The Rule Of Seven is a marketing adage that states most people typically don’t purchase until they’ve come across an offer seven times.
This, of course, varies depending on other factors but the important thing to understand is that if you drive traffic to your offer you have to be prepared for customers not to buy.
And when that customer doesn’t buy, you must have steps in place to still potentially sell to them or risk losing them altogether.
That is where email marketing and list building become of the utmost importance in your business.
Yes, yes, say what you want about emails being archaic, they are still the #1 communication channel for marketing, one that carries a $38 return for every $1 spent.
In today’s post, I’m going to go over the benefits of building an email list and give you a step by step guide on how to build an email list, effectively.
By the end of the post, you will be fully equipped with the information needed to create and automate your own email list, to where it is making you money in your sleep.
What are email marketing and Email list building?
Email Marketing
If I were to give you the simple definition of email marketing, it is the use of email to promote your products or services.
But, even more, email marketing is a strategy used to develop relationships with potential customers or clients.
The overall purpose of email marketing is to facilitate the commercial aim of your business, whether that be to make money or to simply foster loyalty
Email List Building
It is difficult to talk about email marketing without mentioning list building, which is the act of growing your mailing list by collecting your audience’s email addresses.
Mind you, Email marketing and, therefore list building, is a form of permission-based marketing, meaning that you must get consent from your audience before emailing them information.
There are easy ways to go about building your email list, however, most of the time they are unethical. You must gather emails by legitimate means, which I will show you how to do below.
Why is email marketing so important?
As I stated earlier, email marketing has been around for quite some time, but this is because it’s extremely important for your business.
Experienced affiliate marketers will tell you that list building is something you should definitely be doing, this is for several reasons:
1. You can still sell to people who aren’t ready to buy after the first interaction:
Not everyone who comes across your offer will be so quick to give you their money. They might not be ready to buy when they first visit you. However, given that you stay engaged with them, they might be ready at a later time.
2. You can potentially make multiple sales from a subscriber over time:
With a proper autoresponse sequence in place, you can recommend more than one product that meets your customer’s needs.
Plus, If a customer has already bought a product you recommended, they are more likely to buy something else later down the road.
3. You create trust with your subscribers:
Say you and a competitor sell the same product that reaches a similar audience. Your subscribers are more likely to buy from you, over someone else, because they trust you and your recommendations. This trust is important for maintaining customers over time.
4. You can direct people back to your content:
Instead of hoping that someone will land upon your content, if you have an email list, you can send out a blast email and notify your subscribers whenever you post new content. This is ideal for giving your new material faster exposure every time you post.
5. You can introduce your audience to other products:
Perhaps you have other products you haven’t had a chance to review on your site yet. With an email list, you can still monetize those offers by writing a quick email promoting that particular product. This takes way less time than it would take to write an entire article on a product and waiting for it to rank in the search engines.
6. You can sell to a wider range of people:
once again, not everyone will buy your product the first time they encounter it. This is because everyone is at a different stage in their buyer’s journey.
With your email list, however, you can tailor your products based on where customers are in their buyer’s journey.
Instead of introducing your newest subscribers to your most expensive product, you can warm them up first to other free gifts and offers. This gives you the chance to sell to a wider audience.
Important Note: The key to keeping subscribers in your email list is not to constantly spam their inboxes with offers. This can get old extremely quick and often leads to more harm than good.
You always want to provide value to your customers first; this is the most important thing. If your subscribers get the sense that you are merely trying to force products their way they will run for the hills, and rightfully so.
3 Stages of the Email Marketing Sales Funnel
Like any marketing funnel, an email sales funnel consist of the stages you want your potential customers to go through, to turn them into buyers.
When creating your email sales funnel you should have a few specific goals in mind:
- Building a relationship with your subscribers
- Educating your potential buyers on the benefits of your product or service
- Steering your contacts towards making a purchasing decision
Following up with your email list can seem pretty labor-intensive, but You can make this process simple, using marketing automation tools like autoresponders.
With an autoresponder, you can drip-feed your emails to your subscribers. Every subscriber you get will start at the beginning of your pre-built “sequence”, and receives emails at pre-determined times set by you, automatically.
(Hang on till the end and I’ll show you the service I use to make this automation process crazy simple)
First Stage: Value
Have you ever searched a page and after a few second gotten a pop-up message that says something like this
This is the value stage. This is where most affiliate marketers get people to sign up for their email list, by offering a free “gift”. In this example, the free gift is a “free email marketing checklist.”
The technical name of this free gift is known as your lead magnet; it’s an offer you provide to your customers in exchange for their information.
Lead magnets work exceptionally well because most people like free stuff and feel that an email is a fair compromise in order to receive a free item.
Offering helpful sources to your customers helps you build trust with your subscribers. Earning a lead’s trust is the first step in the right direction because people will only buy from you after they trust you.
It is important to remember that there is no selling in your first email. You purely want to provide value to your customers.
Second Stage: Lead Nurturing
Once you have delivered value to your subscriber, it is now time to officially introduce them to your brand and your products.
The goal of the lead nurturing stage (aka the authority stage) is to tell your customers the most important aspects of your brand and to present yourself as a thought leader in your niche.
