5 Ways to Organically Grow Your Email List

5 Ways to Organically Grow Your Email List

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

PREFER TO WATCH, INSTEAD OF READ? I’VE GOT YOU BOO.
SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH A QUICK VIDEO!

---

You absolutely need an email list if you are an online business owner, marketer and/or course creator. 

However, the question always comes up on HOW to actually grow your email list. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, be sure to check out this blog post where I talk more about the list building process.

Let’s break down our options for list building.

Option #1 - Paid traffic. This looks like paid Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, LinkedIn and Instagram ads. You can also through in Google Advertising if you’re feeling ambitious.

Option #2 - Purely Organic. Relying on social media (primarily) to drive free traffic to your email list.

Option #3 - A combination of both!

Personally, I love using paid ads to grow my list, but not all the time. In fact, 6 months out of the year I turn off my ads and test organic (free) strategies. Organic list building STILL WORKS and if you’re just starting out it might be your only option.

I’m sharing 5 of my favorite ways to organically grow your list (+ 2 additional tips in the video below). Skip straight to the video to watch all seven right now!

1. USING INSTAGRAM STORIES TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

500 million people a day are hanging out on IG Stories. I get it if you don’t love Instagram, I also have a love/hate relationship with the platform, but you can’t deny that it is an effective marketing tool for almost every single audience. The key is finding the right way to use Instagram and for me it’s all about Stories.

Make sure your consistently showing up for your community and work your freebie promotion into your content at least 2-3 times a week. I create specific images in Canva that I can post or sometimes I’ll make a video talking about the free give. To expand your reach outside of your existing community be sure to use hashtags and tagging specific locations. This allows your content to be seen by people not in your network.

P.S. Don’t allow the lack of the swipe up feature to keep you stuck. I don’t have the swipe up feature and my promotion still works like a charm. Just be super clear that you want them to grab their freebie with the link in your bio. 

2. USING YOUR WEBSITE TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

Using your website and more specifically a pop up on your website is an amazing strategy. As your social media game expands and you harness resources like SEO and Pinterest you’re going to notice your traffic is increasing - the last thing you want to do is lose those possible leads. A pop is an immediate way to give a free gift to your community and in return get their name and email address to add to your list.

You can play with both a pop up that triggers when someone lands on your website (blog) or an exit-intent pop up which will trigger as they are about to leave. See which performs best for your audience and watch the subscribers come in.

3. CONTENT UPGRADES AND SEO TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

Yes, I know we just chatted about websites, but we’re not done yet. I’m a big fan of using SEO, we started using it in the beginning of my business and as a result Google is our number one traffic provider to my website today. You’ll want to embrace blogging for this one and really focus on titles that are specific to your audience and what they are searching for. This will help drive more traffic to your website organically.

Then obviously, you followed step 2 above and have a pop up, but now we can increase your conversions with content upgrades. Content upgrades can be existing free offers or specific “next steps” you make for that blog post. I like to share my content upgrades as a banner, footer or even within the blog itself..

Example: If I’m writing a blog post on The Three Fundamentals of Creating a Strong Brand, within the blog I might have a call to action for them to watch my free masterclass where I’m sharing three must-know branding secrets.

4. USING GUEST FEATURES TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

Getting featured on someone else’s platform is one of the coolest things you can do for your business because ultimately you’re increasing brand awareness. Let’s say I’m going on my friend Suzy’s podcast, well Suzy’s audience already trusts her and they will trust me by default. 

Now how do you use it to grow your email list? Always have a link to your freebie ready to rock and roll. Often times they will ask you what you want to promote and rather than promote a paid service, to people who kind of know you, I suggest offering your freebie. The goal is to build a relationship with them and your email list is a great place to do just that.

5. COLLABORATIONS TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

In the beginning, I did this all the time and it worked like a charm. You can either choose to be part of someone else’s collaboration or get a group of friends together to start your own. These can look like Summits, Interview Series, Bundled Giveaways, etc…

What happens with collaborations is that everyone participating shares the opportunity with their community, so it expands your reach a lot quicker than just relying on social media. You can either share all email addresses as a group, or have each member give a freebie that requires an opt in and it works the same way!

Ready for 2 more tips? I’m sharing the bonus tips in the video below. Just skip to minute 8:10 in the video!

