Why I Don't Recommend a FREE MailChimp Account for Book Marketing

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Today I'm going to talk about why I do not recommend mailchimp. I don't recommend it, and there is a very specific reason I don't recommend it for a free account. Now, if you get the paid version, that's a different story. But if you are a typical author and I worked with a lot of authors, many of them will tell me, well, I don't have the budget for an email subscriber list, so I just have to use whatever's free and I have to sign up for mailchimp because it's free. Okay, let's dive into this. One of the things I love, love, love to teach you is to work so smarter, not harder. I want you to work smarter, not harder. Marketing does not need to be a thing where you're just sitting behind your computer all the time consumed with marketing. Let's use some automation and let's use the automation tools that are available to us. So one of the automation tools I love, and I've been using it for years to sell books and products on autopilot 24 7, even when I'm sick on vacation, are email autoresponders. Basically, your email autoresponder is a sequence you can schedule in your email service provider that will go out automatically. So you schedule how it goes out. And now you guys email tools are getting very smart. Like you can tag people, you can have it send things out based on actions they take. And it's getting really, really sophisticated. But autoresponders are super smart for marketing because you set it up. You can set up evergreen emails in those autoresponders. And by Evergreen, I mean that it's going to be information, it's going to be content. That's not going to go out of style. It's not going to be based on a certain current event. It could be stories. So. So one of the autoresponders I use is. It's a story of when I was little, I was seven years old, I performed baton twirling. We learned baton twirling. And we were going to be in a parade. And I performed perfectly, except I dropped my baton one time. Only one time. But that one time was when the photographer from the newspaper took our picture. My one mistake that I made was, was made public to the entire town. And I was mortified. And I think that one instance when I was 7 years old, I think it was 7 or 8. It really brought out this thing like I have to work harder. I have to try to be perfect. I can't fail. I don't want people to see that I failed, that I've made a mistake. And it really drove in this desire to perform and be perfect. I didn't want to be a failure. Well, anyways, that is an evergreen story. And then I tie it in with authors and how so many times we get this feeling like we get stuck in perfectionism. And it's about progress, not perfectionism. Right. It's about progress. And so that is an example of an Evergreen autoresponder. It's a great story. Not so great feeling. When I was that age and that happened to me, it was devastating at that time. But it's a story that really shares some of who I am. It shares. It's vulnerable. It connects with my audience. Then I can connect it into a teaching moment and I can have then a call to action to one of my books or products. That's what I mean by Evergreen. What you do is you get this simple sequence of Evergreen autoresponders. I recommend you start with seven. So if you have seven, maybe going out once a week, those are going to be working for you 24, 7. You don't want every one of them to be promotional. You want some of them to be building rapport. Kind of like that. A story, you know, something interesting. You can share statistics. I have a certain schedule that I recommend in authoridingsacademy.com but this is why I don't recommend Mailchimp, the free account. Because when you sign up for Mailchimp, the free account, guess what? It does not come with autoresponders, what they call automation. You don't get that. You can only send out broadcasts. It's very limiting. And for just a small amount, you can pay to have an account that has all the features that you want or need. And I recommend at least, at the very, very least, your account needs to have the ability to do autorespond because I don't want you to be behind your computer feeling stressed out. What am I going to email my list? What am I going to do? Get something set up that's working for you 24, 7. Now, I do want to recommend, and I have not personally used it, I've not personally tried it, but I recently heard of a tool that is free and it's called Benchmark Emails. I think it's benchmarkemail.com I think, and if you look into it, they also have a free account. You can start for free. Free. And it includes autoresponders. So if you have to do free, do an account that still lets you do autoresponders. Got it? Yes. I want you to work smarter, not harder. I want you to be able to breathe. I want you to be able to enjoy marketing. Yesterday, as part of the Author Platform Challenge, I did an entire training on really zoning in and knowing your target audience and when you know that how much more fun marketing will be. Like, people loved it. It was amazing. So many aha's and breakthroughs. And you know when you really start getting this, like, somebody commented on my training yesterday. They were like, marketing, like, this exercise is so fun. I was like, you know, marketing can be fun. It really can. Many times we just get this distorted view of what marketing is, but it can be fun. And if you set up systems and you set up automation, you set up process, you know, really spend quality time writing out your autoresponders. Don't skimp on that. Spend the time because you invest that time one time. And guess what? Those autoresponders will work for you over and over and over and over again. So make them good. Really start brainstorming. What stories can I share? What really good content can I share? How can I wow my audience? How can I really bond with them? How can I serve them? So if you have not signed up yet, make sure to get signed up to my platform challenge@shellyhits.com platform challenge. You can take a screenshot if you need to, and guess what? It's free. You can get all the training, the worksheet, everything for free. So I encourage you to go to shellyhits.com platformchallenge and repeat after me. I will sign up for an email service that has autoresponders. Okay, got it. And if you have an email service that has autoresponders and you're not using them, repeat after me. I will put it on my calendar to write my email. Autoresponders. All right, good. I don't want you just to take in more information. I'm all about implementation. That's what's going to get you results. Do the work one time and have it work for you over and over and over and over again. That's pretty exciting, right?

And let's put aside signing up for mailchimp for free because they have no autoresponders.

It's not good. It limits you so much in the power of what you can do because email Marketing is the number one way. I have sold books, but authors will tell me, but it doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. But they're using free mailchimp accounts and they're not using the automation and they're not connecting with their audience and they're not telling stories and they're not giving value. They're just buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. There is a different way and I would love for you to join me in this platform challenge where I share with you how to sell more books without being pushy, without being self promotional, and many times even without selling. All we have to do many times is serve our audience and give a call to action. But serve and teach and give and it'll be surprising, I believe, to a lot of you of what can happen when you really apply all these steps of the Build and Grow youw Author Platform. Because this is part of my book launch 9 Strategies to Build and Grow youw Author Platform. I'd love for you to get ahold of that book. It's@shellyhitz.com build and I have a special contest for anyone who buys the print version. So if you have any questions, let me know about that. But I'm going to head off because I am going to be teaching on the Platform Challenge over on Facebook Live. If you haven't signed up, make sure to sign up for free access@shellyhits.com Platform Challenge. All right, we'll see you guys. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelly's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.