How To Build Your Email List FAST! (3 Steps)

Having an email list is critical if you want to build a healthy online business teaching what you know, love, and are good at. And the beautiful thing about having an email list of people that actually know, like, and trust you is that the more your audience grows, the more money you can make in your business. Because anytime you do a launch, you can pitch it to your email list, not just relying on social media, and people will buy it. You know, as long as you're doing things right and building a great relationship with each person inside of your email list. But the biggest problem that I run into and what I hear people ask all the time is, James, how do we actually build an email list? Someone in my customer research said, I don't have an email list. Yikes. I'm very new and still don't get the best way to build an email list. Now, there's a lot of different ways that you can build an email list, especially building one fast. But I've run ads to email opt-ins and things like that, and they weren't quality leads and I was just filling up my email. List with a bunch of people that didn't really care about what I did. They kind of did, but they weren't really quality leads. So today I'm going to show you the fastest way to build a quality email list. And the truth is that building a list does take time. But the things that I'm going to share with you today are really going to help you in building that quality list. So we got 3 steps we're going to dive into on how you can build your email list fast. Let's dive in. Welcome to episode number 10 of the Profit Your Knowledge podcast. I'm your host, James Allen, here to help you be your own boss by turning your knowledge, passions, and skills into an online business that can run by itself so that you can build a life of freedom. I'm super excited to talk about email list building today. Uh, it took me a long time to actually figure out how to build my email list and it's just constantly growing, but the things I'm going to share with you today are going to help you build build it hands-off, totally on autopilot, and just have it be constantly growing while you are thinking about other things, working with clients, whatever it is that you want to do. Okay. And over time, it'll be like automatically putting money into an investment account. You'll look and be like, holy crap, I've really grown a lot of people on my email list. This is awesome. Okay. So before we get too deep into the how-to, the exact tactics, etc., I do want to share with you that if you are new to building an online business, like I mentioned, this person said, I'm still very new. I don't get the best way to build my email list, but it's not just email lists. It's how do I create offers? How do I find clients that actually, you know, would be willing to work with me instead of me just guessing my way to success and spinning my wheels? Well, I've laid out a 5-step action plan or action guide. It's really short. It's concise. I laid out the entire process and method that has been responsible for creating 5, 6, or even 7-figure online businesses while working under 20 hours per week. It's what I've learned from my mentors and what I've been able to build for myself. So I laid out the whole method. It was this huge thing, and then I cut it all the way down to about 8 pages to make it as short as possible, but still like concise and actionable so that you can just get the real meat and potatoes of what you need to do. And then take that, take one step at a time. It's step 1, step 2, all the way to step 5. And that's all you really got to do. Okay, so it's my gift to you, 100% free. I just want to give it to you, especially if you're new, as like a welcome to the family. And if you've been listening for a while and you haven't picked it up, come on, what are you doing? It's super valuable. And yeah, it's just really going to help you. So my gift to you to get your 5-step action plan, just go to ProfitYourKnowledge.com. Guide, or there's a link in the description as well. And pro tip or side note, even if you feel like you don't have an idea or have no idea like what you would teach or anything like that, this guide is going to help you because that's what step 1 is all about. All right. So again, profityourknowledge.com/guide, link in the description. That's that. So let's get into the content on how to build your email list fast. I have 3 steps laid out for you. Pretty simple. Okay. But it's not simple if you got, I guess, if you don't know how to do it, like it wasn't for me for a long time. I'd hear about it, the value of building an email list. And it's really true. One of my mentors, Graham Cochran, has a great quote where he said, with an audience, anything is possible. And without an audience, nothing is possible. Something along those lines, but he's totally right. And your email list is your audience. These are the people that know, like, and trust you, assuming that you do the things that I'm going to share with you today. They're people who actually do genuinely care about you, your mission, what you have to offer, etc. Okay. And not just some like random, like cheap leads that you pay for. You know, like people pay for Instagram followers, people pay for email lists as well, and they just have this huge number. It's like a big number on their email list, but it's not a quality list. I'd way rather have a small list of a couple hundred people that are valuable, that actually care about me, my mission, my offer, etc., and that buy my products than list of 10,000 people that just don't even care, don't even look at my emails. So they're probably just like robots or something. Okay. So this is how you can genuinely build your email list in a fast manner and on autopilot. So