Own Your Audience; Week 1: Starting Your Email List

hint at we might have a giveaway, like you might want to stay connected, you know, just like give some teasers out there. You might want to follow along and then like you can obviously— I was also going to say we have like 1 minute. The meat of like our content is in our newsletter. So really just like selling that idea of like, hey, this is in our newsletter, in our lead magnet. So if you want— more information on that, sign up for our newsletter or sign up for our lead magnet. The Own Your Audience, like, actually, are we calling it a course? Are we calling it— is there an actual name for it?

Let's just say Own Your Audience Challenge. It's a challenge. It's a 4-day challenge.

Okay,

how about you do the intro? How about you lead this and like I'll answer questions and stuff? Like, you're really good at this. You should be more like in the spotlight. Like you just should. Is that okay?

Yeah, that's great. Um, I might just say like, hey Amanda, can you tell us like why email ownership is important? And then you just like do that section of like, oh, totally.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You can say like, here's how you can participate. And then,

yeah.

Yeah.

Think about if I was like on your podcast right now, you know, like you did the intro and then ask questions, right?

Yeah. All right, we're going live. Are you ready?

Yep, I'm ready.

Going live. Cool, we're live. We're going live across a couple different platforms. Welcome as we kind of get this connected, make sure it's going good. Welcome, welcome. Cool.

Happy Friday, we made it.

Happy Friday, we made it. Holy cow. Welcome, welcome. We're just letting people trickle in and join and make sure everything is going good. Drop me a comment if you can't hear or if anything looks weird so we can get it fixed right away. Thank you, people are joining, that's awesome. Welcome, welcome, we love to have you. Cool. Well, thanks for joining us. We, this whole month of April, are focusing on owning your audience. So we have put together an Own Your Audience Challenge. And so we're going to be talking about different tips, different tricks, how you can physically grow an email following from scratch, from 0 to 100 to beyond that, and tips to make it more effective, more engaging, and all of that. So welcome. We're so excited to have you this month. Again, we're going to be covering just different things on how you can really nail down owning your audience. So first, let's start by why you should shift to email ownership. Why is it important, Amanda, that people should really own their audience?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I also just want to point out, I'm loving that I'm hearing your kiddos in the background because like, this is real life and like, we are women who are badasses and have amazing careers and jobs and like, We have kids too, and we're not like trying to hide them. So anyway, I just want to point that out, and I love your children. They're wonderful.

So, but they are great.

Happy voices in the background is always good. Okay, well, the importance of having an email list and owning your audience really cannot be understated, especially at this point. I mean, we've been seeing shifts in social media by billionaires like Zuck and Elon, and now we've got like the situation with TikTok and the potential ban in the US and all the rift between the US and the In China, that's you know forever and on and on and on and ongoing. So you know social media is great. It's a really really really really wonderful like top of funnel source. It's a it's a place to be discovered. It's a place to start building relationships. But if you kind of think about like surface level relationships, like your acquaintances versus like your friends that you actually know and can text and like have conversations with and actually tell them how you're doing rather than just like oh I'm fine when your life is fine. Falling apart or whatever. I kind of think of social media as that like very, very top line, extremely surface level type of relationship. And so the next level really is getting access to real estate in people's inboxes with their permission and providing content for them that is hyper relevant, an extension of your social media accounts, and gives you the opportunity to get past that surface level relationship. So there's a lot of inherent value in email-based relationships with business owners and creators and solopreneurs and coaches with their followings in their inboxes. Even if the situation with social media wasn't happening, right? Even if this was not a thing right now and we weren't concerned about TikTok audiences that people have spent months and months and years and years building up, just going away overnight kind of a situation. Just having an email list is just good business hygiene, honestly, especially if you are selling digital products and services. It's great if you're selling physical products as well, but e-commerce is just slightly different than, um, what we're talking about right now. Like, our big deal at Level Up Creators is digital products and services, and specifically those that are sold on a subscription basis, which creates recurring revenue, which is the holy grail of business, which is why You see the addition of subscriptions for your Tesla and everything. You can't just buy the damn car anymore. Like you have to pay to make sure that the software gets updated and it actually works. Right. And so we are in this like subscription age. And if you are taking the opportunity to not only build relationships with people on social and then securing the future and the foundation of your business via building an email list, you have tremendous opportunity to retain optionality in your business. And we want you to retain optionality and start working toward recurring revenue, not just like the one-off course or anything like that. But the email list is the prerequisite and good hygiene for an online business.

