The first day we had an opt in opportunity up on EOFire.com was on day 1.

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The truth about growing an email list (Plus 7 Ways you can get started today)

Well… okay, let me back up a bit. Actually, on day 1 (the day John purchased the domain – April 9, 2012), we were redirecting to GoDaddy.

Then, on June 16, 2012, this is what EOFire.com looked like:

It’s not technically an opt in, but it is a clear description of what’s to come, plus a way for anyone who lands on this page to get in touch with John – directly.

John knew from day 1 that giving his audience a way to get in touch with him was important. How could he expect anyone to listen to what he had to say if he wasn’t willing to connect and invest his time in them?

Why growing an email list is important

Growing an email list is important because, much like your website, it’s one of the very few communication platforms that you own and that connects you directly to your audience.

Your email list can help you:

Stay in touch with your audience,
Start building a more personal relationship with your audience;
Begin to establish trust with your audience; and
Provide value that is going straight to a pretty sacred place: their inbox.

In addition, once you’ve grown your audience and have products and services to offer them, your email list will also serve as a very powerful marketing tool. It’s literally made up of people who have told you:

Yes! – what you have to offer is valuable to me, and yes, I want to continue to hear more about it!

Okay, so now that we’ve established the importance of growing an email list, let’s talk truth about actually growing it.

The truth about growing your email list

I was having a chat with a fellow Fire Nation Elite Mastermind member the other day who was asking me about growing his email list. I asked him how many subscribers he had, and he said 10, and then hung his head low as if this was something to be embarrassed about.

If you ask me, big numbers aren’t relevant when you’re growing your email list; what’s relevant is that you have an engaged, targeted list of people who actually want to hear from you.

Every single person and business entity in this entire world started with an email list of 0, and a majority of them still have 0 because they don’t see the value in growing an email list (either that, or they simply don’t know how to do it.)

Then there are others who have hundreds of thousands on their email list…

But they didn’t start out with hundreds of thousands. They started with 0.

10 – 100 – 12,437 – 156,897 – the number is irrelevant unless those on your email list care about what you have to say.

So you want the truth?

Growing an email list takes time, and you need to start caring about what your audience cares about in order to start building it, otherwise there won’t be a reason for them to subscribe.

But the question remains: HOW do you do it?

Well, it starts with knowing who your target market is – intimately – so you can then create a valuable opt in offer, (sometimes referred to as a lead magnet), that your audience wants and needs.

Once you create a lead magnet, it’s time to build the funnel around it so that you can start to lead your prospects in the direction of becoming buyers.

I know, I know – this all sounds a little confusing and complicated, right?

It doesn’t have to be.

That’s why we created Funnel On Fire: How to Create a Funnel that Converts.

Funnel On Fire is a completely FREE 8-day email and video series that will walk you through every step of creating a funnel that converts: starting with knowing who your target market is, then on to creating a lead magnet they want and need, and finally, how to build the funnel around that lead magnet.

Sure, you can grow a list filled with thousands of subscribers in 3-6 months easily using paid Facebook ads, or by doing free iPad giveaways that attract anyone and everyone to sign up; however, the actual value of the list you’re building when it comes to engaged and meaningful subscribers?… that’s what I really want to talk about.

A look at EOFire’s email history

Some of our very first broadcast emails (let’s take one that was sent on Jan 2, 2013 – 3.5 months after our site launched – as an example), went out to just over 500 people.

Given the support we had from our guests on the show, we were able to drive a decent amount of traffic to our site, and thanks to the placement of our opt in form (front and center on our home page) AND the valuable, consistent and free content we provided visitors, we were able to convert some of them into subscribers.

Quick tip: the more opportunities you have for people to opt in, the more likely they are to opt in.

So make it easy.

This starts with having a opt in front and center on your home page, but it extends to many other opt in opportunities you could be presenting your visitors with, like pop up box opt ins, blog post opt ins, a welcome gate opt in, a Hello Bar opt in.

But more on all that in a second…

By May 2013, we had just barely doubled our number of opt ins to a little over 1,000 subscribers.

By Nov 2013, we started to gain some pretty strong momentum and were up to 6,000 subscribers.

So in a little over 1 year, our list grew from 0 to 6,000. But it wasn’t just due to luck (although there was some of that at play, too).

