If you want to grow your email list and build an audience filled with people who’d stand in line to work with you, then you have got to focus on these two things:
- Quality content that is of value to your audience
- A strong opt-in or lead magnet that helps your audience
Of course, there are many other factors that could contribute towards email list growth, BUT, for online service providers with little time, energy and resources to spare, these are the two areas you should be focusing on in your business for a rock solid foundation that will serve you in the long haul.
In this blog post, I am going to delve a little deeper into how you should use these two strategies to grow your list.
1. Using quality content to grow your email list
In the online business world, your content is one of your main assets, and can benefit your business long after you first hit that publish button. Here are a few reasons you may want to pay closer attention to the content you’re putting out there…
Helps you build trust with your audience – aka your dream clients
Sharing good, quality content that truly helps your audience in your specific niche will allow you to build trust and connection with the people that find you. When someone lands on your page and finds content that gives them those “ah-ha” moments, they’ll not only see that you are an expert in your field, but they’ll know that you have the knowledge to help them get to the next level in their lives/businesses. This is an excellent way to authentically grow your audience with people who will actually hire you for your services and nurture your current audience for long term relationship building.
- Helps to build your business reputation
With so many new businesses popping up everyday, the competition grows stronger by the minute. Now more than ever, you need to work on building the reputation of your business, and if you are still new that can be difficult when you need clients in order to show potential clients what you’re capable of doing. The way to improve your standing online is to create good content! By consistently producing quality content you are boosting the influence your business has on your audience. In turn, you are setting yourself up as an expert – and who doesn’t want an expert handling their business?
- Helps to educate your audience within your niche
The content you share online will also educate people in your audience on certain topics within your niche. By doing so, you are not only “grooming” your dream client for when they begin working with you on their projects, but you are also teaching them the value of your skills, and more importantly, the results of the transformation you can give them. An educated audience will respect your insight, trust your judgement, and will be more than happy to pay your price without question – which is exactly what you want in any client who works with you!
- Helps to grow your audience
Whether you’re sharing content on your blog, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or TikTok, you are extending your reach. This means that you are constantly increasing your chances of having new people discover your business. This is where your content will really shine and boost the growth of your email list! Never underestimate the power of content on the internet! A viral post can do WONDERS for your business. However, you don’t need to aim for viral content, because even with a simple post – if you help just one person, that could very well be the break you were praying for in your business! With each new person that discovers you online and subscribes to your email list, your chances of signing on another dream client increases. And, the opportunity for you to leave a lasting impact goes up right along with it. All because of quality content that shares knowledge you already have in your arsenal as an expert in your niche.
How to put this in action:
- Choose ONE main social media platform to share your content with new people so that you can grow your list.
This could be Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, etc – any platform you enjoy using and that allows you to get in front of new people with your content. I say choose one platform because I know how overwhelming it can get to stay on top of everything. Dedicating your time to a single platform allows you to focus your attention on one extra task, instead of five, giving you time and space to go all in so that you can make the most of it. Once you feel comfortable, you may then decide to add another social media platform to your marketing strategy. Or, if you are not getting the results you want, and you’ve spent enough time dedicated to one platform, try something else. - Share links to sign up for your email list using an incentive that will encourage more sign ups – see the next point about lead magnets!
Whether you add your link to your bio, or share it in the copy of the post you publish, make sure that you add the link to your content and lead magnet everywhere that you can! The more people who see your link, the greater chance of someone actually clicking it and signing up to your email list! If your content is helpful and relevant enough, a clear call to action will naturally guide your audience to your sign up page. Repurpose your main content and share a bit more insight with your email list.
Remember, your email list is your VIP list and should be treated as such! When sharing your main content piece in a newsletter it is important to give your audience some extra insight or guidance instead of just trying to push them to your content. Something you could try when repurposing your content for your email list is to give an extra tip, give them first dibs on an exclusive offer you’re running, or share a background story of why you decided to focus on this specific topic. The goal is not to load your email with fluff – everything you hand over should work towards building their trust, nurturing your connection, and showing up as an expert who can give them results.
2. Using a strong lead magnet related to your offer
Your lead magnet is essentially an incentive given to someone who signs up to your email list. This gift will help build trust with your new subscriber and give them a taste of what you can help them with should they choose to work with you in the future.
Keep in mind that your free offer should actually help your audience overcome a pain point. A strong lead magnet is something valuable that your dream client would be willing to pay for. Giving it away for free might seem counterproductive, but it serves a bigger purpose of growing your audience with people who are going to want to work with you later down the road.
