MBA2402 Q&A Wednesday: How do I grow my email list fast?

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: MBA2402 Q&A Wednesday – How Do I Grow My Email List Fast?

Release Date: December 13, 2023
Host: Omar Zenhom

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Introduction

In episode MBA2402 of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom addresses a pressing concern from a listener, Carol, who is struggling to grow her email list despite running her online business for a year. Omar leverages his extensive 20+ years of entrepreneurial experience to provide a comprehensive, actionable strategy aimed at accelerating email list growth. This detailed summary captures the essence of his guidance, breaking down the process into manageable steps and emphasizing the importance of both quality and quantity in email marketing.

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Understanding the Importance of an Email List

Omar begins by reaffirming a fundamental principle in online business: "the money is in the list" (03:10). This adage underscores the value of having a substantial and engaged email list as a foundation for generating revenue. He acknowledges that while this statement may sound "scammy and schwarmy" to some, its underlying truth remains significant. Omar emphasizes that a larger email list provides more opportunities to market, make offers, and ultimately convert leads into customers. However, he tempers this belief by highlighting that it's "about 80% true" (04:05), noting that the quality of the list is equally crucial. A highly engaged list with active readers and clickers is far more valuable than a large but indifferent audience.

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Two-Part Strategy to Grow Your Email List

Omar outlines a two-part system essential for rapidly expanding an email list:

1. Creating a Compelling Lead Magnet
2. Driving Massive Traffic to the Lead Magnet

He stresses that these two components must work in tandem to achieve significant growth, ensuring that the efforts invested in each area are not wasted but instead contribute to a cohesive strategy.

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Part One: Creating a Compelling Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is an incentive offered to potential subscribers in exchange for their email address. Omar defines a lead magnet as "what you offer to your visitor, to your website, to anybody that you come across to in exchange for their email address" (02:30). He categorizes effective lead magnets based on the nature of the business:

• Coaches or Creators: Mini courses
• E-commerce: Coupons on the first order
• Service Providers: Free consulting calls
• Software Companies: Free trials or free plans

The key to a successful lead magnet is its ability to be "so high value" that potential subscribers feel compelled to exchange their email for it. Omar warns against "lousy" or "lame" lead magnets, which fail to inspire action. Instead, he advocates for creating offerings that users would gladly pay for, thereby ensuring their perceived value is high enough to warrant the exchange (05:00).

Notable Quote:
"Create a compelling lead magnet that people be willing to buy, but you're giving it away for free." – Omar Zenhom (10:00)

Omar illustrates this with examples from his own ventures. For years, he offered a free standalone course on idea validation, a topic essential for budding entrepreneurs. This course was a full video series accompanied by a comprehensive guide, making it an irresistible offer for his target audience. Another example is a set of templates designed to help users create their own lead magnets. By providing these high-value templates for free, Omar not only attracted subscribers but also demonstrated the quality of his offerings, fostering trust and paving the way for future conversions.

Strategic Focus:
Omar advises against diluting efforts by creating multiple lead magnets simultaneously. Instead, he recommends focusing on one compelling lead magnet and promoting it consistently across all channels. This singular focus prevents confusion among visitors and maximizes the effectiveness of the lead magnet.

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Part Two: Driving Traffic to Your Lead Magnet

With a high-quality lead magnet in place, the next step is driving substantial traffic to it. Omar emphasizes the importance of making the lead magnet easily accessible wherever potential subscribers interact with your brand.

Organic Traffic Strategies:

1. Website Homepage:
   Place the lead magnet prominently "above the fold" on your homepage to ensure visibility (06:50). This placement captures the attention of visitors immediately, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

2. Consistent Placement Across Platforms:

   • Blog Posts: Include the lead magnet at the end or within blog posts.
   • Side Menus: Feature the lead magnet in website sidebars.
   • Bio Links: Make the lead magnet the primary link in social media bios.
   • Email Signatures: Incorporate the lead magnet link into all outgoing emails.
   • Social Media Pinning: Pin the lead magnet as a top post on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Notable Quote:
"Your lead magnet should be front and center. Anytime anybody's exposed to your business or your brand, it should be right there." – Omar Zenhom (07:20)

Active Promotion:

• Email Call to Actions:
  Even within your existing email communications, promote the lead magnet. Omar acknowledges potential objections: "Aren't they already on your email list?" but counters by emphasizing the benefits of offering additional value, which can lead to shares and forwarded recommendations.