Sweet. Yeah, that's awesome. So how can you participate in this challenge? Again, this whole month we're talking about growing your email following, starting a newsletter, all of those things. So how can you participate? Doing exactly that. Starting a newsletter, starting a weekly or monthly, or just some kind of recurring email that's going out to your audience that you can grab them. So where do you need to start with that? First, you have to start with a marketing, an email marketing platform, right? And then you have to figure out how you're going to get your audience to that email. Most of the time we say use a lead magnet, offer something for free of value to your audience. where you have to capture their email and then boom, easy as that, they're on your, they're on your email list. And then you can do different things like give them offers. But the hardest part in that step is figuring out what your audience is going to engage in. So Amanda, what are some strategies for starting newsletters that they can really grab their audience's attention and get them on the newsletter? And then maybe some strategies for keeping their newsletter engaging.

Yeah. First, let's go back to how can you participate in the 4-day Own Your Audience Challenge? Erin will drop a link here in the comments and you can just drop in your email address and you're in and you start today. So it's very simple. And we get the question all the time. I hear this and this is like tremendous voice of customer from our target audience. It's how do I put all the pieces together? Like everything that you're saying and that I hear that I need to make a course or build an email list or whatever the case may be. Like in theory, that sounds great, but how How in the world do you actually do that? Like, what are the actual literal steps? So this Own Your Audience Challenge breaks down in very granular levels of detail how to create a free account on ConvertKit, how to set up a landing page with one of their templates, how to come up with your idea for your newsletter, how to come up with unending ideas for your newsletter, and then how to actually build and deploy a newsletter as often as you want or as makes sense for your audience. So that's kind of like thing number one. This is We are giving you the instruction manual. We left, you know, no detail. It's not, you know, no detail is not there. It's all, everything is there and very, again, step by step, very linear, makes a lot of sense. Anybody can do it. So that's one thing. And then in terms of how to get an idea for an email newsletter, right? Because you want to move people, not just have them on social, but also have their email address so that you can again, take that relationship to the next level, you know, go on dates, right? You're not just chatting on an app or at a bar or whatever. You're now going on dates. you're in their inbox. And so, um, the dating analogy, it does totally track. Um, you have to nurture your leads before you ask them to marry you. Can we just get that as a quote and like, um, as a short, completely out of context and make no sense whatsoever? Um, so how to get ideas for your newsletter. Uh, we recommend again, a newsletter sent weekly, biweekly, or monthly to kind of foster engagement and nurture that relationship again with those people who have popped over from social media and given you access to them on another platform that you have control over with their permission. Look at your content and your reels and your posts and your carousels and see what's gotten the most views, the most comments, the most engagement. So by either action or inaction, your social media followers are by default giving you quantitative information and data about how your content is doing, right? Some of it flops, some of it hopefully goes viral and does really well. And so if you can kind of identify like maybe your top 12 to 24 or so posts, see if you can find commonalities amongst those. I mean, you've built your account around, um, a central topic. Like, hopefully it is your area of expertise and experience and passion all combined into one. You're sharing knowledge and information with the world, and they are gathering around you and following you and participating with your content, right?

Yeah.

So, um, you can also look at competitor content and ecosystem partner content. So ecosystem partners, we define those as non-competing businesses who are going after basically the same target audience. So what else is your audience interested in? Try and like get the full picture based on that. And you can even like start typing in search terms or phrases or questions that you get asked into Google and like just see what gets auto-populated in Google when you fill that in. So that should give you a good idea. And also you can do a lot of experimenting before you like say, okay, this is the newsletter I'm gonna do. This is, this is the internet. This is not like something that we are setting in stone or concrete or anything like that. And so newsletters really span the gamut in terms of what they're about. Some of them are my top 3 favorite things this week, or maybe like it's quotes of the week or inspirational or recipe of the week. Or, you know, our newsletter this month, we're talking all about owning your audience and we talk about Level Up Creator School and we offer free resources. And so we have kind of like different sections and Erin and I are talking about adding a section on highlighting a creator each week and Just making sure that what we are offering in our newsletter is a strong reflection of— it kind of bridges the gap between our social media and our products and services, right? And so we are offering value first. We're not like, buy this, buy this, buy this, buy this. This isn't like a shoving in your face, like used car sales pitch or anything like that. This is relationship-based. It's value-based. And we are here to like bring value to continue to earn the right to be in your inbox every week. Otherwise you unsubscribe, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's all great. Okay. So we're gonna do some Q&A about building newsletters. I see we have some comments trickling in. So if you have any questions, feel free to put 'em in the chat. So Haley wants to know, what is the best way to get your first 100 subscribers to your newsletter?