Here are a few best practices when creating a lead magnet to grow your email list…
- Your lead magnet should be directly related to your content
The purpose of your content (in connection with your lead magnet) is to warm up your audience for your free offer and to stress the importance of why they need this enough to hand over their email addresses to get a hold of it. If your content and your lead magnet are not in-synch, your content will fail to guide people to sign up to your email list and your lead magnet will serve no purpose! A great way to ensure that you create an ecosystem that flows naturally is to first create your lead magnet and then write your content around the free offer. This way you will know exactly which holes need filling so that your lead magnet actually converts.
- Your lead magnet should be something valuable
As I mentioned before, your lead magnet should be something your dream client would be willing to pay for. It should be helpful, insightful, educational, and of enough value that your dream client would want to sign up to your email list. A great way to find ideas for a strong lead magnet is to simply ask your audience what it is that they are struggling with. However, it is extremely important to note that your lead magnet should not compete with your services – it should actually serve to compliment your paid offers so that your audience have more reason to invest in your packages.
- Your lead magnet should provide a small win
With the above being said, you shouldn’t be offering the sun and moon on a free silver platter either. You need to make a living after all! What you should be doing instead is to focus on helping your audience reach a small win – perhaps overcoming a specific pain point or making something a bit easier on them. This tiny result would be a step your dream client would need to take right before they hire you for your services. In doing so you are creating a flow that would then naturally lead to them wanting to take the next step in order to get to that next level which you can give them with your service.
- Your lead magnet format should appeal to your audience
This is where knowing your audience once again proves its importance. Creating a fantastic lead magnet that checks all the boxes could fail simply because it was in the wrong format. Example, if your audience is made up largely of busy mom bosses, a 100+ page ebook simply won’t do it! Perhaps a short video or mp3 file would be better suited. You need to do the research to find out what the best format is to create your lead magnet so that your audience actually uses it and gets the results you promise so they can then see the value of hiring you for your services.
How to put this in action:
- Brainstorm lead magnet ideas.Take a look at your services and the packages you have on offer, as well as past projects and the struggles you’ve noticed with clients. Make note of the problem areas and brainstorm ways that these problems could be resolved. Once you identify the problem and have designed a solution, turn the process into a lead magnet. Remember, this lead magnet should NOT compete with your service, but it should compliment your offers.
- Choose a suitable format for your offer.Do a little digging and find out which format would be most appealing to your audience so that they actually use your freebie. Also keep in mind that you are going to need to create this freebie, so it is equally as important that the format is something you are comfortable with as well!
- Create the lead magnet.
Now that you have your idea down and know which format you’ll be using, it is time to create your lead magnet! You are going to need to create the content, the deliverable, as well as the mockups/graphics to promote your lead magnet to your audience. Check out my shop for some beautiful templates to help you get this done FAST!
Set up a landing page for people to sign up for your freebie.
A lead magnet landing page or opt in page is a simple, single web page where you share more about your lead magnet. This page will have a subscription form for visitors to input their email addresses and names so that they can subscribe to your email list in order to receive the free offer.
- Create the delivery email.
Now that your lead magnet is ready to be shared, you need to actually deliver your offer to those who sign up to your email list. To do this, you will need to create a trigger in your email service provider that automatically sends out an email once someone signs up to your email list using the specific subscription box on your opt in page. This email will contain everything your new subscriber would need to get their hands on the free offer. Even better – create a 3 email welcome sequence to nurture your new subscriber after they’ve signed up to your list. - Share and promote your link!
And you are all set to start getting the word out about your new free offer! Make sure that you add the link to your opt in page in all your bios, posts, captions, etc so that people can easily find it.
In the online business world the phrase “build it and they will come” simply does not apply – the internet is way too vast for you to leave things to chance. If you want to grow your email list and build an audience filled with people who’d stand in line to work with you, then you need to SHOW UP as this person and get in front of the people who are going to hire you. The content you put out there will definitely help you do this!
My big mission is to help you work with your dream clients so you can earn good money doing what you love, and what you’re awesome at. And, while there are many different ways to reach that point, I KNOW that email marketing is a fantastic way for you to cut back on all the fluff tasks filling up your schedule and get booked out with clients who love you as much as you love them.
Which is exactly why I went and created this awesome resource to help you prepare 2 months of email newsletters to nurture your subscribers into becoming your dream clients…
