We Built a List. Now What Are We Doing With It?
An email list is one of the most valuable assets a small business owns. Most of us are sitting on a goldmine and treating it like a filing cabinet.
I want to be honest with you about something. I know that many business owners do not enjoy sending newsletters – and plenty do not enjoy receiving them either. I hear that. But I believe strongly in the concept of staying in front of the people who already know us. Whether we have 37 people on our list or 3,700, there is no other consistent, low-cost way to do that.
Email is not glamorous. It does not have the reach of social media or the flash of a paid ad. But it reaches people who opted in — people who already said yes to hearing from us. That is a relationship. And relationships, tended to consistently, are where small business revenue actually comes from.
This week we are talking about email strategy — not the tool, not the platform, but the thinking behind it. Because most business owners I work with have a list they are barely using, and a significant amount of revenue sitting dormant inside it.
Email remains the highest-converting channel available to small business owners. Not social media. Not ads. Email. Because the people on our list already know us. They opted in. They gave us permission. That is a relationship — and relationships, when tended to, produce business.
The problem is not the list. The problem is what we are — or are not — doing with it. In every Business Health Check I conduct, email strategy is one of the areas where I see the biggest gap between what a business owner has and what they are actually using.
What a Healthy Email Strategy Actually Looks Like
A working email strategy has three components:
- Consistency. We show up on a schedule our list can anticipate. Weekly, biweekly, monthly — the frequency matters less than the reliability.
- Value. Every email gives the reader something useful — a perspective, a tool, a question worth sitting with. Not every email is a pitch.
- Intention. Each email has a purpose. We know what we want the reader to think, feel, or do after reading it.
That is it. Consistent, valuable, intentional. A business that does those three things with its email list will outperform competitors who are spending far more on advertising.
The Five Email Strategy Failures I See Most Often
- No list at all. There is no opt-in on the website. No way for an interested visitor to stay connected short of making a purchase.
- A list that has not heard from us in six months or more. At that point, re-engagement requires a specific strategy — not just picking up where we left off.
- Emails that are all promotion, no value. When every message asks for something, people stop opening. When emails consistently give something, open rates climb.
- No welcome sequence. The moment someone joins our list is the highest-engagement moment we will ever have with them. Most businesses waste it.
- No clear next step. Every email should point somewhere — a resource, a conversation, a booking link. If readers do not know what to do next, they will do nothing.
This Week’s Reality Check
“When was the last time we sent an email to our list that was not an announcement or a promotion? If we cannot remember, that is our answer — and it is the fastest thing we can fix this week.”
We do not need a perfect email. We need a sent one. One email this week — something useful, something real, something that sounds like us — is worth more than a perfectly designed campaign we never launch.
Register for the April 30 Webinar — $47
Business Health Check Webinar — April 30
Investment: $47 — credited in full toward your Business Health Check
Stay tuned for the registration link!
At the webinar you will receive the Business Health Check Scorecard — a structured tool that scores your business across all seven areas and shows you exactly where to focus first. The $47 registration fee is credited in full if you move forward with a full Business Health Check.
Reply and Tell Me
How long has it been since we last emailed our list? And what stopped us? Hit reply — no judgment, just an honest conversation about what gets in the way.
Next week: LinkedIn. Our profile is talking about us right now. Is it saying the right things?
Shelly Berman
Master Certified Business Management Consultant
Founder, Small Business Results