In this stage, it’s important to not sound promotional. You want your customers to feel like they made the right choice by choosing your brand and they can only do that if they know what you stand for, and understand what makes you different from everyone else.
You want to further nurture and provide value to your customers, through articles, case studies, whitepapers, etc. Not only will sharing content help authorize yourself, but it will also help your audience see you as the person to solve their problems
It is important you remain authentic and never mislead your email subscribers. You can do this but avoiding misleading subject lines or posting emails with clickbait info.
Also, if you have social media communities for your business, invite your subscribers to join so they can connect with other people who share their interests.
Third stage: Call-to-action
Once you reach stage three, if everything has been done properly, you have:
- delivered value to your customer
- established yourself as an authority
- helped your lead learn more about your brand and your products
- explained the perks of buying from you
Now, it is time to promote your product! Some of the best email copies in this stage include messages promoting discounts, coupons, and upcoming deals concerning your products.
Because you know the problems your audience face at this point, it is key to provide a list of benefits for your buyers. Help them understand how your product or service can solve their issue.
Some important things to include for boosted credibility is:
- links to the FAQ page
- customers’ testimonials and reviews
- social media links for social proof
Overall your offer email doesn’t’ have to be lengthy; emails that are short, catchy and direct can do the trick.
Odds are that your audience isn’t reading your email copy word for word anyways.
Once your subscriber has completed the buyer’s journey, moving from a stranger, to lead, to a customer, make sure to thank them for doing business with you. It is important to maintain engagement with them to encourage their return for the future.
The four necessities Of Building Your Own Email List
Okay so we have talked about the three stages to the email funnel which is nice but I m sure you would like to know how you can make your very own sales funnel.
After all, knowing the methods is only half the battle. Being able to put it into practice is the other.
So, here, I’m going to provide you with the 4 things you absolutely need in order to get your sales funnel up in running. Most of the steps come down to personal preference but you are going to want to follow me in this particular order:
- The Lead Magnet
- The emails
- A Signup Form
- A “Thank You” / Download page
- Your Autoresponder
Necessity 1: The Lead Magnet
As I stated earlier, the lead magnet is your free gift offered to encourage people to sign up for your email list. Although you can get away with not offering anything, you will find that you don’t get as many sign-ups that way. So for the sake of good practice, offer something.
The Ingredients to a good lead magnet
Your lead magnet can be anything of your choosing. But remember, the success of your email list hinges on whether people sign up or not.
Therefore, make sure your lead magnet is …
#1: Something interesting or exciting
Nobody is going to sign up to receive a free gift that sounds boring. You want to make sure your lead magnet is something that creates interest or curiosity.
Which of the two offers are you more willing to sign up for?
- “My 10-step checklist to take you from 0 to $10,000/month”
- “ Passive income training Tips”
Option one makes a big promise and as a subscriber, you want to see If I’m able to deliver on that promise.
Option two is rather vague and doesn’t seem to pique any interest.
#2: Related to your niche and broadly appealing
When thinking about your lead magnet offer, ask yourself “Does it relate to my target audience?”
To use an example: If I am in the passive income / make money online niche, I am going to want to provide an offer that pertains to that topic.
For obvious reasons, I wouldn’t provide my audience with a guide on “How to lose 10 pounds in 10 days” just for the sake of offering something.
I have to consider my audience, the troubles they are having, and offer something worthwhile.
Chances are if they stumble upon my website, they are someone looking for passive income opportunities or new entrepreneurs ready to start their online business.
Perhaps they could stand to lose a few pounds but in this instance that is not what they are interested in.
#3: The Cover of your lead magnet should look professional
The last thing you want to happen is to have a customer not sign up because your offer looks ugly. Whether it’s a pdf, article, or ebook, a lead magnet should look professional.
Between the two choices below one looks like a real book while the other looks like a flyer that was produced using PowerPoint 2003 on your computer.
When determining where to find good cover design, I recommend you look at outsourcing sites like Fiverr. ( You can check out all of Fiverr’s other outsourcing option—>Here)
There you can have a graphic designer create a professional-looking cover for cheap. However, if you are more on the crafty side, you can also design it yourself.
Where to Get Your Lead Magnets
Questions I get frequently are where to get lead magnets. After all, not all of us are going to create a pdf, article or ebook just for the sake of giving it away for free.
The best places to check are private label right (PLR) databases. All of the PLR products available can be rebranded and repurposed by you and offered as your own.
Once again, not all the covers look high quality, so its best to redesign them to fit your brand.
Necessity 2: The email
Of course, you need the actual emails you will be sending to your subscribers. The goal of the email is to provide value to your customers, not spam their inbox with promotions.
I have further broken down the emails into the three types so you can get an idea of what each email should consist of:
1st Email Type: The “Day One” email
This is the email constructed during the lead nurturing stage mentioned earlier. The objective here is to provide value and only that.
Because it is the first email your subscriber receives, it is probably the easiest one to write.
Here is a good example of a “Day One” email
2nd Email Type: The information email
Remember, Stage 2 in the Email Marketing Sales funnel is Lead Nurturing. This is also where there your initial Information Emails will be.
