SDH 426: Email List Building with Amanda Boleyn

Know you need to build an email list but overwhelmed by how to get started and all of the tech? ConvertKit is your go-to email platform that helps entrepreneurs like you turn your passions into a full-time career by growing your audience, promoting your business, and building a meaningful relationship with your fans. You can do all of this on their free plan.You can showcase your product and upcoming projects by building a custom landing page in minutes, saving time to help you focus on your business. ConvertKit’s email designer helps you create beautiful, simple emails that help turn your casual audience into true fans. Writing professional and personalized emails about your business and products helps connect you with your audience. ConvertKit helps entrepreneurs earn a living by evolving their side hustle, with tools to help sell products and grow their business.Go to convertkit.com/shedidit to sign up for a free account and find your audience faster. Welcome, welcome friend. Today I want to talk to you about email list building; specifically the importance of it and how it impacts your business growth. Now, if you’re anything like I was in the beginning stages of when the She Did It Her Way podcast first launched in 2015, I heard of list building but didn’t quite fully buy into it. I actually thought, “I can build a business without an email list” and honestly, that was me trying to opt-out of trying to figure out “how do I even get started?”So if you don’t have an email list yet or you’re just starting out, this episode (and the next two episodes to come) will be super helpful on your journey of list building. First, let’s talk about what is an email list and why is it important to your business…Your email list is your direct contact with your audience. It is how you can interact, engage, serve up value to them. This is how you intentionally nurture them. You nurture your email list the exact way you may nurture a child, you take care of them and continue to provide them with resources and value. Building an email list is crucial because it is the best way to build a relationship with your audience so you can build the ‘know, like and trust’ factor, which is important when you go to offer them something, whether it is your offer or an affiliate partnership. The more subscribers, the more people on your list, specifically the right people on your list, the more your business can grow. The reason why I say “the right people” is because you can have a list of 300 subscribers that are your ideal client and those that you can help, it could essentially perform better than someone who has a list of 1,000 subscribers but aren’t your ideal customer or someone that you want to work with. This is key because it can be easy to assume that just because you have a larger list, it is better but what matters most is having the right people on your list. Email List Building StrategyThere are many ways to build your email list. Ultimately the purpose of building your email list is that you can offer something. For example, if you have a paid blogging course you’ll want to create an opt-in that is related to your paid blogging course. So maybe your opt-in is a free downloadable guide, a webinar, a cheat sheet, a checklist, or a course. Something that correlates with your paid offer.If you don’t have an offer yet, don’t let that stop you from creating opt-ins and building your email list. You can use that time to nurture them, to serve value, and educate them. Expect to create multiple opt-ins to see which one your audience resonates with the most. We’ll talk about the process of creating your freebie in the next episode. How to Get StartedI recommend building your freebie first, before signing up for your email provider. Why? Because building your first freebie doesn’t cost you anything except your time and energy. You can use a free Canva account to create it.Decide an email provider to house your subscribers and communicate with them. There are many service providers out there like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and Podia. Spend time researching each one before making the decision.When it comes to the tech side of things, carve out 30 minutes every day to spend learning about the platform and using it. This was a major shift for me when I started to build my email list. For so long I procrastinated building my list because in my mind I thought it was this massive undertaking. However, once I started to get familiar with the tech and began spending 30 minutes a day or even a few times a week working inside the platform, I focused more on the time I was spending just being in the tech rather than specific about what I wanted to get out of my time. That to say, once I started to get the hang of it, I was able to be more specific on how I wanted to spend my time. A Final Note!Next week I’m going to walk you through my process of creating a freebie and after that, I’m going to share where and how to share your freebie so that you can start to build your email list.Until next time, keep doing it your way! Insights:If you don’t have an email list yet or you’re just starting out, this episode (and the next two episodes to come) will be super helpful on your journey of list building.”“What matters most is having the right people on your list.”“If you don’t have an offer yet, don’t let that stop you from creating opt-ins and building your email list.”“Ultimately the purpose of building your email list is that you can offer something.” Resources:ConvertkitCanvaMailChimpPodia