• Podcast Interviews:
  When appearing on other podcasts or media, direct the audience to your lead magnet instead of immediately promoting your products. This approach builds trust and provides value upfront, making the audience more receptive to future offers.

Paid Traffic Strategies:

For those ready to invest financially, Omar recommends online advertising as a highly effective method to drive targeted traffic to the lead magnet.

1. Facebook Lead Ads:
   These ads facilitate the collection of leads directly within Facebook, simplifying the sign-up process and reducing friction. Omar praises their efficiency, noting that leads can be acquired "pretty cheaply" when paired with a compelling lead magnet (09:00).

2. Other Online Platforms:
   Consider advertising on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or sponsoring newsletters. The key is to choose channels that allow precise targeting and trackable conversion metrics.

Tracking and Optimization:
Omar underscores the importance of tracking the performance of different advertising channels using tools like UTM links. This tracking enables precise measurement of conversion rates and the effectiveness of each traffic source, allowing for data-driven optimizations.

Notable Quote:
"Creating a compelling lead magnet takes time. It takes thought, it takes deliberation. This is a thing that you should invest a lot of effort in." – Omar Zenhom (09:50)

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Additional Tips and Conclusion

Omar wraps up the episode by reiterating the two critical components of his email list growth strategy: a high-value lead magnet and robust traffic generation. He advises entrepreneurs to invest significant effort into crafting their lead magnets, comparing it to an artist releasing a hit single that entices listeners to explore more of their work.

Final Thoughts:

• Quality Over Quantity:
  While expanding the subscriber base is important, maintaining a high-quality list with engaged users leads to better conversion rates and sustained revenue growth.

• Consistency and Focus:
  Consistently promoting one strong lead magnet across all channels ensures maximum visibility and reduces the risk of overwhelming or confusing potential subscribers.

• Leverage Existing Traffic:
  Utilize all existing touchpoints with your audience—website, social media, email communications—to promote the lead magnet effectively.

Closing Quote:
"Create a hit. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll check you in Friday's episode. I'll see you then." – Omar Zenhom (10:35)

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Conclusion

Omar Zenhom's episode on The $100 MBA Show provides a clear, actionable framework for rapidly growing an email list. By focusing on creating a highly valuable lead magnet and strategically driving targeted traffic to it, entrepreneurs can significantly enhance their email marketing efforts. Omar's emphasis on both the quality and quantity of email subscribers ensures that the list not only grows quickly but also remains an effective tool for converting leads into loyal customers. This episode serves as an essential guide for anyone looking to bolster their email marketing strategy and drive real business results.

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References:

• Lead Magnet Definition: 02:30
• Importance of Email List: 03:10, 04:05
• Strategy Outline: 05:00
• Creating Lead Magnet: 05:00, 06:50
• Driving Traffic: 07:20, 09:00, 09:50
• Final Remarks: 10:35

(Note: Timestamps are indicative based on the provided transcript and correspond to key sections within the content.)

Transcript

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[Omar Zenhom]

