19: Three Easy and Effective Ways to Grow Your Email List

Having a robust list of subscribers allows us to stay connected with our audience and increase conversions. In this episode, we share three easy and incredibly effective ways to grow your email list whether you're just starting out or you're looking to take your list-building efforts to the next level.

Resources and Links

Learn how to launch your offers with a challenge: CLICK HERE

Download my free guide, 3 Things You Need to Launch and Scale Your Online Business at banishbusinessclutter.com/guide. 

Get our free Launch Calculator to determine your launch goals: https://www.banishbusinessclutter.com/calculator 

Get free access to my Bookmark Folder System tutorial at banishbusinessclutter.com/get-organized-online.

To access additional resources and programs go to banishbusinessclutter.com.

Tools mentioned in this episode:

Canva / Learn Canva

Kajabi / Learn Kajabi

Group Leads

Zapier

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Transcript:

Despite what you may have heard, email is not dead. The truth is email is still one of the most cost-effective ways to reach and connect with your audience. While we have many ways to communicate today, email is still the most direct line to internet users. And it's an opportunity for you to build a lead list so that you can nurture those leads, build connections, and increase conversions. That means more customers, students, and clients in your programs.

But growing your email list can feel like an uphill battle. What are some easy and effective ways to grow your list consistently? That's what I'm going to be sharing in today's episode.

I can still remember when I launched my business in March of 2020. And even though I had been connecting with business owners in my corporate job for a few years, in a direct sales business for twenty years prior to that, I was launching my business with zero people on my email list. It was a brand-new business I was calling Banish Business Clutter, and I remember thinking, how am I going to grow my list? My list of people who I'm going to now connect with in my new business. So, today I want to share with you the three effective ways that I have built my list now to almost 9,000 subscribers a little over two years later.

And the first tip that I have for you may surprise you. I know a lot of people who teach how to grow your email list. They typically start with a lead magnet. You've heard about lead magnets, and they say the first thing you should do in your business is to create a lead magnet and start growing your list. Well, I have an alternate approach to that concept. I actually feel that launching is the most important thing you can do when you start your business. Because if you don't have anything that you're launching to send people to, growing your list is like a passive activity. Yes, it is eventually going to create this list for you where you can connect and eventually share offers. But I found it so much more effective to share an offer first so that I could quickly build my list and generate revenue much faster.

So, would you like to know what I did to do both of those things? Because I don't want to just grow an email list. Having this list of a thousand, hundred thousand subscribers isn't going to do me any good if I don't have offers, if I don't have things that I'm going to promote to my list to sell. I've talked about in previous episodes: yes, your list is important, leads are the lifeline of your business, but launching an offer is how we make revenue.

So, my number one tip for growing your email list is to Live Launch. I live launched with a challenge before I even had one person on my email list. It is how I grew to my first 400 subscribers. So, if you're wanting a boost in your email list or you're just starting with an email list, I highly recommend live launching. Launching an offer with either a challenge, or a webinar, or a workshop, something like that. You need an event or a reason for people to get on your list because you're getting ready to offer something of value. Maybe it's a three-part live video series inside your Facebook group. It doesn't matter. You need a registration page that you create on a landing page that gets people to opt into that event, whether it's a challenge or a webinar, but you want to hold something exciting. And that to me has been how I have grown the majority of my list.

Since launching my business, I've held eight live launches and you can imagine the impact that that has had. You know, my first launch, it grew me from zero to 400 subscribers. Most of my recent challenges, I get anywhere from 600 to 1200 new people registering for my live events. So those have been the biggest boost to my email list.

Now, if you are thinking I've never done a live launch, I don't even know how to do a challenge. I want to share with you that I do have a bootcamp that teaches you exactly how to launch your offers with a challenge and, in return, it is going to boost your email list. You can check that out by going to banishbusinessclutter.com/launch. It is instant access to a bootcamp. You can jump in right now. And in four days, I will show you how to live launch with a challenge, to build your list and definitely skyrocket your revenue.

Tip number two is to capture emails when people join your Facebook group. Now, if you don't yet utilize a free Facebook group as part of your marketing, you may want to consider doing a Facebook group once I share some of my stats with you. So, out of these 9,000 people, now that are on my email list, I would say about 70% have come in, or have met me, or joined my list as part of my live launches. Also 70% of my annual revenue comes from live launching. So, live launching is king, but what happens outside of a live launch? How am I capturing emails and connecting with new people on a regular basis outside of a live launch? Definitely in my free Facebook groups.

