How to Build Your Email List For Free!

Email lists. They feel a little mystifying, don't they? I mean, you hear all the time that you need to be building your email list but when it comes down to it, it can feel overwhelming. And let's be honest... you're not even sure where to start!

This week, I'm breaking down exactly what you need to do to start your email list. Not only that, I'm sharing my personal tips and tricks to growing that list for free.

Before we dive in, I think it's important for you to understand why you want to build your email list. If we're adding one more thing to your to do list, it needs to be justified, right?

Here's the thing. You may be building your following up on Instagram or another platform. And that's great. You need a social following. But what happens if Instagram does down during a launch. Or what if it disappears altogether? This is why having an email list is so important!

You don't own your followers on any social platform. You have no way of connecting with them outside of that platform if it goes down. But that isn't the case with email marketing. However, getting people to give you their email address is a bigger ask than getting someone to follow you on Instagram.

So how do we get people to do that? The first thing that you're going to want is a lead magnet. You've heard this called an opt in or content upgrade, it's all the same. This is a freebie that you will give to someone in exchange for their email address. Sure, you could try to grow your email list by offering a newsletter but you're going to grow your list much faster if you have a freebie to offer.

Your freebie can be anything you want! You could offer an ebook, a PDF checklist, a workbook or even free training videos! They key to making sure that the freebie is successful is creating something that your audience wants. Once you know what you're going to create, you can use any number of programs to put it together. I highly recommend Canva for this.

Watch the video above for a tutorial on how I use Canva to create opt ins.

Okay, so you have your freebie, you've made it and you're wondering. How many do I really need? The best way to make the most of your opt in is to focus on just one at a time. You don't need to stress about creating a new opt in for every video or blog post you put out. Instead, focus on creating one great opt in and make that the focus of your calls to action.

Now that you have your opt in done, you're going to need a way to send it out without doing it manually. This is when your email marketing provider comes into play. No, we're not talking about gmail but instead a program that is designed to collect email addresses and allow you to email the people on your list. I recommend a program called ConvertKit.

ConvertKit makes it easy to create an email system that will work for you. You can create landing pages for your freebie right within the program and also have it set to automatically send your opt in out when someone signs up.

Once you've got people on your email list, what do you do with them? Easy! This is how you're going to really connect with your audience. You can literally just start sending them weekly newsletters updating them with your new blog posts or videos. That's exactly what I do each week.

Now that we've talked about the basics of starting your email list, let's talk about how we're going to get people on the list. Unfortunately, this isn't a simple case of build it and people will sign up. Instead, you have to promote your freebie!

You have to let people know that your freebie exists and why they need it. I recommend sharing your opt in about 50% of the time on YouTube. Remember, you want to play nice with YouTube and get people to binge on your content so you don't want to seen them away too often. However, you can mention your opt in once or a twice a month and also add the link to your description.

Another thing you can do is write a blog post and embed your sign up form right within the blog post. You can great Pins on Pinterest to get more people from Pinterest as well. Don't be afraid to add that link to your about section on YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms!