How to Build an Email List For Your Business From Scratch
In this article, I’m going to teach you step by step how you can build your email list from scratch. The reason why having an email list is so important is that one day social media or any other platform you are using could easily shut down. And when that happens and you don’t have an email list, that means that you will lose all contact with all of your followers, your customers, your clients, your audience, and so on and so forth.
Basically if you don’t have an email list and you don’t have a backup plan if your website is down one day, then you basically risk losing it all. Even in my business while I’m creating content, I’m still building my email list. And today, I want to teach you step by step how you can build an email list from scratch, so that you can protect yourself and your business in case something goes wrong with any other platform that you’re using to build a client base.
Create an opt-in
The number one way that you can build an email list is actually creating an opt-in, a lead magnet, or a freebie. I think these three words are interchangeable, but the idea is that you’re giving away something for free in exchange for someone else to give them your email. This is very much like real life. If a stranger went up to you and asked you for your email, or even your phone number, you probably wouldn’t give it to them. However, if that stranger went up to you and said, “Hey, if you give me your email, I’ll give you a free gift,” you’d probably say yes. So, keep that in mind when you’re collecting emails. You want to make sure that your offer, or your lead magnet, or your freebie, is juicy enough for them to want to exchange emails with you.
To help you out a bit and give you some inspiration, your opt-in or a lead magnet can be in the form of a PDF guide. It could be in the form of a free video training. Or, it can also be a free audio file. Regardless of what type of format you want your lead magnet to be in, you need to make sure that what you’re creating is actually what your audience wants. It needs to be a no brainer freebie that your audience will absolutely want to download and will want to get in exchange for giving you their email.
Distribute the freebie
Now, once you’ve created your freebie or your lead magnet, or your opt-in, or whatever you want to call it, the next thing that you want to do is you want to distribute your freebie. In order to do this, your freebies must live in your website, in your channel, or in any courses or content that you’re using as a means to promote your business.
In order for this to work, you need to be very intentional about where you place your lead magnets. If you don’t have your own website, don’t worry. There are many other ways you can promote your business and collect emails. For example, you can run Facebook ads or place your freebie in a Facebook group. You can even put your freebie just in your Facebook page, doesn’t even have to be ads or groups. You can also put it in the link in the bio section of your Instagram account. If you have a website, you can place your freebie on it, making it really prominent in the header or footer section of your website.
Prepare a landing page
Now, the first thing that you’ll absolutely need other than the freebie itself is actually having a landing page. To create your landing page, you can use landing page software, such as LeadPages or GetResponse.. If you want to take it a step further, you can also use ClickFunnels. I’m going to leave it up to you to do the research, but just know that you’re going to need to have a landing page in order to collect the actual emails. Because at the end of the day, you’re not giving away your freebie for absolutely free. You do need that person to fill out a form, and put in their name and their email in order for that to enter into your email marketing software.
Use an email marketing software
To effectively save all the emails you collect in a database, you need to have an email marketing software. The most common email marketing software that a lot of people use, especially beginners who are on a budget, is MailChimp. But just know that there are other great email marketing software platforms out there as well, such as Convert Kit, Drip and Active Campaign. There are so many different pieces of software out there, so again I really trust you to do your due diligence to make sure that you’re purchasing the one that is best for you, and that will fit your business goals the best.
However, if you are thinking of building your business in the long run, you’re probably going to need an email software that allows you to do tagging and segmentation.
Tag your audience
Once you’ve got your freebie, you’ve got your landing page, and you’ve got your email marketing software, and you’ve Googled how to actually put it all together (because you’re going to need to Google that and watch some tutorials), you can just simply call it a day. But if you want to take it a step further, what you want to do is within the form that you put on your landing page, you want to actually tag people whenever they download your freebie. You’ll need to make sure that your lists are absolutely segmented, and that people are tagged appropriately. For example, if someone downloads your freebie about startup costs, they’re going to be tagged as ‘startup cost’. When someone downloads your freebie about YouTube optimization, they’re going to be tagged as ‘YouTube optimization’. This means within your email database that you collect, you will know exactly who downloaded what, which is going to help you with your email marketing efforts.
If you are simply collecting emails without tagging people, you are going to lose a lot of visibility in terms of the interests of your audience. Tagging your audience will help increase your email open rates every time you broadcast an email. When a person receives your email, they will feel like it was absolutely tailored to them. How many of you have actually ignored emails that seem very generic? Probably all of you, right? But when a company or a service provider sends you an email and it truly feels like it was meant for you, you are more likely to open it and click on it. That’s why you definitely want to make sure that you are tagging people accordingly, so that you have more visibility on your email list, and so that you can personalize your approach whenever you broadcast emails. When you get to the point when you sell products or services, it is going to help you with your conversion rates as well.
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Originally published at https://opinined.com on January 2, 2020.
