Branding is for more than just companies and organizations. It is for everyone with a professional career aiming to stand out and succeed in their industries.
Personal branding is the public-facing identity you create for yourself. It is a reflection of your identity. It tells your story - who you are, what you stand for, what your strengths are, and how you can utilize those strengths to contribute to your community.
Strong and effective branding helps you connect with like-minded industry experts and professionals and allows you to stand out in a competitive market. Email marketing is one of the most commonly used ways to amplify your personal brand.
In this post, we will learn why email marketing is among the best mediums for building a personal brand. We will also share a detailed step-by-step guide on building a personal brand with email marketing.
Building a personal brand with email marketing
Email marketing allows direct and personalized communication with your audience. You can use it to share engaging content, expert insights, anecdotes, and more to foster a deeper connection with your readers. You can also tailor your messages to your subscriber's preferences, interests, and engagement history.
A step-by-step guide on building a personal brand with email marketing
First and foremost, define your goals.This will help you track what you want to achieve with your email marketing efforts. For example, driving traffic to your blog, growing your email list, etc.
Next, set measurable targets for your email campaigns. For instance, if you wish to grow your email lists, the target would be the number of subscribers.
#1. Know yourself first
Personal branding is all about you. That is why you need to understand who you are and evaluate your professional persona. This will help you build an authentic personal brand for yourself, which will then reflect in your email marketing campaigns. It will give your email messages a unique voice.
Interview yourself and get to know yourself better. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are you, and what are you all about?
- What adjectives describe you? And what adjectives can you never associate yourself with?
- What is one thing that is unique about you regarding your professional life?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- What are your short-term and long-term goals?
- Who or what is your inspiration?
- What impact do you want to make with your personal brand?
#2. Define your brand identity and values
Now that you have answers to these questions, it is time to define your brand identity and values.
Your values truly represent what matters to you and form the foundation of your brand identity. For example, if you value innovation, this may mean that you consistently seek new ideas or novel approaches in your professional career. Similarly, if you value empathy, you represent yourself as compassionate and focused on understanding others and their needs.
Your values set you apart from others.
Ensure that your values are conveyed correctly in your email messaging. You may also design visual elements like different types of logos, unique typography, and a color theme to make it more impactful and relatable.
#3. Determine your target audience
The next step is to define your target audience. Ask yourself why you are building your personal brand. Is it to grow your business and secure business partnerships or funding? Is it to advertise your existing business?
This will help you identify your target audience and guide you with your future steps.
Find a way to talk to your target audience and build a professional relationship with them. To connect with them on a more personal level, you need to understand their needs, challenges, interests, and more. Create personas to gain deeper insights into your target audience. This will help you personalize your branding strategy according to their expectations.
#4. Build your email list
Now that you know your target audience, it is time to build an email list to communicate your personal brand. Email lists are important for developing a successful email marketing strategy. They give you complete control over your communication by helping you tailor your messages according to your recipients' preferences.
Segment your audience into different categories. Understand your audience's demographics, behaviors, and interests and categorize them into various groups. This will help you send personalized content that meets the needs and preferences of different audience groups.
Here are a few tactics you can follow to build your email lists.
- Create email newsletter sign-up forms and place them on your website, especially the homepage, blog, and important landing pages.
- Design pop-ups and slide-in forms that can be displayed to visitors once they spend a certain amount of time on your website or during exit.
- Include the sign-up link in your email signature to collect email addresses. Do not forget to highlight the same in your signature using appealing content and design.
- Utilize your social media pages to run contests or giveaways, asking participants to sign up with their email addresses.
- Write guest posts on other websites sharing your expert knowledge with a CTA to join your email list.
- Create downloadable resources like ebooks, templates, checklists, and more, and provide access to these exclusive resources in exchange for email addresses.
- Host meetups, workshops, or other training events in a coworking space to connect with your subscribers and share your knowledge. Most coworking spaces use meeting space booking systems that allow non-members to reserve conference rooms and other spaces on demand.
#5. Write compelling content and invest in good design
Create high-quality content that offers value to your audience. For example, sharing tips, advice, or industry insights will help enhance their knowledge or provide answers to their queries.
Develop a solid content plan. Create an email content calendar that outlines the topics you will cover, how often you will send your emails and their timings.Offer a healthy mix of different types of content, like newsletters, personal stories, blog updates, and so on, to keep your audience engaged. Introduce some interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or surveys. Share ready-to-download templates, checklists, posters, and more that subscribers can take away from you.
The best way to grab your audience's attention is by telling your story.
