Welcome back to the Muthership Creator Strategy. I'm excited to talk about today's topic because I think I bug people about this maybe a little too much. But before I get started, we're a quick shout out. I don't wanna spend a lot of time on unsponsored by content because I do have a lot to say today. This is Big Spoon Roasters, one of a it's a specialty almond butter brand.

I'm sure they have peanut butters too. I don't even know. I love almond butter. But they have flavors. It's delicious.

It's a really nice, you know, pay possibly a gift for someone who might be an almond butter lover. The only ingredients in this and it's pistachio crunch flavor because I love pistachios. The only ingredients in here are literally heirloom, mission almonds, pistachios, organic maple syrup, and Jacobson sea salt. It even gives you the brand of sea salt they use. So it's a really good brand.

It is definitely pricey. I'm going to say that it's a treat for yourself. I happened to be in a specialty store and I saw it and I remembered about it. I'm like, oh yeah, love this brand. So I treated myself.

But it's not something like for if you're making almond butter and jelly sandwiches every day for your kids, this is not the one you want to go to because it is expensive and you'll power through it. Alright. Let's get to the topic of today's podcast, which is why you should start an email newsletter in 2026. And I am so passionate about this because when I started my social media in 2020, somewhere along the way, I must have seen a creator that advised doing it or whatever. Maybe it came into my mind that I should have an email list.

I remember having an email list pretty early in my life. Like, even for my production business, had an email list. So it was a natural evolution for me, and I did do it pretty early in my content creation journey. And I had a very small amount of subscribers. Very small.

And I slowly built that up saying, you know, if you want more info, subscribe to my free email list. And then I would sort of shout that out. I'd sometimes be on lives. I talk about my free email list and the things I sent out. And I would send out things, not often.

Like, once every two months, I'd send out it. And I'd send out things not often, once every two months even, maybe even less. But I did curate those email addresses, and there's such an important reason for that. So first, I'm going to talk about why you should have an email list for the the basic reasons here, and then I'm going to talk about how to do it. Okay?

So we're to power through the reasons to do an email newsletter. You could say, no, no, no. My niche, it doesn't fit for me, blah, blah, blah. Any niche can have a newsletter. Any niche can have can curate an email list.

You can use it for whatever you deem fit. You can think about what you might wanna do with it. Later, just start getting those emails. Start getting those email addresses. You will own your followers.

Because what we learned, if nothing else, from the almost TikTok ban of 2025 is that it showed creators how it's helpful to have access to their followers outside of a platform. Because as soon as they shut that down, we were shut off and not connected to people that we had been in touch with and regularly hearing from in our comment section on our videos. So if nothing else, it gives you a way to communicate directly with your audience regardless of the platform, and it's a way of knowing who your most loyal followers are. Okay? And not everyone, if you have 1,200,000 followers, you're not gonna have 1,200,000 people on your email list.

If you have 500 followers, you're not gonna have 500 emails. A small percentage of people commit to you beyond the social media platform. So you have to realize that as you go into this. Like, you're not gonna have if you have 500 followers, all 500 are not gonna sign up for your email list. And I'll talk about how to get them to do it, but just know that that's a percentage game that is not gonna happen.

So set your expectations for like the lower side that you'll get a handful. Okay? The other ops the other good reason for it is it's an opportunity to provide longer content to keep people interested because a lot of times we have to keep our videos short, concise, and blah blah blah. But maybe you wanna tell, like, a longer story and you wanna do that in written word. So that's a really good way to do it.

Another way is to another reason is because it creates a deeper connection and helps to build community. Because with this type of content, you're not dependent on if the social media algorithm is pushing it out. So everyone who gets it is going to read it. And even if they don't read the whole thing and even if they don't respond, you know, even again, it's a percentage game of the people who sign up and the people who actually read the emails. So it's always a percentage game.

It always goes down. So you have x many followers, then you will have a smaller number of subscribers. Then you have x many subscribers, you will have a smaller number of who actually reads it every week, and then will taper off. And that's just the nature of the beast. But you as it tapers down, and I hate to use the word funnel, but it does, it kind of funnels down, those are your most loyal people who are paying attention to what you have to say.

