We’ve all heard that "the money is in the list”, but is this actually true and if so how do you do it?

Well when people say this you need to take it with a pinch of salt because the money is not just in your list, the money is in utilising and engaging with your list. Which is the big part people forget about.

Once you understand how to build your list through email list building strategies and then utilise it correctly, then you unlock the massive earning potential of having a list.

Whether you’re a content creator, coach, freelancer, or online entrepreneur, you can use email marketing to connect with your audience, generate leads, and make more sales. The best part is that you can accomplish this with a fully automated process!

Whether you’re a coach, course creator, freelancer, or any other type of online expert / entrepreneur, you can use list building strategies to connect with your audience, generate more leads, and make more sales. The best part is… you can accomplish this on autopilot by utilising automated list building strategies.

Why Invest In Email List Building?

When you make building your list a priority, you're prioritising lead generation which is key for the success of any business. Because if we want sales, we first need to have leads.

So many business owners spend so much time and energy on marketing strategies that are not directly related to bringing in new leads, and this is ok if they already have existing strategies in place to do this. However, many new businesses find the thought of building their email list confusing and overwhelming which prevents them from ever getting started and instead they spend their time on less important activities.

The most successful businesses out there invest heavily in building their list and in email marketing. Why? The short answer is because it works!

Let’s look at some of the main reasons why building your list and using email marketing is so important.

Your list is one of the only platforms that you own!

So many online entrepreneurs spend a lot of time building their audiences on social media, building what I like to call “Vanity Metrics” as their follower count increases and likes keep rolling in, it’s easy for them to justify putting more effort into the continued pursuit of growing their social media following on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

Social media platforms are becoming more and more geared towards a ‘pay to play’ platform. This means, if you want your followers to see your content, then you’re going to have to pay the platform to do so.

This is not the case with email marketing. Once you own the lead data on your list, you can send emails to these people each and every day, 6 times per day if you wish, with no additional fees.

Let me ask you this. What happens if your favourite social media platform closed its doors tomorrow and the amazing following you had spent all that effort on suddenly vanished into thin air? We’re not saying that this is going to happen, but you have to be prepared for things that are out of your control to happen as a business owner, which can be a scary thought. If you are no longer able to connect with your followers on your platform, you might not have any other way to contact them if the social media platform closes.

This happened with a company called Vine, the six-second video platform phenomenon. Some video creators lost their millions of followers overnight and were no longer able to interact with them when the platform closed its doors. The smart video creators were the ones who used their content to drive people into their funnels & websites to get them onto their email lists too. The others, however, had to convince their followers to subscribe on other platforms.

Unlike the ever changing world of social media & their algorithms, building your email list is the one thing that always stays strong and isn’t going anywhere soon. You get to decide what to show, how often to share it, you’re in full control because you own this list!

Your list is one of your most valuable assets!

Many people don’t realise this but your list is one of your most valuable assets in your business. If your goal is to sell your business, your list will become an overall factor in the value of your company.

There are many people who purchase other businesses solely for their customer list. This is done as a growth strategy as when one customer buys another business, all their existing customers and leads now become part of their business and then market to them for free through email marketing.

Did you know that when Facebook purchased Instagram & Whatsapp, neither of these companies made any profit. In fact in 2013, Whatsapp lost $138 million and brought in $10.2 million in revenue. Yet, despite this, Instagram was purchased for $1 Billion and Whatsapp for a staggering $22 Billion ($55 per user).

So why did Facebook spend $23 Billion acquiring these 2 companies when neither of them had any revenue stream at all? Because Facebook wanted their users, their list.

Facebook’s development team could have easily built Instagram or Whatsapp in a weekend, so it wasn’t the technology they were buying, it was the fact that both these platforms had such huge user bases that Facebook knew if they were to acquire these companies, they would be able to make revenue from them.

Investopida answer the question as to why Facebook purchased Whatsapp for $22 Billion:

“The answer is user growth. In 2014, over 500 million people used WhatsApp monthly and the service added more than 1 million users per day. 70% of WhatsApp users were active daily, compared to Facebook’s 62%. Additionally, WhatsApp users sent 500 million pictures back and forth per day, about 150 million more than Facebook users. The app launched in 2009 and as of 2020 had more than 2 billion users. As of 2020, Facebook had 2.8 billion monthly active users”

So not only does buying your list help you business generate more sales, it will also increase the value of your company is you ever wanted to sell it.

More People See Your Emails Than Your Social Media Posts

Let’s rewind time a little bit…

Can you remember when your favourite social media platforms first came about and were in their growth phases, the reach you could achieve when posting your control was so good that almost (if not all) all of your followers would see your content. It was so much easier to grow your following and interact with them back then.

Now, it’s a completely different story.

In today's competitive world of social media, your content will only reach 2-3% of your total followers, which means 97-98% will never see your content. Crazy, right? Not only that, but you’ll need to cross your fingers and hope those followers like or comment on your post, otherwise the algorithms won’t usually share it with other people in your audience. So, not only are you being hit hard once, you're getting hit twice if 2% of your followers don’t actually engage with your content.

And this is what I was meaning earlier when I implied that social media platforms are moving to a ‘pay to play’ format. If you want your followers to see your content, then you had better pull out that credit card and hand over some money.

