155 | 10 Ways to Build a Profitable Email List from Scratch
Email lists are a great way to build community, loyalty and brand recognition and create repeat customers and clients!
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Some of the most successful, profitable brands are focusing on their email marketing strategy because email lists are a great way to build community, loyalty and brand recognition and create repeat customers and clients. Then, once you have an email list you have a direct way of communicating with your ideal audience to share valuable content, promote your products and services, offer discounts and so much more!
In order to build a profitable email list, you want to make sure that you are targeting the right people who are actually interested in the content you are sharing and ultimately would be ideal clients or customers for your business.
Tune in to learn 10 Ideas to build your email list!
If you’d like more in-depth support and resources, go to businessbabescollective.com/growyourlist
Check out Episode 152 - which lays the groundwork for this episode!
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One action step for you today is to sign up for an e-mail software if you don’t currently have one and start to learn more about e-mail marketing!
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Offer a Free Resource
Ask yourself what your ideal client would really want or need, and offer an resource that answer that want or need! This could be a helpful checklist, ebook, workbook, online tool or template. Remember, this needs to be something valuable that your ideal client would exchange for their email address for.
Create a quiz
Quizzes are a great way to hook clients - we love learning more about ourselves and quizzes are a fun and playful way to engage your ideal clients.
Examples:
Personality Quiz: makeup brand creates a quiz titled "Which Lipstick Shade Matches Your Personality?”
Knowledge Quiz: Financial Planner “How Much Do You Know About Investing?”
Assessment: The marketing agency creates a quiz titled "How Strong is Your Marketing Strategy? If you have a service-based business this could lead into one of your services and if you are a product base you could have a product recommendation at the end!
Run an Online Giveaway
If you already have a presence on social media or another platform, consider hosting a giveaway. The key of a great giveaway is keeping it extremely simple and the more generous you can be with the prize the better.
As a bonus you could partner up with another aligned business or multiple and offer a bundle giveaway. For best results, keep it from 3-5 and make sure it’s clear in the giveaway that they will be subscribing to all lists.
Offer a Free Trial or Sample
If you offer software or online service, invite users to trail the service - offer 15 or 30 days free.
If you have a product-based business that people can sample, you can offer them a sample in exchange for their e-mail. Some companies do this and just have people pay for the shipping - this a great way to get your product into someone’s hands (especially if it’s a product that they could use again and again).
Provide discounts or gift cards
People love getting a deal! Offer a discount or gift card towards their first purchase and when users first sign up for your email list. You can also continue to reward existing subscribers' loyalty with exclusive discounts or freebies in ongoing marketing emails. Word of free and discounted offers travels quickly and is a great way to organically grow your email list.
Offer exclusive early access
If you have new products, services or events that you launching throughout the year, creating a waitlist or early access list is a great and simple way to grow your e-mail list. You can offer early bird first access, discounts or promotions. It'll keep your existing subscribers subscribed and convince those missing out to opt-in.
Host and email list cross-promotion with another business
This is an awesome opportunity if you find an aligned brand that shares values and has a similar target audience. You can promote each other's businesses in your email list and offer something of value to each audience (like a free resource or giveaway).
Attend an event as a vendor
When you pop up as a vendor, you can incentivize attendees to sign up for your email list in creative ways such as offering a discount on products and services at the event, having a giveaway or free goodie bags or swag bags for signing up, etc.
Host a Virtual Workshop
Hosting a virtual educational workshop or webinar is a great way to build your email list - it’s also a great way to build relationships, Increase brand awareness, help to establish you as a thought leader in your field and increase your credibility.
Host a Collaborative Virtual Event: (Online Conference, Summit, Interview Series)
Hosting a collaborative virtual event is one of the BEST ways to build your email list because a Collaborative virtual event combines so many different growth strategies into one fell swoop. Collaborations can help you get in front of hundreds or thousands of new prospects, it builds trust with those new subscribers quickly and you can also monetize the event by offering a VIP Upgrade. If you want more details on how we’ve done this, you can go to businessbabescollective.com/breakthrough to get access to our free workshop
Your action step today is to sign up for an e-mail software if you don’t currently have one and start to learn more about e-mail marketing!
