Yesterday we talked about why building an email list is so important. If you missed it you can go to www.shannonmattern.com/26
Today, I’m going to share with you how to build one. Here’s what to do to build an email list.
First, you need a website, which I teach you how to do in my free 5-day website challenge, you can go to www.shannonmattern.com/5day to sign up for that.
Second, you need something that you can give away for free in exchange for an email address.
Then, in the free 5 day website challenge I cover all the technical steps of how to set up your email service provider and connect it to your website with an opt-in form, how to promote your freebie to entice people to sign up, I show how to send your new subscriber to a thank you page, and then how to deliver your freebie in that first email automatically when they subscribe.
The freebie does more than just get people onto your email list. It’s designed to attract your target audience. It addresses a specific problem or issue that your target audience has so that when they see it, they can’t help but to sign up for it.
On the flip side, it weeds out people that aren’t your ideal customer, who are never going to buy what you have to sell.
The second thing it does is that it establishes your credibility and builds trust with your audience. That’s what warming up your audience means. Now you’re seen as an authority, or someone that can actually help me get what I want.
The third thing it does is it warms up cold traffic.
Think about it this way.
The main ways you get traffic to your website are through Social Media and Search Engine Optimization.
You write blog posts about topics that your target audience is searching for on google – or if you don’t like to write, you make videos or record podcasts – but you still post those to your blog so that they come in up google search results.
Then you share your blog posts on social media, and when people click to read more, they’re taken back to your website.
Nine times out of ten, when people find your website through a blog post, they have no idea who you are. That’s called “cold traffic” or a “cold audience.” Think of them as total strangers – and it’s your job to turn total strangers into acquaintences – now they’re getting warm, and then into friends – now they’re getting even warmer, and then into BEST FRIENDS now they’re HOT and ready to take the next step with you.
But if you don’t have a freebie on your website, all you’re doing is meeting a bunch of strangers and never taking the next step in the relationship.
It’s like you’re at a concert with a bunch of people who you know all like the same thing you do, but you leave and you have no way to ever get in touch with those people ever again.
You gotta way for them to take the next step with you, and you gotta incentivize them to do it.
Otherwise, all of that content you’re creating, you’re missing a huge opportunity to move people from cold to warm.
So you need to have that freebie created, whether it’s a PDF, or a video series, or an audio file, or just a series of emails that just have text in them.
But it has to be your best stuff, and it has to solve a problem, or fulfill a desire and give your new acquaintance a quick win so that now they want more from you and see you as the person that can get them what they want.
Now they’re warm, but It doesn’t end there. Because now it’s time to keep them warm, and then move them from warm to hot.
What you do after you deliver the freebie is just as important as getting them onto your email list in the first place.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about in tomorrow’s pep talk!
Click here to register for my Free Master Class, So You Have a Website, Now What?
In this live master class, discover the path from building a website to building an audience through online marketing, and turning your audience from casual subscribers into paying customers – using the foundation you already built in the Free 5 Day Website Challenge!
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