And you want to know who they are and you want to be able to stay in touch with them. And the more you grow on social media, the more people you will slowly feed in that will become your loyal team, your tribe, your people that really listen to you. And it is so worth it. So my next point is no matter if you're big or small, an email list can be can be helpful to you, and it also doesn't have to be a lot of work. A lot of people think, oh, another thing for me to do.

A little bit to set it up maybe. You have to think about it, and we'll tell you the steps. But you once you set it up, you could decide that once every two months, I'm just gonna send out an update about x or if you're a recipe creator. Once every two months, I'm gonna do a story behind my recipe and send out a little story of, like, where you why you make this one thing. Is it a tradition or whatever?

Something that would be of interest. So any niche can have a newsletter. If if you're I have to make up niches now, but let's say you're a makeup expert and you're a makeup creator. You might wanna once every two months send out, oh, this is my a a hack I found. Even if it's a hack you found from social media, say, this is something I discovered on social media.

You can include the include the link of the person that that, you learned it from because that's always nice to do. You shout out the person that you got the idea from, and then you put your thoughts on top of that. Like, is why I really like this idea. I had a situation where I'm not a makeup creator, but I was talking about how my mom taught me the tip of putting your mascara in hot water to make it, softer when you put it on. And, oh my gosh, people came at me in the comments about why I shouldn't do that.

And I said it makes your mascara last longer. And they were like, you gotta replace your mascara every x months or whatever. Okay. Okay. We got So the point is though, I thought that was kind of a fun little trick that I could share with people.

That could have been something like if I was a skincare creator or a makeup that I could have shared in an email. The wrong reason why not to do that or whatever you want to tell people. Okay, so any niche can have a newsletter. You just have to be creative, and in the studio we're doing creative exercises now. So as I do these creative exercises with people, I want it to help train the brain of how to think of something and you're closed minded and you think it's not for me.

How you can expand your thinking and think how could this be for me? If I ever wanted to do that, so that you don't say no to something, you just say not right now. You don't say never to something, you just say not right now. Alright? So those are just, ways to think about it.

And then the last one of my reasons to do it is just it's a great way to connect. So you're watching, like, I don't know, endless videos about a topic. But if you're in someone's email box and then, like, during the day, they're reading your email newsletter because they took a break and they're, like, going through their whatever spam, let's call it, and then they see something that you said, and then suddenly they're more interested in you. And maybe they'll go, oh, I hadn't seen her on social media in a while, and maybe it'll connect them back to you. And those are just a few reasons.

There's I could sit here and probably come up with a lot more, but let me just tell you how much how much value it had to me when TikTok ban happened and I luckily had a community underway and also a massive massive to me email list of names where I could say, well, at least these people will know. Oh, find me on YouTube or find me on Instagram or find me elsewhere. So it does give you direct connection, and that is so valuable. So valuable. Like, eventually, my newsletter and hopefully this podcast will be able to get sponsors because I'm talking about things I truly love and believe in.

And so if a sponsor hears me, they're gonna say, oh, she's really gonna be able to talk about my product if she likes it because she's real. So it's the same thing in a newsletter. If you're talking about things in a newsletter and you're shouting out products or things that you like and you're sharing, people are going to trust you. So it's that extra way to build trust. Now we're going to get into how.

And I have outlined five steps, I guess. Even though there's more steps, there's more minutiae steps under the steps. I'm going to give you the big steps because what I'm going to do in the studio is really help my studio members to get into the minutiae because I'm going to feed them like the spoon feed. That's what I do over there. But I'm going give you the broad strokes.

Number one, pick a platform. Decide where you're going to create your newsletter. And you could do some research. You could say, I can tell you I've been to Mailchimp, I've been to Beehive, and now I'm on Substack. And what I like about Substack is that there's a lot of reasons I like it.

It's just because it's more of an interactive thing. So when people, they could comment instead of having to reply to message you. So there's like a a community, option built in. These things that I gave up because Beehive had more options for advertising. But I did weigh it out, and I thought the advertising opportunities were not that lucrative compared to the value I'm getting from being on Substack.

So I weighed those things out. But you could look at that and say, Mailchimp, okay. That's an easy one. Everybody knows how to do that. It's basic.