Yeah, that's a great question. So hit up friends and family first, get a little bit of traction. It's okay if your mom and your uncle and your cousin and like your spouse are the only ones opening your newsletter at first. Okay. So get some people opening it and get some accountability to write it, right? Like get a couple under your belt with people that are safe and that love you and aren't going to unsubscribe or anything like that. So start with friends and family. Super simple, super easy. Your mom will definitely subscribe. But from there, you very quickly want to go to your social media audiences, right? And so most people listening are probably already creators or solopreneurs and have some level of presence online, right? Otherwise we're taking a whole entire step back. So I'm going to assume you have some engagement on social media, whether it's just LinkedIn or LinkedIn and Twitter or whatever the case may be. So you want to just tell your subscribers that you are going to start writing an email newsletter. You can even kick this off with a poll like, hey, would you prefer this, this, or this? And then start to foster that engagement and ownership so that when people feel like they have a say in something, they're a lot more bought in. And that's just like basic psychological principle. And so the more sway and say and input that your audience feels that they have, the more likely that they are going to feel like they're a part of it and subscribe and follow along and not unsubscribe. Right. So tell people, you can ask them in a poll or tell them, hey, I'm planning on doing this. I'm doing an experiment. If you're not sure that this is something you can keep up forever, or I'm doing like a 3-month or 10-week series or something like that on this specific topic, I'm going to do a deep dive. It's only through email. You can sign up here, put a link in your bio to your landing page on ConvertKit, which again, that Own Your Audience Challenge walk you through every single step of it and just ask people to follow along. So that's really the simplest way is coming up with a hook that is gonna hit home, right? So that's where going back and doing the research on how your content performed in the past to come up with the best idea out of the gate. You may not land on like what the best idea is ultimately. But the, the thing here is just to start, just to get going. So tell your audience. And then kind of the next level from that is a lead magnet, which Erin touched on earlier. It's a digital, usually downloadable asset or access to a short course or an email drip course that people get for free in exchange for their email address. And so that's like another way into your email list. So like lead magnet or lead magnets, we have a handful of them. You can also just join directly from the newsletter to your email service provider.

Yeah. It kind of, when you were talking, it reminded me of when I left my full-time job to start like business consulting. You can't be scared to like put yourself out there and be like your own biggest like hype person. And a lot of times, like if you already have a following, those people are invested in you and like value your connection already. So like posting it on social media, people aren't going to be like, oh, that's so annoying. They're trying to get more of my time. No, a lot of times people want a deeper way to connect with you and don't be scared to put yourself out there because they likely your audience wants that. Okay. So another question from Daniel. How often should I email my list without annoying my subscribers? That's a great question.

Hey Daniel, thanks for the question. That is great. It depends on your audience and the topic of, of what you're sharing about. And so again, the action or inaction that your email subscribers take by either opening your emails or not, either clicking through on the links that you provide or not, is going to dictate how often you should send your newsletter, probably. So I would test and then look at the data and make adjustments based on that. And that's the quantitative feedback again. Then we'll look at the qualitative feedback. And so you can ask people, like engage with them again, the more engagement, the more input people feel like they had that you took into account, the more ownership that they are going to feel like they have over something that may seem as silly as like an email newsletter, but it is absolutely true. Like, oh, I helped make that thing, you know? And so that's just, that's very helpful. Um, but we recommend weekly, every other week, or monthly. Uh, so I would choose from those 3 options. And if you're really, really not sure about being able to do it every week, then promise that you'll do it every other week. And then if you end up doing it every week, that's great. That's a lot better than saying it goes out weekly And then not putting it out weekly. So if you say you put it out biweekly and end up sometimes putting out weekly, like, that's much better. So choose from those 3 things, test, look at the data, ask for feedback, see what people are telling you by what they're doing or not doing, and adjust based on that. It's the internet. Like, people are— the people that are— that have the highest affinity for you are the ones who are going to be subscribing to your email list, and they're also going to be the most forgiving audience because they like you. And so don't, don't overthink it. Don't overanalyze it. Just start. Just pick one every week, every other week, every month. Start.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. The hardest thing is getting started and it's a grind at first, but it so pays off. Okay. So let me skim through here. Another question Molly sent in, what kind of content should I include in my emails? That's another great question.

