Email List Building for Beginners [Step-by-Step]

Mar 14

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Today, we are talking about your email list. I got this question from a previous video that I did all about growing your email list. You can check it out right here. They wanted a specific video on what goes into starting and building your email list. So I'm going to break it down for you step by step in this video. Whether you already have an email list and you want to make sure all of your gaps are filled or you're just getting started, this video is for you.

My goal is to help entrepreneurs, not only have a phenomenal brand, but get that brand seen and paid. And one of the ways to do that is through email marketing. Before I jump into the step by step, I'm going to throw some awesome stats at you because if you're not yet convinced that email marketing should be a main focus of your marketing strategy for your business, these stats will definitely convince you that this is the right path to take.

Did you know that you have a great ROI with email marketing? In fact, for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you will make an average of $36 in return.

You might be thinking, but do people really purchase from email? Yes, they do. 60% of consumers say that they make purchases based on the emails that they receive from businesses.

And you might also be thinking, oh, I don't want to annoy my audience. I don't want to have to email them, but this belief is actually holding you back because 61% of email respondents state that they like receiving promotional emails weekly. Yes, weekly.

So if that doesn't already convince you that email marketing should be where you are focusing your energy and attention this year, I've got nothing else for you. If you want to get your brand seen and paid, email marketing is exactly how you do it.

First things first: IDEAL CUSTOMER

I've got six steps to get your email list started and ready to rock and roll. And at the end, we're going to talk about promotion. But before I do that, we've got to talk about a very, very important part of your email list growth. And that my friends is your ideal customer.

You need to be crystal clear on who you want to fill your email list with because it's not just about having big numbers. It can't be about, I want to hit 10,000 email subscribers, and you're not being intentional with the subscribers that you are attracting. This is incredibly important because as you're going to see in some of the later steps, we're going to be creating messaging and gifts to pull your ideal customer in. And if you don't know who your ideal customer is, you can't create those things that's going to pull them in.

You need to understand who your ideal customer is at their core. If you have not done this work, I have a video for you all about market research. Make sure you watch that because it is going to be essential in following these steps to a T and making sure they actually work for you and not against you.

I have clients who come to me with big email lists and aren't making any money. And the first thing we look at is who are those subscribers? If they're not your ideal customers, they won't buy from you.

Build your email list step #1: LEAD MAGNET

Let's get into the very first thing that you need to do to start building your email list. That is to create some sort of freebie, lead magnet, or free gift. They all mean the same thing, interchange the words however you want.

It essentially means that you are creating something that you will give to your ideal customer in exchange for their email address and their name. Very, very important. So when you're starting to think about your freebie, your lead magnet, you want to know your ideal customer. Because you want to create something for them.

I often tell my clients to think about the email exchange as a $1,000 purchase. So for every single email that you get, you're making $1,000 in currency. When we change this focus, it requires us to create something of high value for our lead magnet.

Now that's not to say that you need to create an entire mini course, or you need to record eight videos. But you want to solve a very specific problem for your ideal customer. So while you're doing your ideal customer work, and you're starting to think about your lead magnet, I want you to write down three main problems that your audience is facing. Then create some sort of lead magnet that's going to help them solve a portion of that problem.

Now, with your lead magnet, it's important that you're not trying to solve all of their problems. You want to make this very micro. So I'll give you an example.

I have a free class which you can watch right here, that's all about how to create a better brand that gets paid and seen. In the class specifically, I am breaking down the importance of branding, what is needed to build a better brand, and then how to get that brand seen, and some of my top strategies for marketing.

I'm not teaching all the nitty gritty of exactly how to do each of those steps. That is taught inside of Roadmap to Freedom. But in order for my audience to understand the value of Roadmap to Freedom, they need to understand the importance of these steps first.

So not only am I positioning my product as a great next step for them, but I'm also solving a core problem that they have, which is what am I supposed to be doing? What am I supposed to be focused on when building my brand and marketing it to my ideal customer? I'm going to give you another example.

