5 Tried & Tested Strategies to Build Your Email List

Your Dream Business

English - March 31, 2018 23:57 - 14 minutes - 11 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: The Differences Between Creating a Facebook Ad versus Boosting a Post

Next Episode: How to Handle Negativity Online

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTWhen people are on your email list, you can market to them directly.Social media channels are not owned media. These social channels could disappear any day. If that happened, how would you stay in touch with your followers?As important as it is to build an audience on social media, it is vital that you get your followers onto your list.A great lead magnet helps you address your audience’s biggest problems.Content upgrades allow you to pull your podcast listeners and blog post readers in further by providing them with.There are considerations and rules you need to keep in mind when running competitions on Facebook or another social channel.Review your website on an ongoing basis to ensure you are providing clear opportunities for your visitors.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Social media is simply a part of your overarching marketing efforts. It should be integrated into all aspects of your marketing, such as list-building.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhy list-building is so important for your business – 01:59How list-building fits within social media marketing – 02:32Strategy #1 for building your email list: Creating a lead magnet – 03:48Strategy #2: Incorporate content upgrades into your podcast or blog posts - 05:19Strategy #3: Optimizing your Facebook page call to action - 07:02Strategy #4: Run a competition on social media for businesses with products – 07:59Strategy #5: Provide ample opportunities for visitors to engage with you on your website – 11:14
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEWooBox Episode 2 - How Lead Magnets Help You Build Your List & Stay Connected With Your Followers
Transcript below

Hello and welcome. Teresa Heath-Wareing here and thank you for downloading episode number six of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast, I really do appreciate it. At the moment, I am recording each podcast pretty much week on week, which although I want to get to batching and don't worry I will do a session on that. Although I want to get to batching so that I can do a number of podcasts at the same time.

One of the great things about doing it week to week, is that I get to hear your feedback and I get to receive such lovely messages from people who have downloaded the podcast and listened to it. When I say thank you, I honestly truly, truly mean it. I really do appreciate you listening, and if you want to share it with people that you think it might help as well then I would really appreciate that too.

Onto episode number six. Today, I wanted to talk to you about list building, and I know you might be sat there thinking, but what has this got to do with social media. Well it's got everything to do with social media, and also the reason I wanted to come in fairly early on episode number six, with something that was a little bit outside social media is because I wanted you to understand that social media is really a part of your marketing and should be seen integrated with all the other aspects of marketing your business.

Something like, list building sits really hand-in-hand with social media, and so does so many other things. Although, the podcast is Social Media Marketing Made Simple, I am going to be also talking about marketing your business in general and how that fits in the social media.

Why list-building is so important for your business

So let's dive in. Why is building an email list important to your business?

Why list-building is so important for your business

So let's dive in. Why is building an email list important to your business? Well, it always has been from as long as I've worked in marketing which is near in 14 years now. Getting people onto email list has always been really, really important because when people are on your email list you're able to market to them directly. Now we have amazing things like custom audiences with Facebook, you were able to create an audience. I took your e-mail list.

How list-building fits within social media marketing

It always has been and still is super useful to build your list, but where does this fit in with social media? Well, first off you know I am a huge fan of social media. I love it and I think it can be really effective for many different businesses. However, there is always a word of warning with social media. This platform does not belong to you and your business. Therefore, all your followers that you might have on Twitter or Facebook. If tomorrow something went wrong i.e. you broke a term and condition or they decided that they didn't want to trade on that platform anymore, that actually Twitter said, "Do you know [inaudible 00:03:08] shutting." I don't think they're going to but what if they did?

Then suddenly my 13,000 followers on Twitter would disappear overnight and I would have no idea how to get access to those people. As much as it's important to build a following on social media and engage with your audience using social media, it is also just as important and vital that you try and get them off the social media and into your own email list.

Today, I have got five tried and tested strategies that you can use to enable to grow your email list.

Strategy #1 for building your email list: Creating a lead magnet

Let's get started with strategy number one, create a lead magnet. Well, back in episode two, I did a more detailed overview of what a lead magnet was and how it can help your business. If you want to find out more information please go back and re-listen to that episode.

However, it was so important that I included it in these top strategies because it can be such a strong one in terms of building your list. Effectively what a lead magnet is, is a bit of information or something that you aren't giving away for free in order for them to give you their email address. A couple of good examples would be if you have written a book you might want to give them two free chapters of your book, and in order for them to get them they would have to give you their email address.

Or let's say you're nutritionist, you might want to put together a PDF of the list of foods someone might eat if they want more energy. Effectively, you're trying to identify a problem that your potential customers have and that you can help with and give them some free information that can help them with that problem. If you are going to do a lead magnet then make sure you put it everywhere and you tell everybody putting it on your website, having it on your e-mail signature. Then of course you can put it on social media.

If you wanted to take a step further, you could even advertise it through something like Facebook ads manager.

Strategy #2: Incorporate content upgrades into your podcast or blog posts

Strategy number two leads on really nicely from the lead magnet because it's very, very similar. However, this is going a step further and can be super effective. This is what we call a content upgrade. Let me explain. If you are writing a blog or doing a podcast or providing any kind of regular content to people that they are using, then one of the ways in which you can maximise those people coming to listen to the podcast or reading your blog is on maybe every other episode, or every other blog, by offering them something that they can download in addition to what they've just read or heard.

