[Transcript starts at 1:19]
Hey, hello, hello, hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. So we are talking about how to grow your email list. I actually love talking about email and this question was, was sent in by a dope Insta homie, Mafia homie, one-on-one coaching homie, and I am stoked to chat about it. I could literally talk about this four hours and I have, um, but we're gonna try and keep this episode to a reasonable amount of time.
The specific question that we're gonna address is how to grow your email list. But of course we gonna go on some tangents because that is what I do.
So right off the bat, folks, do you need an email list? Do you need to have an email list if you have an online business, I'm gonna just be very pointed with it and say yes, because it is the only form of communication that you own, that you have with your people. If Instagram dies, if social media dies, if TikTok dies, what if YouTube dies, whatever like platform you're on, if it dies, what are you gonna do?
How do you connect with these people? How do you communicate with them? It is your best safety net. And if we're just thinking about this from like a business perspective and a selling perspective, it's once again the only platform that you own and therefore you can quote, unquote guarantee that people get your stuff.
Right. When you think about social media, when you sell stuff on Instagram, Instagram suppresses reach. It's like, oh no, you are not making money without giving us some money. If you're selling through ads, it's a little bit different. Um, but if you're trying to do it organically, phew. Tanks. I've heard the same for, uh, TikTok.
I can't say with YouTube, we're new to this. Um, but when it's in your email, if you're gonna sell people, it gets sent to them. People can choose if they're gonna open it or not, but that email will get delivered. So do you need to have an email list if you have an online business? My opinion, absolutely yes.
Second point here. Do you call it a newsletter? Do you call it an email list? It doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter. Call it whatever you want. You will see, and we'll talk a little bit later about kind of James Clear, when you're like promoting things, sometimes it just feels like it makes more sense to call it a newsletter, but it's the exact same thing.
So it doesn't matter if you call it an email list, if you call it a newsletter, your choice, right? I think the traditional name was newsletter because people were sending out news and announcements. Um, but if that feels bad for you and you're like, I don't like calling it that, then don't call it that. Literally doesn't matter.
So you'll know I love me some definitions. Went online, went to the old Google, and got a little definition of what actually an email list is according to the interwebs. And as per some website that came up and I liked it: an email list is a list of emails that a business has gathered from visitors slash customers that would like to receive information, updates, discounts, and other details about your business in a digital format, that is sent to their email inbox.
Kind of wordy, but people, it's a list of emails from people who wanna hear more about your business, all right? And they wanna hear about it via email. That's it. This, or having an email list is best accomplished by having an email marketing service or an email marketing platform or an email service provider, they're all the same.
You kind of see them used interchangeably. I tend to use email marketing service as the, the name for this. You cannot use something like Gmail because you will outgrow it. You cannot mass email people and also the, I'm gonna call them bells and whistles, but the more into email marketing that you get, the less they become bells and whistles and the more they are just fundamentals and necessities.
Um, but things like tagging where you identify certain customers as interested in certain things so that you can send an email just to that group of people, you cannot do things like that on Gmail unless you're doing it manually and that becomes very, very labor intensive. Um, so one, you cannot mass email people on Gmail. Eventually it'll stop, but it's gonna view it as spamming. And two, the foundational and fundamental things that come with an email marketing service that allow you to just send things to certain people. You can't do that, right?
So my favorite email marketing service out there is going to be ConvertKit.
I think I might actually do an entire episode as to why it's my favorite, but to give you the kind of, you can't see me out if you're not, if you're well on YouTube, you see me. But if you're listening, you can't see. I'm making a weird, like lobster claw hand. But I'm trying to compress the list of reasons why ConvertKit is my favorite.
Um, but largely it's my favorite because it is made for people like us, people like me, made for solopreneurs and creators. It has all the bells and whistles that, again, I said are kind of foundational. So things like automations and segmenting and tagging. It integrates with other platforms that eventually you're going to have if you have an online business.
So things like Kajabi, I use Kajabi to sell my courses. Um, Squarespace, if using that as your website or where your website is hosted or what you use to build your website, I should say. It integrates very easily, right? And you want that when you're looking at any kind of online product, it needs to integrate very easily without Zapier, Zapier, however the fuck you, whatever you however it's pronounced, it needs to integrate easily without those things.