Now I have two Facebook groups because I have two niches or audiences that I connect with, but most people are going to typically have one free Facebook group. And a great way to launch a Facebook group is definitely with a challenge. It's a great way to get a big boost and influx of people into your group. Once the challenge is over, you simply remove all of the replays and video training. But you can keep the group open and now use it as an ongoing group to connect with your hottest leads. There is just something magical about the community that you can build inside a Facebook group. And stay tuned because in my next podcast episode, I'm going to share more tips on how to increase your audience and your authority with a Facebook group.

But let me tell you how Facebook groups have helped me grow my list. I would say 20% of those on my list have come through my Facebook groups. So, organically, without paid ads, they have been coming to my group requesting to join and then I simply ask them three questions. Inside of a Facebook group, you can set up three questions that you ask. And let me give you some ideas of what I ask. I have a group called Launch Strategies and Tech Support for Course Creators and Coaches. Many of you are probably already in that community. If you aren't, you can join us by going to launchperspective.community.

When you go to the group, you will see those three questions. Because the only way to be granted access to my group is to answer the questions. The first question is have you already created or launched a course? They let me know I have not, or I have. Step two: what is your biggest question when it comes to creating or launching your course? I love questions like this because it's open ended and they get an opportunity to share with me what their biggest question or questions are in relation to whatever niche I teach. So, it's a great way to get to know your ideal audience. I use the answers to these questions to help me know what type of content people want to hear from me. It helps me determine content for my podcast, my blog, my lives, my posts. Very, very helpful way to get to know your audience.

But question three says, what is your email address? This is required to be admitted to the group. And in return, I will send you a link to my free guide: Three Things You Need to Launch and Scale Your Online Business. So, notice how in question three, I ask them for their email address. I do let them know it is a requirement in order to be accepted into the group. But in return, I give them one of my lead magnets.

We'll talk about lead magnets in a minute, but I want you to catch a few key things here. Everyone has a different approach to Facebook groups and who they allow into their group. And one camp that people are in, or, you know, don't ask for an email address, don't require an email address. Just let people come into your Facebook group, be a fly on the wall, because then they'll get to know you and then they may opt into something to join your list. I think that is a totally acceptable approach. If you feel that way passionately, and you feel like I want to just grow my group, I'm not going to ask them to enter their email address. That is completely your choice. I did grow groups like that for a long time, and I found that without having some skin in the game, without having at least them raising their hand and saying, yes, I a hundred percent want to be a member of your community and I'm showing my commitment by entering my email address.

I've noticed that the quality of people that I get inside my group, the amount of engagement I get inside my group is much higher when I ask for an email address. Now again, I am saying what I'm going to send them in return. I'm not just saying what's your email address. I am offering to send them something of value. Now, once they get that free guide from me, it is completely up to them. If they want to unsubscribe from my list, that is their choice, but I treat my Facebook group like I treat a lead magnet.

And lead magnet is actually my number three step for growing and building your list. But before we get there, think about it. I am going to be giving people who join my community access to some amazing, valuable content. I have video training in there that I've done. I offer tech support tips. I'm there if people are asking a question. So, I just feel like in return, it is not too much to ask for their email address. So that is your choice. But I will tell you by asking for their email, this has grown my list significantly.

Now, just a few things to keep in mind. When you set up these three questions, at this time Facebook does not capture the answers to these questions. At least not yet anyway. I did hear that they are going to be adding this feature, which is very exciting. So, because Facebook does not capture the answers to these questions automatically just yet, you are going to want to create a spreadsheet to manually copy and paste this information.

Now, if you are thinking, I don't want to do that, I don't have time for that. I felt the exact same way. So, I have been automating this ever since I launched my business. I thought there has to be a tool out there that takes the answers to these questions and automatically adds them to a spreadsheet. And there is. The group or the tool rather that I have been using since the very beginning is called Group Leads. If you go to my partner link, lydiamartin.biz/GroupLeads, I'll include it in the show notes below as well, you will see that this tool does so much more than just add the answers to these questions to a spreadsheet. But even that feature alone is so worth it.

So, for under a hundred dollars a year, you can have access to this tool that will take the answers to these questions, put them on a spreadsheet, and then this tool will automatically connect to your email service provider. What does that mean for you? It means that you can send an automatic email to those who are requesting to join your group. My automatic email welcomes them to my community and lets them know how to get access to my free guide: the Three Things You Need to Launch and Scale Your Online Business.