One of the examples that I would use is, I wrote a blog post about lead magnets and about what they were. Then as the content upgrade I said to people that I would give them a list of I think it was like 25 lead magnets that they could use in their business. The idea is, if they've just sat and read that blog post or listened to that podcast that obviously interested in what it is you're saying and therefore they might be interested in some additional information to take them that step further. And the content upgrade can just be something that's helpful.

If you go to Theresaheathwearing.com/six, in the show notes you will find a download available to you that lists these five strategies that I'm talking through and also gives you a couple of ideas on how you can use those strategies. So please go ahead and download it there.

Strategy #3: Optimizing your Facebook page call to action

Strategy number three, is a simple but effective one. If you have a Facebook page you will see that under your cover photo which is the big image at the top of your page, there is a call to action button and you are able to edit that call to action button to say so many different things. One of the things that you can get it to say is 'sign up'.

When you choose this option, Facebook will ask you to put in a web address. Either you send them over to your page on your website your contact us or your sign up page, or you can create a specific landing page just for Facebook sign ups. This is a really simple but effective one that you can implement with no problem whatsoever. If you're not sure where I'm on about no problem, just head over and get that PDF I mentioned and I have put an image in there to show you where it is that you can change this.

Strategy #4: Run a competition on social media for businesses with products

Strategy number four is for those of you who have a physical product or maybe have a physical location, and this is competitions or discounts. Now again it's very similar to the lead magnet that I talked about. However, it is specifically for people who have a product of some sort. Now, one of the things that you can't do if you have a product is just give away loads of free products, that obviously would not make financial sense.

However, what you can do that works amazingly wow, you can offer either a discount off your product or multiples of your products or a competition. Now, social media and competitions go so well, they are just awesome, and you will be able to reach a really large audience and the shareability factor of that competition is great.

Another word of warning now I'm afraid, it is actually against Facebook's terms and conditions to do a like and share competition. It's the share element that's the issue. They have no problem with you saying, you must like this page to enter into the competition. They do however have a problem with you saying, you must share this page to enter the competition. Just a little word of warning there. Just to make sure you stay away from that share word, but don't limit yourself to just like and share competitions. There are loads of possibilities. You could do things like tag a friend, take a photo, answer a question.

However, the main thing in all of this is that in order to enter the competition you want them to handover their email address. To do this, it's going to take a little bit of work because you're going to have to set up the ability for them to do that obviously. One of the ways in which I do this is either I would set up a landing page using something like lead pages.

I'll put a link to it in the show notes, or you could possibly use another system called Woodbox, which is set up just for competitions on something like Facebook where they will enable you to take people's e-mail addresses straight through the platform of Facebook. Have a look at both of those, like set up, I'll put the links in my show notes so that you can check them out.

One of the considerations you need to make when deciding what competition you're going to do is that you have to give them a prize that is worth them going to the effort of giving you the email address. For instance, if you would giving away a really low end prize that didn't cost a great deal then you would probably do something like a like competition i.e., they just like your page, but of course you wouldn't get the email address.

However, if you did something that was a bigger value competition because you are asking them to do more then they are more likely to give you that email address. Again, make sure you put this competition everywhere on your websites, on social media. You could even change that cover photo that I talked about earlier and turn that into the competition cover photo.

Also, don't forget that email signature. This is such a simple one that so many people forget because you're using it all the time. Make sure you include the competition on that as well.

Strategy #5: Provide ample opportunities for visitors to engage with you on your website

Onto strategy number five. I'm going to finish on what is a fairly simple one but one that gets missed all the time.

When was the last time you went and looked at your websites as if you were a new person as if you would never been on that site before? How many opportunities are you giving me to sign up to your newsletter, or to engage with you in some way or another? You know what so many people miss this, they think they don't want to bombard their website with calls to actions, with sign up here, do this now but the point is, we don't use your website like you use it.

You will go onto it and you see almost every single page, you are constantly manoeuvring through it and therefore if you see three or four calls to action you're going to look at it and think, "Oh man, I'm really sick of that. I don't want to see anymore." However, when a user goes to your website they might just be going to one page, they might just be coming to maybe your home page and then reading your by 'about us' page.

How many people have calls to action on their 'about us' page? Not many. Or they might be going straight to a blog post and once they've read that blog post they might come away from your site again.

Even though when you go to your site you feel like it's screaming at them sign up, sign up, sign up, everywhere they go. All you are doing is trying to maximise every opportunity of anybody coming to any page on that website that they have got an ability to engage with you in some way.

On the last strategy, I want you to go and do a bit of work. I'm sorry about that, but I want to go to your website and look at it as if you are brand new, and on every page ask yourself and this is something actually I probably need to do myself but ask yourself where can I sign up, or what is this page asking me to do.

Like I said, that's definitely one I probably need to do myself sometime soon. There we have it, my five strategies to building your e-mail list. I really hope it's been helpful and that you've enjoyed today's podcast. If you have and you would like to give me a review then I would love that. Head on over to iTunes where you can leave that review. Also as I've said before I would love to hear what you would like me to talk about on the podcast.

Please don't be shy. Drop me an e-mail. Head over to my Facebook page Teresa Heath-Wareing and tell me what you want me to talk about. I can't wait to see you here again next week and until then have a brilliant week and I will see you soon.