3 Ways To get Support for Your Business:
Action Takers Club: Our Signature Business Program - This is a self-paced course to help you scale a profitable business without working around the clock. The beautiful thing about this course is that it also comes with a community with monthly group coaching calls, and monthly virtual networking and it’s the most accessible and affordable way to get access to me and my coaching. You can find out all the details on ATC at businessbabescollective.com/actiontakersclub
1:1 Coaching: Danielle is taking on a VERY limited number of 1:1 clients between now and mid-April as the baby is on the way! So if you feel stuck and need a strategy on what direction to take next to grow your business, or community or monetize your idea, you can apply for 1:1 Coaching at businessbabescollective.com/coaching
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transcript
[00:00:00] Danielle: Welcome back to the podcast everyone. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe. I am really excited to dive into this topic today. We are gonna be covering 10 ways to build a profitable email list from scratch. That's right. So if you are currently, like, I don't even have an email list, or maybe you have an email list, but it is struggling.
[00:00:23] Maybe you have 10 people on there. Maybe it's your mom, your aunt, your cousin, your sister. Um, so we're gonna talk about that today, how to actually grow a profitable email list and 10 ideas on how to do that. We have been getting this request from, many of you. Have been getting messages and emails of how do I actually build my email list?
[00:00:45] Because I have talked on previous episodes about the importance of this. And so I have gotten this request more than any other for this podcast. And the reason that I haven't done it up until now is cuz I wanted to [00:01:00] make sure that I put proper time and attention into this episode specifically because I believe it is so, so important.
[00:01:07] It's such an important topic, in fact, that I am going to recommend that you listen to this episode more than once, so you can really soak in, soak it in, because I'm gonna be going through all of these tips rather quickly. And so if you want to listen to it, again, I highly recommend doing that. So you can actually pause and take notes and implement some of the things I'm gonna be sharing today.
[00:01:30] So today's gonna be a very, very tactical episode. Um, very practical episode and something that you can actually implement today into your business. So I'm really excited. First of all, I wanted to also mention that we had an episode, uh, a couple weeks back. It is 152, and I talk all about why email marketing should be a top priority for you in growing your business this year.
[00:01:55] So if you're wondering, and you're asking, why is this such a [00:02:00] important topic? Why should I be focused on building my email? I want you to go back and I want you to listen to that episode because in order to take the steps necessary in order to build your email list, you're gonna have to have a motivation and, um, an incentive to actually wanna build your email list.
[00:02:19] And I also believe that there is a big difference between building just an email list and building a profitable email list. So you wanna make sure that the people that you are targeting with these strategies are the right people who are actually interested in the content you're sharing, and ultimately would be an ideal client or customer for your business.
[00:02:42] So once you have that email list, you now have a direct way of communicating with your ideal audience, sharing valuable content, promoting your products and services, offering discounts and so much more. So this is why email list are [00:03:00] such a great way to grow your business and to build community and loyalty and brand recognition, and also create repeat customers and clients.
[00:03:13] And create those referrals as well. So trust me when I say that the most successful and profitable brands and businesses that you probably look up to where you're thinking, wow, I would love to have a business like theirs. They are focusing their strategies on email marketing. They have an email marketing strategy and I promise you they are putting a lot of time and a lot of attention into growing that list.
[00:03:42] So, because I wanna respect your time and I wanna keep this episode really short and sweet. We actually created a landing page. So if you go to businessbabescollective.com/growyourlist, we have a bunch of resources there. We have free downloads, we have a workshop, [00:04:00] we have, uh, discount links to flow desk or favorite email software.
[00:04:05] So anything that you would need to start to grow your email list is gonna be found there. So again, if you want more resources on how to grow your email list, Go to businessbapescollective.com/growyourlist and you'll get all the resources there. Alright, let's go ahead now and jump into our episode today.
[00:04:26] Welcome to the Business Babes Collective podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe. In this podcast, you'll learn tangible business tips and strategies on how to grow successfully and sustainably. We'll also interview seasoned entrepreneurs so you can listen in on their stories and see behind the scenes of what it took to grow and scale their businesses.
[00:04:47] Let's dive in as we discuss the wild, exciting, crazy challenging, rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.
