What if every time you created a new piece of content or paid offer, you could instantly drop it in the digital laps of an audience of people ready and eager to engage with it, no algorithm in your way – with the click of a button? It feels like magic, but it’s something I do multiple times a week through email marketing. This is one of the many reasons I’m a massive believer in launching and nurturing an email list!
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Your business, no matter its age or stage, will always benefit from an engaged email list to launch to and learn from as you grow! My email list is my #1 profit driver year after year – and I had to start it at total zero, too.
Whether you’ve been putting off starting your own email list or have one that needs to be dusted off and relaunched, you’re in the right place. Often, the only hurdle people face is simply getting started. The process of growing an email list is, speaking from experience, easier than most people think!
01) Understand Why You Need an Email List
It’s a daily occurrence for a business owner to get pulled in a hundred different directions, especially when we’re in the early stages of growing! We have to make decisions on how to spend our time, energy, and money, and the best investments will be in the marketing strategies that actually produce results, right?
Did you know that less than 6% of your social media followers are shown your posts and stories? While I’m still showing up on social media with a small portion of my time and effort, a majority of my time budget is invested in my email marketing strategy because of the results. Every time I hit ‘send’, I can reach more people with my offers – 99% of people check their email every single day – than when I post upwards of 10-20 times a week on social media.
And email subscribers have a different mindset than how social media followers engage with us. Subscribers want to hear from you and are more interested in your paid offers – whereas social media doom scrollers are often there for just the quick dopamine hit.
You don’t have to strive to show up equally across the internet if you’re not getting results that reflect your effort! Getting smart about investing your time in what drives results means more time reserved for you to do the work that makes an impact rather than wasting a single minute on work that doesn’t.
02) Create an Email Subscriber-Catching Offer
Getting subscribers, even a strong but mighty few, seems like the most logical first step – but that’s not quite where I’d begin. While you could simply say, “Join my email list!” that won’t be captivating enough for most people. You need to give people a reason to want to hand over their email addresses!
Think through a few ideas for a great opt-in offer to give your subscribers that’s valuable to them but not too complicated for you to make. A great place to begin is thinking about the kind of content you want to share with your list for the next few months and beyond, because your freebie can bring them into your list on the right foot!
Is there a mini-version of an existing paid offer you already have? Is there a resource, checklist, guide, or quiz that could easily introduce them to your brand, your services, and your mission? Or maybe there’s a strategy you wish YOU had when you were just starting out? Focus on bringing your future subscribers VALUE, and before you know it, you’ll have people wanting to sign up for your email list!
03) Set Up Your Opt-In Form
You want your new subscriber to feel confident in their experience and want to give you their email address in exchange for your offer, so make sure each step feels thoughtful. Craft clear and concise copy, and then test (and re-test!) the full process so you don’t miss any errors that might give your new subscribers a bad first impression!
Set up your sign-up form on your website so that your new customers can’t miss it. Feature it on your homepage and talk confidently about why your free offer is a great, easy step for them to take! Be clear about how they will receive it (i.e. “I’ll email it right to your inbox!”). That also means that your delivery/confirmation email needs to be crafted with the same thoughtfulness and intention. This is likely their first interaction with you in their inbox — make it count!
04) Get Your Offer Out Into the World
While featuring your list-building offer on your website is a must-do first step, you can’t stop there since no one’s going to get updated about it unless you tell them! Plan out fun ways to talk about your offer on your social media feeds. You can share more about your freebie or talk about the exciting, value-packed offers you’re planning on releasing to your email list exclusively!
Consider other places where you can share your freebie as a valuable solution, too! You can feature your offer in blog posts, drop it in any community groups you’re a part of (if allowed), or reach out to other colleagues to collaborate on a post (i.e. including your offer as a free bonus to up the value of a paid offer they’re launching!) If you’ve already got an email list that you need to reengage, share your offer with them and the vision for what’s to come.
Related: Building an Email List: What to Say and How to Say It
05) Send Your First Email (and Keep Going!)
So, you’ve launched your offer! The delivery emails are autosent! What happens now? The part of the email list launching and serving process that most people get overwhelmed by is what to send in your emails. “Do people even want to hear from me?” The answer is YES, and it doesn’t take much to provide that value.
Think about how you like to consume information – you’re not asking for bells and whistles. In fact, too many of those and you’re reaching for that ‘unsubscribe’ button, right? So, keep it simple. Pick a few pillars of content– ones that reflect what you care about, love to learn, and can’t stop talking about. Let those guide what you drop to your audience.
And remember: we’re all learning as we go. We don’t know exactly what will drive results until we test it. We make smart plans and use the data to make the next round of them even smarter. So, chart out your first emails to your new list and see what happens! The best way to begin is to begin, stay curious, and optimize as you go. A year from now, when you launch your next offer to an audience you didn’t have a year prior, you’ll be so glad you did.
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