When I discovered back in 2014 that I could make a living by giving everything I know about WordPress away for free, everything in my life changed.
I stopped spending my free time watching the Real Housewives and starting listening to every podcast and reading every book and blog post and newsletter I could find about building a successful online business.
And every successful online entrepreneur I found had the same piece of advice:
Build an email list.
Specifically, give away something of value in exchange for an email address.
And those that didn’t start right out of the gate building an email list?
Oh, how they regretted it! Like my mentor-from-afar, Pat Flynn.
Okay Pat. You have what I want, I’ll do whatever you say.
So as I was putting the finishing touches on the Free 5 Day Website Challenge at the end of 2014, I decided I’d give it away in exchange for an email address instead of making it publicly available.
Then, I pasted a link to it in Nathalie Lussier’s 30 Day List Building Challenge Facebook Group freebie Friday thread.
And my email list grew from 0 to 1 subscriber.
- was. hooked.
Whatever happens to your brain when you get addicted to something, I think that’s what happened to mine when I got that email from MailChimp.
I became simultaneously addicted to checking my email and growing my list.
From that moment, my singular focus was to grow my email list to 10,000.
Why 10,000?
Probably because that’s how many subscribers Pat Flynn had when I read his article lamenting about how he wished he’d started sooner.
I was on a mission, and I shared my 5 Day Website Challenge in Facebook Groups more consistently than anything else I’ve ever done.
In 2015, I had grown my list from 0 to 1800 subscribers.
In 2016, I ended the year at 4200.
But in 2017, things slowed WAY down.
I closed out 2017 with 4500… Because I removed about 1500 unsubscribes from my list. I hadn’t realized unsubscribers were showing up in my counts…
I could have really bummed myself out about that many people unsubscribing… but something I really internalized in my research about building my business is that not everyone is going to resonate with my personality (and never-ending typos where I interchange “ed” and “ing”) and that’s okay.
But still, 10,000 was the magic number, and I was determined to make it happen in 2018.
Only 5500 to go!! I can totally do that now that I don’t have a day job anymore!
In February 2018, I peaked at 5002 subscribers.
And then along comes GDPR…
Which if you’re not familiar, GDPR is a European law that basically says you can’t send marketing emails to people that live in Europe if you didn’t disclose you were gonna do that and get their consent when they signed up – so if you’re gonna keep doing that, you need to get fresh consent.
And since I just said “Hey, I’ll show you how to build a website in just 5 days even if you’re not techie” and I didn’t say “by the way I’m gonna send you a newsletter, and info about my paid programs” – and I also had no idea who on my list lived in Europe vs. anywhere else, I made the decision to get fresh consent from my entire email list of almost 5,000 subscribers.
So if you paid attention to the subject line of this email, you’ll know that after that fresh consent campaign, I had 1000 people say YES, I want to stay on your email list!!
Are you kidding me right now?? Can you imagine 1000 people in a room? I can’t. It’s a lot of people! (If you’re one of those people, YOU ROCK, by the way).
And then I deleted 4000 people from my email list.
Ouch.
I felt like I had worked really hard to get to that number… and now I can’t say I’ve helped over 5000 people build a website… And now it’s going to take FOREVER to get to 10,000….
So I started June of 2018 with less email subscribers than I had when I ended my first year of business.
And guess what happened?
Nothing.
Nothing changed.
Everything kept chugged along as it had been the first 6 months.
Wait, so I don’t need 10,000 email subscribers to have a successful online business?
Nope.
So I tell you this big, long story about my email list obsession because I want you to know that you do not have to have a ginormous email list to find success in your business.
Now, I know you might be thinking:
Easy for you to say, Shannon… you deleted 4,000 and have 1,000 left. Boo hoo. I have 12 people on my email list and 6 of them are family. I’ve done everything you’ve said to do, and I feel stuck.
To which I say:
You gotta start somewhere. And something you did got 6 people to raise their hand and say yes, I want your freebie.
What did you do to make that happen?
Do more of that.
And then keep doing it.
Your email list is your tribe, your community.
They are real people, not numbers.
And when you only have 6, or 20, or 50, it’s easier reach out to them individually and thank them for signing up and ask them if they’d be willing to answer a few questions to help you find more people just like them.
How did you find me? What was your biggest takeaway from my freebie? If you could wave a magic wand and solve your problem, what would that look like? How would that make you feel?
Work with what you’ve got. If 6 people said yes, you are onto something.
Your job is not to focus on the number of subscribers you have on your email list.
It’s to focus on the actions you took to find those people and compel them to subscribe and do more of that.
You WILL get traction if you keep taking action. (I really didn’t mean for that to rhyme…)
It’s very possible that the way you are describing your freebie on your website doesn’t do it justice.
“Give away something of value in exchange for an email address.”
It’s that “of value” piece that trips people up.
Let me ask you a question…
If I go to your website, will I be able to tell exactly what results I’m going to get if I give you my email address and take action on the information you give me in your freebie?
If I say “Join the 5 Day Website Challenge” or “I’ll show you how to build a website in just 5 days even if you’re not techie”…
Which one clearly tells you what result you’re going to get? Which one is going to get you to fork over your email address?
Describe your freebie on your website by the results people will get from it, not just by its name.
So I’d love to hear from you – hit reply and tell me the name of your freebie and what result I’ll get from taking action on it.
And if you’re feeling stuck when it comes to building your email list, I’d love to hear what you’ve tried so far and what’s going on in your head when you think about building your list.
Until next week…
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.
