MBA2145 Q&A Wednesday: How do I grow my email list without paid ads?

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Hey O. Welcome to the $100 MBA Show. Your place to be to grow the business you want every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent SOFTW for a company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over at Omar MBA Net. Today's question is from Sean and Sean asks, hey Omar, I just started out and I want to grow my email list but I can't afford paid ads. How do you suggest I grow my email list without spending a ton of cash? This is a great question from Sean because when we're all starting out, most of us, we don't have a ton of cash to throw on ads so that we can grow our email list. And it's great that he's trying to grow his email list because he wants to grow his audience and be able to market via email marketing. But how do you drive traffic to your opt ins, to your lead magnets so that you can grow that email list without spending money? Well that's what today's episode's all about. I'm going to show you all the strategies that I've used to grow my email list when I was getting started without paid ads. And a lot of these strategies I still use because they're so effective. We're going to talk about things like using your own assets to grow your email list. We're going to talk about how to leverage other people's audiences. We're going to talk about how to incentivize other people to market for you in exchange for some commission if there's a sale and a whole lot more. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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So Sean wants to grow his email list, but he doesn't have a ton of cash to throw on ads. And I love these kind of problems because they force you to be creative. They force you to think of how can I drive traffic to my website to my opt ins so that people can join my email list without going the traditional route of, you know, running Facebook ads, Instagram ads, YouTube ads. Because honestly, that's the easy way to do it, just throw money at the problem. The more challenging and creative way is to do it without spending money. So let's talk about some options. The first option that most people ignore, they just skip this step, but is actually quite important and that is to optimize your already existing assets. You have assets out there on the Internet that get traffic as it is and you need to leverage that traffic as much as possible and increase your conversions to your email list. So let me give you some examples. Your number one asset for traffic is obviously your website. That's where people go and find you when they google you. Are you making sure that your opt ins, your lead magnets where they can sign up for your email list in exchange for some value, is front and center. Do you have a hello banner? And you can use a software like Sumo.com, which is free, to get started and the free version will allow you to do this. We have like a little banner on the top of the menu or the top of the page where people can give their name and email address in exchange for some sort of value that you can give them a PDF A video, a weekly newsletter, maybe even an email course. So using your existing traffic from your website and making it front and center on your homepage or even on all your pages is really important. What about the sidebar on your blog? Make it easy for you to opt in and get something of value and be part of your list. People are finding your blog post as it is, right? They're searching, they're finding your blog posts. Capitalize on that traffic when people land there and get them to convert into an email subscriber. Many people also use pop ups, exit intent pop ups and you can love them or hate them, but the fact of the matter is they actually work. They actually do get you more subscribers. That's just the data that has been proven over time in all the marketing articles I've seen. Do research on this topic. I know that Neil Patel did a deep dive on his website on the efficacy of pop ups and whether you think they're annoying or not, they actually equal more subscribers. So maybe something to consider. What about the bottom of your blog posts? You can offer something called a content upgrade. What this means is something that they can opt in for to go beyond the blog post. So say for example, you have a blog post on how to manage your finances and then you can say, hey, give me your name and email address and I'll send you a spreadsheet where you can apply what I just taught you on the blog post. So this allows people to apply or take things to the next level by giving their name and email address and getting a template. So again, using your existing assets already that are getting traffic to get emails, this is the number one thing I think you should do first because you already have this and you can easily optimize this to get more email list subscribers. I found that when I did this in the beginning, I saw my email as a double almost instantly because I was getting so many people opting in that never knew of the things I offered by just implementing some of the things I just mentioned. The other existing assets you have are things like your social profiles. Instead of sending them to your website, send them to an opt in where they can subscribe to your newsletter or subscribe for some sort of value or lead magnet, something that they can download in exchange for, you know, them giving you their name and email address. Another thing that you probably ignore is your signature of your email. I learned this from Noah Kagan. I'm talking about your actual email address, the email that you email people with like your Gmail for your business in the Signature of your email, make it an opt in. Say, hey, you want to get my templates? You want to get my latest ebook? Click this link and it goes to a page where they can subscribe to your newsletter in exchange for that value. Again, this is traffic you're already getting. You're sending emails anyway. People are going to