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Building Email list - strategies, tools, tips & tricks

Marketing, social media, advertising
D

Deleted70138

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I could not find any thread about this topic, so let's share our knowledge here.

Here is one from me:

Create Email Marketing Your Way - MailerLite - You can create you first email campaign for free, super beginner friendly and does not require credit card. For starters it's probably the best solution.
For wordpress, use "Popup maker" plugin for free popups, you can integrate MC4WP plugin on it and connect it to your MailCheat(Chimp) account. MailCheat(Chimp) has advantage in terms for number of free emails you can send, but Mailerlite has good sequence email strategy set up.

What tools and channels do you use?
What are some of your best strategies?
 
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D

Deleted70138

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ML is pretty average imo - Sendfox is superior from my own experience.
Don't self-hosted email software have less deliverability percentage than web email services?
Which sounds logical to me, as you can spam much easier with self-hosted email campaigns.

Edit:
My mistake, thought it was a software.
Unfortunately they don't offer free starter plan. For more complex ones, I would go with ActiveCampaign
 
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SEBASTlAN

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They don't offer a free plan anymore? I was using it for a couple years before I started paying for it. It's worth the investment either way. All the other free ones (Benchmark, MailCheat(Chimp), Mailerlite etc.) don't compare.
 
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MattL

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I pivoted into email copywriting this year and started my own daily newsletter as a way to practice and test things out.

The Email Service Provider (ESP) you choose doesn't really matter. In my mind it's the same as a new Youtuber asking what video editing software to use. Doesn't matter, they all do the same. Pick one and go. Some ESPs are better for Ecommerce (Klaviyo), others work better for coaches (ConvertKit). But that's not the question to ask when starting out.

What are some of your best strategies?

The best way to grow your list? Promote it heavily.
Check these examples:
backlinko.com
jacobmcmillen.com

The first thing you see is the opt-in form for their newsletter.

If you're not getting any traffic right now you can always go the podcasting route:
1) Reach out to podcasters in your niche, offer to share how to do X Y and Z
2) Create a lead magnet for the podcast listeners
3) Have the podcast link to that lead magnet

When you have an engaged list you can always use something like Sparkloop to encourage readers to share your newsletter.
Here's an example from Morning Brew:
1638121170734.png
 

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A couple from my experience:
  • Be careful with free gifts. You can completely ruin your list quality if you primarily rely on people signing up to get free stuff. If I were to start a new list I think I'd separate the list into two: one with people who bought the entry-level product (thank-you product, even if just for $1) and one with those who haven't. Then I'd keep them segmented into people who buy and who don't buy and would do whatever I can to convert the non-buyers into buyers. Otherwise you have a worthless list, at least from the business perspective.
  • Quantity really doesn't mean shit. A list with 20,000 cold leads is nothing compared to a warm list of 200 people who really trust you and with whom you converse a few times a week and have sold stuff to them already.
  • If building a small list (a few hundred people at most), maybe it's better to just do it manually than rely on a newsletter service. You'd have a more personal connection and probably better deliverability, too (particularly if they "sign up" through sending you an email).
 
D

Deleted70138

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@SEOguy Subscribed to your newsletter, but have not received any "welcome" email. Is it intentionally so?

I pivoted into email copywriting this year and started my own daily newsletter as a way to practice and test things out.
Mind sharing? Would like to subscribe and see what you do and how you do.

Be careful with free gifts.
Gift, by definition, is free, is not it?!
I've personally bought items due to initial free staff, including this forum's membership.
 
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Deleted70138

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Signed up to Clickfunnels and Hubspot newsletter.

A lot to learn from their campaigns.

P.s. if you want to get Clickfunnels newsletter, go on their website, click "Start free trial" and follow up until it asks for credit card info. Then watch meticulously crafted emails pop into your inbox.
 

Andy Black

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The best way to grow your list? Promote it heavily.
Check these examples:
backlinko.com
jacobmcmillen.com

The first thing you see is the opt-in form for their newsletter.
GrahamCochrane.com is the same. His website, podcast, and YouTube channel are geared towards getting people onto his email list.
 

SEBASTlAN

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MTF

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Gift, by definition, is free, is not it?!
I've personally bought items due to initial free staff, including this forum's membership.

