"One of my biggest mistakes as a new business owner was not starting my email list when I started my business.

When I started my blog and built my first website, I didn’t intend to start an online business. Instead, I viewed my blog as an online journal—a place to share what I was learning as a musician and teacher. As I created resources for the choirs I was directing and the piano students I was teaching, I posted them to the blog as a way of documenting my own teaching and learning and equipping and empowering other church musicians and music directors.

A few years later, I started an email list and began sharing more free resources as lead magnets. I started curating a monthly email newsletter tailored to my audience with creative teaching ideas and practical resources they could use right away. This strategy—giving away high-quality free content—has helped me grow my list exponentially every year to the point that I now reach over 23,000 people through email marketing every month."