Are you ready to find out what to do and what’s needed so that you can start building your email list?

Even if you are starting from 0 this process will help you build a community of people that are interested in you, your business, and what you have to offer.

If you prefer to watch, check out this 9-minute video instead. 

One of the most valuable assets that you can have in your coaching business is an email list. This is an asset that you’ll want to continuously put in effort to grow throughout the course of your business. Here’s why…

You want to own your audience. I’ll explain.

Your favorite social media platform could easily close the doors at any time without warning and without your vote.

I would hope that this doesn’t happen anytime soon or in the near future, but the 2021 Facebook outage reminded us all that we were not in control.

It wasn’t only Facebook that went down, but also the popular divisions of the company, such as Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It didn’t matter how many times you hit the refresh button, there was no access to any of those sites and this lasted for almost 6 hours!

While that may not seem like a ton of time, it stopped many small businesses in their tracks.

Believe it or not, there are many businesses who have depended strictly on social media to run their business, so what happens when they no longer have access to connect with their audience to make sales?

The answer is… They don’t. They don’t make sales.

It’s not a great way to run a business, and for those of you who have allowed social media to control your business, let’s vow to not ever let that happen again.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to use social media to reach our audience, but we have to start using it as the resource that it actually is that helps us with our visibility to get in front of our audience.

Once you’re directly in front of your audience, leverage that engagement to send people to your own database that you DO have complete control over.

From there, begin sharing more, connecting and establishing yourself as a credible expert in your field so that they want more and buy more.

The goal here is not to put all of your eggs in one basket, but to fill YOUR basket with many eggs.

Make sense?

In this post, I’ll share with you 5-steps you can use to start building your email list using social media as the resource to fill your basket:

1.  Create Compelling Content with a Clear Call to Action (CTA)

Keep in mind, all content that you create and use for social media is for your audience and should always be centered around topic ideas that will appeal to that ideal audience. This content should also be relatable to what you’re offering.

For example, in my business I support other coaches with marketing strategies to grow their coaching business, so it wouldn’t really make sense for me to create content around beauty tips.

The point here is to attract the right audience, not push them away or have them confused about what your business is about.

2.  Create a Landing Page to Collect Subscribers

Once you have your compelling content with an action oriented CTA, your audience will need a place to go to sign up for your offer. This page will let them add their name and email address to receive your offer.

On this page, you’ll want to describe what that offer is and why they should provide you with their email address to receive it. It takes a little convincing because we’re all a little apprehensive about giving away information that allows others to have access to us, but when you offer someone something that is going to help them that apprehension will no longer exist.

My magic formula for creating content for landing pages, sales pages, and other action-oriented content is a little secret that we all learned back in middle school and high school that I’ve always remembered because it’s been so good to me.

Now, do you remember the 5 W’s and the H principle?

This principle is one of the best practices to follow because it summarizes everything a reader wants to know as they read or skim through content.

This principle includes: who, what, when, where, why and how

•  Who is your offer for?
•  What will it help them to achieve?
•  When will they need it?
•  Where can they get it?
•  Why do they need it now?
•  How can they apply this to get a transformation or a solution to their problem?

If you aren’t able to identify these questions for your ideal audience, chances are they won’t know it’s for them either.

Are you finding this content helpful? 

If you want to learn more about how to put this 5-step process into practice, sign-up below to download my free guide and checklist to help you create your sales funnel to grow your email list.

 3.  Use an Email Service Provider (ESP)

The purpose of the ESP is that it helps you to manage multiple subscriber lists and evaluate the success and metrics of your email marketing campaigns.

There are many ESP companies that support small businesses, so it’s best to select one that can grow with your business.

My top ESP to use for my business and one that I recommend to other coaches is Convertkit*.

Convertkit works for new coaching businesses as well as existing businesses that sell services, programs, and courses.

The best part… you get to own your relationship with your audience.

You’re not bound or limited to any algorithm. Instead, you customize the path so that your audience is nurtured and educated with content that will support them on their journey.

They’ve made it very inexpensive to get started with a free account to start creating landing pages to deliver your lead magnets as well as having the ability to send emails to your audience.

You can use the link here to get started with a free Convertkit account.

Quick note: Although Yahoo and Gmail are considered email service providers, these mail services are for personal use only. Emails that you send from your business from an ESP will need the ability to send emails from a professional email address.

For example a business email address will look something like yourname@yourbusiness.com, NOT yourname@gmail.com.

When it comes to sending marketing emails you have to stay compliant with email regulations.

4.  Have an Offer

Have you heard the phrase “the money is in the list”?

Well, I believe this to be true as well, but only if you have an offer to sell to your audience.

If you’re building your list just for the sake of building a list and you aren’t really sure what your offer is yet, you may be attracting the wrong audience until you figure it out.

I believe when it comes to list building, you must start with the end in mind.

