List Building Basics: How To Build An Engaged Email List

Getting a new subscriber on your email list is a big moment. That’s because their relationship with your brand has changed. This is the time when a prospect becomes a lead. 

When people visit your website and follow you on social media, it’s safe to say that you can market to them through those channels. However, when a person visits your website, it doesn’t automatically mean that they want to join your email list. And for social media, some of those who follow you just do so for the sake of it.

It’s different when they choose to join your list. They’re giving you permission to contact and market to them. You’re also getting implicit permission to target ads. So it’s a big moment for businesses when people make this decision.

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What You Can Do With Your Email List

If you’ve been hearing people complain that email is dead, you might be wondering what’s so special about someone joining your list and becoming a lead.

Direct Route for Targeted Messages

When someone joins your list, you have a direct route for your targeted messages. 

Of course, there’s still a risk that your messages will be caught by a spam filter. There may also be people on your email list who used a burner email address because they really had no plan of joining your list in the first place.

You can expect to come across these scenarios. But don’t worry, you still have those people on your list who have given out legit email addresses.

Send Tailored Messages

When someone joins your list, it increases your ability to send them tailored messages. Tailoring your messages helps you nurture your audience and show them that you’re providing value to them.

Email addresses also allow you to create a custom ad audience. That means you don’t have to spend as much money to show targeted ads or send targeted messages to people on your email list.

You can also run ads that will invite people on your list to check out your content. If you’ve recently released a new podcast, blog, product, or service, you can inform the people who joined your list. 

You can provide them with content that provides value. You can also show them conversion ads when you have a new product or service to offer. Whether it’s inviting them to a webinar or sending them to a checkout page, you can target those people specifically.

Build Your Authority

When you have an email list, you’ll have the opportunity to establish your authority. This doesn’t mean that you use email to sell, sell, sell.

You’ll have to create content that will help them understand their problem. You can talk about beliefs and mistakes. You also need content to include connection as well as thought leadership content in your email so people get to know, like, and trust you.

Connect With People

Once someone’s on your email list, you’re adding in connection content naturally. In fact, your weekly emails should be about connecting with those people. It helps you build the know, like, and trust factor. It allows you to nurture your leads and guide them through the inbound journey and eventually convert them to become buyers.

Introduce Consideration

You can help people figure out what they need by introducing consideration in conversion content. You can help them decide if they need your product or someone else’s service. 

The people on your list are the ideal people to sell to because they already know your business. They’re aware of their problem and recognize that you’re a thought leader in this area. This means you’ll be in a better position to guide them through their journey, which hopefully leads to a sale.

The List Building Process

The mechanics of list building aren’t difficult, but that doesn’t mean that list building is easy. Here are the basic steps for building an engaged email list.

1. Write good emails. You need to offer something valuable in your emails to convince people to join and stay on your list.
2. Offer an incentive to people who decide to give their email addresses. This can be in the form of exclusive deals and discounts or a lead magnet that will help them take a step forward in solving a problem that they expect you to help them overcome.
3. Create an opt-in page where they can sign up to join your email list.
4. Create a confirmation page that will lead them to their freebie, which you will deliver via email. This way, you can train them to open your emails and read them. For example, on your confirmation page, tell them to check their inbox and open the email you sent so they can claim their freebie.
5. You can also use the confirmation page to tell them what to do next, such as join a community you’re running, subscribe to your podcast, or sign up for some training.

Focus on Getting The Right People on Your List

You don’t want to have everyone on your list. You want the right people to join. A small engaged list can be more powerful than a huge list with low engagement.

The goal isn’t to have the biggest list possible. Instead, you want to have a list of people who are interested in your business and can become potential buyers.

Make sure you’ve done your niching work and you know exactly who you serve and what problem you help them solve. Doing so will shape what you do.

The Most Important Rule of List Building

One of the most important rules of list building is to overdeliver. One common mistake that entrepreneurs make when list building is they hold back and don’t offer enough value. 

They believe that if they give too many freebies, people won’t buy from them anymore. The better the freebie, the more it’ll serve your business. Giving more away on your freebie will be beneficial for your business.  

Instead of worrying that you’re giving too much, you should ask yourself how you can give more. If you offer great freebies, potential customers will wonder what the paid product will be like. 

You will not only make a good first impression, but you’ll also pique the interest of potential buyers. Your freebie doesn’t have to be huge, but it needs to be great and valuable.

That sums up the basics of list building and how it can help with your inbound marketing journey.

Time To Do The Work

If you want to learn more about online marketing and how to get people to join your email list, join BADA$$ Online Marketing University. We have a whole course on list building that is completely FREE.

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