see your footer instead of just having an empty space or your signature, I should say, instead of seeing an empty space, they see a call to action. So leveraging your existing traffic and assets really, really, actually make a difference. The next strategy is leveraging other people's audiences. There are other people out there in the world that have a captive audience, an audience you want to get in front of and you want to encourage them to, hey, subscribe to my email list and I'm going to give you great value. Now, these other blogs, these other websites, these other podcasts or YouTube channels or whatever, they don't have to be competitors. They could just be people that have the audience you have but are not being served the way you serve them. So let me give you an example. The $100. We specialize in helping people get better at business so they can grow their business, they can make more money, they can make more sales, all that jazz, right? Some of the people that we help are creatives like photographers and videographers. So I want to get in front of an audience of videographers and photographers that want to go pro, that want to turn their hobby into a business. So I wrote a guest post for Digital Photography School. What this means is I wrote a blog post on their blog and it was a very, very detailed blog post to help videographers and photographers that go to this website learn how to turn their passion into a business. It was a detailed, 2, 500 word blog post with pictures and all this kind of stuff. And at the bottom of this blog post, there was a call to action for them to opt in for a free course, a free video course on how to take things to the next level with their business. Now, Digital Photography School loved this because I give great content on the blog with my blog posts, but also it's free for their subscribers to get this course. There's no cost here. And I'm not competing with Digital Photography school. I'm not trying to sell them digital photography equipment or teach them how to shoot video. I'm showing them how to turn their hobby into a business. So again, I'm leveraging another person's audience and bringing them over to my place, to my email list by Offering value. You could do this as well by being a guest on a podcast and at the end of the podcast or during the podcast it mentioned, hey, I got something free that you can check out. Just go ahead to this page. They opt in and they get that something for free.

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All right. We talked about how to leverage your existing assets like your website and your social profiles and your email signature. We also talked about leveraging other people's audiences by guest posting or guesting on other people's podcasts and then sending them to your opt in page. The third strategy you can use to to grow your email list without paid ads is partnerships. Partnerships are really powerful, especially if you monetize the partnership. What do I mean by this? Well, at Webinar Ninja, we have an affiliate program and basically somebody can sign up to be an affiliate. And if we make a sale that they sent to us a customer that learned about webinar through their link, we give them a commission. We only pay them when the sale goes through. So there's no out of pocket expense for us. And you could do the same. You can create an affiliate program and there's plenty of software to help you do this. The one that we use is IDEV Affiliate. It's pretty robust. But you can look at other options, like rewardful is another option. And if you're on WordPress, there's a whole bunch of other plugins you can check out as well that you can search for. You can do your own Google hunt for that one. But the point here is, is that they can send people to your page, even if it's something for free like a template or an ebook or a video course. But the point here is, is that they sent them over there and it makes sense for the partner because they can send people over to you without having to sell. Or they can say, hey, this is something for free. Check it out. This is pretty cool, this course. And because they sent them with their affiliate link, your affiliate software will know it came from them. So if they eventually make a sale at some point and most people do cookies for 90 days, meaning that, you know, as long as they buy within 90 days they would get credit for the sale. So this allows you to grow your email list and actually grow your customers, all without any out of pocket expense. Well there you have it guys. Three strategies you can use to grow your email list. I hope that helps you Sean, as you grow your email list without paid ads. Let's recap. 1. Use your existing assets. Number two, leverage other people's audiences by guessing and number three is doing partnerships via affiliate programs. Thanks so much Sean for asking today's Q and A Wednesday's Question. If you have a question yourself, go ahead and email me@omar mba net. I'll make sure to answer it right here on the podcast on Q and A Wednesday. If you haven't left us a rating or review yet on your favorite podcast app, go ahead and do that. Give us a star rating or write us a review on Apple Podcasts. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. Before you go, I want to leave you with this. The thing that paid ads gives you is speed. Meaning you're going to get people opting in and joining your email list faster because you're paying for this. This is why you're paying for the convenience and the speed. These strategies might take a little bit longer than what paid ads would do, but they have longevity. So just be a little patient with the results and you're actually establishing things that will work for you in the long run. That blog post I wrote for Digital Photography school, that was six years ago. I still get opt ins for that. I still get people subscribing to our email list from that one blog post. Pretty cool. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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