Let's say that your ideal customer's problem is that they have low engagement on social media. You could share with them a brand guide to help increase engagement. You could share five prompts that will get great engagement, that they should work into their weekly social media schedule. And you could even, as a third option, share with them a messaging framework or a template that they can use to craft their social media posts to get optimal engagement.

You wouldn't share all three of these, but you would share one of them. That's how micro I want you to be with your freebie and your lead magnet.

So the first thing that you want is your freebie lead magnet, free gift, whatever you want to call it. Some examples of this can be PDFs, quizzes, a video, a class, whether that's on demand or a live class, meditation or an audio recording.

One thing I want you to keep in mind is you want this lead magnet to be evergreen, meaning that it's not requiring you to show up at a specific time. We always want to have one lead magnet that someone can grab at any time, any time of the day, any time of the year, any time. And then of course you can sprinkle in live events like a free class or a free challenge or something on top of that. But we always want to have a way for your audience to join your email list.

Build your email list step #2: LANDING PAGE

The next thing that you are going to need to grow your email list is a landing page, a place for your audience to opt in, give their name and their email address to you in exchange for that free gift you just promised them.

Now, your landing page is so crucial in the success of your email list building strategy, because it's essentially where your messaging is going to shine. So I recently did a podcast episode, episode 34 on the Brandmerry Podcast, where I share exactly what you want to have on your landing page to increase conversions. So make sure you check out that podcast episode, but here are a few things that I want to touch on that you absolutely need on your landing page.

TITLE
Number one is a crystal clear title. What is your freebie and how is it going to help your ideal customer? With my class that I spoke about before, which of course you can watch here, I'm saying, I will teach you how to build a better brand that gets seen and paid consistently. That is key. I'm very, very clear on what I'm going to teach you and exactly what you're going to walk away with and how it's going to benefit your business.

BULLETED LIST
The second thing you want to have is a bulleted list. Now you can choose to do actual bullets or maybe they’re blocks, whatever it is, I want you to clearly tell your audience what they're going to get when they give their name and their email address.

What I mean by this is don't just assume because it's free, that someone is just going to sign up right now. Remember, email is currency, and we need to start thinking about it in that way. So you want to clearly communicate to your ideal customer how your lead magnet, what they're about to get from you is going to benefit them. How is it going to solve their problem? What are they going to learn? What will they be able to do with the information that you are giving them?

Clearly communicating that will help them see the benefit and your conversion rates will be much higher on your landing page.

AUTHORITY BUILDER
The third thing that you need on your landing page is a small authority builder. How do we build authority? Storytelling. Yes. So I always recommend that my clients have a small bio about who they are, their hook statement, just really positioning themselves as an expert because the idea is that you're getting this lead magnet in front of people who know nothing about you. So we need to position that authority by sharing a little bit more about our professional bio, some of our accolades, and what we do.

STRONG CTA
The fourth thing that you need is a strong CTA. So those are those amazing buttons, that area where they're going to put their name in the or email address in. And I recommend being really deliberate with your buttons, saying things like, "Sign up now, get the download, watch now, grab the training. Those are really, really strong CTAs that are going to increase your conversions.

As I mentioned, I have an entire podcast, episode 34 on the Brandmerry Podcast, which breaks all of this down step by step. So make sure you tune in for this particular step on your landing page.

Build your email list step #3: CONFIRMATION PAGE

The third thing that you need is a confirmation page or a thank you page. So this is essentially a page that your audience will land on after they have given their name and their email address.

So they land on your landing page. They say yes, heck yes I want this. They put their name in, they put their email address, they hit a little button and voila. It takes them to a page that confirms that they have submitted their information.

This is incredibly important because we want to think about the times where we've put in our information online and there's been no confirmation message, or we get nothing. And we're like, oh my gosh, did it go through? I don't know. Let's just make it easy for our ideal customer.

This confirmation page can be as simple as saying, "Thanks so much. Your download is on its way. Your video is on its way. Go check your inbox now." You can take it even further and make a small offer on the backend. But I recommend if you're just starting out, keep it simple, get them to their inbox so they can grab that email right away, open it and click through.