Don’t forget to sign up for my branding masterclass where I’m sharing The Build a Better Brand Method. Get signed up at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Build an Online Community through Emotional Branding

How to Build an Online Community through Emotional Branding

June 19, 2019

PREFER TO WATCH, INSTEAD OF READ? I’VE GOT YOU BOO.
SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH A QUICK VIDEO!

---

Want to know the secret to a bold, captivating and money-making brand?

One that makes it easier to build an online community of fans who are invested in your brand and has your audience wanting more and eager to invest in what you are offering?

It’s all about Emotional Branding and it’s my secret weapon that has allowed me to create a community of thousands and a 6-figure cash business completely online.

Today I’m sharing:

• What emotional branding is and why it’s so powerful

• What you need to know in order for it to work effectively online

• What the emotions of your brand impact (hint: it’s centered around your marketing and ability to stand out online).

• How to go even deeper with my favorite tool and resource that you ALREADY possess.

THE POWER OF EMOTIONAL BRANDING

People buy based on emotion. In fact, a Harvard study reported that, “Emotion is what really drives the purchasing behaviors, and also, decision making in general.”

Emotion is the #1 decision-maker when it comes to making a purchase decision, so if you’re solely focused on the logistics of your offer and aren’t going a level deeper to connect with your audience you’ll miss out every single time.

If your social media posts are falling flat, look at emotion.
If your offers aren’t selling, look at emotion.
If your sales calls aren’t ending in a sale, look at emotion.

It plays a role in everything you create so the first thing you need to do is identify which emotions you want to portray through your brand.

Because by having a strong emotional component to your marketing and selling efforts (i.e. your brand overall) you’ll be able to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones - leading to better conversions and brand loyalty overall.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR IT TO WORK

It might seem easy to just pick 5 words that you want your audience to feel, but there is actually more to it. It’s not just about how YOU want your audience to feel, but also what your audience WANTS to feel.

This is where knowing your audience comes into play. You can do market research around this, in fact I always suggest it, but even just having simple conversations with your ideal client will give you a glimpse into what they desire.

It comes down to desire here - making your audience feel something they WANT. We call this aspirational branding in the industry and it’s the key to branding that attracts and converts your audience into life-long fans.

Think of how your audience wants to feel and then bottle that up into 5 key words. By identifying and connecting to where your audience wants to be, you provide hope for what’s to come, making your brand more magnetic.

This will inspire your next steps - the aesthetics.

WHAT THE EMOTIONS IMPACT

So many entrepreneurs make the mistake in the beginning by focusing on the aesthetics BEFORE they’ve done the story work and identified their brand emotions, but not you right?

But, if you did do it early on and are feeling disconnected from your brand it’s not too late to tie in these tips. Take your emotions and start to select visuals that showcase these feelings. Think the colors, fonts, elements and photos to start.

I have a lot of designer friends and each one of them will tell you that if you come to them with a clear idea of who you are, who your audience is, your key messaging AND how you want your audience to feel, then will be able to deliver a better product in the end.

Aesthetics are just the tip of the iceberg here and will get you comfortable with playing with the deeper level of emotional branding, but we don’t have to stop there.

From the aesthetics we can more into the messaging and content creation of your brand - yep all centered around emotion AND your sales pages (now that’s the fun part)!

When you go the extra step your brand will expand! You’ll stand out on social media, separate yourself from others in your industry and create a community of true fans.

HOW TO GO DEEPER

Another layer of Emotional Branding is the use of story in every single piece of your business. From your brand mission to brand aesthetics to the content you create and the programs you offer, story is the key.

Story allows you to continuously connect with your audience, making them feel seen, heard and understood - which is so important.

And to top it all off, posts with story are 22x more memorable than ones without.

If you want to learn more about identifying your brand story head to this blog here.

---

JOIN ME for a FREE MASTERCLASS.

The Build a Better Brand Masterclass is for female entrepreneurs ready to stand out on social media, create high-value content and build a community that leads to a revenue-generating business.

---

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

---

4 Tools to Build Your Email List From Scratch

4 Tools to Build Your Email List From Scratch

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

PREFER TO WATCH, INSTEAD OF READ? I’VE GOT YOU BOO. SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH A QUICK VIDEO!

---

If the idea of building an online community seems overwhelming this blog is for you.

The concept of a community and more importantly an email list is only getting more important.

Social media has become crowded so how do you give your true fans an opportunity to go a step further and say, “Yes, I need more of that in my life!”