Um, and convertKit does that. It's direct integration, right? So the fact that it's built for solopreneurs and creators, it has all the bells and whistles, automation segmenting, things like that, it integrates with, with well with other platforms and integrates easily with other platforms and also, it's gonna allow you to do the other things that you need to do, and they're, they're easy to learn.
Um, yes, there's a learning curve for everything, but it's easier than other platforms, in my opinion. So things like building a landing page that you can collect emails. It's actually very simple and straightforward and lots of tutorials on ConvertKit. Uh, sending out lead magnets, which kind of becomes like magic to people.
They're like, whoa. Like, how do people like put their in, they put their information in and then the PDF comes out, like, how does it get sent to them? It's magic and ConvertKit makes that magic very, very easy. Uh, ConvertKit you can also use it to sell other things or to sell things in general. It ha e, e-commerce can be difficult for people when they first start off. They're like, well, how do I like, have people pay for it?
And like, how do I create a page where they like put their information in and pay? ConvertKit actually started doing this. They, they wised up. I don't recommend using it, you know, indefinitely. You definitely want to at some point, um, figure out a better system. But it's, it's really good for initial things, especially when you're first starting and can take you quite a, quite a, a long way.
So, converter ConvertKit, wow. ConvertKit does have a free tier, but I don't recommend people use that. Just go with the paid tier. It starts off at like $9 a month, something like that. Um, and yes, I do have an affiliate link cuz mama didn't raise no fool. If you go to themovementmaestro.com/convertkit all lowercase, um, that will take you there. It'll also be in the show notes.
So the question from today though is how do you actually grow this thing? We just talked about how you sign up for one and, oh, excuse me, how do you grow this thing, aka how do you grow this list? And we just talked about how you sign up for an email marketing service. If you haven't done that yet, by the way, folks, let that be the only thing that you take away from this episode.
If you're like, I don't even have one yet and I'm confused, just go sign up. Just go do that. All right. First step, sign up for an email marketing service. My recommendation is ConvertKit. You can switch between all of them. I do not recommend MailChimp. And if you sign up for it and you use it and you hate it, don't come talking to me cuz I told you don't use it.
Um, I also don't, I'm not here to, uh, debate the things like, people will be like, well, I like this one. Why do you like ConvertKit better? Then go use that thing that you want. I'm not here to debate. If you are open-minded and you're like, I'm just gonna try it, Maestro says, use it, I'm gonna go do it and, and you know, do the thing. Cool. ConvertKit. The end.
So after you've signed up for an email marketing service, how do you actually grow this thing? I'm gonna give you three steps and then we're gonna jump like deep into the actual growth part. So, the zoomed out 30,000 foot view of how to grow your email list: Number one, join your own list, right?
So this is, we're saying we're starting out from zero. Again, no subscribers yet. Cool. You will be your first subscriber, you should be your number one fan, your- get in there before your mom does, right? Join your own list. This is the best way to make sure that your emails are actually going out and getting sent out, cuz you're on the list, and this way when you send something, you'll receive it. So you can see what that subscriber experience is like. Number two: Start writing Emails. You have someone on your list now. It's you. Start writing emails and lean to a frequency that feels good for you. This step may feel out of order for people.
They're like, wait, you're gonna write and then ask people? Yes. That's exactly what you do on social media as well, right? You post first and then the audience shows up. Right? You're not like, Hey, follow me on Instagram. I had nothing over there. That's weird. The effort comes first, the audience comes second. So you lean into a frequency that works for you once a month, once a week, whatever.
At least get one email out there before you start asking people, which is step number three. Ask people to join. Remember the definition of an email list: An email list is a list of emails that people, excuse me, a list of emails that a business has gathered from visitors slash customers that would like to receive information, updates, discounts, and other details about that business in a digital format that will be sent to their email inbox.