[00:04:56] Okay, I am gonna jump straight into the 10 tips on [00:05:00] how to grow a profitable email list from scratch. So number one is to offer and create a free resource for your community. So I'm sure that you have downloaded some of these free resources, uh, before maybe you've downloaded one of ours on our website or another business owner.
[00:05:21] And this could be a helpful checklist, an ebook, a workbook, an online tool maybe that you've created or some sort of template. So something of value that your ideal client would exchange their email address for. Okay, so a free resource. This could be something super simple, and this is probably, I would say the lowest barrier to entry to start to grow your email list.
[00:05:50] I think it's a great way to have something on your website, whether that be a popup or something on a banner. Or in the link in your bio on your social media [00:06:00] channels, and it's a really easy way to just put together something of value that is related to your specific niche and come up with something that is truly valuable.
[00:06:13] What would your ideal client or customer want and need? What are some of their challenges and what is something that you can offer as a free resource in order to solve one of their challenges?
[00:06:26] Okay, so that is a free resource. Number two is creating a quiz. I really love this one and I'm sure you've seen quizzes popping up, and I think this is for a good reason. We love learning more about ourselves and we love the idea of quizzes. And so this is a fun and playful way to engage your ideal clients. So there's lots of ideas here. You could do a personality quiz. So say for example, you have a makeup brand, you could actually have a quiz titled something like, [00:07:00] Which lipstick shade matches your personality?
[00:07:02] Or maybe it's a knowledge quiz and maybe you're a financial planner, and so you could create a quiz, something like, how much do you know about investing? Or maybe you have a marketing agency. And so the quiz could be titled something like, how strong is your Marketing Strategy? So if you have a service-based business, this could lead into one of your services at the very end where you actually share with them the results and then it leads into what services would be best for them.
[00:07:36] And then if you're a product-based business, you have a product recommendation for them at the end. So either way, I think this is an awesome way to not only drive sales, but also to start to build your email list as well.
[00:07:51] Okay. Number three is to run an online giveaway. So if you already have somewhat of a presence on social media or another [00:08:00] platform, consider hosting a giveaway for your ideal client.
[00:08:03] So the key to a great giveaway, in my opinion, is keeping it super simple. So don't have the giveaway have like 10 different things that they have to do in order to enter. You are gonna get way less subscribers if you do it that way. So my recommendation is do it something very simple. So whether it be sign up for our email list and comment below, or sign up for our email list and tag a friend below, whatever that might be.
[00:08:32] And then also, the more generous you can be with the prize, the better. I see a lot of people doing giveaways and the prizes that are offered or just lack lackluster, to be completely honest with you. I think that you have to be generous when it comes to offering a prize because people need to be incentivized to take time out of their day.
[00:08:54] And also, this really depends on your ideal client. Is your ideal client, a busy mom? Is [00:09:00] your ideal client a busy professional, or maybe they have their own business, right? So you have to really get inside of the mind of your ideal client and figure out what is worth their time and what would they be willing to do in order to have a chance to win a specific bonus or prize?
[00:09:17] So, um, another option for this, for this tip is to actually partner up with another business. So obviously I love this because this is talking about collaborations. So you can offer a bundle giveaway with one or two other businesses where you can all give away either products or services. And what I would do is for best results, I would keep it probably under five people.
[00:09:43] So I would say partner up with two or three other businesses that are super aligned in niche, if you have a giveaway where the businesses are not super aligned, it's not gonna be super successful. So just make sure you stay within your niche. [00:10:00] So for example, if you have a, um, food company, I would stay within that niche. If you have a service based, um, company that's in the wellness space, I would stay within that niche as well.
[00:10:13] Number four is offer a free trial or a sample. So if you have a software or an online service, you can invite people to trial your service. So you could have a 15 day trial, a 30 day trial. Some people do like a a week trial.
[00:10:32] And after that time, they would need to upgrade or pay for the service. And you can also actually do this if you have a product-based business. If people can sample your product, you can offer them a sample in exchange for their email. I've seen some companies do this and they will just have people actually just pay for the shipping.
[00:10:54] So really it's just the product itself, the cost of the product itself that they. [00:11:00] Um, offering in exchange for someone's email. Now, this is a great way to get your product into the hands of someone, especially if it's a product that they could easily, uh, order more of or recommend to a friend. So I would do it on maybe like a limited time offer, whatever that might be.