It all lies in building a personal community and tribe and it’s totally possible if you’re starting from SCRATCH - ZERO. We all started there too!  

1. KNOW THY AUDIENCE

You need to of had conversations (i.e. market research) to pinpoint what your audience is struggling with and what you can create to meet an immediate need. You need to know where your audience is at, the number one thing they are struggling with and what they need in this moment.

This will allow you to create a free gift in exchange for, you guessed it, their email address.

Example: Research shows my audience struggles with creating content that consistently allows them to create brand awareness.

2. FREE GIFT

This can be delivered in various forms - pdf, video, webinar, masterclass, video series, challenge, audio. The main point here is WHAT you deliver needs to provide value. Please don't half ass this - it's your opportunity to do a few things - meet a need, show your expertise and build trust.

Again if I'm playing on my audience's struggle I could create a content calendar that helps them organize their content and my #1 strategy for coming up with consistent content.

I did this by the way, grab yours at brandmerry.com/contentcalendar.

3. EMAIL PLATFORM/ LEAD COLLECTION

My go to is Convertkit because it's an all in one platform for collecting leads and emailing them. Another option although a little more expensive is Kajabi.

Try both for free with the links above and if you want to see my entire opt in process in action by signing up for my free Content Calendar.

4. ADVERTISE YOUR FREE GIFT!!

You do not need to put money towards this in the beginning. I’m planning a future blog post about some of my favorite organic ways to grow your list so stay tuned, but here are a few to get you started.

Link your opt in page on Instagram and share in your feed, in Instastories and make an IGTV video that promotes your free gift.

It can be super overwhelming building your list in the beginning and it's going to take some time so the secret is in the consistency.

Want to grow your list by 100 people in a month, that's 3-4 new subscribers every day. How can you do that? Get creative? And show up every single day talking about your free gift!

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

Meet Michelle

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

List building 101: What you need to start building a community

List building 101: What you need to start building a community

11/29/18

List building is the #1 thing I see entrepreneurs missing out on. So today, I want to share with you exactly what you need to start building your lists and some of the mistakes I see entrepreneurs make when it comes to list building.

I’ve found that it doesn't really matter what stage you’re in, list building is key. I teach it in my membership site, my signature program Roadmap to Freedom and even my high-level mastermind.

If you are relying on a social media platform to build your community, you could be in trouble. You don’t own your social media platforms, but you do own your list.

Even if you’re product based, or you mostly do in person, you still need a list. It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, you need to have a list. What I’m talking about today is an evergreen webinar strategy. A strategy that keeps growing your list even when you’re not actively promoting.

What is Needed to Start Building Your List

1. You have to know your audience

You can’t create anything if you do not know your audience but it’s extra important when it comes to list building because you are tying to attract people that will ultimately buy from you.

2. A free offer

You need to create a free offer that will pull in your ideal audience. You need to have some sort of gift to get people on your list. They’re not going to sign up for no reason at all. This could be an e-book, a video series, a discount code, a checklist, etc.

3. A landing page

This is the place where they opt-in for your free offer. This is where you get the actual email address for your list. There are so many options for landing pages right now. I use Leadpages in my own business, but another option is built-in landing pages on your email marketing platform or custom landing pages on your own website. There are paid and free options, which mean there’s no excuse!

Related post: 4 Must-Haves for a High-Converting Landing Page

4. Email platform

You need an email marketing platform to actually send emails to your list. My favorite is ConvertKit. A free option is MailChimp, which again, there’s no excuse for not doing this!

5. Automation

This is the sequence, funnel or email series that will go out to your new leads. A really simple funnel to start with is:

1. The Welcome Email - Introduce your business and give them the free gift they opted in to

2. 24 hours later - Introduce yourself

3. Share your super power - give them value, share tips about what you know

This funnel is warming up your leads, starting the relationship with them.

6. Promotion

Talk about your freebie all the time! Put the link everywhere you can. You don’t have to put ad money behind it, and I actually encourage you to test it organically for at least 2 weeks before even considering ads. I recommend promoting your freebie at least 3 times per week. Actively put it out into the world. You absolutely do not need ads, but you can if you want after you’ve tested your offer.

The #1 mistake entrepreneurs make is assuming that everyone is just going to give them their email address. We need to treat the promotions of our free offers the same as the promotions for our paid offers.