PLATFORMS
So let's pause for just a second and talk about platforms that I love for these different steps.

So the platform that we use over here at Brandmerry is called ConvertKit. We also recommend Flodesk to many of our clients as well. That's another great platform that we have a lot of our clients have success on.

So essentially what you want is a platform that is going to allow you to create landing pages, it's going to allow you to create some sort of form, where they're going to put their name and their email address in, and it's going to allow you to automate what comes next. So all of those emails that you want to send that say, "Hey, your download is here. By the way, this is who I am." So on and so forth. You want those all to be automated.

So we really love ConvertKit and Flodesk. There are a lot of different options out there. So of course find the one that works best for you. But if you're anything like me and you're like, I just want a really, really great program. And I don't want to spend hours looking for it on Google, I highly recommend ConvertKit.

QUICK RECAP

So let's recap. You've created a freebie that your audience absolutely needs. You have now created your landing page, where someone is going to land to give their name and their email address for this awesome freebie that they've got to have. After they've submitted their information on this page, they are then going to land on a confirmation page. Now that confirmation page can just be a single low, easy, no design needed page on your website.

Build your email list step #4: Confirmation Email

And now what happens. They're going to their inbox to grab their welcome email. This email is something that kicks out immediately after they put in their name and their email address.

So let's use ConvertKit as an example. ConvertKit gets that information, they tag them in the system and they shoot out this confirmation email. In this email, you want to make it short, sweet and to the point. You essentially want them to click through, grab that download, take that quiz, watch that video and get to work.

You want to make sure when you're building your email list, that it's not complicated, that it's not a lot of steps because at the end of the day, you want your audience to have a win. We want to help solve a problem, but we don't want it to take them 72 days, because then that's prolonging how long it might take them to purchase your product or your service.

So we want these steps to happen very quickly from the moment that they land on your landing page to getting that confirmation email. We're talking like 10 minutes max. So automation is key. Keeping that email short and simple. Hey, you wanted this. Here it is. Click here to grab it. I'll be back with another email soon. Keeping it really, really easy.

Build your email list step #5: EMAIL FUNNEL

Then the next thing that's going to happen is your email funnel. Your email funnel does not have to be terrifying. If you want an entire video on your email funnel and the top things that I recommend, let me know and I will make you that video because let's be honest, this is a lengthy piece. There are a lot of different details in it. I teach all of this inside of my program, Roadmap to Freedom, but you came here to learn how to grow your email list and that's what we're going to talk about right now.

So we already talked about the very first email. The very first email is very simple. It says hey, this is your freebie. Grab it. Now, they're getting to work. Within 24 to 48 hours, I lean on the 24 hour side, you want to send the first email of your automated sequence. This automated sequence will be set up inside of your email platform.

Email One
If you're using ConvertKit, as I recommend, you will set it up inside of sequences and choose the timing between the emails. Maybe you're going to send an email every day for three days, you'll set it up, you'll link it to your form and voila. This is all happening on autopilot.

When you're designing your email funnel, I want you to think of it as a handshake. It's essentially your introduction to someone that knows nothing about you. So what do we want them to know about you?

We want them to know your story. So the first email that you send should be really focused on the work that you do, who you are, and positioning your brand as an authority, as a brand that they absolutely want in their inbox on a regular basis. You can also set the tone for the type of emails that you might be sending weekly via your newsletter.

Email Two
The second email that I recommend you create is another bonus tip. So let's say that you created a freebie all about social media engagement and you shared with them five social media engagement prompts that they could use. Well, in the second email, you could now say, okay, you have your prompts. I gave those to you in your freebie, but I'm coming in with another sweet bonus. In this email, I'm sharing with you a sample template to structure your social media post.

You don't have to create another freebie. You can deliver it directly in the email. You could also link to a really popular blog that you have, or a video that shares amazing information about something that's really valuable for your audience. You're just further positioning yourself as the authority and as the expert, someone who is going to support them in solving their problem.

