I could preach all day about the importance of starting an email list. I’m so thankful that I listened to my mentors back in 2012 and started my email list soon after I went full-time in my business.

But just saying “start an email list” is one thing. Actually starting one and getting people to voluntarily hand over their email address is a completely different thing.

So how do you actually find people for your email list?
How do you grow your email list without paying for ads?

These are the top 3 ways I grew my email list in 2019…

1. Participated in a giveaway

I was approached by Elle Drouin from Styled Stock Society to join her for her birthday giveaway where she was going to give away a bundle of resources for female entrepreneurs. We were each required to provide a free gift towards the bundle and share about it at least once with our social media followers and email list.

The reason this was such a great list building opportuntity was because the free gift we provided was setup behind an opt-in form so anyone who wanted access to the free gift would need to actually sign up for it.

There were also 3 other girls who were participating, who were sharing it with their audience, which meant it was a great opportunity to get in front of other people’s audiences.

This collaboration brought in over 1,000 new subscribers for me.

2. Participated in 2 virtual summits

In 2019, I participated in 2 virtual summits – the Rebel Boss Summit and the Optin Party Summit.

Both summits were very similar as far as what I was required to do…

• Provide a 30 minute training
• Share with my email list and social media followers

Virtual summits are a great list building opportunity because you can offer the summit attendees a free gift they need to opt-in for. I take it one step further by also adding a tripwire offer to the other side of my free gift to generate a bit of revenue from the summit, as well.

The great thing about virtual summits is you have anywhere from 10-30 speakers who are all sharing the summit with their audience, which again is a great way for you to get in front of their audience for free. Just make sure you have a juicy training title and deliver a great training and you’ll maximize the number of people signing up for your free gift.

3. Launched a free mini-course

When I re-launched my Irresistible Sales Page course in November, I wanted to try out a new lead gen idea so I decided to create a free mini course to prime my audience before I launched my course.

I created the Sales Page Success Secrets mini course, which was a great way to not only build my email list but funnel subscribers into the masterclass I was doing to launch my course.

The topics were perfectly aligned and when I went back to look at how many of my new students had also went through the mini course prior to signing up, it was around 74%, so I’d consider that a success.

I haven’t actually done much to promote this mini course outside of my own audience, but it’s something I’ll be doing more of once I get an evergreen funnel set up for my Irresistible Sales Page course.

2020 Plans

1. Host a live workshop

I’m going to be hosting a live workshop in February that will be both a list builder and revenue generator. I’ve never hosted a live workshop in this way before, so I’m really excited to play around with the format and see what happens.

One of the main reasons I want to host a live workshop is to test out a few ideas I have for future offers. Hosting a workshop first is going to give me a good idea of how interested people are in the topic before I spend a ton of time creating something new.

The strategy behind the workshop is something I’m still working on, but I’m definitely planning on doing something a little different because I’d like to eventually sell the workshop recording in the future.

2. Host a free challenge

I’m also planning on hosting a free challenge this year. I’ve never hosted a challenge and I really want to give it a shot.

I think it’s a great way to bring a group of people together to hyper focus on one specific outcome.

A challenge also has a much higher perceived value than say just a PDF, so you’re going to attract more people to a challenge than you would a PDF.

Right now, I’m just taking notes when I see someone else hosting a challenge doing something a little different. I think it’s so important to mix it up a little and find a way to put your own spin on everything you do, so that’s what I’m focused on now.

3. Participate in 3 summits

The summits I participated in last year were great list builders and added a little influx of revenue so I’m definitely looking to participate in more this year. I have a goal set for 3, but I’m open to doing more if they’re a good fit.

Putting this out there in the universe – if you have a summit and you’d like me to be a speaker, email me!

The great thing is that I now have a few training videos already created from past summits and trainings I’ve done inside my membership that I could easily repurpose for each of the summits so it take a lot less time on my end to prepare.

4. Be a guest on 10 podcasts

Because I was so focused on starting and growing my own podcast in 2019, I didn’t put any effort into being a guest on other people’s podcasts. Unless someone directly reached out to me asking if I’d be a guest on their podcast OR I had set up a podcast swap with one of my guests, I wasn’t doing more outreach than that.

This year I have a goal to be on 10 podcasts. I think podcasts are a great opportunity to get in front of new audiences, share your knowledge and offer a free gift to listeners to get them over to your email list.

This episode is brought to you by ConvertKit.

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