This again is where you present yourself as an authority in your niche. The content you provide in “The Information Email” should be stuffed chalked full of heavy content, the kind of stuff that builds your credibility and shows you are trustworthy.
When constructing Information emails, you want to avoid fluff and filler content that doesn’t add specific value to your subscriber.
Even though you are there to provide valuable information, it’s best to maintain a conversational tone with your reader. You can still be the authority in the niche while still being laid back.
Because “Information Emails” will make up the bulk of the emails you send, they will also span into Stage 3 of your email marketing funnel, The-Call-To-Action.
This means gradually, you want to include soft sales in your Information Emails.
In the later stages, every information email should contain one short paragraph at the top and bottom of the email that soft sells products that relate to that day’s topic.
Here is an example of how an Information Email should look
3rd Email Type: The quick-fire promo
The last email type is the quick-fire promo. Compared to the information email, this email is designed to be short simply to get the subscriber to click through to the product you’re promoting.
But, because your readers expect quality content from you, they are more likely to click through the link you provide to get that quality information.
Here is what The quick-fire promo email should look like
How many emails do you need?
While there is no hard and fast rule to how many emails you should have prepared, you should have enough written so that you can send at least 2 – 3 emails per week, for at least three months.
I know that sounds like a lot but the more you build your list, in the beginning, the more you create a sequence that doesn’t have to be touched. This is how you truly have your business left on autopilot.
Mark Ling, the founder of Affilorama, came up with a complete guide to help marketers structure the order of their email list. If you follow his guide, I think you will see how effective a proper email sequence can be
Necessity 3: A Signup Form
Once you have your extensive email sequence set up, you have to connect it to your website through a Signup form.
How to create a Signup Form
There are several email marketing software available for you to use, all of which have form building capabilities. Perhaps the best free options are WP Forms and HubSpot’s free form builder.
If you merely want to build a form and don’t care too much about customization options then they are perfect. Of course, to get the most out of their form building features, you will have to pay.
The form builder I use is ConvertKit and that is because it has multiple email marketing tools I find useful. I will show you how easy it is to build a form on the ConvertKit platform.
Although other form builders might be a bit different, I’d assume they are just as simple
Step 1: Login and Select Landing Page and Forms
Step 2: Select Create New
Step 3: Choose How You Want To Gather Subscribers
I chose form for no reason other than I want to embed it on my website. If you look at my sidebar you will actually see the form right there.
The only difference between a form and Landing page is that landing pages are their own page and contain their own signup.
They are hosted by the email marketing platform you use (in this case, ConvertKit).
Step 4: Choose The Form Display
This is where you decide how the form will appear on your website. The decision is completely up to you and I wouldn’t say there is one set display that is better than the others.
I, however, used the Inline display because I like how easy it is to paste in different sections of my site. I have also found it works best with my site’s theme.
Step 5: Choose Your Template
Once again, there is no “right” choice you can make in this step.
Simply go with the template that you find best matches your needs and site layout. You will be able to customize the template to any way you like in the next step.
Step 6: Design You Template
Step 7: Save and Embed Form
This where you get the code for your form, allowing for you to place it anywhere on your website. It really doesn’t get easier than that.
Necessity 4: A “Thank You” Page & Download Page
Once someone enters their email into your sign up form, there are two places they can be redirected from there.
“Thank You” Page:
This is a redirection page that tells people that they’ll get an email shortly and that they should go and check their email inbox.
Typically, a “Thank You” page is used for “double-opt-in” purposes. People will have to confirm their email address before they receive your “free gift” This is a good idea if you want to prevent people from entering a random email address.
Accessing the “Thank You” page option can be done from the settings tab, on the form page. From there, you can choose the message that will appear for your customers.
All “Thank You” Pages look different but generally they all look something like this
Download Page:
If using “Double Opt-In” this is the page that your subscribers are sent to once they click the link in their email to confirm their email address. However, if you choose to use single opt-in, your customer will be brought straight to this page after submitting the form
Necessity 5: Your Autoresponder
I have mentioned a few times in this article the fact that email marketing can be turned into an automated process. This is accomplished with an Autoresponder.
An autoresponder is a key to having your email list work for you passively. It is a tool that captures your subscribers’ email addresses, directs them to the free report, and drip-feeds your entire email sequence to them over time.
Most email marketing tools have an autoresponder but they usually can only be used with a subscription.
Which autoresponder you use is purely based on your own personal preference. Popular ones include Aweber, ConvertKit, GetResponse, and Mailchimp.
Here is a quick video of how email automation works through the ConvertKit platform
Final Thoughts and Wrap Up
If you have stuck with me this long then today you have learned not only the power of building an email list but also how important it is for new affiliate marketers just starting out.
Regardless of what niche or industry you are or the kind of website you have, if you wish to turn visitors into customers, an email list is vital.
Despite what others may have you believe, Emailing is, by far, the most effective communication platform between you and your audience.
As a new business owner, put yourself on the right path by using the email marketing strategies in this article.
Once you see the potential of email marketing, you will be asking yourself why you didn’t think about building your email list sooner.
As always, If you have comments or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to hearing how successful your email list becomes.