367: Your Email Growth Plan (For Creators Who Are Tired of Overcomplicating It)

[00:00:00] If Instagram vanished tomorrow, or if your blog hosting shut down for a week, how would you reach your audience? If your answer is, I don't know, then it's time to get serious about your email list. Welcome to the Thrive Podcast, where we believe creators deserve more. More money, more freedom, and even more love for what they do.

[00:00:25] I'm Bree P, your coach for content creators. And I know the struggle, the long hours, the endless ideas, the feeling that success is just out of reach. But here's the truth. You've got what it takes. And this podcast, it's your shortcut to getting there from strategies that actually work to behind the scenes insights.

[00:00:46] We are unlocking your potential one episode at a time. So if you're ready to turn your creative hustle into a thriving business, let's get started. This is episode four of the series all about growing your audience. Oh my gosh. We are at the halfway mark and this series was inspired by our audience growth plans inside of bold fluence.

[00:01:10] As I was building this out inside Bold Fluence, I was like, I gotta bring this over to the podcast and share this with everyone. Because I believe that every content creator needs to be able to make some serious money, okay? You need to be able to grow your audience the way that you want and make money doing it.

[00:01:28] So what we've done is we've created over 25 different growth path combinations that you can choose from for your business. We want it to make sense for you, and as soon as you join, we'll teach you the different options. And get you started. So you can pick the audience growth plan and monetization plan that feels best for you, and you're gonna combine 'em together and it's gonna make magic fireworks happen.

[00:01:52] Okay? So this episode is a peek behind what that looks like. So let's start off with why email is non-negotiable in my opinion. That's my hot take If we want a hot take. Email is non-negotiable period. Social platforms are noisy and email is what is going to cut through. Email isn't going anywhere. Show of hands, I wish I could I, I'll do this in front of an audience one day.

[00:02:20] Raise your hand if you can probably still attempt to at least log into the very first email address that you ever created. We should do this on Instagram. I wanna know, or maybe I'll, maybe I'll send it out in an email. That would be a lot of replies to reply to though. But I wanna know the craziest email addresses.

[00:02:44] What were some of the funny email addresses that you guys first had? I love that kind of stuff. So email is always been around, right? We've had them since the cringe usernames back in high school or middle school. Always there, right? It's not something that is blocked by algorithms or anything else. It is your most direct and ownable line to your audience.

[00:03:08] Nowhere else can you actually like own a way to connect with your audience. Yes, a blog is great because you know your driving traffic from keywords, SEO, Pinterest, all of that, but an email is a direct line to them. And inside Bold fluence, we teach creators how to make email, feel personal, powerful, and fun.

[00:03:31] Without needing to make complicated funnels or spend tons of time learning how to do it, you need things that are quick, easy, and going to give you results. Right. That is what my life motto is. So your email list is the only place where your people are guaranteed to hear from you, right? It cuts through the noise, it cuts through the algorithms, and it is the highest converting platform for sales.

[00:03:59] So you can think of sales in many different ways. You can think of that for affiliate links, digital products that you may be selling. Even with, you know, getting in front of brands. It's also the. Easiest platform to create content for, and I stand by that. You may be like, what do I send in my list? And we're gonna dive into that.

[00:04:17] But I'm telling you, email is the easiest platform to create content for, and you can do it with your hair up in a messy bun, in your pajamas late at night while watching Ginny and Georgia. Okay, so let's dive into. The biggest mindset shifts that I think you need to make if you're struggling with email at all, or need a boost and a pep talk to refocus on it.

[00:04:47] Building an email list isn't about being perfect. It's just about getting started and being consistent. Oftentimes we're overcomplicating it and we need to just make this simple. You don't have to have a welcome series, a lead magnet and a nurture plan on day one. You don't have to have any of that. We start small and strategic and grow from there.

[00:05:11] When we are handed, you know, strategy from someone that's like, alright, if you're gonna do email, you gotta do X, Y, and Z, and then you have to go build this funnel. And if you gotta get started on this platform and all of these different things. That over complicate the crap out of it, and then we freeze and are like, I'm gonna keep pushing this off and I'm gonna keep pushing it off and I'm not gonna do it.

[00:05:33] I'll do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow becomes never right. You, you don't need a funnel to get started. You need a form and a message worth sharing. That's it. Two things, and we're going to make them super simple. So inside Bold Fluence, we fully deep dive into a 90 day email growth plan. And so I'm gonna give you a bird's eye view of that right now.

[00:05:57] So the first part is building the foundation. Right, so you have to pick an email marketing platform. You guys know we love Flow Desk if you're new. Hello friend. I'm obsessed with flow desks and the reason for that is because it is stupid simple. It's stupid simple, and it's beautiful. It was truly made for content creators.

[00:06:19] Every other platform honestly feels a bit over complicated to me. MailChimp. Is over complicated and once you hit a certain number of subscribers, they charge you out the Wazoo, mailer Lite. It's fine. It can be free for a little bit until a certain number of subscribers, but honestly, it's just not as pretty and easy to use as flow desks, ConvertKit, or Kit as they call it now.

[00:06:43] It's just. It's honestly got too many bells and missiles for what a lot of content creators need. And flow desks, I feel like has kind of checked all of those boxes for what content creators are looking for. It's easy and we love easy. So you're gonna pick a platform, set up a form, and create a simple lead magnet that aligns with what you already talk about.

[00:07:06] We don't need to reinvent the wheel here, we don't need to come up with anything new. We're gonna keep this simple. And before I move on. I have a discount code to flow desks. Yes, I am an affiliate. Yes, I use it personally for my business, so I'll, I'll link that for you. The next thing is growing with intention.