We are asking people to join for these reasons. Hey, do you want more information about the business? Do you want updates? Do you wanna keep learning more stuff? I thought you maybe learned some a little bit on social media, but you wanna learn more. You wanna go deeper with it. Do you want discounts? This is the reason to join my list, and this is what you should be sending in those emails.
You can totally just ask friends and family to start off with. All right, and then you're going to use social media- that's gonna be my preferred mechanism- to actually promote this list. Instagram Stories, right? Instagram is my main platform. Instagram Stories are great for this because it allows live links, meaning you can put the link to join your email list, right? If you back it up, I said something like ConvertKit is great cuz you can make that page. It's called the landing page, right? A landing page is the name of the email, excuse me. The name of the email. Is the name of the page on the internet where people would go and they'd put in their name and they'd put in their email and they'd push a button.
They click the button and that subscribes them to the list. That's called a landing page. You can make those and host those with ConvertKit. Very, very, very easily. They have a bunch of templates. It's, you know, drag and drop, and you're just gonna type your own stuff and, and choose your colors and things like that.
All right, so Instagram Stories are great because you can link directly to that page. The ask can be very simple, very transparent, just, Hey, if you want more of what I'm already putting out, you wanna stay connected, join the list. If you wanna be the first to hear about something, join the list. If you want discounts on my stuff, join the list.
Remember, this is presupposing, we're asking people, Hey, if you want more of this, go do this thing. We're not looking to coerce them or trick them or anything like that. It's literally, you want more of it? Go to the email list. That's it. From another tactical perspective as it relates to posting, James Clear does this well, and so does Andrea Gibson.
So James Clear, he will actually share, so his, in his newsletter, he calls it a newsletter, he shares three quotes and like an idea, three quotes, two something and one something else. But it's like three quotes and an idea. And he will share one of those quotes as a post on Instagram and the actual image where the post is shared, on the bottom, there's like a little footer that says, uh, what does it say? Uh, the image says, find more great quotes in the 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter. All right, so you already have that kind of pseudo call to action, and then in the actual ca uh, caption of the post, he'll say the same thing, and then you can go to the link in the bio and sign up for it.
So if you're like, Hey, I want more of these quotes, I can go and sign up for the newsletter. Andrea Gibson does this. They, um, will share poetry and be like some, you know, like they'll write it out in the post and then in the caption they'll be like, these are some lines from this week's email. And so your brain is like, Hey, if I want more of these lines, I want more of this, you know, words, cool, then I can go sign up for the email list.
So those are just two examples of how you can actually use social media to promote it. Right. So we got after you sign up for the email marketing service, three steps, join your own list, start writing emails. You start writing emails first. And then you ask. Let's now take a deep dive into how to actually grow your email list.
As it relates to, when it, as it relates to growing this email list, biggest thing, right, we're gonna break it down into four parts, but the biggest thing here is consistent communication. And this is not to be confused with constant communication. We're not looking to send a zillion emails a day.
I think that the, the limit, there is an upper limit. I don't know exactly what it is. And it depends on the audience, depends on what you're selling, depends on who you are. Um, but I think there is an absolutely an upper limit of how many emails, you know, you can send or should send. Namely, because it gets pushed to people, right.
With Instagram posts, things like that, like, people have to go and look at it, look for it. And Instagram doesn't put all of your posts in front of everybody. So there's more wiggle room for you to be like a bit more prolific with content creation, cuz they're not like seeing it, they're not being bombarded with it.
Something like an email list, it gets sent and pushed directly to their inbox. And so I think that there is an upper limit, but I think it's higher than a lot of us think, and a lot of us are willing to actually go after. Right. Like I, I mean, I subscribe to Ramit's email, uh, newsletter, right? Or his email list.
And I will never unsubscribe and dude sends a lot of emails and I'm fine with it. It's like if I don't wanna read it, I just won't read it. And if I do, then I will. It's fine either way.
So consistent communication here. Within this, let's break it down a little bit. First you wanna decide why are you starting this email list, this newsletter.
Is it just to share updates? Is it just to give discount codes? There's no wrong answer here. Just decide on it and then share that with your people, and then do that thing consistently. If it's that you wanna share updates, share updates. It's it. If it's for discounts and launches, then just do it for discounts and launches and be super transparent with that, with that from the beginning.
