I want to talk about a topic that I have spoken about before, and the reason I'm talking about it again is because it is so important. That is List Building And Building Your Email Subscribers. 

As you know, when I interview guests, I always ask them if they go back in time and give their younger selves one piece of business advice, what would it be? Then, if I asked myself that question, it would be, “Hey, Rob, start building your email list sooner.” If you're still wondering why, maybe you spend a lot of time doing social media and that delivers some leads for you.

Just consider that when you build your list, you are building an asset in your business. When you are building your social media profile and followers, you're building an asset for someone else's business. That's what we're talking about in today's episode. A really important topic. I really hope you stick with me and let's get on with the show.

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Okay, on with today's show. 

Your ideal target customer is looking for you and it's your job to help them find the solutions that your agency offers. I'm sure you'll agree with this statement but how do you deliver on it? Well, a simple statement deserves a simple answer. The answer is you build and nurture your email list. Then, when your prospect is ready, you convert them into a client. That sounds so simple, right? But, let me ask you a question. Why is it that so many agencies and freelancers and businesses generally don't focus on building their email list?

I just want to share with you seven important facts about why building an email list is so important and so much more important than just solely focusing on social media as a different option. Here are seven (7) facts that I've researched when I was preparing for this episode, and they are quite striking. 

First of all, you're six times more likely to get higher click through rates, through emails that you send out instead of posting on social media. Then, an  email is 40 times more effective acquiring new customers than social media. 

Third, is that a really good regular email marketing campaign can generate up to 80% of your website's traffic. And then, of course, from there you can start engaging with your ideal target customer 

Fourth, this is so important that you own your email list whilst you rent your social media. That means with your email list, you are building a genuine asset in your business, whereas with social media, you're helping build someone else's business and building an asset for them. Also remember, because you own your list, you're in control of what happens to it but when you rent social media space, they can change their terms and conditions and how things operate.

That means that you could lose access to them. The example I've been using most recently is Donald Trump and his 100 million Twitter followers, or whatever the number was, and he'd lost all of those overnight. If he had been smart enough to encourage those people to join a mailing list, then he would still have a direct 1 to 1 relationship with those people, whereas I suspect he probably just lost all of those followers. 

The fifth stat I wanted to share with you is that email is the most scalable way to make sales with new customers and to build deeper relationships with those customers.

Sixth is that you can reach far more potential customers with email than you can with social media. Just remember that when you post on your social media dashboard you might even have, let’s say, 1000 followers. That doesn't mean your content is going to be shown to those 1000 followers. In fact, it's probably only going to be shown to about 2% of them. If they really engage, then the algorithm will show it to more people, whereas with email you're in complete control of how many people see your email.

Also of course, if you use email automation, then you can be really smart and really targeted. That means you can start to send very specific messages to specific groups of people. 

The last point is that for every £1 you invest on your email list, you can expect a return of £42.  Also, there just aren't many other platforms that you can get that kind of return on investment from.

 So, I hope that you agree with those stats and find them pretty compelling. They're not things that I've made up. They are things that I’ve researched in preparation for this episode and I hope that's making you think that email marketing should be on the top of your agenda if it isn't already.

As I said, I have focused on building my email list really in earnest for the last probably four or five years. However, I wish I'd started 20 years ago so that my email list would be 10 times the size of it. The matter is pretty simple here. if you've got 100 people on your list, then you might be able to convert one of them today. But, if you've got 1000 you can probably convert 10 of them. And then, if you've got 10,000, you can convert 100. Also, if you've got 100,000, you can convert 1000.

It's just a numbers game. We need to focus every single day on building our list and getting new ideal target customers or prospects to subscribe to our list. So far, during this podcast, I've been comparing either social media or email marketing. But of course, it's not one or the other. Smart marketing would do both. My recommendation to people is to use social media to drive traffic to your list or to a certain page on your website where they can download something. 

That kind brings me on to the next topic which is Email Marketing. I've tried to do this before, but I just can't grow my list. So, what do I need to do? Let me give you a few quick tips on exactly what you need to do. 

First of all, you need to go back to basics. Here, you need to have a clear niche. When you have a clear niche, you can identify exactly who your idol target customer is and what keeps them awake at night. What their core pains are that your product or service can help solve.

For example, if they are an e-commerce platform and you provide web development for e-commerce. Then, create something that is really simple for them to use and re-engaging for their customers. Easy to upload new products too and so on would be one of the things that they're really looking for. Maybe that's one of the pain points they have. 

Also, maybe you do SEO and PPC for e-commerce. One of the pains that your audience has is that they're not getting enough eyeballs on their e-commerce sites, so they're not making enough sales.The pain that you can solve is driving more traffic to their e-commerce platform, 

You need to have a clear niche so you can define exactly who your ideal target customer is. Then, you can identify some of the core pain points that they have that your production service can solve. And then, you can create a really compelling piece of content and you're going to make this gated content. In other words, they have to fill in a form to give you their name and their email address then, you will send them that piece of content that leads to a magnet. 

That could be a PDF, video, checklist, template, quiz and a whole number of things. They're going to pay for this with their email address. Once you have their email address, it goes into your email automation software and you start communicating with them through the emails that you're going to send. Now, I recommend that you send emails every single week.  Then, you create a content schedule, so you know exactly what you're going to send.

One of the reasons for doing this is because you need to understand that your prospect is ready to buy when they are ready to buy, not when you want them to buy. Yes, of course, you've got to nurture them and nudge them along that buyer's journey. But, you need to understand that your buyer is ready to buy when they are ready to buy. They're ready to buy when they're in enough pain and they know that your product or service can solve that pain for them. That's why regular communications are really important.