If the end goal is to offer your audience a 6-week program that helps them with a desired transformation, you must work backwards by sending content that is aligned with that specific goal.

Your lead magnet should work in tandem with your offer so that it nurtures and educates them prior to you sharing that offer.

You don’t want to have subscribers join your list from your lead magnet then offer them something that’s completely unrelated.

This usually results in high unsubscribe rates and because you’re building a list, you want to keep those your subscribers happy and provide them with relatable content.

5.  Create a Sales Page

After you’ve shared content with your subscribers on how you’re able to support them and they’ve gotten to know you and trust that you are able to support them with their problem or transformation, you can share your offer with a sales page.

A sales page is very similar to the landing pages that I shared with you earlier, except this time, we’re converting our subscribers to buyers once again including the 5 W’s and the H principle.

Your sales page can act as an application page to qualify for a call with you to make sure that you both are fit to work together. It can also be a paid training or course, or even a deposit page for 1:1 support.

There are many creative ways to convert a subscriber and it isn’t a one size fits all. It will depend on your business, so be sure to do what you feel works best for your business and your audience.

I hope this process provided you with a deeper understanding and perspective on how you can get creative with your content to offer a lead magnet to grow your email list. 

Comment below where you are in the process of creating your sales funnel to grow your list!

In fact, the majority of people I’ve talked with about funnels respond with, “it’s complicated and I want no part in it”.

They aren’t interested in learning about how much of a positive impact a funnel can have on their business. I’m telling you right NOW, take a deep breath because what I’m going to tell you will blow your mind.

Truth is… funnels can be as complicated or as easy as you want them to be!

Crazy right!

I want to make it clear that your funnel doesn’t have to be this huge, elaborate, scary monster.

All you really need is an offer.

With this being said, I’m going to break down THREE STEPS that you can use to build your funnel process.

Watch below or continue on to read instead. 

I know how overwhelming tech can be especially if it’s not in your zone of genius. I’m here to tell you that tech is in MY zone of genius.

Let’s get started and get ready to dive deep!

First things first, let’s talk about your OFFER.

To start off, your funnel can lead to pretty much anything, BUT you should always try to have that anything be an OFFER.

You have to know exactly what you’re selling.

So if you still haven’t figured out what exactly you sell or who exactly you sell to, you might not have defined your ideal client. I have an excellent freebie to help you get started with that here. 

For those of you who already know exactly what you sell, I always like to suggest starting with the end in mind.

So when creating an offer start by asking yourself and writing down these questions:

• What do you want people to do?
• What do you want people to take from your offer?
• What are the steps you want people to take?
  

Once you’ve clearly defined the end goal then you can create a one of a kind offer.

A few examples are:

• Invitation to a webinar
• An application to work with you
• Free book (or e-book)
• A PDF, guide, checklist or other type of download

Whatever you offer, the most crucial and important thing to keep in mind is that whatever you’ve promised to your customer HAS to be given to them at the end.

When the promise isn’t kept it can lead to a broken funnel and lost trust from your ideal client.

Make sure that everything is in place so that when you do collect a lead you’re actually sending them through your funnel process.

A landing page is a webpage where people are going to opt-in to receive your offer.

A landing page helps you keep track of the thing you’re offering and helps you collect leads.

Your landing page will hold all of the juicy details of your one of a kind offer.

Remember in order for people to want to sign up it will have to be something incredibly beneficial in order for them to release their name and email address.

There are several different softwares you can build your landing page on and a couple I can name off the top of my head are, Clickfunnels and Leadpages.

My favorite is Clickfunnels because of the features.

A few of the features I love are the amount of analytics you receive, order forms, and it has payment collection if your offer is a paid offer.

In all reality, you don’t have to use a system like the ones I mentioned. You could just use your website.

The thing about using a landing page builder is that it helps your lead not get distracted and off track of the ultimate goal of where you need them to go.

So if you use your website you have headers at the top where there are different pages, blog links, etc. and people will tend to click on them and it deters them from actually taking the action that you wanted them to take.

After people opt-in you’ll need to thank them, which ultimately gives you access to them!

The thank-you page and email will let your lead know what to do next to access your free item. 

If your current funnel isn’t sending a thank you email, your funnel is broken, remember we don’t want broken funnels!

There you have it!

It wasn’t as crazy complicated as what you envisioned right?

Now you have the layout of where to start on your funnel.

As always, if it’s still confusing or you’re ready to get your digital products or services out to your ideal clients and customers, yet still feeling overwhelmed, I’m here to help!

I can help you create a marketing strategy and get your business systems in place.

I’m your tech guru!

So if you’re ready to dig in and get into the back end of the business to see how we can create a strategy in the system you currently have in place, or create something new that works for your business, schedule a time to talk here.

I hope this information was beneficial while also helping you and your business prosper.