If it's you know, whatever. If you're like, I just wanna teach more. Cool. Then say that. I think there's tons of value in having a welcome email, and this is a bit more of an advanced step, but I think there's tons of value in, in having an email, uh, excuse me, a welcome email so that when people first sign up, this email automatically gets kicked out to them.
Gets sent out to them. This is again, why we have something like an email marketing service and not just gmail. So they sign up and they get that email that gets sent to them that says, Hey, welcome to the, to the email, to the newsletter. Thanks for joining. Here's what to expect. And if it's just discounts, cool.
And that's all you have to ever send out. You get to choose. Yes, this can change over time and you can absolutely change and amend that welcome email, but I think there's just so much value in laying it out from the jump and be like, this is what this is for. Maybe it's only for sending out when you're selling and that's fine. Let people know.
I'm a content creator through and through. Writing is probably my least favorite way of, of creating content, but I do still enjoy it. And I think there's value in, you know, communicating with people in different ways. And so I will write just for that, right? I, I know that people sign up because they want what I'll call more Maestro.
And the reason I know this is because I sent out an email 2, 3, 2 or three weeks ago that asked people, why did you join this list? And I had over 300 replies and people said, because I want more Maestro. They were like, I saw, I liked what I saw on Instagram. I liked what I saw over here and I wanted more of it.
And in my welcome letter it says that like, yes, it says I'm gonna sell on here. It says that I'm gonna send discounts. But it's like, Hey, you're just gonna get more of me. I'll tell you anecdotes. I'll tell you stories. I'll share my thoughts with you, and that's what I send. You get to choose. If you're like, this is just for recipes.
Cool. Then just say that and just send recipe. You get to choose. And also do not be afraid to change. If you're like, actually, this is what I'm gonna be sending out. Cool. Change it, change that, um, that welcome email. Maybe you change what's on the landing page. That's where they sign up that says like, Hey, this is what to expect.
This is why you wanna join. Cool. And, and you're good to go.
This may be different maybe for a product driven company, right? If I think about like Best Buy, like, I don't know. We all got on their list somehow for something and now they just never stop sending emails. And I like never take time to un unsubscribe.
Um, but I say it can be different in that, um, different from how I do things, right? I like to communicate with people in between and just like provide value. A product driven company may be like we're just saying what the product is and when it's going on discount or when it's going away, and that's totally fine.
I actually like text messaging for that and I will actively choose to sign up for a company's text messaging alerts because it's when a drop comes. This company that, uh, Legends that I, I like their shorts. I'm on their list. Um, Alpha Forward is another clothing company. I like to know that stuff about that. Um Titan.
That's where like a lot of my gym equipment is from. I don't need anything else, but I'm still on that text messaging um, you know, listserve. So be about what it's about. Lean into whatever you want that newsletter, that email to be about, email- email list to be about, lean into it. It's totally, totally fine.
What should you write about in addition to selling. This goes without se, without saying it, you were gonna sell using this thing. I, my favorite way to sell and have people sign up for my Instagram Intensive and things like that is through my email list. So it goes without saying, you're going to sell in or to this list or on this list.
So say that as well when you have your, your welcome email. But excuse me, um, things that you can, we're gonna leave that in, right? We're not editing it out. We're leaving it in. I'm a human. Uh, what can you write about in, or what should you write? In these emails. For me or to me, I think it's easier if your business is based in teaching and educating your clients.
Um, maybe I think that it's easier cuz it's what I do. Um, but that's all that you're gonna write about then. If you're like, my whole business is based on teaching and educating, so in this case, you know, building an online business. Cool. Then I can just write more about that. If you have a product based business, then it's about the product.
I wanna say you anticipate a lower opening rate cuz like you're constantly, constantly selling and some people are just like, I don't need this thing right now. I'm not gonna open it. Um, but within that, you know, write about the product. Write about the product when, when there are product drops, write about discounts, write about the, you know, final call for things.