let's get into it. Step number 1, first thing that we want to do to build a quality email list as fast as possible is to build a lead magnet. Now, full disclosure, my 5-step action plan or action guide is a lead magnet. I create content, which I'm going to get into in a minute, every single week on my YouTube channel, my podcast, and my blog as well. And that brings people into my business. And the, the way it brings people into my business is by offering something free and valuable to them that's going to help them solve a specific problem. In my case, with my 5-step lead magnet or action guide, it is actionable. It is super valuable. And that's what I encourage you to do. It's not just some fluffy lead magnet. You could genuinely go through this guide and use it on top of my free content, totally free, and build your online business like legitimately without ever having to pay me anything. And I even link to different videos inside of the lead magnet to make it more valuable as well, because I want to see you win. And I don't believe that you need to necessarily pay me money to make it so you can win. Okay, you can do it for free. It may take more work on your end, but it's possible. And that's what I want to do for you. That's what I encourage you to do for your clients and your students as well. So we want to build a lead magnet, and there's a couple different formats that we can build a lead magnet in. So you can do a short PDF guide, which is what my guide is. So what I would even recommend is to download my guide, whether you were interested in it or not, just download it, click the link in the description just to look at it. Okay, so you're going to put in your email and you'll see the flow of what I mean so that you can see the thinking behind my style. And get an idea of what I'm doing here. Okay, and through email, we can actually have a conversation, build relationships, but that's not what today is about. Today's just about getting people onto your email list. So download the guide, take a look at it, and you can even like replicate it. Obviously don't steal it, but you can take the format and the way that I've laid it out and replace it with what you have to offer and make it be your own. Okay, but you can use it as a template, if you will. So PDF short guides, super valuable. It's easy to consume. It's easy to create. So it's really just easy all around for me and for you or for you and your audience. Another option are checklists. Checklists are great. You know, if you— well, I guess, yeah, if you had a checklist that could be like the best foods to get to lose weight and build muscle, if you taught fitness, for example, You could have a checklist of exactly what foods to go grocery shopping with that day. And that's something that someone can take, they can download by seeing your free content or hearing about it from you, and then they can download it and go shopping that day and fill up their fridge with high-quality foods if they have no idea what to get. Okay, so checklists are great. They're really easy to create and they're very actionable for people because they can literally print it out and check it. Super fun. Another option are templates. Um, you can create like a spreadsheet and, uh, and then have someone make a copy of it and then they can have a template or you can have, if I don't know, like I have a content planning template that I used to offer, um, which was, it was kind of me testing things because it wasn't as good of a lead magnet, uh, as my 5-step guide that just had more interest. So I put my efforts into the 5-step guide, obviously. But I had a content planning template where you would give me your email address and then you'd get the template where it would force you to make a copy. So you had a copy of this template and it's the same one that I use every time I make content like this. So because I don't just go off the cuff, I make an outline. I have a template that I follow that I created and that's what I roll with. So you can use something like that, some sort of template or spreadsheet. The other one is a cheat sheet. Which is kind of like the short guide. These are all different options for you. Okay. Another example of a great lead magnet is an exclusive online training that is only accessible by opting in. That's it. You don't put it out on your free stuff. You, I mean, you could put it inside your paid stuff, but it's only free if you opt in. It's like the next level. It could be a workshop or a masterclass of some kind, or a webinar, anything like that. Super, as long as it's actionable, it's valuable, it gets someone results that day. What is cool about having a workshop or some sort of piece like this where it's exclusive content, it could be like an audio workshop as well. It doesn't need to be on video, but inside of that you can add massive value upfront and then transition seamlessly in the same exact video into making an offer. People do this all the time. I've done this, but it's a great practice because you're able to build that know, like, and trust factor, adding value upfront, and then transition into something where people can make a decision if they want to buy your product or book a call with you or whatever it is that they want to do right then and there. All right. So that's another idea. Another great one that's super common are online quizzes, super valuable. You can say like, want to— I think it was Neil Patel who had an online quiz where he said, want to like boost your SEO traffic for like blogging and stuff. And like how much traffic are you getting to your websites? You put in your website and then you can get like, or I guess they ask you a bunch of questions and based on what those questions have, they can lead you to different offers that they