Ask Steph: How do you grow your email list outside of social media?

We put so much pressure on social media to grow our business. But there are other ways to do this! In today's episode, I'm answering a listener's question about how she can grow her email list outside of social media.

– How understanding the value that your email list offers will guide the language you need to use to encourage subscribers.
– Why clarifying *what* you're sharing through your email list is important for subscribers to find value.
– How sharing your lead magnet on social media is more than just posting about it with a sign up link.
– What you can do to intentionally get yourself in front of new audiences.

 

 
Today, I'm answering a question that was submitted by a listener and the question is,

 “How do you grow your email list? Social media is not working for me in growing my email list right now.”

Now, I love this question. It's nice and short, and I know it's going to apply to many of you who are listening right now. 

So I'm going to walk you through the four key parts of my answer to this question. 

 

#1: Think about why somebody should want to subscribe to your email list.

And firstly, the very first thing I would do in this case is I would get clear on why somebody should want to subscribe to your email list.

People don't want to be on another email list. Instead, they want your freebie or they want to receive your insights into your inbox, or they want to be the first to know when you open doors for your course, or they want to be able to get your discount code. They don't just want to get a random newsletter because their inbox is already pretty full.

So if your call to action is to join my email list, you're going to struggle to grow your list, regardless of where you are giving that call to action. If it's social media, if it's your website, anywhere. If you're saying, subscribe for updates, join my newsletter, get my weekly newsletter. Any of those kinds of things, you're going to struggle to grow your list. So instead, what are they getting by joining your email list that they can't get anywhere else? What are they getting? Why should they want to give you their email address?

 

#2: Think about the thing that you are asking them to subscribe for.

Is that something that they really want?

Those daily emails with a bite-sized tip, is that something that they really want? Is it something they want enough to hand over their email address for? If you are struggling to grow your email list, it could be that it's not actually something valuable enough for them to hand over their email address for that.

Or maybe you've failed to communicate the value to them in a way that's compelling for them. I always like to look at the numbers at each step when I'm diagnosing where it's not working. It's very easy to just look at the final numbers and say, Oh, five people joined my email list this month. That's not good, but that doesn't tell us very much. Instead, I want to look at whether are people clicking through to have a look at that lead magnet opt-in page. Right? 

The page where they are signing up to join your email list. How many people are looking at that page? And then what percentage of the people who looked at that page are actually subscribing? And you'd be surprised, 30% is pretty standard.

It sounds low, but 30% is quite standard and it might be that if that page isn't converting at 30%, then you actually probably should spend some time fixing that before you spend any time worrying about how else you can drive people to that page because otherwise if you could be spending a lot of time sending people to the page where they can sign up for your email list and let's say you send a hundred people there and one person signs up for your email list, you've put in quite a lot of energy to sign up one person. 

But on the flip side, let's say you fix that page and now you're converting 20% of the people. Same amount of effort to drive a hundred people to that page, but now you've got 20 newsletter subscribers, not one, right? 

 

#3: Think about when you are talking about your lead magnet on social media.

How are you talking about it? Or if it's not a lead magnet in a traditional sense, if it's something like the Daily Biz Boosters where they are signing up for a daily business tip, how are you talking about that?

The thing that they are signing up for, how are you talking about that? If you are sharing posts about it on social media, then you might find that those posts actually get a lower reach than your other posts. This is an algorithm thing because typically those kinds of posts won't get as much engagement as your value-adding content.

And that's okay, but instead, we want to think about how can you share a valuable piece of content and then make the lead magnet the next call to action for them, the next step for them, and then in the way that you are talking about your lead magnet, are you showing them why this is something they should want right now? Because even though something is free, it still requires an investment of their time and time is something that a lot of people don't think they have enough of. 

And with social media, there's extra time involved in downloading it. They have to click out of the platform onto your website. They have to put the email address in all of that. That's an investment of time and brainpower.

So if they don't understand why it's something they should want right now, they're not going to do it. Again, look at the numbers here. So how many people are actually seeing your posts? Wherever you're promoting it on social media and then what percentage of them are clicking through to the page where they can sign up?

 

#4: Think about what can you do to intentionally get in front of new audiences.

A lot of the time we think that we can just show up on social media and that the algorithm is going to show us to the right people and that's all we have to do to grow our audience and reach more people but that's not all that you need to do. And one way you can intentionally get in front of new audiences, probably the easiest way, is to run paid ads.

If you don't have the budget for that, then you have to put in the hard work to pitch podcasts for interviews, to pitch events to speak at, to pitch membership communities and courses to teach to them, pitch collaborations, get in front of those audiences, those new audiences intentionally. It's going to take either hard work or money. 

And then each time you have that opportunity to be in front of those new audiences, always giving them the call to action to get that freebie, to get that piece of value that they are getting in return for signing up. It's not about joining my email list to stay up to date.

You don't want to give that call to action when you are teaching somebody else's course, for example, if you enjoyed what you've learned from me today, grab my free ebook where you'll get the next three steps to create your very first online course, membership or group program and then that gets them onto your email list.

So getting in front of those audiences is going to be a really key thing, but first, you need to fix that leaky bathtub. You need to make sure that you know why somebody should want to subscribe. There's great value for them. They are subscribing. The thing that they are subscribing for is something that they really want and that it's all converting. The page is converting and then getting it in front of those new audiences intentionally.

 

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