But what if you don’t want to spend all your time and money setting up ads and paying to get your content noticed? Don’t worry, we have you covered. Email marketing is a much more cost effective way to get your content out to your followers, with the added bonus of also achieving a much higher open (reach rate in social media terms) than the 2-3% you might see on social media. In fact, some of our emails see up to a 50% and beyond open rate.

When you build your email list, you won’t have to worry about subscribers not receiving your emails and missing out on the valuable content or, even better, your offers to make sales. Every time you send an email, it will arrive in their inbox and they have the opportunity to open it and read it wherever they like.

Email Subscribers Convert More Than Social Media Followers

There is a saying “You can’t withdraw your followers from the bank”. This implies that building your followers on social media doesn’t mean your going to make money from them.

It’s cool to grow your followers and have a big number to display to everyone that you are someone who people follow. I get it, it would make anyone feel good. But does it really make that much of a difference to the bottom line?

Some of the most successful businesses aren’t the ones who have the biggest social media following, but rather the highest performing email lists.

Email subscribers are about 15 times more valuable than social media followers when it comes to conversions. In fact, for every $1 spent on email marketing, on average, you get back between $38 - $42. Meaning up to a 4200% ROI (Return On Investment). This makes it the most profitable method of investing there is when it comes to marketing.

That is a significant difference! If you’ve been focusing on increasing your social media followers, you may want to shift some of your attention to building your email list.

You don’t need millions of social media followers or even a huge email list to run a profitable business. No matter what your business model looks like, you can use email marketing to sell more products or services based on your growth strategy.

Email Is Personal, More Intimate & Allows More Personalisation

Email marketing is the next evolutionary step after direct mail through letters. Back 20 years when email was just getting started, the best method for communicating directly with your leads was by sending them letters. Try doing that these days and it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.

But when you do get a letter, it feels a whole lot more personal than just seeing a post on social media doesn’t it?

With email marketing you have the option to completely customize your emails for each user. Adding things like their names to it really makes more of an impact as it already feels more personal because we are using their name.

When you use someone's name it implies that you know them and you are a friend.

Not only that though, your email service provider can pull in any information that you have gained from the leads on your lists such as their goals, the town they live in, how old they are, etc. So this means we can instantly have a much more personal impact on each and every person we are communicating with because we make it real to them.

You also have the ability to segment your audiences and only send emails about a particular topic to people who are interested in that topic. Meaning the people receiving your emails are always happy to receive them because it is about a topic they are interested in.

For example, let’s say you are a Personal Trainer. Your customer could be men or women, wanting to lose weight or gain muscle. Now let’s say you have just developed a new programme that helps men gain muscle fast. Do you really want to be sending this to women who are interested in losing weight? Probably not.

When we make the mistake of treating everyone like they are the same, we miss the opportunity to make a personal connection with them. As an online entrepreneur, you need to be able you make a true connection with your following otherwise they won’t stick around for like if they just feel like they are another number.

This is a huge reason why we’ve seen an increase in personalization marketing. Over 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with a brand that provides relevant offers and recommendations, and this doesn’t apply only to brands who operate out of brick-and-mortar locations. Consumers still expect a personalized shopping experience when they are buying products and services online.

These are just some of the reasons why email marketing is so effective and can obtain such a high ROI.

Best Practices For Creating An Email List Building Strategy

Okay, so by now you are probably pretty sold on the idea that you need to build your email list. Am I right?

So now you're likely wondering what are some of the best practises to do so.

Here are our recommendations:

Always send a welcome email:

Once your audience signs up to your list, you don’t want to leave them wondering whether or not they have actually signed up, so always remember to send out a welcome email. In this email, tell them more about who you are, what you offer, and what they can expect from your emails.

Create a nurture email sequence:

You’ll want to be able to nurture the relationship between you and your new lead, fast. So make sure you develop a nurture email sequence to help them get to know you better, that will build the know, like and trust factors that are so important when it comes to business relationships. During this phase you can lightly introduce your signature product or service, but be sure to focus most of your efforts on creating educational content.

Use a lead magnet to entice your audience:

One of the best ways to get people to actually sign up to your list in the first place is by using lead magnets. A lead magnet is something that you give your leads for free that will help them solve a problem, delivering immediate value, in exchange for their contact information. This can look like a checklist, spreadsheet, template, ebook, mini-course, or even a personality quiz!

Keep an eye on your analytics:

Analytics will tell you exactly how your emails are performing. They will tell you your open rates, click through rates, unsubscribe rates, etc. You don’t want to just have a mindset of “set it and forget it”. Instead you’ll want to analyse the performance of your emails and sequences and then make adjustments to try to improve their performance.

Send emails consistently:

A big mistake a lot of people make when getting started with building their email list is not communicating with their list often enough. Some entrepreneurs choose to email their audience once a week, whereas others send multiple emails each day. Your email frequency depends on what fits best for your brand and audience.

As you get started with building your email list, it is important to remember that you may find this difficult at the start because it is something new to you. However, stick at it and reap the rewards of being consistent and growing your list.

Need a little bit extra help with this?

Check out our Lead Machine Mastery programme that takes you by the hands and gets you started with your very own list building machine through developing your lead magnet, systems and marketing to automate this process for you.