I think that there's absolutely room as well though to write about the actual company. To write about the product. The why. And like, no, maybe not everyone reads it, but I think that there is room for that to really get people invested in the product and really invested in the company. So it's not just this product. There's more to it.
If you are in the service industry, which I am as well, we are mostly people, most of you folks listening to this probably are in the service industry. Then I say lean into the personal brand side of things. I'm thinking right now of, of Kelsey. She's the, the Daily Kelsey. They send out a lot of emails and I'm thinking about like Danielle Pascente, and they're in the fitness space.
Cause I get this, I have clients as well that are fitness, you know, in the fitness space and they're trainers and things like that. And they're like, but what do I write about? And so I'm thinking about someone like Kelsey, someone like Danielle. And you can lean into the personal brand side of this where people want more of you.
So yeah, you can give them workouts and training tips and things like that, but you could also just let them into your life. Whatever feels good for you. But if you're sharing a ton of your life on social, which I know Danielle Pascente is, I know people would be interested in hearing more kind of behind the scenes of her life.
And then yeah, the fitness stuff ties in as well, but those are things that, you know, just ideas as to what else, um, What else you could be sharing.
If you're a content creator and you're listening to this, you can always just do like a monthly wrap up. You could send one email a month. That's totally fine.
Um, and let's do the monthly wrap up. And I say it's totally fine, meaning something is always more than nothing. So, you know, David Gray does it and it's a monthly wrap up and it's, and it could be a bunch of things. I'm be sure Chris Johnson did something like this as well, where it could be a monthly wrap up in terms of content that you've shared because people don't see all the stuff you share, especially if you're sharing on different platforms. I do this at the end of the month. The last day of every month, I do a content wrap up that's from uh Instagram, that's from YouTube, from the podcast, from the business, from other people's business, things that are coming in the future.
So go ahead, steal that idea and, and, and do that as well. Um, you can also put some personal stuff in there where it's like books that I'm reading, books that I love, movies that I saw. It doesn't have to just be your content or more teaching. More teaching. More teaching. Okay.
Next part here with, within the constant, no, excuse me, within the consistent- I specifically said it shouldn't be constant communication. The next point in here, within the consistent communication bullet point, is how often should you send these emails out? And like I just said, you know, send it once a month if you want. It's as often as you want. Whatever works for you.
But realistically, it's whatever you can commit to. Some folks like to be on a schedule, so you know, James' Clear, he sends it out every Thursday. Um, I send an email out every Monday, actually, but it's to my Mafia. It's not to everyone. And some people find this helpful. It just keeps them within their routine and keeps them showing up, especially if they maybe aren't, they don't love writing and they need, like, I need a deadline.
I need to like, you know, have it on the calendar. Cool. Then make it a set day. The main thing for me with how frequently you do this is deciding how you're gonna use this list and then staying true to it. So for me, I don't wanna use it just to sell, which means that I need to send emails out in between times that I'm selling.
And it doesn't need to be necessarily at a specific cadence, but I don't want it to be once every, never. And then the next email is like I'm selling and only I am only showing up when I'm selling. If from the jump you have said, I'm using this thing for selling, then people are fine with that. That's why they're signing up.
They know what they're getting into when they sign up. So just be super transparent from the beginning. Um, another thing to consider to think about is, are you a writer? Right. If you're a writer, you like writing, then you're probably gonna write more. If you hate it, well then you're probably gonna write less.
But I will say expect there to be some resistance, especially in the beginning. It's a new thing, it's a new task that you're adding. You're not, maybe, maybe you're not getting feedback. Um, you gotta ask as well, I didn't put this on the, the, I didn't put this on the actual, like, outline here. But encouraging those calls to interaction and continuing to show up even when you don't get them.
That's going to be huge, right? So that's part of that resistance. Expect there to be some. Lean in. Keep showing up and really, you know, value or see the value in diversifying how you reach and teach people because you have it on social and that's largely visual, audio visual. You maybe have a podcast that's gonna be largely audio. And do we have some sort of long form or longer form, like purely written place where we can connect with people and go deeper with things. To me, that's this hugely valuable component of, uh, you know, an email list.