[00:07:24] So for the following 30 days, we're gonna focus on growth. Notice also in the first month, I didn't say that you had to send an email, so if sending the email is something that just has you breaking out into a sweat. Don't worry. You get to do some fun things for the first 30 days and not even send out an email if you don't want to.

[00:07:43] Okay. So the next 30 days, like I said, growing with intention, so adding opt-ins to your top blog posts. We wanna create pins for Pinterest that are going directly to your simple lead magnet that you made. Okay? That is where Pinterest, which we talked about last week, really starts to tie in because Pinterest can grow.

[00:08:04] Everything across the board, like we said, including your email list. So, you know, and I kind of wanna pause for a second. It's like, well, Bree, why do I need an email list? Why is this something that I need to focus on? Remember, like I said, it's about having a direct line to talk to your audience. Let's say if shit hits the fan on other platforms and you can't reach your audience, or the algorithm just refuses to show you to your audience, okay, or your hosting goes down.

[00:08:33] But also more than that, email builds a bond with your audience. A lot of us, most of us, hopefully, all of us want to have a bond with our audience and feel like it's almost like a community. And email really does that because there are ways to communicate with your email list that just make you more connected with them and make them feel like they know you a bit more, which is going to lead to brand loyalty.

[00:09:00] It's going to lead to more sales, it's going to lead to more income across the board. So we're gonna do all of those things and then we're gonna start sending one email a week, even if it's short. Okay? And I'm gonna talk about what to email in just a minute. And then for the last 30 days, it's focusing on optimizing for connection and growth.

[00:09:22] So if we need to clean your list or segment if needed, now we'll teach you how to do all of that. Create a welcome email or miniseries and start testing what subject lines and formats your people love. Every email you send is building trust or breaking it, so we wanna keep it real, valuable and aligned with what you care about.

[00:09:45] So common mistakes that stall list growth, whether it's stalling you from growing your list or stalling you from starting your list. Number one is waiting until everything's ready before launching a freebie. We don't have to make everything perfect, okay? We don't have to make everything ready before we start sending emails.

[00:10:09] We don't have to make sure everything is perfectly ready before we start growing our list. Number two is never emailing your list or ghosting for months. You can do a silent raise of your hand if that's you. So, like I said, I hear, I don't know what to send all the time. It is the biggest roadblock that I hear over and over again.

[00:10:34] Keep it simple. You can keep it to a couple of paragraphs, a picture and a link, and that's it. That is, you can keep it so, so simple. I like to think of my email list as my insider list. Okay, so I like to think of you guys on my list as people that are getting a little bit of a behind the scenes, probably hearing something about my personal life that I don't share other places, and as a way for me to connect with you.

[00:11:06] So that is a good place to start, right? So I want you to think of one piece of content that you wish you had more eyes on. Okay? I don't care what it is. I don't care if it's an opt-in, a blog post, a real you don't care. Take that piece of content and how can you tell your audience a little bit something about the behind the scenes of that piece of content, whether it's something that went awry while you made it, why you were so excited about making it, why you want more eyes on it, why you want more people to see it.

[00:11:45] That's it. And then maybe share a picture of that piece of content or from that piece of content, so a still from the reel or a picture from the blog post, and then include a link to it. That's super simple, right? It can be as easy as that. Yes, we can make it more complicated. We can look at, you know, strategy afterwards and like, you know, driving traffic to certain things.

[00:12:12] But it all starts with that. It's like, what is the goal of this email? That's what you have to approach every single email with is what is the goal. Is the goal to get more traffic on my blog? Is the goal to get people to follow me on Pinterest is the goal to get people to engage with this reel? What is the goal?

[00:12:31] That's what you build your email around, and it can be as simple as a couple of paragraphs, something connecting with your audience and a link and send. Third common mistake that stalls list growth is treating email like an afterthought instead of a relationship. So creating all the content, doing all the things, and then being like, oh shoot, I need to send an email out.

[00:12:53] What do I do with this? And I am totally guilty of this, and that's why sometimes you guys don't get an email from me. But when I pause and when I take the time to think it out and strategically plan my emails. I like to do this a couple times a month. I don't like, you know, being in the moment and being like, I have, it's not an email tomorrow.

[00:13:13] What am I going to say? I really like to have some more time to plan it and think it out more thoughtfully, and my favorite thing to do is to grab my laptop, go get a cup of coffee at my local coffee shop and sit there for a couple of hours and write some emails. So that's kind of my suggestion with how you treat it more like a relationship.

[00:13:33] And then other mistake is making it only about selling. So I really like to use my email list. Yes, of course I sell and I use it for selling, and I use it for telling you guys about things that you can purchase. But I really like to use it as a way to build a relationship and to build community, and to make us all feel more connected.

[00:13:54] How does Bold Fluence help you get there? We help you pick the platform and your freebie strategy fast. Okay. We're not gonna spend. Too much time overthinking this. We're just gonna get some things done. You're gonna get plug and play templates to help you launch quicker, and you're gonna get coaching support and weekly check-ins to keep you consistent because yeah, email can feel intimidating, but only if you're trying to do it all at once.

[00:14:19] Okay, so inside bolts moments, we're gonna give you step-by-step plan to grow your list, build a real connection, and make sales without burnout. And if you've been putting this off. Now is the time to start. So head to Thrive together, blog slash bold fluence, and let's build your email list together.

[00:14:44] If this episode helped you, help us grow, leave a review, share it with a friend, and tag us on social media. We can't wait to cheer you on.