I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm saying you have to be cautious. A wrong freebie (or too many of them) creates an expectation that you do everything for free. At least in my case, this strategy didn't help my business much, if at all.
 

Andy Black

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I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm saying you have to be cautious. A wrong freebie (or too many of them) creates an expectation that you do everything for free. At least in my case, this strategy didn't help my business much, if at all.
Graham Cochran has an example of his 5 day automation after people opt into his freebie.

It's here: FREE GUIDE: 5 Day Product Pitch Email Funnel
 
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MattL

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Mind sharing? Would like to subscribe and see what you do and how you do.
There's a link in my profile that takes you to my site.

Gift, by definition, is free, is not it?!
I've personally bought items due to initial free staff, including this forum's membership.
I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm saying you have to be cautious. A wrong freebie (or too many of them) creates an expectation that you do everything for free. At least in my case, this strategy didn't help my business much, if at all.
I see many coaches & marketers have a $1 offer for this reason.
You could also have a freebie that's tied to your offer. For instance, I remember MJ used to have a 'read the 3 first chapters for free' for one of his books.

The key is not to give away everything in the free stuff but to instead make the freebie more of a camouflaged long-form sales letter. Of course whatever freebie you choose to give needs to be interesting/entertaining/valuable, but more importantly it MUST leave them wanting more. Like the ending of any good episode of a TV show.
 
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woken

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I’ve used klaviyo because I found the interface easy to understand.

I use kickofflabs for prelaunching campaigns. You can offer rewards for inviting friends etc and then you get more emails. Not necessarily a good thing, just saying.
 

maximusharrison

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I could not find any thread about this topic, so let's share our knowledge here.

Here is one from me:

Create Email Marketing Your Way - MailerLite - You can create you first email campaign for free, super beginner friendly and does not require credit card. For starters it's probably the best solution.
For wordpress, use "Popup maker" plugin for free popups, you can integrate MC4WP plugin on it and connect it to your MailCheat(Chimp) account. MailCheat(Chimp) has advantage in terms for number of free emails you can send, but Mailerlite has good sequence email strategy set up.

What tools and channels do you use?
What are some of your best strategies?
Quite a few great quips from members here. Let me add to the mix.

In terms of building your email list organically (i.e., getting people to subscribe and sign up), I think offering "gifts" as you've called them is a good way to do it. You can have these gifts in the form of coupons, vouchers, or even PDF files that contain detailed guides. The last bit really works if you're an informational platform that has a blog of some sort. I do most of my email marketing and list building through klaviyo and work with a company called CodeCrew–I'm not an expert hence the need for a partnership lmao.

Now, if you want to talk about "inorganic" email list building (i.e., scrapping emails from different databases) the tools you'd use are probably LinkedIn + any of the following: hunter.io, anymailfinder, and snov.io. I say you can build an email list with this because you can send a cold first email to these people and have an action for them to unsubscribe. Chances are, you'll get a handful to not unsubscribe as long as you offer a mean deal on your first email!

My strategy might be a tad different since i work with blogs–so the things we send out on an email to our newsletter are things that involve one of any 3 things: 1) a new blog post was posted 2) a partnership we had with a brand/company 3) an anecdotal story that sets up the premise for the next few blogs within the circulation.
 

Andy Black

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D

Deleted70138

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This one highly relevant too:

Your lead magnet does not generate leads, right traffic generates leads.
 
D

Deleted70138

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There are many ways to capture an email, but the most natural one I've found is by sending "hook" straight to the email, something like this:
2021-12-06 23_02_55-Complete Guide to Gudauri Ski Resort 2021_22 - Adventure Georgia.png
1. It leads to almost 100% open rate
2. Does not seem too pushy, quite contrary, feels as if I'm doing them a favor.
3. The fact that is has high opening rate, helps my domain rank high by email servers, sending my emails straight to inbox, instead of spam.

Initially to get into "inbox" , Wp Mail STMP plugin with Amazon SES works just fine, but can't really tell how much did it really increase percentage of emails going to inbox.

As for email automation services they seem overly expensive and unnecessary.
 
D

Deleted70138

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Sent an email to a partner (Once we've already had exchanged couple of email) and got an "Undelivered" email from google, saying that I might be spamming. Checked the email I've sent and there was a word "Free" used once in it. Removed it, copied everything else and it was sent without any issues.

Google hates the word "Free".
 
