold ourselves to such a high standard and we say we're not doing enough. We're not being enough. We're not posting enough. We're not sharing enough. We're not creating enough. But if objectively you were to tell me, Hey, I am a single mom of three or I'm a dad working two jobs and my stay at home wife takes care of our kids. Or if you want to say I'm a college student, I'm carrying a full load and I'm on scholarship and I have a part time job at school. And if you were to tell me all the other stuff you're doing and saying I not where I want to be, my response to you would be, you know, considering the circumstances, you're killing the freaking game. So I looked at what other people were doing with their newsletters and I said, I want to be different. And by being different, I offer value. What is value? It depends on your business and it depends on your viewership. But when you start thinking, what value could I offer, then you just practice and be willing to suffer and go through it and figure it out for a year until you get it right. Then you're good. Last dip . Keep it thoughtful. It's so crazy that when you make your newsletter, not about you, when you make your newsletter, not all about your business. Oh my God. So yesterday, I'm sorry, I shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain. As a kid, my mom would say, you can't say, Oh my God. So my twin sister and I were just rebels. We're like, Oh my God. So, Oh my God. Yesterday was Amazon prime day, right? Like that's basically an American holiday. You get like all these great deals. I can't tell you how many newsletters I unsubscribed from yesterday because people were emailing me their Amazon picks for the day, and guess what's going in those newsletters? A bunch of affiliate links. So just in case you don't know when somebody's sending you their Amazon, other Amazon picks, they're also including an affiliate link. So they're getting a small percentage for everything that you buy from their Amazon link. Nope, no tea , no shade. If that's what you do, you clap it up, but if you're not going to be 100% transparent about it, I don't like that. Number two, I was looking through about 17 emails all about Amazon prime. Is that different? No. Is it valuable? No. Is it thoughtful ? It could be depending on your audience, but for all those reasons, not for me. Okay.
Speaker 1According to a 2017 study by John Valenti, one email subscriber equals between 25 cents and a dollar per month in income generation. Like think about that. Would you like, I don't know, a couple hundred or even a couple thousand dollars per month in revenue based on your newsletter list? This is true in my business. If I'm going to be honest every week, my newsletter list is the number one way I connect with prospective customers for my business. Now that we know how powerful newsletters can be in your marketing strategy, how do we get people to sign up well in another ask me anything episode. On a Facebook live. I answered what is the best thing that I've done to entice people to sign up for my list. So let's take a listen.
Speaker 3Okay Kathleen. Hi Kathleen. Good to see you doc to see you. What's the best thing you have done to build your email list? I have gotten so strategic now if you're a member of social curator, I feel like this is like a plugfest sorry, it's just my truth. If people won't talk about my business, who will, we have a whole issue on how to build an email list and, and we had a guest contributor we're getting was Amy Porterfield. She's basically a genius and a unicorn. And she talked about being really strategic with using lead magnets, like customer acquisition. Like what are we doing to let people know to give them information to sign up for the thing that we want them to sign up for. So now I'm really trying to use my videos with strategy and say, Hey, if I have a free resource that you can download, creating free resources that people can download, will inadvertently and intentionally grow your email list. And I feel like I can't say that enough again and again. And again.
Speaker 1Here's the thing, BU people don't want to randomly sign up for somebody's list . Do you know what I'm saying? Like our inboxes are crowded enough already. So what is it going to take for somebody to say, Hey, your newsletter list is the thing I want to sign up for? Well, you have to give them something of value. You have to make sure that you're building trust, likeability and no ability. So in order to gain subscribers, you have to give them something for free first. So there are some proven freebies that work really well to get people to sign up and you've probably seen them as you shopped online, like discount codes or free shipping or perhaps a coupon code. Okay? But there are also other richer, deeper resources like a digital guide or a free book, a free gift with purchase, a video series. Perhaps you can create a checklist. So of all of these ideas you have to ask yourself, what is my audience actually want to note? For me. What I'm about to tell you is something I have done a thousand times over and I still continue to do it. To this day. I test, I test in , I test on a personal note, I should probably let you know that you have heard me talk about what we call lead magnets or freebies in the past and the podcast, right? Like I have my productivity planner, Jasmine, star.com forward slash. Productivity I also have an Instagram story checklist and how to do a Facebook live and how to do an Instagram live. I have created a ton of resources. Now for every resource you actually hear me talk about, I created another seven that didn't really work like I probably have a good, I don't know, 30 to 40 resources that like people just weren't interested in. So I stopped talking about them. Why? Because I create and then I test test, test. So I want to give you three steps to test content to determine what people want to learn from you. Number one, think of four to five your audience might be interested in step number two, turn them into four to five at Facebook and Instagram posts, and then number three of those four to five posts, evaluate which ones got the most engagement likes and which one got the most questions. Hmm . All of those are indications of what people want to see more of. Now once you've tested these topics and you know what the people have reacted, the best to that is what you create a freebie around. This can be a PDF, it could be a video, it could be a worksheet, it could be anything you dream up. Then what you want to do is you want to advertise it to your audience and drive traffic to the landing page where you can collect their email address and then you send them the freebie and if for some reason that freebie doesn't work with your audience like I've had multiple times, all you have to do is try a new idea. The only way to know if you're creating a freebie that your audience actually wants is to test the content, create a freebie around the most popular post and then rinse and repeat. If you've all of these steps to, I promise your audience will be so excited for what you have to share and I will redo so I have a question for you. Do you want to know what I'm doing besides building my email list? I am planning on doubling my business in 2020 and I want you to join me. Now. I know that sounds crazy, but doubling my business has been a yearly goal and I am so excited to tell you that practically year after year my business has doubled, so I want to share everything I know about how you can do the same. This is your chance to join me for a free master class 2020 vision for 2020 grow your business to the next level without losing your time and sanity. I would love for you to come and spend one hour with me where I'll walk you through my three pillars of growth. I am going to show you how to double your business this year by scaling up and you're going to get a juicy bonus of 10 Instagram story templates that you can use starting immediately in the new year, but you have to show up live to get this amazing bonus. They're so beautiful. You're going to love them. I'm already obsessed with him. Now all of this is for free. I cannot wait to walk you through your growth plans for 2020 if it's run a newsletter, if it's about doubling your business, if it's around using social media to market your business so people know more about your message is and how to get to know you better. I do not want you missing out on how to get people talking and investing in your business. Simply save your seat@jasminestar.com forward slash 2020 so friends, cheers to list building to doubling your business, and of course your future success, which I know is a foregone conclusion. I am so honored you choose to spend time listening to the Jasmine star show and I will see you again
Speaker 2soon. [inaudible] .