How to Build an Email List Fast and for Free — 5 List Building Tips

How to Build an Email List Fast and for Free — 5 List Building Tips

- So one of the biggest keys for building a successful business is building an email list, but it can be challenging. So in this video, I'm gonna be sharing my five biggest tips for building an email list fast using YouTube. Coming up. (camera shutters) Hey what's up guys, Sean here with THiNK Media bringing you the best tips and tools for building your influence with online video and on this channel we do a lot of tech gear reviews, but also tips and strategy videos just like this one. So if you're new here, consider subscribing.

And hey, at any point during the video check out a show summary and show notes in the YouTube description below. Let's jump into the tips. So one of the big mistakes that I see a lot of people making is actually not focusing on building their email list. I think there's a misconception that goes around that thinks, oh it's not important and a lot of focus and attention is on getting more followers on social media, getting more subscribers on YouTube, but there's a huge problem with that and that is this.

You don't own those communication channels.

We've seen it happen on Facebook. Organic reach at one time was really good there, but then as time went one, less and less people are seeing your posts, even if they've subscribed, even if they're a fan of yours that doesn't even mean that you can get your message to them. And even here on YouTube, most channels have less than 10% of their subscribers even seeing their videos in their main subscription feed. And that's a huge problem, right, because just because someone subscribed to you or following you on social media does not mean you're reaching them with your message or your content.

And so that's why I always encourage entrepreneurs, creatives and video influencers to be building an email list cause it gives you an opportunity to get in front of the community that you're building, the tribe you're building, despite what happens with social media platforms, algorithms, or even if a platform was to disappear tomorrow.

Essentially any of your social media presence is on rented land, but your email list is something that you can own and then a group of people that you're able to communicate with in a deeper way over the long haul. And currently here on YouTube between 100 to 200 new people are signing up for our various email lists across the various brands that I'm working with.

And this is organic. These are people who are interested in the niche that I'm in and the message that we're communicating. And that's not from paid traffic.

We'll do that too. We'll do ads sometimes places and we can even drive those numbers up, but that is literally just from YouTube so I really believe that YouTube is one of the best ways to build a thriving email list. And to illustrate the power of this even further a recent THiNK Media newsletter that we sent out got an open rate of 35.96%. That's a pretty good open rate in the email marketing space, but that's also pretty incredible because I'll tell you this.

A Facebook post that we put up a lot of times might have a reach of 150 people, even though I have thousands of Facebook likes. Instagram has an algorithm, even Twitter does now too. That doesn't mean that just because you have a certain number of followers that your content is getting in front of them, but out of our email list, 30% of people saw the content and was able to read through and open that email.

You can't get close to that on any other social platform. There's no social network that comes close to that kind of attention that still exists in email.

And the click through rate on that same email was almost 3%. That means that of everybody that opened it, 3% of people clicked through to go watch a video, to go check out a piece of content, to see a live stream and that again, click through rates on social media don't come close to that let alone someone even seeing it in the first place to being able to click it. And so I really want to encourage you to be thinking about building an email list as part of your overall strategy online. But how do you actually do it? Let's jump in to these five tips.

Tip number one is you need to pick an email service provider. This is also known as a CRM and these are services like MailChimp, Aweber, Infusionsoft, ConvertKit, I currently use GetResponse and I want to encourage you, you can do a lot of research here, but don't get stuck here.

It does matter, but the important thing is just to get started. But one power tip is if you start with a certain email provider make sure ahead of time that you're able to export the email list and the contact information that you get from them. And that way you can switch at any time.

For me, I actually started with MailChimp a few years ago because I was able to use just the free version for quite a while before needing to switch to the paid version, however I eventually learned that they weren't very favorable to affiliate marketing and I think that affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to generate income online so I switched to GetResponse. And since that time I've absolutely loved them. It's been amazing. They not only have a good basic model, but eventually you can move into some advanced automation so whether you're a beginner or whether you're even more of an advanced marketer, GetResponse has been pretty incredible. And so I'll list some resources below so you can research this a little bit and even check those out.

And what's cool is you can also of course always do free trials with things like GetResponse to just test it out, see if it works for you, how you like it and things like that. Tip number two is create something cool to give away in exchange for a person's contact information for their email list. And so in our space this is called either freemium or a freebee or a lead magnet and there is where if you've been around THiNK Media for very long you know that at the end of the video I'm like hey if you want to download the free THiNK Media TV video gear buyers guide I'll link it up in the description below. That's a free gift and instead of just saying hey jump on our newsletter it's saying hey here's something actually cool that's actually valuable and you can download that in exchange for signing up for the email list. And so a couple power tips here.

The first one is make it really valuable.

Like you actually want it to be cool and it doesn't have to be a PDF. It can be an audio file. It can be a video that is only available privately. It's not a public YouTube video or it's embedded on a page somewhere.

It could be a checklist, it could be just something quick and cool that's gonna get results for the people that want those results in your space and in your niche. And then the second quick tip is you want to make sure that it also is specific. And what I mean is when you have a specific free gift for people you want to be able to know why they signed up for that list so that you can talk to them based on that interest.

For example, on my channel Sean Cannell I actually have a free download that's about productivity and high performance in life and so people who sign up for that email list, what are they interested in? High performance, productivity in life.