have. So you can get really sophisticated with quizzes, but people love to learn more about themselves. So online quizzes are naturally attractive to people. I think they're super fun to take personally, and I'll give my email address over to take a fun quiz any day. Another one is a free consultation. That's, um, it's an option. It's not the one that I would personally recommend because I've done this and I've gotten people who either just are flaky, they don't show up on the calls, or I've also had people who, um, are just not really a good fit. And that's happened in the past. So what I find is more valuable is to have a PDF short guide to build a relationship, have conversations with them instead of me committing an hour to someone If, and if you do a free consultation, make it like a 15-minute call, maybe 20 minutes or even 10 minutes. Just keep it really short and concise. Just kind of see if you guys mesh well. If not, you can recommend them to a book or something like that, but don't commit to an hour for free because I see people do it all the time. And then it's like, what if you get someone on the call and they are just really not a good fit? Because you'll know right away and you're like, this is just not it. And then now you're like, well, I feel obligated because I committed to a whole hour. It's this whole thing. Okay, so I'd say your best bet when you're just getting started with this is to create some sort of short guide like my 5-step action plan. So again, download it, check it out. And if you like it, if you value it, then you can stay on my email list because I give a bunch of free exclusive content and worksheets and guides and things like that to my email subscribers. I treat them well. So you can definitely join the family. But if not, if it's not your thing, then you can at least get an idea of what I'm talking about and then unsubscribe. It's up to you. So what makes a good lead magnet? That's really what we want to think about. Now, you know, kind of the format of what to think about. I'd recommend starting with a short guide. What makes a great, a great lead magnet is that it speaks directly to your audience's core pain or desire, or at least one of their core pains or desires. Depending on where you're at in your business, if you're just starting out, you may not know your audience super well, but you can at least have a good idea. And I have a lot of videos on my channel of how to do good customer research and all that kind of stuff. And also it's inside my 5-step guide. So you have plenty of resources, totally free. On how to do good customer research, get to know people, see what their pain points actually are. I think my last piece of content, I even touched on that as well. But if you can find a core pain or desire that this person has and be able to solve that pain in a quick way, that is a great lead magnet, something that offers a quick win or a quick result for people. And it's basically just like a no-brainer. It's like, well, obviously it's free. I'll give you my email address to learn how to like start my online business or to learn how to fill my fridge with foods that melt fat and build muscle for me automatically. You know, it makes it easy for someone. So word it in a way where it's just obviously it's a no-brainer. This is super valuable. And that's what we're leading with. We're not saying, hey, join my email list or here's my newsletter, hop on the newsletter. It's like, dude, I don't care. I'm on enough newsletters. I've been on enough of them. I don't just want more content to sift through. I want results. That's what people want. That's what I want. I imagine that's what you want as well. So let's get to the point and give them a quick win that they can get. Also, that's going to build momentum and their motivation to keep learning from you. And then when you offer a course or to book a call with you, they're like, dude, I got a quick win just from this free little guide or template that this person got me. Maybe a quick little training to match with it or a workshop or whatever. They're naturally going to come back to you because they trust you, because you actually got them results. Makes sense. Uh, so yeah, make sure it's digestible. The short guide, super great for that. I touched on that and it gets them a quick win. And when you're building your lead mag, especially when you're doing the copy, like the writing on actually offering it on the page, you want to make it benefit-driven, not feature-focused. So features are the things like 5-step action guide, I guess, um, or it could be The features are what is included. So if you were selling a course, for example, and you had like 21 core lessons, it's like, okay, that's the feature. But the benefit is what those lessons or what that feature is going to give the person. So it's like 21 core lessons. Okay, that's a feature. I know it's going to take that long, but what's the benefit I'm going to get by going through those 21 core lessons? Okay, so you want to make it more focused on the benefits, what this person going to receive and how is their life going to be better after consuming this piece of content or after using this free guide that you're going to give them? Okay. And there's a lot of different ways to, to kind of package this lead magnet and give it to someone. I literally build my lead magnets like my 5-step guide inside of a Google Doc. That was it. And then converted it to a PDF. And then I upload the PDF into— I use Kajabi, but you can use MailChimp Or you can use ActiveCampaign. You just want to make sure there's a page, a squeeze page is what it's called, where it has a little bit of text so the person knows exactly what they're getting. That's a benefit-driven headline. Uh, they know it's a PDF or a free workshop