Head over to my Facebook Page and be sure to like and comment on the video while you are over there to help more people see this information ↠ https://www.facebook.com/brandmerrycoaching/videos/268720923993543/

And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!

---

How to use quizzes to grow your list and online community

How to use quizzes to grow your list and online community

Seriously, how much fun is taking an online quiz? I mean think back to the quizzes we use to take in magazines with our girlfriends, I was obsessed!

Now imagine how excited I was when I discovered Interact and their ability to allow me to create quizzes for my biz. YES! What an amazing opportunity to provide your audience with something fun and engaging, while also helping you grow your business (hello lead generation).

Today I want to show you how freaking easy it is to create a quiz for your brand and business in just a few simple steps.

The Prework

Decide on a topic. This is an awesome opportunity for you to create a quiz that is in alignment with your brand mission, voice and ultimately leads your audience to a program you offer. Think of something that will give your audience a sample of what it would be like to work with.

Choose your results. You know I’m all about that reverse engineering and it’s super helpful when creating a quiz. Think of the different results you will have available for your quiz. Once you’ve gained clarity on them you can easily add them to your quiz platform.

Decide on your questions. I went old school with this one and wrote out all my questions and answers in a notebook. This helped me narrow it down to just 7 questions (the recommended number by Interact). You’ll want to map out the questions and answers and connect them to a specific result.

The Setup

I chose to work with the Interact platform to create my quiz, and so glad I did, it was so easy. I loved how simple it was to create, all the flexibility and integrations and the awesome help articles. Here’s a look at how I created my quiz in 7 easy steps.

Step 1: Your Brand Style

Any opportunity I have to create on brand content is right up my alley. During this phase, I added my brand fonts and colors so it seamlessly connected to my other content online.

Step 2: Your Cover Page and Photo

You have the flexibility to add a quiz title and description. I created my cover photo in Canva to match my brand.

Step 3: Your Results

The next step is to add in your results. You’ve already written these out so it should be super easy to just add them to the platform. You have the option to here to redirect your users to a landing page or keep them on the platform. I’ve shown you both below.

First, you’ll set up the name of your response and add in the cover photo and description below.

I wanted to host my results on my website, so all I had to do is create a new page on my Squarespace website and redirect the URL for each.

Step 4: Write Your Questions

Again, you’ll be really glad you did the pre-work here because it makes this process so easy. At this stage, you’ll enter in your questions for the quiz. You have the option to do text only answers or use images (I suggest a combination of both). You’ll repeat this step until all your questions have been entered.

Step 5: Link Your Responses

Once the questions have been entered you will go back and connect each answer to a result. This was so much fun because it makes this cool little spider web!

For each question, you go to “Edit Result Correlations” on the top right-hand corner.

Then select the circle next to your answer and the corresponding result.

Step 6: Integrate for List Building

This might be the best part about Interact; they integrate with all major email marketing platforms include my personal favorite Convertkit. The integration process was super easy.

1) Set up your opt-in form. Remember we are using this to build your list so this is super important.

2) Integrate your email marketing platform. I use Convertkit and absolutely love them.

3) Add in tags and forms based on the various results. I wanted to send an email recap of the user's results so I created one single form in Convertkit for “Brand Story Quiz” and separate sequences for each result.

Step 7: Test and Share

Now onto the final step, I told you this was easy!

The Interact platform has a bunch of options for sharing your quiz with the world and start growing your list with targeted leads. For my quiz, I opted to Embed on my landing page and add an announcement bar to my website.

To embed on a Squarespace website all you have to do is grab the embed code from Interact, create a new page in Squarespace and add the embed block.

Voila, you’ve got yourself a quiz lady!

I’m telling you with an easy platform like Interact you’ll be seeing more quizzed from me very soon. If you’re interested in exploring your options with Interact, just click here.

Remember quizzes do so much more than help you build your list, they also give your ideal client a better understanding of your brand and the work that you do while also providing value to your audience - which is what it’s really all about.

Discover Your Brand Story by testing out my Interact quiz: brandmerry.com/quiz

And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!

---

Michelle Knight is a Branding and Business coach for female entrepreneurs who are struggling to gain visibility and traction to take their business to the next level. She works with her clients to dive deep into their story so they can create a brand and message that positions them as an expert and allows them to create their desired income to free up time in their schedule for what matters most. Learn more >>