Yeah, that is perfect. Okay. So in this Own Your Audience Challenge, we do give like very, very specific instructions on how to land on ideas for what your email newsletter is. Again, there's lots of different formats. I mean, your newsletter could be video-based. It could be photos depending on, or GIFs, like top 3 GIFs of the week. It totally depends on what your account is centered on. Like you want everything to match and have some like connection points and congruency, right? From social media to emails to whatever products and service you're selling, right? So it's, it's got to make sense and match in our, in our brains. Um, so double down on content that is done well online. Like, you can elaborate on something and like do a super, super deep dive, or if you've done a super deep dive on something before, you can pull back and look at like the big picture. And so there's all sorts of different ways that you can approach your content. But again, looking at your ecosystem partners and competitors, what kind of content is doing well? So that'll give you enough ideas just from looking at content, your content and other people's, what's performed well and what hasn't. That's probably equally or even more important is what content has not performed well. Do not put that in your newsletter. And that'll get you started. And then something I really like that Nathan Barry, the guy who owns ConvertKit, has been promoting pretty much since like day one, it's been almost a decade, is at the bottom of each of your newsletters and especially in like a newsletter newsletter welcome sequence, which is automated emails that people receive when they first subscribe to your newsletter, which we talk about in the Own Your Audience Challenge, is to just ask the question, what are you struggling with most right now? Or how can I help you? Or what would be the most valuable information that I can share? So craft a question that elicits a response from the people who are receiving your email. And again, they'll feel like you care, you're listening. And if someone, if you address someone's question specifically in your newsletter, like as an entire newsletter edition, that person is going to feel so very special and like they're never gonna unsubscribe to your email list. And so put your ear to the ground and listen and don't just listen, but elicit a response, like ask a question, prompt a response, and that will also give you plenty of ideas.

Yeah, that's really good. And I think we talked about this in our last live, but making sure that your content in your newsletter mirrors your personality and like that you are posting already. And the, the feel so empowered to make it just like you. Like, if you're a little lighthearted and funny, like, put some lighthearted natured, like, content in there. A lot of times, that's what your audience is connecting with. It's why they like you. So, don't be, don't feel, like, trapped, like, it has to be over serious or has to be, like, this crazy long value. Like, I'm giving away a free course inside my newsletter each week. It doesn't have to be like that serious. So, yeah, just feel free. The freedom to do whatever you want, create whatever you want, and, and make it a piece of you, just like an extension. So, here's another question from Nick. He says, how do I make sure my emails don't end up in the spam folder?

Hey, Nick, thanks for the question. Email deliverability is kind of a beast in and of itself. And so platforms like ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, I mean, all of the major ones at this point, they're gonna help you with that effort with their email deliverability. They have like entire teams dedicated to helping with this. And so one thing is having people confirm their subscription. So I'm sure you have subscribed to an email or grabbed someone else's free digital download lead magnet. And then You get an email in your inbox that says, please confirm your subscription. And so you click that button and that's like one helpful way that you can help with deliverability, not sending spammy stuff. And so ActiveCampaign, I call it the spam-o-meter when you're like testing subject lines and preheader text and email copy and stuff like that. ActiveCampaign will tell you like, hey, this isn't gonna fly. You can't use this specific word or something like that. That's all automated. That is super, super, super helpful. And a lot of welcome sequences creators will also ask you like, hey, please white label my email address, add this email address. This is the newsletter email address, add it to your list of contacts. And that will help, will help as well. But as long as you're, those are 3 good tips. And then as long as you're on a platform that is legitimate, which again, we recommend ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign most often if you're selling digital products and services and they will, they will help with that effort. But otherwise, confirm the opt-in, have people white label your email address, and you're not like adding people to a list. One, you can't do that. You can't add someone to an email list without permission. That is like super, super, super no, no, no. And then when they unsubscribe, you need to make that one easy for them to do, uh, and like don't, don't hide the button or anything like that. And then actually don't contact them again. All those things help you. And email open rates also will just in general help your deliverability.

Yeah. Sweet. Well, thank you guys for joining us today for our kind of like our launch on how to really own your audience. And again, this whole month of April, we're going to be posting, you know, posts on how you can increase engagement, different tips on building your newsletter, how to get people subscribed to your newsletter, all those things. So make sure you're following along on social media. Follow Amanda on social media. I'll drop a link to her Instagram account. You don't want to not follow her because there's a chance that maybe there's a pretty sweet giveaway that's going to happen later in the month. We're also going to be doing lives every week. So, look out for those and we can be here for you if you have any questions as you are setting up your newsletter, as you start the journey of getting subscribers onto your newsletter. If you run into any snags, we are here for you and In any sense, in any business sense too. If you have any other questions, we're always here in any live session to answer your questions. So thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Amanda, for all your amazing insight as always. And we will see you next time. Drop a comment if you have any more questions after the live is over. Thanks, guys. Have a good weekend.

Have a great weekend. Bye.