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We do not own the platforms that we post and build our communities in. At any time you could lose access to everything you built. You DO NOT want that! SO you need to take it out of those platforms. You need to build your email list!

5 Easy Ways to Build Your Email List!

An email list is a method of communicating to your community. Fun fact: I don’t actually like the word “list” because I think it’s clinical and annoying, but it doesn’t leave me all warm and fuzzy. I prefer the word “community.” But I did this training recently, where someone told me that when they polled their community, this person found out that they didn’t like the word “community.” That said I will continue to use the word “list” throughout this training because it’s simpler, but internally, we do use the word “community.”

I want to be clear, this post is not about list shame. I have been a subject of list shame in the past. Someone said to me they wouldn’t let me participate in something because “my list wasn’t big enough.” And, another time someone let me participate in something, but she was so mean and rude to me because my list was smaller than other participants. I now have a “list” of people I love, and I don’t play with the folks who “list-shamed” me in the past. No matter how big your list currently is, it’s an awesome list. We all start somewhere. Some people who have smaller, more active lists get better results, but for those who do want to continue to build your email list keep reading! 

When you are looking to build an email list, you need to maintain two things:
    • You have an intention, typically to connect and to provide value.
    • You have an objective, to move people through your journey toward becoming a customer or a client. It’s typically about monetization.

 

This process will take an investment of either your money or your time. We are building these email lists because we want to communicate to people who have expressed interest in what it is that we offer. But some people veto this idea because they have an active Facebook group. That’s crazy because you don’t own social networks! You may be good at reaching out to people individually, but eventually, timewise, you will need to expand beyond that because you will run out of time.

Also, I know of people who have lost their social media accounts. Either they did something against compliance and are being spammy weirdos, and sometimes it was a glitch. This is the safeguard for your business, and protecting your community that you worked hard to build. (We are not getting into GDPR today by the way.) If you are creating content every week, which you should be doing, or if you have an offer you’re announcing, you want to ensure having an open line of communication, and you want it to be like you’re talking to your friend. So here we go, let’s dive into the five easy ways you can build your list (community)

 

Strategy #1: An Offer!

This concept comes from the tree of beliefs, which is a series of beliefs that your ideal client has to have in order to say, “yes” to purchasing from you. (Check out THIS post for a breakdown of the tree of beliefs)

Oftentimes, people will offer something that is super high up in the tree of beliefs, typically a strategy session or a phone call. Unfortunately, most people won’t actually take advantage of that because it’s a huge investment of their time, and unless they already know you or trust you, they are not ready for that yet. So, I have a few other options you can start with! 

Free gifts like this are often called “lead magnets.” This is because it magnetizes potential leads and brings them to you, but when you are bringing those leads in, you want it to also be qualifying them as someone who would be a good fit for your community. So before you even send an offer, first you need to be super clear about who that ideal community member is. Once you have that in place, you can start to brainstorm offers. Here are my favorites:

  • “Show notes”: These are breakdowns, bullet points, re-caps whatever YOU want to call them of each episode we put out.
  • Live show reminders- We send a reminder to those who opt in so they don’t miss a show. 
  • Someone else’s resource: There is an awesome tool called Sniply. You can check out how it works here: https://sniply.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/what-sniply/I did this once and for something I didn’t even create, I got 58 conversions out of it. 
  • A free training: Yes, it does take more energy and effort, and it is a higher ask, but putting together a free training is great.

NOW when you are brainstorming about this free gift, I have a list of questions you want to ask Yourself:

  • Is it something they actually want?
  • Does it solve a problem that then moves them to another problem that you can solve with a paid program or offer?
  • Is it easily consumable? Sometimes we will create something super valuable, but it takes too much time to read so it goes into the graveyard of Lead Magnets. (I even personally have a Dropbox folder on my computer for that). 
  • Is it unique to you and your business? If it’s generic, it won’t be as juicy.
  • Is it timely? Is it something time-sensitive they can use right now?
  • Do you have a follow-up in place? Do you have a thank-you page, an incentive email, a nurture sequence?
  • Do you have an easy sign-up process? Is opting in easy?
  • Do you have a “so that” statement?

Below we’re going to flesh out some of the points from above for further clarification. 

Spread Your Offer Across Multiple Channels

Drilling down further on this all-important first point, an additional piece of advice has to do with your offer. In addition to having a clearly defined offer that your audience wants and they’re willing to trade an email address for as discussed above, don’t forget to put this offer across your social media and your website. You won’t want to go overboard and make it seem like email harvesting is the only thing you do, but it should be a can’t-miss piece of your online brand and strategy.

Define Your Value

It’s also important to clearly define and describe the value in your offer or CTA (call-to-action). If someone is signing up for a future notification or they’re getting some content or information in return, you should be clear about it. If someone can’t determine why you need their email or what they’re getting, they’ll likely skip the offer altogether or give you some kind of fake email that won’t be beneficial as a touch point.

Make an Investment

In addition to posting your offer on social media and your website where your audience can engage with you, consider buying some advertising space on Google, Facebook and other networks. This allows you to target users that are interested in what you have with a quick offer or lead magnet that allows you to build a massive email list through targeted ads. That said, make sure you clearly define your audience and set appropriate budgets and you’ll be quickly building your email list in no time at all.

