 Even if you run a brick-and-mortar offline business, an email list can help you grow your customer base and build deeper relationships with them. Through the content you share with them there, they’ll become buyers and brand advocates.
Here’s how it works. Get People to Sign up for Your List The first step is to get people to sign up for your list. You can advertise your list in your offline marketing materials, but the best way is to do it online. Offer a lead magnet that people can download for free in exchange for their name and email address. Customers download the free gift and enjoy the unique value it offers, and then start receiving email messages from you. The key here is to ask for as little as possible. Name and email address is enough. If you make it difficult, people won’t sign up. The other key is that the lead magnet has to be valuable. It could be an eBook, a free report, a video, or any other type of content that helps people solve their problems. Engage Subscribers with Valuable Content Don’t start promoting to new subscribers right away. You’ve started a relationship with them by offering helpful free content, so keep the content coming, at least at first. Give subscribers helpful tips and information that they can only receive through your list. For example, if you’re a plumber or hardware store, offer ideas on DIY home improvement. A law firm can offer tips on legal matters. A car repair shop can teach its customers more about their cars. Share your knowledge with your email subscribers and this will start to build a relationship with them. Offering free content through your email list will also help you gather feedback from your market. You’ll see which sub-topic areas they like and how they react. For example, you might have a link in an email leading people to a free resource on your website. Your email autoresponder program will give you data on what people click and don’t click. Make Exclusive Offers to Your Engaged Subscribers Gradually start making offers and promoting products and services, such as online deals or coupons for your offline store. Create a balanced mix between informational content and offers. Just like with your content, exclusivity is enticing. Emphasize that these deals are only available to your email subscribers. You’ll earn directly from the offers you make to your list, but you’ll also gain valuable strategic information. You’ll likely find that some subscribers take advantage of offers while others don’t. Some will just enjoy the free content. The ones that buy are your qualified leads. You can lead them to make bigger and bigger purchases. It takes a great deal of effort to successfully build and run a list. You need to provide constant high-value content. You also have to first gain a keen understanding into your target market and what issues they face. But this highly personal method for building relationships, earning directly, and getting to know your audience is invaluable. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Follow Us on Facebook For More Business Tips.
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 Building an email list takes time and effort. Some say it’s the hardest work an online business does. But the benefits are well worth it. It’s an excellent way to gather and qualify leads and build relationships with your audience.
While it takes a bit of work, here are some ways to speed it up and grow your list faster. Make Your Sign-up Forms Stand Out Create sign-up forms that grab people’s attention and place your forms in a prominent spot on your site. Design the form so it’s different from the rest of the page and surround it with benefit-laden calls-to-action telling people what they can expect from signing up. Placement is also important for getting people’s attention. Put your sign-up form multiple places on your website. Put it in a sidebar but also at the bottom, and add an exit pop-up to catch people before they leave. Name and Email Address Only Your form should have just two fields to fill in – name and email address. Don’t ask for anything more than that. This personal information is already a big ask and if you make it harder or more complicated to sign up, people won’t do it. Advertise Your Email List Everywhere In addition to your site, tell people about your email list everywhere you talk to your audience. Advertise it on social media (including your profile), email signature, marketing materials, and anywhere else people might potentially see it. Emphasize the Benefits of Your List What unique value does your list offer? Identify this and explain it everywhere you talk about your list. Understand your target buyer well and offer them something irresistible. Frame it in terms of how your email content will improve their life. Use a Lead Magnet You can entice more people to sign up by using a lead magnet. This is a free piece of content that people can get in exchange for their name and email address. The lead magnet also gives people a taste of the value they can expect from your list. Offer a Content Upgrade Another way to offer a taste of your list’s value is to offer a content upgrade. Give people a blog post, podcast, or other free content that shows what they’ll be receiving from your list. Then, tell them if they want more help with issues they’re facing, they can sign up here. Tell People Offline Don’t forget to tell people you meet offline about your list as well. If you have an offline store, advertise and tell customers personally. Include it on offline marketing materials as well as online. Monitor Your Marketing Results Keep track of where the bulk of your new subscribers are coming from. For example, if you find that your Facebook page is driving more traffic, focus your efforts there. You may also try other social media sites to see if you get similar results. Alternatively, if you find that some marketing channel isn’t sending new subscribers, drop it and try another. This is how you discover what works best for your market. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Follow Us on Facebook For More Business Tips.  Growing your email list is essential to building relationships with your target audience. The more subscribers you get on your list, the more opportunities you have to make impactful connections. The standard way to build an email list is to offer a lead magnet, but an even more effective method that builds lists faster is the content upgrade.
