An email list can help you educate and grow your relationship with their potential clients, position yourself as an expert and help you stay in touch with potential clients until they are ready to start working with you. That’s all very positive, but how do you get those subscribers on your list? Read on for my tips!
(By the way, my advice for ecommerce and product-based businesses is different, so please look out for a future post on that.)
1. Who would you like on your list? And what’s in it for them?
You almost certainly want subscribers who could become clients on your list, but do may also want your current clients and previous clients there too. If so, will they appreciate different content compared to your prospects? What about people who refer clients to you but don’t become clients themselves?
Then, what type of content would this group of subscribers open, read and act upon? And how does this fit in with your business objectives? For example, you may be a coach who wants to stay in touch with people who are interested in your work, so they can get to know you better and will give you a call when they feel ready to explore working with you. What content might work best for this?
2. Give them value before you ask them to subscribe.
Subscribers need a reason to join your list, so think about ways you can give them value before you ask them to subscribe. This could be in an ebook, workshop (online or in person), recorded workshop video, podcast interview, series of blog posts or any other method that’s a good fit. Then, make sure you have a clear way of signposting them to where they can subscribe to your mailing list e.g. include a link to your landing page, an opt-in box inside a blog post or ask for a link to your landing page to be placed in the show notes of the podcast where you are a guest.
3. Give them a reason for subscribing, then ask them to subscribe
Now you know who you would like to subscribe, what they might like to receive from you and how this will benefit your business, you need to communicate this to potential subscribers. Often this is in the form of a landing page, where you need to explain the benefits of joining your list, but it can also work well to ask people in person, in direct messages, emails or at the end of presentations if they’d like to join.
A lead magnet is a gift that subscribers receive in return for signing up. They can be very effective, but are not essential. Lead magnets don’t need to be big either, in fact something that is easy to digest and benefit from might be better e.g. a planner or checklist that solves a common problem experienced by your audience.
Use copywriting techniques to make calls to action and the benefits of joining your list as compelling as possible.
Bonus tip: We are all very busy and bombarded with information, so make sure you make every step as easy as possible for your potential subscribers. Tell them exactly where to find the landing page and what they will get from you when they subscribe, clearly and concisely. Also think about layout and graphic design so their eyes are drawn instantly towards buttons and opt in boxes.
4. Reassure them of your professionalism
This could be by adding testimonials to your landing page and making sure you state what they can expect from you in terms of privacy and what you will do with their data.
5. How to grow your number of subscribers
Now, work out how many subscribers you are likely to need to achieve your goals. For example, if you are offering consultancy services you may need only two new clients a month, so adding 10 new clients per month to your list who are an excellent fit for your service might be all you need to keep you busy. If you are selling a membership programme, you may find only one in every ten of your email subscribers join your membership and you need 10 new members a month, so you need 100 new email list subscribers every month.
(Also keep in mind that not everyone who visits your landing page, or who you invite to join, will go ahead and join your list).
Then, you need to decide on a marketing method for getting this number of people to the ‘door’ of your mailing list – this is often a landing page but there are other ideas above. You will need to try the method that you think will work best, check your data, then tweak and improve your results over time. Think marathon rather than sprint! And consistency will be important, too. Take action every month to get that number of people on your list.
Think about the marketing methods you currently use – are they likely to generate the number of subscribers you need? Do you need to step up the method(s) you use at the moment or try a new one?
Good luck… and here’s how I can help you!