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If you want to double your sales, you need to double your email list. Your list is a direct line of contact to reach the people who are interested in what you have to offer and an asset that you own and control.
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Serving an engaged email list, no matter the size, is a tried and tested game changer for business growth, launching new offers, and ensuring your content is seen by the audience it’s made for! Over a decade ago I stopped solely focusing on the vanity metrics of social media and dove into growing and serving my email list. It’s my #1 profit driver and, therefore, my #1 priority in my business — and it’s time for you to do the same.
Through the years, I have learned a few simple ways that help me keep my list growing consistently without having to put in a ton of time or effort. Serving an email list can be wildly effective without being complicated. Your email list can become a well-oiled machine that serves and sells your offers, doing the heavy lifting for you.
While the following advice is for someone who already has a list they want to grow, if you need to start yours from scratch, I can help you catch way up to speed (like pro-level, but the easy way) in my free one-hour masterclass, “From Zero Subscribers (or Zero Strategy) to an Engaged Email List that Lasts.” Let me show you how to algorithm-proof your business, once and for all.
The growth of your business can’t stay in the hands of a social media platform — I’ve seen too many “my account got hacked and deleted” situations. Start your list and have an open line from your offers to your dream customers at all times.
7 Ways to Grow Your Email List (and Your Revenue) in 2024
If you want to leverage your list to grow your revenue in 2024, it’s time to optimize your email marketing ecosystem step by step. You can turn this into a once-a-year, ‘spring cleaning’ checklist or break it into bite-sized pieces you work on throughout the year. Either way, your results will reflect your effort!
1. Dig into Your Email Analytics
Far too many people like to hit ‘send’ on their emails and let that be their end goal. If you’re afraid of digging into numbers or aren’t sure where to start, you’re not alone! It can be scary to find out what’s truly working — and what isn’t. But knowing your data is the only way you can optimize. Maybe you’ve looked a few times and thought you needed more data to take action — but think of it like this: a ship doesn’t wait until it’s way off the path to course correct, right? Making small movements can help you get to your goal faster and easier!
Find your email marketing provider’s analytics dashboard and let the numbers speak. What emails get the most opens and clicks (i.e. look at time of day, topic of email, subject line, etc.)? What’s your best-performing offer? And what emails tied to that offer were the highest converting?
2. Update Your Main Opt-In Offer
Garnering new email list subscribers is usually done with an offer — your lead magnet, a free offer with high value that introduces, or leads, new people into your business! It’s time to check in with that offer and see if it needs any refreshing. Running your offer for a year or two can be effective, but beyond that, you’re possibly connecting people to outdated information which can sour a lead’s opinion of your business in a flash.
In 2017, I created my first quiz. It was all about finding your own ‘secret sauce’ and with it, I would not only help people discern what sets them apart and give them resources to own their awesome, but I was also collecting valuable insight into my community. At the time, I was pivoting my business from wedding photography to online education so I had a few strategic questions that allowed me to see what percentage of my followers were photographers, where people needed the most help in their businesses, and what type of resources they were looking for.
Since launching it, we’ve updated our results pages to include more up-to-date content and edited a question or two to continue to give us valuable insight that can direct our brand as it is today. We’ve had 111,000 people take the quiz which has grown our email list substantially and connected our audience with answers that guide them to dive into resources that will support their specific ‘secret sauce.’
Dig through your offer’s copy and look for anything that feels untimely or irrelevant. Check for any broken links, and if any are leading to more of your content, make sure it’s the most updated content you have! Review any statistics or research to confirm it’s either the latest info or still relevant.
An important step here is to consider whether your opt-in still reflects your business and brand. Do you still care about the topic and create other adjacent pieces of content that feed into it and lead people to want to learn more from you? If you feel your business has moved beyond this offer, it’s time to scrap it and make a new one.
3. Consider Creating New Opt-Ins
One opt-in to rule them all might work if your business has a very narrow focus, but more than likely, you could be missing out on catching the eyes of new potential customers and subscribers. Think about your current content pillars and paid offers. Are there entry points that would benefit from a free lead-in offer to get people in the door? You might even have massive value waiting in your everyday practices that could be mundane to you but hugely beneficial to others.
When I began charting out a new course on email list building, I knew that beginners would massively benefit from the course but would need an easier entry point. Paid offers can feel like an intimidating jump, so the goal is to lower that barrier. So, we created a free live masterclass to not only give a taste of the course but also deliver results. They can spend one hour learning with me for free and get a major head start in not only learning about an email list but also building one. That live masterclass is a powerful entry point that leads new customers into our paid offer through a valuable, free connecting point with just a few clicks to sign up. Once they’re on our list, I can serve and thoughtfully sell to them way after the live class!
