Welcome to the
Grow Your List Challenge
This four week challenge will focus on EASY actions you can take RIGHT NOW to grow your email list.
What's included
Week 1: Incentivize Your Audience
Week 2: Make It Easy For Your Subscribers to Sign Up
Week 3: Integrate to Automate List Growth
Week 4: Tell Everyone About Your List
Week 1: Incentivize Your Audience
People need to know WHY they should sign up for your newsletters. No, “Signup for our newsletter” isn’t enough.
After all, you are asking your potential audience to take an action with you - give you their email address. What are you offering in return?
You have to entice contacts to give you their contact information.
What does that look like?
- Promise you'll send exciting and useful emails
- Exciting content that solves a customer’s problem (aka a lead magnet)
First, let’s focus on your signup form headline.
There are a million better headlines than “Sign up for our newsletter.”
Entice more signups by telling people the value your emails offer in their inbox.
Think about the types of emails you’re sending. Will they include:
- Discounts
- Special Offers
- Tips
- Tricks
- Inspiration
- Jokes
- Funny memes or GIFs
The goal here is to create FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
To create your new headline, simply fill in the blank with the value you offer:
“Sign up to receive __________ in your inbox.”
Hint: you can list up to three types of content they will enjoy in their inbox.
Your Homework
Write (or rewrite) your newsletter signup headline and update it on your signup form.
Write (or rewrite) your newsletter signup headline and update it on your signup form.
Take your email signup incentive to the next level: build a lead magnet
Want a high-powered way to attract your best subscribers? Offer them something in exchange for their email address.
This is referred to as a lead magnet. (Get it? It’s a magnet. For leads! 😆)
There are many types of lead magnets to choose from. Here are some examples:
- A special offer like a discount code, free shipping, or free bonus gift.
- Useful resources like a workbook, quiz, guide, printable or template.
The best part is that your lead magnet doesn’t have to be anything fancy or new. It just has to be relevant to your audience.
To decide what your lead magnet should be, ask yourself:
- What is the most common question you get from your audience?
- What is your most popular content/offer?
If you need to build something new, create a guide around one of the most common questions you get from your audience.
If you have a popular blog or social post, turn it into a lead magnet by offering it after someone signs up for your list.
Bam. You just created a lead magnet without doing extra work.
Your Homework
Build your lead magnet with How to Create a Lead Magnet in Less Than a Day (That Actually Works)
*Must be an AWeber Customer to access. It's free to sign up.
Week 2: Make it easy for your subscribers to sign up
Last week, we created a reason why people should sign up for your newsletter. This week, let's get you set up to start collecting them.
If you make it easy for your audience to give you their email address, they’re much more likely to do it.
That means having a few things in place:
- A sign up form to collect email addresses.
- A landing page with your form to share with your audience.
- A visible spot on your homepage to capture the attention of your site traffic.
Sign up forms
You’ll need a form for people to submit their email address.
Setting up an eye-catching form in your AWeber account is a snap. Watch
this video on how to get started.
Need some inspiration? Check out these sign up form ideas to get your gears turning.
Landing pages
A landing page will help make it easy to share your sign up form. Plus, you’ll help focus your audience on completing your form.
It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to tell your subscribers what they’ll get out of signing up for your newsletter.
Lucky for you, AWeber has dozens of beautiful landing page templates to choose from.
Need some help setting up your landing page? Check out this video.
Home page placement
Don’t forget about your website’s home page.
For most businesses, the home page gets the most traffic. Capitalize on that traffic by giving your sign up form some real estate.
Ideally, moving your sign up form close to the top of your home page will collect more email addresses.
See how this blogger tripled her sign ups by moving her sign up form.
For best results, consider a pop-up form. Yes, a pop-up can work without being annoying. Start with delaying it for 20 seconds. That's enough time for your website visitors to browse before they get the pop-up.
Your homework
Choose either a sign up form, landing page, or home page placement tactic. Head over to your AWeber account to start building.
*Must be an AWeber Customer to access. It's free to sign up.
Week 3: Integrate to automate list building
What if you could use your other tools to capture email sign ups?
Tools your audience already interacts with.
It’d be like maaaaaaaagic, right? Well, the modern-day magic is integrations.
You can automatically add new subscribers to your list by connecting an existing payment platform, form builder, CRM, etc., to AWeber. We have over 700 integrations!
Think about the tools you already use to communicate with your audience, leads, and customers.
Do you use any of the following?
- Call schedulers (Calendly, Acuity, etc.)
- eCommerce platforms (Shopify, Woocommerce, Etsy, etc.)
- Website builders (Wix, Squarespace, Wordpress, etc.)
- Shopping carts (Clickfunnels, Thrivecart, etc.)
- Payments (Stripe, PayPal, etc.)
- CRMs (GrooveApps, SugarCRM, Copper, etc.)
Explore all of the tools that integrate with AWeber.
Setting up integrations is extremely easy and often only takes a few clicks. Then, you’ll be collecting subscribers in the background forever!
Check out this quick video to get started.
Your homework
Make a list of the tools you use to communicate with your audience. Examples: call schedulers, ecommerce platforms, website builders, shopping carts, payments, CRMs.
Week 4: Tell everyone about your list
This may sound obvious, but it needs to be said. You have to tell people about your newsletter consistently.
You may be a new entrepreneur or side hustler and not comfortable promoting yourself. It may feel awkward or scary to ask people to do something for you.
The good news is you’re already offering value in exchange for an email address.
If you’re a little more seasoned, you may have forgotten about all of the beautiful incentives you’ve created for people to give you their email address.
Either way, you have to TELL people that about the awesome content you share in your newsletters and how to join in.
Here are 3 ways to let people know how to join your email list
1. Harness the power of social media
Using social media to grow your list is a no-brainer. But how exactly? Here are two quick ways.
Preview what you’ll be covering in your upcoming newsletter on social media and let people know how they can get it in their inbox.
Also, schedule at least one social post a month that highlights the value of your lead magnet.
Pro Tip: Write out 2 or 3 posts to promote your lead magnet. Use one each month and repeat. Your social followers won’t even notice.
Get more list building advice for your preferred social channel:
2. Tell everyone about your email list
Tell people about your newsletters, whether you’re at a networking event, speaking on a podcast, or talking to your friends.
It doesn’t have to be pushy. It can be as simple as “If you’re curious to learn more about X, I send emails about it.” or “If you’re wondering about X, I have a lead magnet that digs into that topic.”
This is especially important if you are speak a podcast, webinar, or similar event. Check out The 3-Step Formula for Generating Email Leads from Speaking Gigs
Not in front of your audience quite yet? Ask your friends and family to join to help you get started. They’ll jump at the chance to support you.
Have a digital business card at the ready so you can sign up anyone you strike up a conversation with.
3. Run ads to your lead magnet
This is the quickest way to skyrocket your list growth. If you have the budget for ads, use them to build your list.
Whether they’re ads for Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google, or Pinterest depends on your specific business.
Start exploring where your audience hangs out online, get ads going to your lead magnet, and watch your list growth explode.
Your homework
Choose one of the following ideas and complete it by next week.
- Write one social media post about your lead magnet or a preview of your newsletter. Schedule it.
- Create a digital business card for your next speaking, networking or social event.
- Explore one platform to run ads to your lead magnet.