So the second part of how to actually grow your list- second bullet point here is networking. The majority of the responses that I received for the questions that I asked, three questions to my email list, and one of them was, how'd you find me? How'd you hear about me?
Um, and the majority of the responses said from somebody else. They had people's names. You know, Jill was in there a bunch. They, you know, heard me on someone's podcast and they liked what they saw, heard, you know, liked what they heard, and they wanted more. Or they found me on social, um, oftentimes through somebody else, and they liked what they saw and they wanted more.
So if looking to grow that email list, gotta look to get in front of more eyes. And part of that is going to be networking. And I'm not gonna go into that deep into this episode because episode 4 66, Networking for Newbies, was all about that. So if you want some more tactical strategies around that, um, you wanna hear my two pennies on that, how to get in front of people, how to get people to wanna ask you to be in their podcast, things like that, that is episode number 4 66. Check it out.
Point number three for growing this email list is freebies, opt-ins, or lead magnets. This is the very traditional approach, and I think this is what people think about initially.
They haven't even started the list yet and they're like, do I need a freebie? And I'm like, no. Do I need an opt-in or lead magnet? They're all the same. No, no, no, you don't. I have three lead magnets, or three opt-ins. Um, one is The Value Ladder, one is the How to Start a Podcast Ebook, and one is the FT3 Niche Down Workbook.
We can link all of those. Thank you, Courtney. A lead magnet or a freebie is literally just something that you give to people in exchange for their email list. It is a set thing. It could be a private video, a video training. It could be a pdf, an ebook, a results to a quiz. It could be a list, a cheat sheet, whatever you want.
People give you their email. You can create a landing page that says what the thing is. Again, this is why I ConvertKit. It's easy to do. You have a field on there that says their name, their email, they submit those things, they click the button and then they will get, the magic of the interwebs will send that thing over to them.
We can have what's called timely or versus evergreen lead magnets. Timely means that it's usually related to something that you're specifically selling, so an offer that you're running or something like that. Evergreen means that it's always available and it's always relevant. So that's the thing that I have, the three that I have are evergreen. That Value Ladder, How to Start a Podcast, and the FT3 Niche Down. Like they're just always available and they, they're not in relation to something that I'm specifically trying to sell. Now, having these, having these, these freebies, these lead magnets, they can be good for building a l a list, but not great for ensuring that the people that join the list actually want to be on the list.
Because they just want the thing. They don't necessarily wanna hear more from you. So keep that in mind, you know, when you create these things.
As with everything, I firmly believe you should wait to create meaning. Do not make the lead magnet first before you know what people actually want. Create social content.
Listen to what people are saying, listen to what they need, what they're asking for, what they want, what's getting traction, and then make that. Every single one of those, those three that I made, those came after questions that people kept asking me and I was like, I don't wanna answer this thing again. I'm gonna make this.
Again, an email marketing service and email marketing platforms like ConvertKit makes this very easy, makes this exchange very easy. Um, so that's why I recommend that you sign up for one of them. Namely ConvertKit .
Point number four in terms of growing your list. And this is the final part here is list hygiene.
So meaning keeping a clean list, keeping list full of people that actually open your shit and want your shit. So the first thing with that is scrub your list one to two times a year. Meaning you're going to get rid of cold subscribers. ConvertKit, uh, what's the word? Defines a cult subscriber as anyone who has not opened an email or interacted with your content for 90 days or more.
Again, this is the beauty of having something like an email marketing service, because now you can see it has these people tagged. It's literally a button that you click and it's like, cold subscribers and it shows you the list of those people. Get rid of them. Tactically, what you can do is send an email to all those people and say, Hey, I see that you're not opening my stuff. No hard feelings. I don't wanna clog up your inbox. Gonna remove you from the list at the end of the week. If this is a mistake and you wanna stay on the list, then check this button. If not, no action is necessary and you'll be removed on Friday. Very simple, right? This is going to help with your deliverability because it's gonna, the, the algorithm, if you will, the email algorithm understands that, hey, this person sends this e these email or this email out to 100 people, and of those 100 people, 80 of them open, open it.