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Andy Black

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Sent an email to a partner (Once we've already had exchanged couple of email) and got an "Undelivered" email from google, saying that I might be spamming. Checked the email I've sent and there was a word "Free" used once in it. Removed it, copied everything else and it was sent without any issues.

Google hates the word "Free".
"When are you free to chat about our paid service?"

Spam!
 

Cameraman

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I could not find any thread about this topic, so let's share our knowledge here.

Here is one from me:

Create Email Marketing Your Way - MailerLite - You can create you first email campaign for free, super beginner friendly and does not require credit card. For starters it's probably the best solution.
For wordpress, use "Popup maker" plugin for free popups, you can integrate MC4WP plugin on it and connect it to your MailCheat(Chimp) account. MailCheat(Chimp) has advantage in terms for number of free emails you can send, but Mailerlite has good sequence email strategy set up.

What tools and channels do you use?
What are some of your best strategies?
I thought I would add my experience and thoughts to the list. I currently have 11,872 subscribers which I know isn't huge but I think this is a high-quality list which is what I've been aiming to build. My last monthly newsletter went to 11,768 subscribers, achieved an open rate of just over 52% and had 3 people unsubscribe. I suspect some of my 11,768 emails didn't reach their target and some of the email openings weren't recorded so my open rate may be higher.

1643800522937.png

I wanted to share these figures for a few reasons:
  • I self host this list using the Newsletter plugin for WordPress. I've hooked this up to the Amazon Simple Email System which seems to do a good job of delivery. It also only costs me a few £ each month in mailing fees. I much prefer this to paying MailCheat(Chimp) or someone more money each month than it costs me to run my list for a year.
  • In the past, I've tried "Tactics" to build my list fast. The result was a poor open rate and lots of rubbish emails. By rubbish, I mean people who never react unless I was giving away something for free. These are not people who will buy my products and I don't want to waste my time on them.
  • My aim is to build a quality list of highly targeted subscribers with an interest in what I do. Then when I launch a new product, I only need to mention it and they buy. This seems to be working for me.
  • I think there are two keys to building a quality list. Firstly you need to provide value with every email you send to someone. I think of sending an email as being like knocking on their door and then trying to have a conversation with them. If you knock on their door and dive into a sales pitch they are likely to slam the door in your face. Give them something they want first because you need to build trust. And Trust is the second key to building the list. If they don't trust you then having their email is useless.
Ultimately, I think you need a strategy to build a list of people who trust you and then you work hard to retain that trust. Most businesses seem only to focus on getting the subscriber. To me, that's just tactics. It needs to be about building a relationship of value.

To get people on my list I do have a popup on my site and I do have a free offer. I drive traffic using articles on the site, my YouTube videos and the books that I sell via Amazon, Apple etc. I don't use any form of advertising although I have considered it. I would like to grow my list faster but only if it's with quality people who match my customer profile.

Something else to be aware of is that if you do this right, you will need time to respond to the email that a good mailing generates. I receive hundreds of emails each time I send out a newsletter. This is a mix of positive messages thanking me for something as well as questions that give me ideas for new articles or videos. Occasionally I get an abusive email, but then I just delete the subscriber.
 

MTF

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Just found this great site with resources on building and growing newsletters:


Also, these three articles by Ghost are quite useful:

 
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Deleted70138

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When creating a lead-magnet, big rewards can have a counterproductive effect, as it does not influence website visitor to create an inner narrative. Power of incentive should not be disregarded, but human mind is even more irrational and makes decisions through the stories he tells to himself. Let's look at lead-magnet examples:
1) Subscribe and get free watch - just pay for shipping
In this example person would rationalize his effort of writing down an email, by telling himself some type of story of getting something for "free", even though he does not particularly care about watches.
2) Get a free printable version of Guatemala Adventure Cycling - Write your email here
Reward in this particular offer is miniscule, just a pdf with texts and photos, but if the copywriting is on point, person will be influenced enough to write down his email, and later justify his action by telling a story to himself: "Actually I'm very adventurous person and I did love cycling when i was 7, maybe I should go to Guatemala, even the name of the country smells like a freshly pilled oranges".

Yes, i know that "just pay for shipping" has been pretty successful for many watch sellers, but point I'm making here is this:

We do what we believe, but even more so, we believe what we do.

cheers.
 

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