 

Strategy #2: Expert Roundups

 

An expert roundup is when you reach out to power partners, people who serve the same people you do, but they are offering a different kind of solution. You can reach out to people in your space and ask them for either a few tips about some aspect of your space (top three tips for using social media or how to market, something like that).

We did this once with vocal coaches. It helped me built my list and make some contacts. We developed a PDF. Each tip consisted of a link that led to that particular expert’s opt-in, giving them traffic, too. What happened was several of the people who joined the expert round-up became clients of ours later when I switched my target market to people who wanted help building their businesses. You could even invite friends to do trainings in Facebook groups. 

 

Strategy #3: Optimize Your Digital Presence

 

Once you have created that free gift and developed that landing page, like Molly.Live, make sure that link is absolutely everywhere. If you go to our website,ThePreparedPerformer.com, the very first thing you see is a link to opt into a lead magnet, the video content platform.  

Do you have a LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or more? Make sure your free gift and opt in is on ALL of your social media platforms, not just your website. Each one of these is an opportunity to build a list.

One of my favorite ways to share things, and optimize your presence online is creating Gifs! They are such a fun way to have my face out there. Your logo is cool, but your face is a cooler, stronger representation of your brand. If you use gifs in addition to your links all over the place, when people start to search for things on Facebook, there are more opportunities for people to find you, optimizing your digital presence.  If you search “Facebook Business,” I am the top three searches. If you search “Molly Mahoney,” all of these gifs that we created come up. We are making gifs out of our videos and content captured at events.If you search for “Go Live” on Facebook Gifs, I am second only to Dora the Explorer. It’s a gif of my face. Gifs of mine were shared hundreds of times, some even over 1,000 times.

Creating them is easy! One way it to do it directly through Facebook Go to create a post and click “Gif.” Or you can use tenor ( link below) which creates a dashboard for youtube see statistics of your gifs. When we create the gifs and upload them, we tag them. We tag them with my name, but also with regular phrases such as “show up” and “go live.” Creating a Gif can help you with our next strategy.

 

Strategy #4: Ladder Posts

 

When you make a Gif and then you post that on your social media and use it as a way to entice people to check something out. Once they are there you can ask them to comment by leaving a word or phrase. Once they do that you reply to those comments with your gift.  This is what we call a ladder post: It’s called a ladder post because of the steps. You post, they comment, you reply. They comment, you reply. And so forth.  

 

Strategy #5: Talk to People

 

This is the easiest strategy that you can even implement right now. I took a program a few years ago called 10k Subs, which is a program on how to bring in 10,000 subscribers to your list. This was the very first strategy they taught in this training. I know talking to people is under-rated, but it can work wonders really quickly. 

Joey Vitale, our trademark lawyer, is starting a brand-new live video show. He has been a member of GLAM and is a great friend. He said, “Hey, you’ve been so supportive of our show. I am launching a brand-new show. I will be teaching this and this. Would you like to be reminded of when we go live?” I said, “Sure.” He sent me a link where I had to put in an email address to be reminded. Guess what? He talked to a human being, and it turned into a person being added to his list. Now he can talk to me en masse.

If you are already building a Facebook page, you can message those people who have already liked your page and say, “Thank you so much for liking my page. I have this awesome resource. Would you like me to send it to you?” 

    • The key is asking for permission first! Not everyone wants to be followed up on like that. Don’t send them the link if they don’t want it. 
    • You should follow up with people. Send fun gifs or something like that. 

 

*In order to be GDPR compliant, you give them the link to go through the sign-up process. If you don’t have a link like that yet, you need to let them know that signing up for a free gift would also add them to your email list with their permission. Then if they agree, that’s okay. You are now compliant. 

There you have it! 5 Easy ways to build your email list. As I mentioned before, if you have a list or community that you think is strong but mighty, these tips may only help you to keep those who have already subscribed, which is SUPER important as well! If you are looking to expand and grow your community, I hope you can implement some of these tips to help you continue to be of service! 

 

More Ways To Build a Massive Email List

 

Building a massive email list from scratch is an important part of protecting your growing online audience. After all, the platforms we all use can disappear tomorrow, leaving you with no way to get in touch with your audience. However, if you have email addresses for many of your followers, you can reach them directly at any time, sending them to web addresses and properties that you control.

So, consider some out of the box methods of building your email list, such as:

  • provide incentives for people to refer a friend to join your email list
  • use our Live Video Content Planner and go live through a social media platform to call out to your viewers in real time and encourage them to drop their emails in the comments!

Don’t forget to measure your success. Optimize, optimize, optimize!! Test a few channels and opportunities, but in the end, spend your time where you’re getting emails. Building a massive email list means prioritizing your best opportunities, so if you’re spending half your time on optimizing your website’s pop-ups yet 80% of your email sign-ups come from social media, you’ll want to pivot and reevaluate to more successfully build your email list!

Make sure to check our additional resources below!

 

Additional Resources
  • Be.Live, our fabulous sponsor!
  • Molly.Live for all sorts of amazing free resources!
  • If you specifically want my video content planner, check out VideoContentPlan.com
  • Sniply, the tool that allows you to include your link on the bottom of someone else’s page
  • Tenor, a gif creator and search engine