That's good sender reputation. Versus this person sends this email out to 100 people of those hundred people, one person opens it. It doesn't look good for you. Makes it, makes it think that like, where'd you get these emails from? These people don't wanna hear from you. This is spammy. Okay.
This is also, uh, this idea of, of scrubbing your list, purging your list a few times a year, one to two times a year is really fine. Um, is especially important if you run like big challenges or you're using a lot of paid traffic and things like that. Things that are bringing in really cold leads that maybe they just wanted the challenge, they just wanted the pdf, they don't actually wanna be part of the list. So again, after a few months, run the te, run the check and then scrub the list.
Next part for list hygiene is gonna be having a double opt-in. I know this is a little bit more technical. If you're ready for it, cool. If this is too over your head, don't worry about it. But having a double opt-in, you've, you've all gone through a double opt-in before.
This is when you're asked to take two actions, two steps in order to join the list. So the first step is that you're gonna enter your name and email in the fields, and you click the button. The second step is that it's gonna say, Hey, now go to your email and confirm your subscription. That's the second step.
That's why it's called a double opt-in. This is helpful because one, it ensures that the people that you send an email to are opening your first email. So in general, it means the first email you send out is getting opened. That looks good to the powers that be. Second thing, this decreases the likelihood of you getting bots joining your email list.
So if you're gonna have a footer at the bottom of your website that's like, Hey, you can join the list, subscribe to the newsletter. You wanna have a double opt in there because bots can like, you know, troll the sites and join the list and you don't want that, right? We wanna keep that sender reputation high.
Speaking of sender reputation, the third part here, use a reputable sender. This is why something like CK I, I wrote CK on the outline, ConvertKit is really good. They have high sender reputation. Um, in general, all of the bigger players should have decent sender reputations. But if you start going with these free, you know, chaka chaka email marketing services, I would assume that they have le a lower sender reputation because the people that are using it maybe aren't as reputable and these companies are just trying to like get a service where they can send out a bunch of emails and spam people. That's not good. Not good.
Uh, and then lastly, this is, uh, something that I think about quite often. No need to use super fancy templates. So people will actually use services and be like, well, I like them because they had fancy templates for their emails.
That actually decreases deliverability and opening rates. Cuz the more pictures and shit that you have inside of an email, the more likely it is to be marked as spam. So just keep it simple. If you've received any emails from me, maybe I should put that here. If you wanna join my email list, we will, uh, drop that, drop the little link in the, in the show notes.
Uh, it's themovementmaestro.com/emaillist, um, but we'll drop that link in the show notes for you. Thank you, Courtney. Um, but if you ever, if you're on my email list, you see, I don't send, it just has a picture at the top that says, you know, Maestro Mail. That's it. Nothing else. You don't need a super fancy template or anything like that. Keep it simple like you're writing to a friend.
Alright, so metrics wise, the most important thing to look at is gonna be the opening rate. To me, anything less if you have anything, if you have less than 5,000 subscribers. I wanna see a 50% opening rate. I wanna see you going for a 50% opening rate. And yes, this number is achievable.
I base this number off of people that I work with and coach with, and people that I know in this space, and it's very achievable. And that's actually gonna be a great indicator of the trust level of your people, which translates into whether or not people are actually gonna buy. And we're looking at this from this online business perspective, and we want transactions.
Alright, this opening rate will of course be affected why you have the list. Meaning if you're just gonna put about de um, if you're just gonna put, you know, discounts and things like that on it, I would expect a lower opening rate. Mainly because if people know that it's just for selling things and they know that like, I don't need this thing right now, they're not gonna open it.
Where if it's, whereas if you're just like providing value and things like that, they may be more apt to open more of the emails, right? So that it could be, it could affect that. This is not to say, do not have a list that's just for discounts. That's fine if that's why you wanna have it. Just be transparent about it.
Uh, and the second thing that's gonna affect that opening rate is how you get people on the list. If you get people on the list through a lot of challenges or, you know, freebies and things like that, I would expect a bit of a lower opening rate cuz people aren't joining the list to be on the list. They joined the list or they got put on the list because they joined the challenge.