[00:11:17] And I think that would be a great way to gain lots of email subscribers in a potential short amount of time. Um, so offering a trial if you have a service or software-based business, or a sample, if you have a product-based business.
[00:11:32] Okay, number five is provide a discount or a gift card. So people love getting a deal. People love getting free things. So if you are willing to offer a discount or a gift card, uh, when they join your email list for the first time, so may maybe that might be on their first purchase when they first sign up to your email list. This is a great way to incentivize them to [00:12:00] actually join. Now I love the idea personally of giving a gift card.
[00:12:05] So if you have a product-based business, I know most product-based businesses offer a discount, so I see a lot 10% off or 15% off, and even though that can be a great incentive, um, if you can offer something a little bit different. So if you can kind of step outside the box and be a little bit different and you say, Hey, we're gonna gift you a gift card of $5 off your first purchase, or $10 off your first, first purchase, people will be more incentivized to actually join because it's the value that they perceive in their head as, oh my goodness, I'm actually gonna get money or a gift card towards these products or services.
[00:12:46] And so that's what I would recommend for that. And then also, this is actually also a way to continue to reward existing subscribers. So you wanna make sure that your email subscribers, not just when they [00:13:00] join, but for the lifetime of while they're on your email list to feel special. And so if you wanna do this, this is also a great way you can offer uh, loyalty, exclusive discounts or freebies or gift cards, uh, in your ongoing marketing emails.
[00:13:17] So we actually do this from, obviously we are a service-based business and obviously events as well, but we do this once in a while where I will actually offer a 15 minute lightning strategy session to the first five or so, five or 10 people who respond to a specific email.
[00:13:38] And this is just a great way to continue to engage and give back to our email list subscribers. And this has been so incredibly successful, not only with engaging and actually getting to build relationships with our email list, but also as a way to really help our email list, [00:14:00] um, the health of our email list, so I, I mentioned this actually in our last episode, but our email open rates are Very high in comparison to a lot of other, um, email lists within our industry.
[00:14:15] So if you look at like the average open rates across the board for business services such as ourselves, our email list gets a very, very high open rate. And I think that's because we're always looking for ways, we're always testing, we're always tweaking. We're always looking for ways to give back to our email list subscribers, and so if that's something that you wanna implement in your own business, I highly recommend continuing to figure out how you can add value.
[00:14:41] Okay. Number six is offering exclusive early access. So if you have new products or services or events that you were launching throughout the year, this is a really easy way to get email subscribers to your list so you can create a wait list. [00:15:00] Or an early access list or a V I P list, and it's a really awesome way to be able to grow.
[00:15:07] So you can offer early bird access or discounts or promotions. And this is also another way to make your email list subscribers feel really special is saying, Hey, this is exclusively going to our email list. You are the first ones to know about this, or you're the first ones to have access, or you're the first ones to get this amazing discount, whatever that might be.
[00:15:32] So we do this for our in-person events. So we have a V I P list that, uh, people can subscribe to when they go to our website. We have a wait list, so when we announce our events, our email list is the first to know, and they also get promo codes for our events so they get the lowest discounted events of anyone.
[00:15:57] So if you were to go onto our [00:16:00] website and just go ahead and purchase a ticket directly off of our website, Um, you would get the regular price, but if you're on our email list, we offer specific codes and different discounts and promotions specifically to just to our email list subscribers. So that's a way to really make people feel special and also to grow that community and loyalty.
[00:16:24] Okay. Number seven is to host an email list cross promotion strategy with another business. So this one's a little bit outside of the box, and this is actually something that I mentioned on another episode talking about collaborations. Is look for another aligned brand who, one, shares values and then, two, shares a similar target audience.
[00:16:47] So if you are a, uh, fashion brand, maybe you're gonna look for a jewelry brand. If you are a, um, let's say a massage studio or you do like massages and [00:17:00] um, rmt, maybe you're gonna look for someone who does, uh, pedicures and nails. If you are someone who has uh, service-based business doing SEO, look for someone who has a marketing company, right?