It's good. It's templated. Oh, Beehive, that's also a good one, and you might be able to get ads placed on your newsletters, which we did for a little bit. But it wasn't so lucrative that it that it, stopped us from wanting to move to Substack to create more value in the audience and be more discoverable because so many people are moving over to Substack. Okay?

So decide on your platform. Next, decide on your content. I'm powering out fast today because it's getting a little dark already, but I should have turned the light on. Oh, well, if you're watching, you're gonna see me go straight into the dark because I'm not gonna stop and change my lighting now. But decide on content.

Figure out what you can sustainably do, whether it's once a month, once every two months. What do you want to maybe have your email list be about? And you could think about it. Think about dog creator. Oh, I'm gonna always once a month, I'm gonna share my latest just like me, like my latest find that I like to share.

Whatever that is. Whatever you found recently for your dogs that you wanna share. Whatever you did recently. Something you want to share. And it can be something that you shared on social media.

It doesn't have to be completely different. It's just a different way of presenting it. You're presenting it in writing. So it's not like you're reinventing the wheel. You could totally recycle something that you've already talked about because the algorithm has not given that to everybody.

But in your email list, you're giving it to your most interested people. Okay? So don't be stressed. Just think about content. Then you have to think about how often you want to do it.

So it's it's platform, content, cadence. That's what's the next word, my buzzword here. It's like how often do you think you really wanna send out a newsletter? And I wouldn't kill yourself by doing saying, oh, I'm gonna do it every week. If you can't, like, take your time.

At least have if you're gonna do it every week, at least have four drafts lined up because weeks go fast, baby. And I'm like, I just feel like I just recorded last week's podcast. I'm back here doing it again. You gotta be relentless to keep up with week week to week. So do yourself a favor.

Start with, like, monthly or bimonthly. People time goes fast. People are gonna see your email, and it's gonna seem like they just saw one. So don't be stressed about I have to feed emails to them so often. You don't.

People get enough email. Once in a while, getting an email would be lovely. The next is to plan ahead and have a list of topics so that you're not overwhelmed and that you are not, like, running chasing it. So this way, maybe you have a list of topics that you're gonna write. Maybe you write a bunch of newsletters ahead of time, depending on how much of a planner you like to be.

But don't make it so that you're chasing it because then it's just gonna get annoying and you're not gonna wanna do it. Alright? And then the very last thing is figure out how you're gonna get people to sign up. And this is a whole big thing. I can make a whole podcast on just this alone.

But creating that, I like, I hate to use the word lead magnet because it feels so sales y. But give people a reason to sign up and for free. Make sure you say, it's like my free it's my free email list. It's not a paid subscription plan. You're gonna get you're gonna hear from me, and it's gonna be so joyful in your email inbox.

And so that is technically a lead magnet. And I talked about this last week, how I accidentally made like the most successful lead magnet of all time by doing a Jon Hamm trend and putting it in my links and then leading people to my email list to get it, like hello. So something that would be valuable to your audience. It could be you did a video and it's like, if you want the recipe and more, go to my sign up for my free email list and you'll get the recipe sent to you. You know, things like if something is somebody's doing like book talk and it's like Goodreads of the week, That's maybe you're gonna send out, I'm compiling all of my Goodreads into one digest where I'm gonna send out all the Goodreads in the month or in the two months or by quarterly, however you wanna do it.

Think about what's going to get people to want to sign up. And that's how you have to, that's where you use your social media and not always at the beginning, either sometimes maybe in the middle or at the end of your video a quick mention of, oh, and if you want this, go to my free email list, I'm sending that out. So putting that out there as often as you can because people don't always watch videos all the way to the end, as we know. So you need to not be worried about being repetitive, not be worried about annoying your followers because the people who already like you will be totally supportive of you making an email list. They will.

And if they're not, blinders on and move on and forget about them. My goodness. Alright. Hopefully you learned something today, but get get yourself going on it. It's worth it.

Even if you have a small email list for the longest time. Let me tell you, I had the smallest email list for the longest time, but I just knew that it was important somehow. My instincts told me, and now my instincts are telling you. So get on it. I'll see you next week.

Thanks for being here.