Email Three
Then the third email, and again, I'm talking about a very basic email funnel right here, you could present your offer. Now, if your offer is over $47, I recommend putting a few more emails on the backend. But at the bare minimum, you can just have a very simple three email funnel, and then they would go directly into your general newsletter.

Now, one of the things that I teach at Brandmerry is the importance of this consistent communication. As we heard in the very beginning of this video, your audience wants weekly correspondence from you. 61% of surveyed consumers want to hear from their brands weekly. So I always recommend that my clients make that a routine in their marketing strategy.

Now someone is on your list, they're familiar with who you are, you've set the tone, you've given them some amazing advice, you are now the authority. Now they will leave that automated funnel and they will get those weekly general broadcasts from you, which could be anything from your YouTube, your podcast, your blog, your promotion, anything that you are going to be sharing with them every week. The handshake has happened. And now we're all in relationship building.

Again, inside my program, Roadmap to Freedom, we understand the importance of email marketing. Everything that we teach and do inside of that program is focused on building your email list so you can get seen and paid. So inside of Roadmap to Freedom, we teach our clients how to set up their email funnel in as little as three days. We've got a sweet bonus called Funnel in a Weekend. If you want to learn more about Roadmap to Freedom and you want to see if it's the right fit for you, watching my free class by going to brandmerry.com/class is a fantastic way to learn more about the program, learn about my approach to marketing and how it can benefit you in your business and snag that sweet bonus.

Build your email list step #6: PROMOTION

Now we're moving into the sixth part of this process. This is the most important part. This is the part that is ongoing. Those other pieces, you might set them, you might be able to forget them for a little while, but now you're into your marketing. How do you get your new freebie seen? How do you get it in front of your ideal customer?

This is where you are going to want to focus on two types of promotion. Yes. Remember I said, email is currency. Think about growing your email list as a form of promotion. You need to be talking about it consistently.

There are two categories that I love my clients to focus on: active and passive promotion.

PASSIVE

First, we're going to start with passive. What does passive mean? Passive is that banner on your blog that you set that says, "Grab my free quiz." They click it and voila, it opens up a box. It takes them to the landing page. They get to sign up for it. It's having that call to action on your homepage. It's a popup. It's having the link in your bio on your Instagram. These are all things that you're going to set up on the different platforms that you're on, on your website, maybe your banner on Facebook, you get what I'm saying, where you're linking to your freebie and you're setting it and you really don't need to worry about it.

So if someone lands in any of those different areas, they're really interested in hearing more about you, they're interested in joining your community, they have what they need. They go to the landing page and the process starts for them.

ACTIVE

The second category is active promotion, and this is the one that's going to take more time and energy on your part and is something that is going to help you with getting your brand seen and paid. Now my favorite ways to grow my email list are through SEO platforms. Things like Pinterest, YouTube, Google, blogging, things like that. And I also love to talk about my freebies and my lead magnets on social media as well. But as you know, here at Brandmerry, we do not put a lot of pressure on social media. We are more focused on SEO strategies. So having those in place will create that consistent stream of leads coming into your email list without you having to post daily.

I talk more about this strategy on marketing inside of this video. Go watch that. That is going to really help you with the strategy behind growing your email list and the types of things that I recommend.

Again, I teach all of this inside of my free class, where I'm teaching you how to build a better brand that gets seen and paid consistently. You can go to brandmerry.com/class to watch that completely on demand.

I hope this was really helpful in breaking down the step by step needed to start building your email list. At the end of the day, your email list is a fantastic asset. It is what you can take with you. You can download it as a spreadsheet and upload it somewhere else. We cannot rely on social media as a way to grow our communities. They are a nice little way to market if that works for you, but they are not a space where you control the narrative. Email marketing is where you get to do that. And as we saw in the beginning of this video, it can help you increase your ROI.

PS: Roadmap to Freedom doors are opening soon! This live group program will help you create an online business that allows you to create a life of abundant experiences and impact. This high-touch program helps you simplify the process so you can make more money on your terms. And, the 2023 cohort is going to be better than ever with updated content, lifetime access, new bonus content, and more! Join the waitlist and be the first to join in January 2023.