How is a Content Upgrade Different from a Lead Magnet? The standard lead magnet is an eBook, email course, webinar, or free membership. It’s a one-time offer that entices people to sign up to your list. The idea is to blast your lead magnet out into the world everywhere you interact with your target market. A content upgrade is one type of lead magnet, but it differs in some important ways. It’s a piece of bonus content that adds to your free content. For example, you might have a blog post that shares valuable information. If the reader wants a deeper dive, they can sign up for your list and receive this additional content. Why Should You Use a Content Upgrade? A content upgrade requires you to create more content that’s specific and highly focused. But it’s well worth the effort because a content upgrade tends to grow lists faster than a regular lead magnet. The key to its effectiveness is its specificity. The reader is already there, consuming content in a topic area they’re interested in. You already have their attention and you’re already meeting a specific need. It’s only natural that they’d happily give their name and email address to learn more. How to Create High-Value Content Upgrades Take a piece of content and ask yourself, “Is there more I could add to this?” It may be additional information, or something that helps the reader put what they’ve learned into action, like a cheat sheet, template, or resource guide. It might be the same content in another form, like a transcript of an audio or video interview. You can also create content with upgrades in mind. The first half of the content is available for free to capture attention, and then the second half of the content is available for download in exchange for signing up for your list. One effective technique is to lead from the free content to your first email messages to your list. These first few messages could be a further extension of the free content. The key is to create a system for easy content upgrade creation. For example, get into a flow of creating long-form content that you then break up into pieces, or create scripts for your audios or videos that you can offer for download. Focus on Your Target Market Start with your target market. If you know them well, you’ll understand what kind of information they’re looking for and you can create content that addresses their issues and needs. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Follow Us on Facebook For More Business Tips.  How do you get people to sign up for your email list? By offering a great lead magnet in exchange for their name and email address. Here are the most popular types of lead magnets that convert.
eBooks eBooks have remained popular for a long time because they’re easy to produce and publish. An eBook is a PDF file with a cover and table of contents. It can be as short or as long as you’d like it to be, from a short report to a full A-to-Z guide. You can create free content related to the eBook and then offer it for free as a download. Content Upgrade A content upgrade is an extension of the free content you offer. For example, if you have an article with 5 tips, give the reader 10 more in exchange for their name and email address. Another option is to offer add-ons such as templates, worksheets, or cheat sheets that help people implement what they learned in your free content. Webinars Hold a webinar based on a topic that’s interesting to your target market. Teach them how to solve a problem or overcome a challenge they’re facing using your expertise. Make it interactive so they get the most out of it. The webinar is free to attend in exchange for signing up for your list. Video Training Course Another idea for offering something educational is a free video training course. Take some long-term task that you can cut into bite-sized pieces and produce a video for each piece. You can send the videos as installments or give the subscriber access to the whole course at once when they sign up. Free Newsletter Frame your email list as a free newsletter. Create a schedule for sending out your newsletter and pack it full of helpful tips, articles, interviews, and exclusive deals. Make sure you explain clearly to your potential subscribers exactly what they can expect from your publication. Offer a sample so they can see what they’ll get. Free Trial If you have a membership site, software program, app, or other subscription-based service, offer a free trial in exchange for the person’s contact information. This serves a double purpose by getting them on your list and also offering a sample of your product. Toolkits A toolkit takes a variety of media and puts it all together in one place, usually a zip file. It might include a workbook, checklists, a calculator, and video tutorials to show the subscriber how to use the tools, all related to a certain task or topic. Anything is fine as a lead magnet as long as it offers unique value to your audience. It should be something enticing enough for them to offer their name and address, and high quality enough to start off your relationship on the right foot. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Follow Us on Facebook For More Business Tips. |
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