So, the great thing about growing my group and growing my list is all of this is happening with very little admin work on my part. So, be sure to check out Group Leads. It's an amazing tool. If you use Kajabi, like I do, you will need to utilize a tool called Zapier. Zapier connects Group Leads with Kajabi so that everything is automated, but it's super simple to set up. And I will tell you just by having people join my Facebook groups I have added hundreds and hundreds of people to my email list. So that is step two.

Step number three is definitely to share your lead magnets. Now I say lead magnets. Don't let that panic you. In fact, I did not share an actual lead magnet for 18 months in my business. So, you can still grow your list with nothing more than live launching and a Facebook group, because that is how I gained the first few thousands of subscribers on my email list. I did not have a lead magnet. But over time I really listened to the needs of my audience. And that helped me craft three lead magnets that I launched at various times. I didn't create them all at once.

But the very first lead magnet I created was an eight-minute video tutorial on how to create a bookmark folder system. Since I'm a digital systems coach, and I teach a lot of courses on how to declutter your digital and physical world, creating bookmark folders is just one of the systems I teach that my audience goes crazy over. So, even though it was something I'd been teaching in my challenges and in my courses, I was thinking, wow, I bet people would love if I created just a short tutorial on how to set this up on their browser.

And boy was I right. Now that bookmark folder system has now been downloaded from over 2000 people on my list and it's brought in over a thousand new subscribers since I launched it. So, think about something that you could teach in a short amount of time, that would just be mind blowing for your audience. Can you put that together in a guide or a video tutorial? Because that to me is magic and that is a tool that I've shared everywhere. We share it in social posts. We've shared it on our podcast. We've shared it in our emails. You want to be able to share your lead magnets everywhere. Even in our Instagram Bio link.

Now the second lead magnet I created was a 16-page guide. And that is my three things guide that I just referred to a little bit earlier. You can get that by going to banishbusinessclutter.com/guide. I will also be sure to link the bookmark folder training below in our show notes so you can check that out. But this guide answered some of big questions I was getting often from my audience. What are the most important things I should be focusing on if I want to launch or scale my online business? And it talks about offers, and launching, and leads, and all these things. But it's a very focused 16-page PDF.

And these are very simple to create. You can just write out the content and then create it using a template in Canva. We have bought many templates from various Canva designers that we've used. We now create our own templates. So, there's a lot of options here or you can even outsource this job. There’re people on fiverr.com. Fiverr.com. People who will make a PDF guide for you, or a small ebook. You can also hire graphic designers, Canva designers. There's a lot of virtual assistants who do tasks like this.

So please know if you are struggling with what lead magnet to create, don't let the tech hold you back. Think about what your audience would see as so valuable that they'd be like, yes, I am putting my email address because I need that. And, again, it all depends on your niche, who you are speaking to, what their needs are, what their desires are, what their pain points are.

And speaking of pain points, that is what helped me realize my third lead magnet that was needed. A lot of the business owners I work with have launched before, and maybe didn't get the results they were looking for. And I'm always asking questions like, you know, how many registered for your challenge? You know, how did your sales page convert? How many people showed up live? And I'm throwing all these numbers at them. And I finally realized that a lot of business owners are not calculating exactly what they need in order to reach their goals, those KPIs, right.

How many people are coming to their registration page? How many are opting in? How many people are showing up live? How many people are buying their offers? And so, I created a launch calculator, and I even did a podcast on it. It's episode 14 if you want to listen to my launch calculator episode. And of course, on that episode I share a link to my free launch calculator. Now, each one of these guides, or lead magnets rather, have very specific intentional purposes. They were created with the end in mind. Both or all three of these lead magnets lead to specific offers, whether it's a $37 bootcamp, a $37 course, or it's getting them on a list for one of my higher ticket offers so that I have people primed and ready when I do my next live launch.

So, I hope these tips have been helpful. This is basically three things that I have done to grow my list over the last two plus years. I really focused on live launching every quarter. So, every three months doing a big event, whether it was a webinar or a challenge. I've captured people's emails every time they joined my Facebook group and I shared various lead magnets in various places.

Now stay tuned for our next episode on the podcast, because I'm going to dig even more into how to maximize your Facebook group communities, both your own and other groups. You're going to learn even more tips on how I connect with people online to grow my list, build relationships, and convert people to my offers.

I hope this episode has been helpful. Be sure to jot down the action steps that you’re going to take to start growing your email list. Remember it's motion that leads to momentum.

See you next time.