If you’re a marketer, having a quality email list is critical to your success.
And you’ll find no shortage of information on how you should build yours. Just Google “how to build an email list” and you’ll find 303,000,000 search results.
So what IS the fastest way to build your email list?
In this article, rather than give you a list of tips, I’m going to lay out an actionable plan* that you can implement TODAY to get you started on building your list.
* This plan assumes you already have an autoresponder or other email capture system in place.
Start by offering value
The most common and effective strategy today is offering up a lead magnet. Cold audiences don’t know, like, or trust you so a good starting point for building your list is to provide them a solution for their pain points.
Lead magnets come in a variety of forms including lists, infographics, cheatsheets, case studies, an e-course, 10-day challenge, software, etc.
For example, this Facebook ad from WordStream offers up a FREE Guide to Hacking AdWords. They say that a “higher than average quality score can save you up to 80%.” Now if you paid higher than average costs for AdWords, would this guide intrigue you enough to give them your email address?
TIP: Pack as much value into your offer as possible. If your subscriber sees the level of quality and attention to detail you put into your lead magnet, imagine how they will react when you send them an email about your latest giveaway?
I’m sure your next question will be: “Okay how do I create a lead magnet? It seems difficult to do and I don’t have the background knowledge to do it.”
You have a couple of ways to approach this:
- Find information online and rewrite it. If you want to become an expert in your niche, you’ll have to learn. Doing the research for your lead magnet will help you build your knowledge of the niche while you gather information for your lead magnet.
- Have someone else write it for you. If you have the budget, you could find a freelance copywriter on Fiverr, iWriter, or Upwork to produce the lead magnet for you.
- Lastly, have a graphic designer create slick cover art for your lead magnet.
Let People Know About It
Now that you have your lead magnet ready to attract emails, it’s time to let the world know about it…
An easy (and free) way to share your lead magnet is through social media. With over 2.19 billion monthly active users on Facebook this is a great place to start.
You can post your free offer to your Followers and have them go to your landing page where you’d collect their email address.
WARNING: Unless you have an active Facebook page specifically dedicated to your niche, it might take a while to build your list.
Lucky for you, this 800-pound behemoth also has the world’s most powerful advertising platform, Facebook Ads.
Facebook provides you with the ability to hyper-target your customers, placing your message in front of your ideal audience, for as little as $5 a day.
However, don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll be getting a ton of emails on your list simply because you threw up an ad.
There’s a lot more to it than that…
Learning how to write captivating ad copy, create an attention-grabbing ad image, and produce a well-designed landing page are all key components of a successful lead generation campaign. But that is an entire blog post in itself.
If you’ve already started your ad campaign, check out my blog article: 7 Simple (Yet Effective) Tips to Lower Your Facebook Ad Costs for insights into how you can optimize your campaign to get the biggest bang for your buck.
Next steps
You created your lead magnet and started running your ads… So what’s next?
Keep at it. Don’t stop what you’re doing!
The journey of building your email list requires persistence. You will encounter roadblocks, and twists and turns along the way.
Ask any successful online marketer and they’ll tell you building their first email list wasn’t easy. They will tell you that they tested, failed, tested, failed, and tested some more.
Once you’ve built up your list, you’ll be ready to actively communicate with your subscribers, and then start promoting offers to make some affiliate commissions.