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How To Build Your Email List for Beginners

By on September 14, 2020
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By Tani Morgan

I’m sure that you’ve heard that you need to have a freebie and email list to grow your new online business. This is because believe it or not, email marketing in 2020 still remains the best and most effective method of attracting and retaining customers. If you want to sell your services, you need a way to invite your audience into your world so they can get to know you and trust you. Even though social media is a very popular way to build a community these days, growing your email list is still the most powerful way to reach your perfect audience.

Email is more effective for engaging with and selling to your audience. Even when very active on Facebook or Instagram, the potential return is much lower than using opt-in email lists. You may get more views on social media, but those viewers are less connected to you. Social media is great for outreach and then inviting the people you reach there to your email list. It’s also inexpensive marketing. You have easy access to everyone on your list and can communicate with a group of people who are interested in what you have to say.

Another reason, your email list is important because it’s all yours and you don’t have to worry about keeping up with algorithm changes or having your page blocked from running ads or even worse deleted. One of my beautiful clients worked hard to build her following on her Facebook page only to get told that she can no longer run ads from that account. Don’t let that happen to you.

When you are just getting started, building an impressive email list can feel daunting but don’t worry! If you are feeling overwhelmed, then this article will help. Here are the steps you’ll want to take:

  1. Market Research – We know that simply asking people to join your list doesn’t work. Instead you’ll want to give something of value to your reader in exchange for their email address so the first thing you are going to do is make sure that you actually understand your audience and you know what they want. You’ll want to have conversations with your target market to find out exactly what they are currently struggling with, what they have already tried and what they need right now. This way you can create the perfect Free Gift that they will be excited to trade their email address for.
  2. Free Gift – Next, you create the thing that they want – this can be a video, a pdf, an audio recording, a challenge or a masterclass but make sure that it is valuable and done well.
    > This gift is going to reflect on you your business and your ability to help. It’s a chance to demonstrate your expertise, help someone in need and build trust with your audience.
    > You’ll want this to lead into your main offer so that when your reader is finished with this gift, the next logical step is to reach out to you about hiring you. You want to really make this gift amazing because it’s showing your audience who you are, what you’ve done and how you can help them in the future, so don’t blow this opportunity and do a good job here.
  3. Email Collection Platform – Now that you have an amazing gift to share with the world, you need a place to keep the email addresses that you collect. I personally use Convertkit but there are many other options out there like MailChimp, Active Campaign, AWeber, Constant Contact and more. MailChimp is a great one to start with for free. The platform that you choose will be where you create the form that collects the email addresses and stores your list. You’ll either place this form on your website opt-in page or be able to create your opt-in page right in the email platform.
  4. Marketing – Now it’s time to advertise your free gift. Link your opt-in page to your social media profiles and share it in your feed and stories. You’ll want to put your free gift front and centre above the fold on your home page as well as many other places through out your website. Above the fold means that you can see it before you have to scroll down.
    > I always recommend to place it at the bottom of your About Me page and if you have a blog, then you’ll want to put a link at the bottom of each blog page too.
    > If you want to speed up the process, you can put some money behind it to run Facebook ads, but it’s important to have about 100 people signed up to your list first to work out any kinks and, make sure the audience finds the gift valuable.
    > In the beginning, it can feel overwhelming so it’s important for you to know that this will take time. You’re going to want to talk about this free offer with as many people as you can and keep consistently sharing it through social media.

I know it can feel intimidating to grow your list from scratch, but just remember that everyone who has a large list now started at 0 too. If we can do it, so can you! You’ve got this.

 

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taniTani Morgan is a Spiritual Business Mentor, Business Professor at the SWAT Institute of Empowerment Coaching, Yoga Teacher and the founder of TaniMorgan.com. She has built multiple successful businesses that impact hundreds of women every year. Combining her business degree (B.Comm), her management experience in sales, customer service and advertising with her powerful intuition and spiritual practice, she now empowers women to discover their true purpose and feel confident in their unique gifts so they can build a soul-inspired business to create both income for their family and impact in their community.

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