Because your business needs you at your best, that's why we deliver practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. And today's lesson is Q and A Wednesday where we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at Omar100- MBA. Today's question is from Carol and Carol asks. I want to grow my email list fast. I've been running my online business for about a year now, but my email list growth has been really slow. Can you give me any advice on how to grow my email list faster? I got your back, Carol. No worries. I'm going to break down exactly what you need to do. So you're getting more email subscribers to your email list every single day. I'm gonna share with you the same strategy that I use to go from three to four new emails a day to a hundred, 200, 300 emails a day. The good news is it's actually not complicated. It's very simple. And that's why a lot of people don't do it. They over complicate this process. I'm gonna break it down for you so you can grow your email list so you can convert those leads into sales into customers. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. One of the first things you learn in online business is that the money is in the list. You hear this all the time. And it sounds kind of scammy and schwarmy and I'll tend to agree with that. But the whole rationale behind that statement is that the larger your email list, the easier it is for you to make more revenue because you just have more people to contact, more people to market to, more people to make offers to. Now, I'm here to tell you that in theory, this is true. In practice, it's about 80% true. Why 80%? Because the quality of your list matters. Who's on your list matters. You want to make sure people are opening your emails, reading them, clicking on links. You want a good fan base, people that actually want to hear from you. So I'm going to incorporate increasing the quality of your list in this lesson as well. So what do you need to grow your email list quickly? And it's basically two things. It's a two part system. The first part is your actual lead magnet. Lead magnet is what you offer to your visitor, to your website, to anybody that you come across to in exchange for their email address. If you're a coach or creator, this could be a mini course. If you're in E commerce and you're selling products, this might be a coupon on their first order. If you're in the services, this might be a free consulting call. If you're in software, this could be a free trial or a free plan. You get the point. What do you offer to people so that they can give their email address? This is called a lead magnet. So the first part is creating a compelling lead magnet. Something that makes them say, hell yeah, I want to sign up for this. This is incredible. I would pay good money for this. That is the kind of lead magnet you need. Unfortunately, I've come across a lot of businesses, I've helped a lot of entrepreneurs and most people's lead magnets are lousy. They're lame, they're not compelling. It's not the thing that is going to really move people. It could be like a, or research thing. Even a poorly made cheat sheet or guide is just not going to move the needle. And because it's getting really competitive, you got to just step up your game even higher so you can be different, so you can stand out from the crowd, so you can actually compete with others. Now we're going to focus on part one right now. But there is a second part to this equation, to creating a lead magnet that grows fast. But let's start with part one, which is the magnet itself, which is the actual value you're giving to the customer. Let me be super clear, this is probably the most important thing you will create in your business. It's gotta be so high value. Why? Because this is what's gonna allow people to give you a chance and buy your products or services. If it's not good enough, it's not the best stuff. You gotta, you're not going to win them over. So what you need to do is you need to think about what would your customer actually buy? Spend money on, happily spend money on and create that and offer it for free in exchange for their email. That's really going to allow you to differentiate yourself and really make it easy to convert customers. We're going to talk later about traffic, but you're going to work hard to get people to your website so they can opt in for your lead magnet. Now if they get to your website, look at their lead magnet, they're like, oh, this looks kind of lame. Not so great. They leave. You just wasted that traffic and that traffic is something you might have paid for, right? Something that it costs you money. So why are you wasting all that traffic? You need to create something so compelling that as soon as they hit the page you're like, wow, this is for free. This is incredible. Where do I put my email? I'm going to give you two examples from my own business. First example is for years I grew my business on the $100 MBA by offering one of the courses inside of the $100 MBA that' about idea validation. It's a standalone course that we offer for free. And this is a full video course that comes with a guide that really walks people through how to validate their business idea. I chose this course because I know that people who are starting a business need to know this very well. And it's something that they're going to be interested in, they're going to want to sign up for and they would pay money for this. They would go on other course platforms or other websites and pay good money. I'm offering it for free in exchange for their email. Super compelling. Helped propel my email list growth to another level. Right now I have a new lead magnet on the hundred dollar MBA which is actually pretty meta. It's actually a set of templates to create your own lead magnet. Lead magnets are hard to create, sometimes design come up with. So we created them for you in Canva and we're offering you the templates for free. Whether it's a guide, whether it's a cheat sheet, a checklist, we got Four templates inside that you can just basically copy and paste. Change your logo, change the colors and make it your own. This is a huge time saver and people pay money for these templates. People sell these templates on design websites. We took the time to create our own templates and offer them for free to you. So that's what I mean by compelling something that people are willing to pay money. Now you know your own business, you know your own products, services, you know your audience. You need to think about what is something they would be willing to pay for. But I'm just going to offer it to them for free so I can get their email address. So that's part one. One more tip about part one. Don't overwhelm yourself and offer several lead magnets. A lot of businesses spread themselves too thin and they create three or four or five different lead magnets and they pop them everywhere on their website and they hope that that helps them grow their emails faster. In my experience, I find it that it confuses visitors, it confuses people. They don't know if they opt in, does it mean they're opting in again? Are they going to get double emails? My advice is to create one compelling lead magnet and put it everywhere. Okay, One compelling lead magnet that your ideal customer would love to have focus on that. Drive all the traffic there. And that leads me to part two of creating a compelling lead magnet. And that is driving traffic. You have a great lead magnet. It's on your website. People want it now. You got to get people to it. You got to get people exposed to it. So I want to start with low hanging fruit. How you can get free traffic to your lead magnet easily. Number one, your website. Put it on your homepage. Don't bury it in your blog or in your side menus or whatever it is. Put it on the homepage if you can. Above the fold, before need, people scroll. Because at the end of the day, if they're coming to your website and they don't give you their email address, there's no way for you to go back and contact them. So put the lead magnet up and front and center again. You could put it in your blog, at the bottom of the blog post on the side menu. Lincoln bio. Make your lead magnet the link in bio. Make it the signature on all your emails. Pin it as a pin post on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Facebook, whatever it might be. It's gotta be front and center. Anytime anybody's exposed to your business or your brand, it should be right there. So it's easy for them to see it and be like, wow, this is pretty cool. Let me sign up. Go. It should be the first thing they do when they interact with your brand. Capitalize on the traffic you're already getting by putting it front and center.