or something, and then they can, uh, put in their name and email or just their email so you can capture the email and then automatically make sure that as soon as you capture that email address, you deliver on your lead magnet, the promise that you made to them. Okay. So if you have any questions about the technical kind of side of things, then you can always just leave a comment below this video and I will do my best to reach out to you and connect with you and help you with that. No worries. Okay. Just reach out, ask me. It's my gift to you. A little bit of time. If I could point you in the right direction, honestly, I'm, I'm freaking happy. And if it can solve your problem, then it's like you wouldn't even have had to hire me in the first place. Okay. But you can also watch different videos online. So anyway, build a lead magnet. That is the first and most important thing because that's what's going to build the relationship and start the relationship on value. Okay. That you're doing with this person. But how do you actually present this lead magnet to people? How do people discover your lead magnet? Well, that's where content creation comes into play. So we want to create content that offers our lead magnet so people can find out about it. Okay. What we want to do specifically in terms of creating this like automated system is to focus on searchable, evergreen content. To keep it simple, instead of using jargon words and stuff, evergreen content are things like blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos. The idea of how it's different than like a Facebook post, for example, is that a Facebook post can go up and then it just gets buried down all the other pieces of content that are being created. Okay, so everybody's posting like pictures of family, whatever. And your, your posts can really just get buried unless you happen to be getting a lot of engagement on that post, then it can pop up. But even still, it's not going to go up for that long. It has a limited lifespan. Evergreen content like blogs and YouTube videos or podcasts are always going to be up and running. They're always going to be going out and you can look up a video of mine from 3 years ago or 5 years ago. And people can do that for you when you start creating this content, but inside of your content, You want to offer your lead magnet, okay? Because people are going to be able to find this, get value from your free content, much like you are with me. And then inside of every single piece of content, I offer a 5-step guide or some other relevant lead, lead magnet that I have because I have multiple different ones. But find one that really works for you. And if it means you just having one in the beginning, that's okay. Build one and then make sure you're always offering it and giving it to someone as if it's a gift inside of every single piece of content. What this is going to do is work like compound investing, basically, because the more YouTube videos you make or blog posts or podcast episodes that you make, the more people are going to be able to discover you and the more you're going to build up this database of content instead of just getting lost in the feed on social media platforms. Okay, that's the real benefit of it. And if you're offering your lead magnet inside of every single piece of content, every single blog post, podcast, YouTube video, you can pick one to start with, but I'd recommend being on all three like I do. When you do it and you offer your lead magnet, every single one of those, basically you're replicating an online employee that's going to be offering lead magnets, or I guess bringing leads to your business because you're offering your lead magnet in every single piece of content. Okay. And then with your content, you can repurpose that content to short videos or social media posts as well. Excuse me. So what we want to do after we're creating content or just in our content, like add as much value as you possibly can to people and make sure you're always offering your lead magnet. Like you can get really sophisticated, we get really deep into this, but to keep it concise, keep it short, that's all we're really doing. And by you creating content that's constantly compounding because the more YouTube videos you create, the more they just, they never, they never die unless you take them down. So you're able to just keep building up this database and every single piece of content offering your lead magnet. People are discovering you. They're finding out about your lead magnet. They're clicking on the link. Make it easy for them. Put the link in the description. Tell them the link to go to like I do, profityourknowledge.com/guide. There's a link in the description. They can click over, they can give you their email address. Now you're building your email list on autopilot. I get emails every single day doing the same exact strategy. And then you look and you're like, oh crap, I've already gotten like 10 different emails. This is rad. Or I've gotten 100 emails, things like that. Okay. So repurpose the video or the big content into short clips that you can use on social media posts. And, um, you, another great practice to actually like really grow, because if you just start creating content, chances are you're not going to have a lot of people you're getting exposed to unless you have a really good strategy by chance. Uh, but it takes time to build up content, to build more authority over time. Another great practice is to leverage other people's audiences. So this is things like guest posting and hopping on other people's podcasts and doing interviews. Great practice. So leverage other people's audience by showing up, connecting with people, having conversations with people. And if you have a podcast, it's a great tool