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Walk through your own weekly workflow and business/creative processes. Is there a method or solution you’ve created or fine-tuned? Is there a habit you have now that you wish you would’ve known about when you were just starting? Get inspired to create new offers with what you already know!
4. Refresh Your Pop-Ups and Landing Pages
Your offer can only be as good as your subscriber’s journey to receiving it. It’s easy to think your freebie pages, sign-up forms, and pop-ups on your website are still as good as the day you made them, but your style and discernment change over time. I couldn’t count just how many times I’ve been on someone’s beautiful website only for an offer to pop up that has their old branding on it.
Walk through your customer’s sign-up journey with new eyes. Do your pop-ups reflect your current branding and voice? Does the delivery email feel relevant and fresh (or is there a GIF of a meme that was popular 5 years ago)? Ensure that the process from start to finish is smooth, inspiring, and thoughtful to the person considering giving you their email address and joining your list.
5. Chart More Paths to Your List
Your marketing efforts should be simplified to two main focuses! The first is to grow your email list; this needs to be the main focus of your business. The second is to leverage other channels you are on as an introduction and invite that audience to become list subscribers.
When you simplify your marketing you start to see that social media isn’t the place you should be selling. It’s where you should be providing value and then connecting them to your list! Whenever I record a podcast episode for The Goal Digger Podcast, I try to think of a way to tie in a freebie or invite my audience to get extra value in exchange for their email address. It’s how I guide them to their next logical step and helps me see which topics are most exciting for my listeners.
When the post’s theme is ‘productivity’, I think “What offers or valuable connections do I have that support a next step for my audience?” I could link to a free planning page, a podcast episode, or a blog post! From there, I make sure there are chances for them to engage with that ‘next step’ that leads them to my list (i.e. the podcast episode notes connect them to the freebie, and the blog post has a CTA or link to the freebie, etc.). There are likely opportunities all over your social media channels, website, and other overlooked locations to link up one of your free offers!
Are there spaces on your website where a link to your offer or straight to your email list sign-up form would make sense? Do you have blog posts that generate traffic to your website? Work a list-building freebie into the copy. Make an effort to consistently create social media posts that lead to your offer, especially since new people might not know about it yet! Even places like the links in your bios and your email signature are spots where you want to not just connect people to your website but to your list!
A major oversight for people serving a list is a common mistake for most business owners: running your marketing channels like silos rather than a fully connected ecosystem. Have you ever joined someone’s email list and thought, “Wow, you never mention this kind of stuff on your socials!” I know we want to make sure no one’s bored by our content, but you have to remember that not everyone’s got eyes on every single post or email you share.
6. Rework Your Welcome Sequence
When someone becomes a subscriber by opting into any of your offers, you want to make sure they’re welcomed into your brand and introduced to you and your work thoroughly before you toss other offers their way. You might have one welcome email in place, but knowing that some people skip over those emails because they’re excited about the offer they just signed up for, having a welcome sequence can be powerful.
Do your subscribers know your story? Write up a three-part sequence to share it with them! Want to get to know their needs, interests, industries, or experiences? Drop a survey or a quiz. If they signed up for one offer out of a library of offers you have, this is a great way to thoughtfully introduce them to your solutions. When you’re not sure what to say, share customer testimonials, exclusive access, and behind-the-scenes insight!
7. Get Smart with Your List Segmenting
If you’re not yet segmenting your email list, now’s the time to do so! Segmenting is beneficial for your business and for your readers. You can target your segments with offers that work best for them without any redundancy, which means they’re more likely to take action on those offers! It may seem like a lot of work juggling a highly segmented email list, so start small. A great entry point in segmenting is offering your full list a quiz to take part in (and it doubles as an amazing lead magnet for new people!)
If you’re already segmenting, then work through those segments. Are you able to target those segments the way you intended when you started? Do you need to craft some segment-specific copy to reengage that portion of your list and inspire them to take action on a new offer? Make sure your workflow is worth your time and pouring back into your business goals!
Don’t have an email list yet? Go from Zero to Engaged!
Ready to streamline and power-up your marketing strategy with an email list, but need help starting from scratch? Learn everything you need to know in my free 1-hour masterclass! Get actionable guidance on starting your list from scratch and making it 10x more effective than any of your social media strategies. Build a list of dream clients, grow your sales, and stop having to stress about who is seeing your posts and offers on social media! It’s time to build a list you can launch to.