They wanted that thing. So maybe they stay around but they're not on the list just to hear more from you.
Okay. So I'm looking at the time. This is a longer one. I knew it would be. So thank you for sticking around. I could make this whole conversation way more complex and, and talk about you know, sequences and automations and all these other stuff, but it doesn't matter, right?
Realistically, most of you folks listening to this are in the early phases of email marketing, and you probably either need to just get started, which I said if that's, if you don't have an email marketing service yet, that's the only takeaway that I want you to do. That's the only action item. Or you're in these early steps and you need to focus on continuing. Right. And actually writing.
I know people will ask me like, how do I build the list? And I'm like, how often do you write? And they're like, never. And I'm like, well, that's the first problem. That's the first problem. Remember the three steps, uh, that I said earlier, which was, one, join your own list. Two, start writing emails. Start writing emails, write emails, write emails, and then you ask people to join, right?
So I could make it more complex, but realistically, that is what 99% of the people that I interact with and that I coach and work with need to focus on. Growth realistically is more about quality and consistency over time than anything else. People are looking for hacks and shortcuts and things like that and they just don't exist.
Right? It is about quality and consistency over time and I think getting clear on why you have this list, what you want this list to be about, what are you using it for? If it's just for discounts and launches, that's fine. Just be transparent about it and perhaps understand that maybe less people will sign up.
May I wanna say maybe because maybe they won't. Maybe it'll be more, we're just as many cuz they're like, yeah, I really love your shit and I love getting discounts. Who knows, right? You gotta think about why you want this list, how you want to use it. No wrong answers here, and then be incredibly transparent about it.
Um, if you're already consistent with sending out emails, then perhaps consider in terms of your action item, layering some more asking, like getting your Stories and ask. Get clear about what's on, what, you know, the purpose of this list, what you do on this list. And then you can just say that clearly, say that succinctly on, on Instagram and things like that.
Um, you could have, you know, more share these things. If you, you could ask in your email list, Hey, if this resonated with you today, do me a solid and share it on Instagram. They share it on Instagram and then in their Stories. And then you share that. People are like, oh, that was cool. Look at that part. Right.
Or you can do like, uh, James Clear and uh, Andrea Gibson do, which is that, you know, actually making a post or a content about it and then saying, Hey, if you want making a content about it, you know what I'm saying. Making a post about that content and then saying, Hey, if you want more, join the list. Um, but if you're already consistent, some more asking or perhaps if you're ready for the next level of that, which would be, uh, just one single evergreen opt-in or lead magnet.
And again, wait to create. Listen to what your people are asking, what would be helpful for them, and then create that.
Alright. Longer episode. Super grateful for your attention. I love this topic. I'm really passionate about it. And if I could go back in time and if I had to go back in time, I don't want to, but if I had to go back in time and start again, something that I would do sooner would be start an email list.
It's the only form of communication and connection and contact that you have with your people. Um, social media dies. What are you gonna do? So if you got any questions, comments, concerns about anything, email, marketing, email list, building related. Go back, listen to the full episode cuz I answered a bunch of stuff.
Uh, and then feel free to hit me up, right. Uh, phone number is (310) 737-2345. Text me. Do not call me. Do not, I don't even think the phone rings if you call me, honestly. Text me. It will be green. It's my sideline, but it will be me. Um, or you can shoot me a DM @themovementmaestro. I do believe that is it. Yes it is.
Actually. Damn. You know what I got one thing I didn't write down. I'm gonna say it. So if you listen to the full episode, congrats to you. Another thing you can do tactically to grow that list is at the bottom of your emails put a link to join the list. Because what can happen is if you send out stuff that's that's, you know, thought provoking and really good, they may forward that onto somebody else.
They may forward that email to somebody else, and then that person has no way of joining. They can only read the email. They can't actually join the list. So if you're on my email list, you'll see that at the bottom of the emails it says, Hey, was this forward forwarded to you by somebody else? Click here if you wanna join the list and Maestrofy your inbox.
Something like that. So, should have said that. Didn't say that. I said it now and. As always, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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