We were very strategic about growing our email list, and I’m about to share with you 7 ways we did it – and that you can use to get started with growing your email list today, too.

Before we dive into the 7 Ways, don’t forget to claim your spot in our free course, Funnel On Fire, to learn how to create a funnel that converts in just 8 days. Together with the 7 Ways we’re about to cover right now, you’ll have a Funnel On Fire rockin’ in no time!

7 Ways to start building your email list today

1. Create meaningful content

I know, I know, you’re probably rolling your eyes right now and thinking to yourself, “Ugh, that’s what everyone else says…”

Perfect, then you’re hearing it one more time from me – because it’s true.

No one is going to opt in to your email list unless you give them a reason why they should.

The reason why they should?

Because you’re sharing meaningful content that is a combination of valuable (to them), consistent and free.

When you’re creating meaningful content and it reaches people and touches them (via social media, through a Google search, in an email from a friend), they’re going to want more. Enter: your email list.

2. Have a strong Call To Action (CTA)

Phrases that DON’T work:

Stay up to date!

Get weekly updates!

Join our list!

None of these phrases tell me what I’m going to get or why I should care. Stay up to date on what? Join your list why?

Phrases that DO work… Well, how about I just show you?

From Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income site

From James Clear’s site

From Jill & Josh Stanton’s Screw the Nine to Five site

Notice how every single one of these opt in opportunities gives people a reason why they should click the button and give up their email address?

In each of these examples they’re making it extremely obvious that there is big value being offered up in exchange for an email address. Give your visitors what they want.

3. Guest post

Guest posting is incredibly underutilized.

Are people too lazy? Do they not like to write? Do they “not have the time”?

I’m not sure what the reasoning behind it is, but between May 2013 and May 2014 we found the time to submit over 23 guest posts to blogs within our industry and niche – that’s nearly 2 per month!

This helped us increase our email list subscribers by over 300%: we went from about 5,000 to over 18,000 in that same time period.

How did we do it?

Well, I created this step-by-step guide on How to request to guest post, but to put it simply, we just sat down and did the work: We researched blogs we wanted to guest post on, and then we started pitching ourselves to them.

4. Guest podcast

Same idea here. Are there podcasts in your industry or niche that are reaching an audience similar to yours? If so, start making a list of those podcasts, then, reach out and see if you can be a guest.

The more people who hear about you, the more likely you are to increase traffic to your site. And the more traffic you have on your site, the more likely you are to increase your opt in conversions.

Want to see some pretty crazy stats related to a guest podcasting opportunity John had and what it did for our email subscribers? Come on… check it out!

5. Create multiple opportunities

Now that we’ve covered a few ways to get additional exposure so that you have people coming to your site in the first place, it’s time to set up multiple opportunities for your website visitors to opt in.

This includes (but is not limited to) a:

Welcome gate

Side bar opt in

Content upgrade on your blog post or podcast show notes

Pop up box

6. Host a Webinar or Workshop for your community

Another great way to start growing your email list is to offer up a free Webinar or Workshop on a topic that you know about and regularly talk about in your content.

We started hosting a free, live Podcast Workshop in October of 2013, and we hosted that free, live Podcast Workshop at least one time per week for all of 2014. Sounds pretty crazy, right?

Well, what’s crazy is that we now have a segmented list of subscribers to our Podcast Workshop that we KNOW are interested in podcasting, and it’s 16,000+ people strong.

7. Bonus: paid ads

Running paid ads on Facebook, YouTube or any other 3rd party site is something you have the potential to do with success; but it also takes time and patience to figure out how it will best serve you and your business.

There are several online resources that will help teach you the ropes of leveraging paid advertising on social media platforms, like Rick Mulready’s opt in giveaway on his home page, which focuses on FB ads.

You can also learn a fair amount from the sites themselves, like through YouTube’s Get Started series for how to leverage YouTube ads.

A couple of ideas for what types of ads you might run:

Ads to free content on your site (like a blog post) that has a content upgrade offer as the call to action that people have to opt in to receive.
Ads to a Webinar, Workshop or Q&A session you’re hosting that requires an opt in to sign up.
A native video that teases your next podcast episode and links to a show notes page with an opt in as the call to action once they land there.