[00:17:13] So aligned businesses that ha share the same target audience. And then what you're gonna do is you're gonna cross-promote with your email list. Now, this is a strategy specifically for people who probably already have an email list, but this is an incredible way to cross-promote, and you can offer something like a promotion or a giveaway or one of the options that we talked about previously to each other's email list.
[00:17:42] So it's a great way and it's a free way to, um, build your list and to build community between the two different brands.
[00:17:50] Okay. Number eight is attending an event as a vendor. So this is an awesome opportunity to build your email list if [00:18:00] you pop up at another person's event as a vendor, and then at your vendor table you offer some kind of promotion or a giveaway or something, something fun in order to get someone's email.
[00:18:15] That is a really great way to build your list. I know I've seen a lot of people do something really special. Like people can take home a little goodie bag if they join the list or they get entered into this really incredible prize, whatever that might be, and so highly recommend. Or if someone is about to purchase something, you say, Hey. You can actually get $5 off your purchase if you join our email list, so that's an awesome way to build your list as well.
[00:18:44] Number nine is hosting a virtual workshop or a webinar. So you have probably attended these types of educational webinars before or workshops and hosting one of these is a really, really great way to [00:19:00] not only build your email list, but it's also an incredible way to build relationships with potential ideal clients and customers, because most likely that is gonna be hosted live. You can have a Q&A at the end. You can start to build that know like and trust factor with your audience. You can also increase brand awareness and help establish, this can also help establish you as a thought leader in your field, and it will increase your credibility.
[00:19:28] So whether or not this workshop leads into a paid opportunity or paid offer, or if it's just a workshop for educational purposes that you host regularly, this is an incredible way to build your email list and build credibility.
[00:19:44] Okay. Number 10, the final idea, and this one is my absolute favorite, is to host a collaborative virtual event. So this could be an online conference, an online [00:20:00] summit, an online interview series, whatever you want to call it. And I have talked a lot about this. I've talked about it on the podcast before, and it's actually something that I have been doing that we have been doing for a very long time, both virtual and in-person events, um, but specifically virtual.
[00:20:17] And one of the amazing, amazing things about this is that a collaborative virtual event is, I believe one of the best ways to build your email list, because it's not only utilizing the power of collaborations with which helps you get in front of hundreds, if not thousands of new ideal prospects and ideal clients, but it also builds that no like and trust, trust with your subscribers very, very quickly.
[00:20:49] And the other thing is, is that it provides value not only for your new subscribers, but also for your current subscribers, because they are going to [00:21:00] be the first to know about this online conference or online summit or interview series and the ideal way that I think this builds your email list is you offer an option for free and then you can also monetize it by offering a V I P option, which gives people access to the recordings, um, for bonuses and different things that you can offer.
[00:21:23] And so this is something that we have been talking about in teaching, and not only I've been talking about in teaching to my clients, but also to our mastermind members.
[00:21:34] And we also created a new program that we just ran for the first time last month, all about this. So if you're curious to know more about how you can create your own collaborative virtual event, go to businessbabescollective.com/breakthrough and get access to our free workshop there, where you'll hear more about the one that we did in January.
[00:21:57] It's basically a case study of that and [00:22:00] how you can do the same for your own audience. So there you have it, you guys. 10 ideas of how to build an email list, build a profitable email list from scratch. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode, and my encouragement to you is to take an action step today that is going to help you build your list.
[00:22:23] So my recommendation is that you go to our website, go to businessbabescollective.com/growyourlist. Again, that's businessbabescollective.com/growyourlist , and we have a ton of resources over there to get you started if you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed on where to start.
[00:22:43] Go there and take one step. Just one step into building your email list. So also, I would love if you sent me a message on Instagram and tell me a little bit more about you, about your business, and I would love to hear some ideas that [00:23:00] you have on growing your. So find me @danilivinglife on Instagram. Send me a quick message and I'm excited to connect with you there.
[00:23:09] So I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I hope to see you over on our website, businessbabescollective.com/growyourlist. You can get all the resources. Until then, have a great rest of your day and we will see you in our next podcast.
[00:23:29] If you love this episode, make sure you screenshot, post and tag us on Instagram @businessbabesco. Want to know when the next episode goes live? Subscribe on your podcast app and while you're there, leave us a review. Until next time, keep dreaming big, setting goals and taking action.