to say, hey, I'd love to have you on my podcast. Deliver first. And then from there, naturally what happens anytime I've ever interviewed people is they say, well, how can I help you? Because you helped me. You gave me a piece or an opportunity, a stage to speak on, to present what I teach and to make an offer. How can I help you? And you say, well, I'd love to be on your podcast. Or if you have a blog that has a lot of people, maybe their blog has, has like thousands and thousands of monthly views while you get 10, 10 monthly viewers, then you can make a post or hop onto their podcast, offer your lead magnet inside of that, and then that'll naturally bring more people. And sometimes you can get 100 people from one guest post that you did. Okay. So it's just finding a rhythm of constantly doing that. And we get really deep into content. I've done plenty of videos all about content as well. Okay. But that's what you want to do. It's really just like a two-step process, really. I mean, I said there were three, but those are like the two biggest ones. The third one is just to share your lead magnet. Okay. But I already kind of touched on that. Just put it everywhere. Put your lead magnet on your social media platforms. Build your website around your lead magnet, your YouTube banner. You can have the banner and then you can put a link in your description on your YouTube banner inside your, like, your bio that can go to a website. And instead of going to your website per se, unless you've built your website around your lead magnet, like I have one of mine, you can always check it out at profityourknowledge.com to see what I mean. You can just go straight to the squeeze page. So I could, For example, put profityourknowledge.com/guide and it would go straight to the page. But the more you're showing up on the online space in the interwebs, then the more you're offering this lead magnet. Everything points to that. You're going to start getting emails like there's no doubt about it. You just got to have a really good lead magnet that answers people's problems. It solves people's problems or one specific problem, gets them a quick win. And it's about them. It's about the benefits that they're going to get. By downloading and using this free thing that you have for them. Okay. But yeah, in every single piece of content you offer your lead magnet and just the more that you do that, the more content you're going to have out in the world, the more people are going to discover you, the more people are going to find out about your lead magnet, get value from it and give you their email address. Okay. So it's really simple, but I think people just really overcomplicate all this stuff. So that's it. It's building a lead magnet. The things that we talked about, creating your content, evergreen content in particular— blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos. Because if you have a question about something and you want to learn something, what do you do? You go to Google or you go to YouTube. That's it. Podcasts, not so much. It's more if you got recommended a podcast, but you can still search up different podcasts. Google, YouTube, two best platforms that you can devote your time into. Okay. And then, yeah, just put your lead magnet everywhere. And again, if you want a great example of a lead magnet, download mine. The 5-step action plan. I mean, if you want just like a reference for a lead magnet, but also if you're really thinking about starting an online business or maybe you have a business in your local area and you're just like, I want to move online, I want to make a global impact, which I hear all the time, download this guide. It's going to literally walk you through the steps on how to do that. And then you can just email me. You can ask me any questions that you have as well. Okay. But yeah, I mean, really, this, this stuff is pretty simple. It just comes down to Creating a lead magnet, which may take you a couple tries to create a good one, creating content and sharing that lead magnet everywhere and making sure that you can actually capture the email address in a tool like Kajabi, which is what I would recommend because it's super easy, uh, and that you can deliver that lead magnet. You can get way more sophisticated, but for right now, just focus on that and then putting out content, connecting with people, always pointing them to your lead magnet, and you'll be building up an email list in no time. Okay, so if you got value from this, then please share this video, leave a comment, engage with it. If you're on YouTube or if you're on the podcast, leave a review. Let me know what you thought of this or if you really did get value from this. I love to hear from people. And yeah, if you have questions on YouTube, comment below. Happy to answer them. But yeah, podcast or YouTube channel, it doesn't matter. If you can share this, that would be stellar. Okay, if you know someone who is kind of going through something like this or struggling with this and you got value from this, please share it. It just, it really helps grow my channel, the podcast and the YouTube channel as well. Okay, but that's all I got for you. The biggest thing is like, yeah, just build a lead magnet, start creating evergreen content, YouTube videos, podcasts or blogs. Just focus on that and make sure that you can capture the email address and you can deliver that lead magnet. ASAP and put the lead magnet everywhere. Okay, but make sure it's benefit-driven so people are answering what's in it for me. That's what the benefit is. Okay, so I got for you though. I hope you got value from this. I hope you have a stellar day. Take what you learned here, build your lead magnet, start creating content and share it everywhere. I will see you in the next one.