Everyone always says that you need to have an email list and that you need to grow your email list, oh and … your email list contains your most valuable readers/customers. And for a long time, I thought this was a whole lot of crap, but a couple of years ago something switched and I got on board with growing an email list and making it a bigger part of my business. You can read all about the platform I use and how simple it makes creating beautifully designed emails here. 

I recently celebrated sending my 100th newsletter and it got me thinking about how this email list, isn’t really just a list. It’s a community, and one I am so grateful for. It didn’t always feel like a community though. It took a little while to figure out what I could offer via a newsletter that I couldn’t offer on Instagram or here on the blog. If you are just starting your email list or feeling a little uninspired by the emails you have been sending, I want to share what has worked for me and what has made this newsletter a fun place to show up for every week. 

If you aren’t already part of my weekly newsletter community, click here to sign up! 

How to Turn Your Email List into a Community

1. Share content that you aren’t sharing anywhere else on the internet. It’s so easy to repurpose blog content or an Instagram post but when you are sharing exclusive content, it is an incentive to join your email list and to stay. I always start my emails with a photo that I don’t share anywhere else, usually something that is from my everyday life. This is a chance to connect with your readers and give them a little peek behind the curtain. 
2. Follow a formula that is digestible and fun for you. I realized that not every email I send needs to be some brand new concept. It can follow a formula. Knowing that I have been super consistent and my community knows what to expect from me each week. My formula includes a little intro, links to favorite finds on the internet, and a social media tip for the week. Yours can just be whatever you want, but pick a theme and stick with it for a little bit. 
3. Make your email designs an extension of your brand. Long gone are the days of text-based only emails for me. Now I use a beautiful template that I customized with FloDesk. This doesn’t mean your emails need to be more complicated or have twenty different features but it should look and feel like your brand. That way people know, without looking at who sent the email, who is in their inbox. By adding fun design elements, your readers are also more likely to share on social media and help grow your list for you. 
4. Ask for feedback from your community. This is something that we often forget to do. You are landing directly in their inbox which means all you have to do to find out if someone likes your email or what they want to see more of is ask them to reply to you. I recently ran a giveaway and to enter, all my readers were asked to do was respond with the reasons they liked seeing me in their inbox. Having this extra dialogue makes people feel valued and helps you realize that you are talking directly to a person. 
5. Make your community feel extra special because they are! I share exclusive discounts, announce new launches, and run giveaways just for my email newsletter peeps. By doing this it helps encourage people to stay around for more. 

I hope these 5 tips help you feel more connected to your newsletter community and if you have been wanting to start an email newsletter I cannot recommend FloDesk enough.