This week I’d like to talk about how you can build and grow your email list on your quest to have a portable, but profitable business.

Now for today, I’m going to focus less on the tools to use, and more on the methodology of creating and crafting the emails themselves.

But I’d be remiss if I left out the major components of how to build your email list and if you haven’t heard me mention these things in other episodes then it might be a good time to go back in time a little to hear those other episodes so you can piece this puzzle together a little better.

Ep 26- Starting a Business From Zero

Ep 33- The Email List and why you need it

These episodes have a different perspective and content about this subject but in different layers. We’re peeling the onion back a bit more in this episode with the details about the actual components of the email itself.

That’s coming up, but for now, let’s go over other components of how you can build your email list.

Lead magnet

Now I briefly went over this topic in other episodes, but this is an option that I see people overlooking more and more. A lead magnet is a tool for the website that offers your website visitor something in exchange for their email so you can hopefully, start and develop a relationship with them through your email campaign. I use lead magnets that have a specific focus so that I can redirect them to specific email marketing campaigns that will provide more specific content based on where they’re at.

I have a lead magnet for:

o A free E-book

o E-book of the month club

o The free gift of The Tools We Use

o Website exit recovery

It’s better to try to figure out in advance what major category to put the reader into first and then work on where they’re at with interest level and what kind of products or services that could meet their needs.

E-book offer

Again, I mentioned this before a few times, and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this but offering an Ebook is a very popular way to do a DIY build of your email list. You can give away one Ebook and sell another. Or, just give them all away if you have more than one. I have about 16 of them all on different topics related to mindset, social media, websites, SEO, building a business, launching a business. I’m working on one now about building a team.

And you can do this as well. Take what you know and pour out your thoughts on paper…digital paper, so to speak. But I’m at that age where I still like to print things out and have it in my hand as well, so when you’re creating your Ebook, make it something that people can print out. Too many times, I’ve purchased or signed up for a free Ebook and it’s so filled with full page graphics that I can’t print it out. I’m not going to dump all that ink into printing a lot of pages full of nice looking graphics. Not worth it to me. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth about their content.

So now, let’s dive into some of the details about the actual emails that you’ll be sending out to people that sign up for your content.

Keep in mind here, that these people are between either sort of interested, or very interested in you or your products and services but you need to walk them through the process of ‘know/ like /trust /try /buy’ process…which hopefully leads to ‘repeat’ buyer as well.

Email marketing campaigns need emails that have a predetermined structure.

Now, this structure isn’t carved in stone and it should be constructed in a way that doesn’t look like it has a pre-determined structure, but it does…and it should.

You’ll want to start with the overall structure of the campaign. The framework, so to speak.

• Theme of email content

o ‘Rule of One’ (focus on just one topic per email)

o Overall framework

 Create a series from the framework

• Components of an email (not all are necessary)

o Headline (this is where you need to pull the reader in and persuade them to open the email

o Story- people like stories and find it more engaging. Try to tell a story, even it it’s a couple of sentences.

o Link to something helpful

o Link to something free

o Link to video

o Signature content- include most important links

o CTA (Call to Action) – Include 3 links to CTA in entire email content. Always include some kind of desired response for the reader.

 Click on this link

 Go to the podcast

 Watch this video

 Sign up for something

 Buy something

 Take this survey

o P.S. content- since a lot of people scan their emails and go to the bottom, this is your last chance to include something important.

• Know what your ‘most wanted response’ is: (pick just one)

o Click on this link

o Go to the podcast

o Watch this video

o Sign up for something

o Buy something

o Take this survey

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