[Narrator]

Race the rudders, race the sails. Race the sails.

[Omar Zenhom]

Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.

[Narrator]

Roger, wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Omar Zenhom]

Next. How else will you drive traffic to it? Well, anytime you have a call to action, anytime. I'm talking about the end of your emails now I know you might be thinking in your emails. Aren't they already on your email list? Why would they sign up again? Doesn't matter. Get them to experience this amazing thing you created because they're going to tell other people about it. They're going to forward it, they're going to share it. When you're on a podcast being interviewed, got anything to tell the audience? Yes, I do. Check out my free course. Check out my free template. Here's the link and give it a pretty link, an easy link for them to listen to and remember. Forget about your product right now. What you want to do is send them here first. People don't buy straight to your product. A lot of people think, oh, check out my product, check out my products, check out my services. No. Say, hey, if you want to learn more about me and what we do, check out this thing, this thing that I'm going to give you for free. That is low hanging fruit that's so easy for you to sign up for. That's not going to cost you a dime, that you're going to absolutely love and you're going to really build trust with me through that process. Here you go. That's what you start them with. Now if you want to put some fuel to the fire. Paid ads, Paid acquisition. Now, paid acquisition can take many forms. It can be typical like Facebook ads, Instagram ads, TikTok, that type of thing. Or it could be advertising on podcasts, it could be sponsoring newsletters, it could be banner ads. My only advice is to stick to online advertising, something that's consumed on the Internet. Why? Because it's easy to get somebody who's online to stay online and go to your page where they can opt in for your lead magnet. Outside of online flyers, events, sponsoring a conference or something like that, they're not bad forms of advertising, but it's not really a driver to grow your email list quickly. Why? Because it's more of a brand awareness type of advertising. Because one, it's hard to measure to see how many people have converted from a certain digital real estate like Facebook ads, number one, because it's hard to measure to see if they converted from, you know, a sign they saw at an event or a table or booth that they visited. It's easier to track this when it's in the digital world. When you can track it off Facebook ads, you can track it through clicks on an email newsletter, through UTM links and tracking links, all that kind of stuff. If you want to start somewhere very quickly, I highly recommend Facebook lead ads. These are actual ads that collect the lead right in Facebook, so they never leave Facebook. And it's easy to kind of get customers to sign up for your lead magnet there. You're going to have to deliver the lead magnet in a different way because you're on Facebook, but that's an easy fix. That's the technicality they can easily work out. I've done a million times, and it's fantastic because you can get leads pretty cheaply. You can get people signing up for email cheaply, especially if you have a compelling lead magnet. Carol, I hope that helped answer your question. 2 parts. Create a compelling lead magnet that people be willing to buy, but you're giving it away for free. And two, drive massive traffic to it. Make it the only thing you point people to. And then if you want to put fuel to the fire, put some money behind it. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you got a question you want to ask here on Q and A Wednesday, go ahead and email me over at [e-mail] if you love this podcast. If you found this episode useful, the best way to support the show is to subscribe or follow the show right now on your favorite podcast app. By doing that, you get our next episode automatically and you tell the little algorithm, hey, this show is all right. Thank you in advance for doing that for us. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Creating a compelling lead magnet takes time. It takes thought, it takes deliberation. This is a thing that you should invest a lot of effort in. It's really important. You want to nail it. You want to make sure it's great. This is like an artist releasing their first single off their new album. It's going to knock their socks off and make them say, this is amazing. What else does this person have? What other songs are on this album? I want to buy the whole thing. Now, I know we don't buy albums anymore because of our dear friend Spotify, but you get the point. Make a hit. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Friday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

[Narrator]

And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from Snails just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.

[Ryan Reynolds]

His next meeting is in two minutes.

[Narrator]

The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time? He's going for it. Is that his phone? He's snapping a pic. He's texting around.

[Omar Zenhom]

Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.

[Narrator]

That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

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