The people who sign up for a download of the best video gear for every budget for YouTube, what are they interested in? Well cameras, maybe YouTube tips, maybe not even YouTube tips, maybe just video gear like hey I want to save money on lenses, I don't know all about cameras so help me, give me the shortcut.

 

So then inside of my email list provider GetResponse those are segments and I can talk to just this group of people and just that group of people in different ways. If I talk to the high performance group and I was like hey guys you know a new camera came out. What are they gonna do?

Unsubscribe. That's not why we signed up. That's not what we were interested in, don't bother us with that. And then on the flip side, if I was like I know you downloaded a free gear guide, but I'd love to tell you about how to be more productive, what are they gonna do? Unsubscribe because it's not why they signed up in the first place.

So I encourage you to strategically think about the free gift that you get and the tribe of people and community of people that are signing up for that. It gives you how to talk to them, but it also clarifies for you what they would be interested in and what they wouldn't be interested in so that you can add consistent value over time and not have people unsubscribe because you're random and all over the place. The third tip and the next step is to then set up a landing page or this is a lead capture page or a squeeze page. And you've seen these before and here's a couple examples of various ones that we have for our brands and this is just a place where now you can say here's the free gift that you're gonna get, whether it's a free video, whether it's a free download and if you enter your name and email or just your email then I'm gonna send you this and that gives people a way to actually sign up so they can get on your email list.

What's cool here is that most of the email service providers actually allow you to create landing pages right inside.

So there are other services for this, but then maybe you need to sign up for something else. That might even cost more money. So when you're getting started you can definitely use the landing pages or capture pages or squeeze pages that are just a part of your current email service provider. Okay so you've picked an email service provider, you've created a free gift, you've set up a landing page, now you're ready for tip number four and that is to give call to actions for people to sign up and download your free gift and join your list in your YouTube videos. And I encourage you can do this in every video.

Typically at the end and always tie it in to the content of your video. And so if you had a video with five tips on how to meal prep for the week, by the end of the video you could say hey if you want to actually download my grocery shopping list checklist you can grab that as well and it ties into the content of your YouTube video and it gives people the next step to go to another level with you, to download something with you and then to also join your inner circle.

And again, even that person maybe watched the video, maybe they didn't subscribe on YouTube or maybe they subscribe on YouTube, but your videos aren't showing up on their feed. The cool thing is if they've signed up for your email list then you can send out a weekly newsletter and have another way to drive views, to drive traffic to your content, to your video, to whatever it is you're promoting and so what we've done on video influencers on THiNK Media is just consistently video after video we've put these videos out and at the end of every video we give call to actions to different free gifts that we have depending on what the topic is, what the niche is.

- And if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to this channel.

Please share this video with someone that you think would benefit from our content. - And we also have a guide with 19 things to do every time you upload a YouTube video. So if you haven't downloaded that, we'll link it up in the description below as well as on the YouTube cart. It's free and then you'll also get weekly tips just like this one in your email inbox. And that is exactly now have between 100 to 200 new people joining our email list everyday because we've put out a library of videos that are getting views on YouTube, whether we work or not and as we talk to people for a while some people say yeah, I'd love to go to the next level, I'd love to be a part of the inner circle, I'd love to join the tribe and join the community and download whatever the free gift is and they're able to go to the next level.

And then tip number five is to actually repeat this process over and over again.

And so here's a couple actionable tips here. The first one is again you can repeatably talk about it in consistent videos. Maybe you post a video a week on YouTube. Every video you can talk about your free gift and joining your inner circle or your newsletter or whatever it is.

But then you can eventually expand into creating more freemiums, more lead magnets, whatever you want to call them that can also serve different micro tribes of your overall niche and your overall community. And so if you never set this up before I encourage you to only focus on one free gift, building one segmented audience and just building up one thing at a time. But eventually you can expand like we've done. And so we have some free gifts that are related to free video trainings about product reviews. We've got free gifts related to just smart phone accessories or just video gear accessories.

YouTube tips over on video influencers. So this takes times to build and I don't encourage you to do five at once. Just focus on one, but if you repeat this process over and over and over again that is how you can build a sizable email list. So I hope that you can see the value in building an email list and that these five tips were helpful, but I realize that I didn't spend a lot of time actually talking about how to get views and get a ton of traffic on your YouTube videos so that they can watch your video and then join your email list. And so if you want to learn more about that probably the best resource that I have is at learnyoutubetoday.com and that's actually a 45 minute master class that breaks down how to get views, how to get more exposure and how to get views even when you're not working, how to get your videos showing up in search results so that way your email list and your audience can grow on autopilot whether you work that day or not.

So again link to that in the description below or on the YouTube cart. Question of the day, have you started building your email list yet? Do you see the value in building an email list and what are some of your best tips? Let me know in the comment section below and remember that some of the best tips and feedback come from you, the THiNK Media TV community so definitely connect with everybody in the comment section.

So thanks so much for checking out this video. Definitely subscribe for videos just like this. Hit the like button if you got value out of this video.

There's a link on the screen if you want to check out that free YouTube master class. And until next time, THiNK Media is bringing you the best tips and tools for building your influence with online video.

Keep crushing it and we will talk soon.

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