Support your story with a few visual elements - images or videos. Share personal anecdotes, stories, experiences, and more to humanize your brand. Your subscribers will be able to relate to you better.
Write engaging email copy and attractive subject lines to entice subscribers into opening your messages. Leverage personalization to share highly tailored content with your subscribers.
Invest in good design to make your emails look visually appealing. Add branding elements like your logo, consistent color scheme, standard design layout, and more. Make sure your emails are mobile-friendly, as 50-60% of emails are opened on mobile devices. You can also use free, visually appealing, and mobile-friendly HTML email templates.
#6. Develop your email marketing program
Creating and sending emails manually is tedious and time-consuming. Utilizing email marketing software is the best way to send emails to your subscribers without breaking a sweat. Get a branded email address before you invest in email marketing software. Instead of sending emails from johndoe@gmail.com, create a custom email address - hello@johndoe.com to send your emails. This will work wonders for your reputation.
Invest in an easy-to-use email builder, like Beefree, that offers a robust suite of design tools to create beautiful and high-performing emails without any hassles. Beefree provides an extensive library of over 1,700 free email templates and landing page templates that can be easily customized for your email campaigns. Additionally, Beefree integrates seamlessly with leading email marketing software with a few clicks.
Next, choose an all-in-one email marketing software with excellent features, high deliverability, and cost-effective pricing structures. Some of the key features to consider include:
- Email automation - Automation helps you communicate with your audience at the right time to ensure that you always stay on top of their minds, thus boosting your brand image.
- Behavioral targeting—Behavioral targeting enables you to monitor your subscriber's past behavior, such as purchase history, abandoned carts, email interactions, and so on. This helps you devise a personalized strategy for individual subscribers based on their preferences, positioning you as a brand that cares about its subscribers.
- A/B testing - A/B testing helps you test different versions of your emails to monitor their performance and optimize your campaigns for higher engagement. Thereby, helping you create engaging emails that subscribers love to read.
- Subscriber scoring - As the name suggests, subscriber scoring helps you rate subscribers based on their engagement levels to prioritize the most active ones. This enables targeted communication and fosters personalized interactions with your subscribers, thus enhancing audience connection and brand reputation.
- Advanced reporting - Advanced reporting boosts a personal brand by providing insights into engagement metrics, audience behavior, and campaign performance. This data helps you create personalized content, targeted strategies, and improved communication to build stronger connections with subscribers and enhance the brand's reputation.
- Email ticketing systems—An email ticketing system boosts a personal brand by streamlining customer support and ensuring timely and efficient responses. Resolving issues quickly and effectively builds trust, reinforces a positive brand image, and fosters loyalty among subscribers.
#7. Figure out what is working
Building your personal brand is an ongoing process, not a one-time activity. To ensure you are on the right track, regularly monitor your list health and email performance. Track your email list for its growth and monitor the rate at which your subscribers opt-out. This will help you understand if the recipients are loving your content or are tired of your messages.
In other words, you will know what percentage of subscribers no longer wish to receive your messages.
Also, measure the percentage of subscribers who have opened your emails and clicked on any links within your email messages. This will offer you invaluable insights into how engaging your emails are to the audience and, thus, the effectiveness of your strategy.
Best personal branding examples to derive inspiration from
Jay Clouse
Jay Clouse is a content creator who has mastered the art of content creation and ventured into teaching others how to become one. He has created multiple courses to share his knowledge and guide people to become professional creators. Email newsletters are one of the ways through which Jay has built his brand (and then his company, Creator Science). He also runs a personal blog sharing anecdotes of his life to connect with his audience personally.
Noah Kagan
Noah Kagan, the CEO of AppSumo, is a successful entrepreneur and content creator. He has consistently built his brand via a newsletter with over 200000+ readers. His newsletter “Noah's Nuggets” talks about business tips, product recommendations, productivity hacks, and so much more. This weekly marketing newsletter from Noah Kagan is one of his personal branding strategies and has directly contributed to his growth.
Sade Kelly
Sade Kelly is a time management coach who has mentored ambitious individuals on how to manage their time to peacefully balance work and personal life. She offers coaching services to help individuals learn how to leverage time and organize their lives. Her newsletter, Join the Fire Insiders, shares exclusive time management tips, lessons on personal growth, and more.
Wrapping up
Personal branding is an invaluable tool for carving your unique identity in today's competitive market. It helps you attract new opportunities and advance your career. Leveraging email marketing to boost your brand is an effective way to connect with your audience.
Utilize our guide on building a personal brand with email marketing to kickstart your personal branding efforts and build a loyal following.
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