That's why sending one off emails is going to do absolutely nothing. If you've done this in the past and you send sporadic emails and you're thinking, “Well, I've tried it before, Robin. It doesn't work.” It's because you're not doing it consistently. You need to be in your idol target customer's inbox every single week.

Now, it's not a big deal to do this if you have a content schedule so you know exactly what you're going to write, then it's not that hard to write your emails. It's much harder when you sit at your desk and you go, “Oh, I know I need to write an email.I listen to Rob's podcast and I agree with what he said, but I don't know what to write.” 

If you're in that scenario, you're much more likely not to do this than  if you've actually sat down and unconsciously created a schedule for the next two months. Then, the next eight emails that you're going to write, which, let's face it, isn't that difficult to come up with if you have a clear niche and you really understand your ideal target customer. 

There's four (4) types of emails that you're going to send. I'm not going to go into them in a tonne of detail today. I just wanted to introduce them to you.

There's the “Greet Email”. This is the email you send when someone first comes into your world. Then, there is the “Imprint Sequence of Emails”. These are the emails that you send to imprint on them your credibility and exactly what you do. Also, imprint on them that you understand them and the challenges they face. That's the imprint sequence. 

The next sequence is “Nurturing”. This is where you're moving your prospect down the buyer's journey to get to the point of taking the next step. Which might be booking a call with you or asking you to write a proposal and so on. And then, the fourth type of email is your regular weekly emails. These are your “Broadcast Emails”. 

So, there's four types of emails; Greet, Imprint, Nurture and Broadcast. You need to make sure that you have a balance of all of those four types.

At this point, I just want to reinforce the value of email marketing. I want to enforce it by telling you that I get, probably, 80% of my business through my email list. Of course, they hopefully listen to this podcast. They might look at stuff on my website. They might have attended one of my webinars. However, they will be on my email list and I will be staying in the front of my mind with them because they receive my weekly emails. 

Another reason for sending emails regularly is because human beings are like sand timers. Every time you communicate with your prospect, you refill the sand timer. If you don't communicate with them again before that sand timer runs out, then they'll forget about you and they'll go and buy from someone else when they are in enough pain.

You need to keep refilling the sand timer. One of the ways you do that is through your emails. If you're still with me, you will agree that building your list and sending really value added content is super important. Though, you may also think that you get this wrong, that you just haven't been successful before, you don't know where to start, or maybe your list growth has hit a brick wall.

 If that's the case, I hope you'll indulge me for just two minutes while I tell you about my new programme, which I have launched this week. I am super excited about it. This is called The Build, Nurture and Convert Blueprint. 

Basically, this programme gives you everything you need to get started or two rockets for sure, all the growth and conversion of an engaged email list. So, head over to dacostacoaching.dot.co.uk/email-marketing-course to read more. Of course, I'll put a link in the show notes. 

Basically, this programme takes you through everything from putting your systems in place to start with, putting the right email automation system in place and creating your lead magnet. That piece of killer content is going to get your ideal audience to download, creating a landing page or a sales page for that killer content. Then, creating your sequences of emails. As I said, using those four (4) different types. 

Once you've done nurturing those people so that you can then convert them into clients. What's really exciting about the programme, if you're listening to this Live, is that for the next seven days during our launch, you can get a 20% discount. It means you're just gonna pay £167 for the programme. That gives you lifetime access, including all new content in the future.

It's a bit of a no brainer to invest £167 and get your hand held through the entire process of setting up building and converting your email list into loyal raving clients. I'm even going to give you a complete sequence of emails. You simply need to tailor for your own product or service. Then you can plug it into your email system and you're ready to go now. 

There are two reasons why I put this programme together. First, obviously, I know how important it is to build your list and what a valuable asset that is for your business. Secondly, I know that a lot of agency owners struggle with this, and therefore they don't do it. So,I want to give you the kind of A to Z on exactly what you need to do to get going and then expedited by using some of the templates that I'm providing

Now, when you create your content, I've spoken about this many times before, you need to take a value first approach. Also, you need to make sure that the email content is providing 80% value and 20% selling because if all you did was make your emails sell, then people are going to quickly unsubscribe since they don't know if they can trust you. 

On the other hand, if all you do in your emails is provide value, then people will see you as a fantastic resource. However, they won't have a mindset of wanting to buy from you. Make sure you get that balance in your emails between 80% value and 20% selling. Again, in the Build, Nurture, Convert Blueprint, I outline exactly how to do that.

I hope if you made it this far that you are convinced about building your list. If you want some help with that, reach out to me in joining the programme. If not, please make sure that you start building your list. You create your eight weeks worth of content, so, you're emailing your list every week.

Also, if you're thinking that your audience might get fed up with you if you keep pestering them with an email. No, they won't.

If you are providing value, why on earth wouldn't your audience want to receive that value? What you're actually doing is building empathy with them because you're showing them you understand them and the challenges they have. You're building credibility by giving them some value. Starting to give them some of the solutions that they need to implement in order to overcome the pain that they have. 

Please don't think emailing your list once a week is too much. A lot of people email their list every day or three or four times a week. I'm not suggesting that but I'm suggesting once a week regularly. I've been doing this diligently for four (4) years now. A lot of you will be on my list and you know that I implement exactly what I'm outlining in today's podcast. 

I hope you found that useful. Another quick episode and it's touching on a topic that I've spoken about two(2) or three(3) times before. Maybe giving a slightly different angle to it in this episode. Sharing with you some really startling facts about why we need to be focused on our email list. I hope you're convinced and I hope that you are taking some actions away from today's episode to start building your list, start growing your list, or start regularly emailing your list if you already have one. 

If you found today's episode useful, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts because that helps me get in front of more people just like you, so I can help more people.

Have a great rest of your week and a great weekend. I will see you next Thursday for the next episode of The Agency Accelerator Podcast.