5 Ways to Grow Your Email List Mindfully
As a mindful business owner, finding new clients and students can be time-consuming and exhausting. So whether you offer courses, programs, or coaching sessions, a solid email list is your greatest friend.
An email list is an asset that allows you to change more lives without having to find new leads all the time. The more you grow this asset, the more it does the heavy lifting for you!
Here's how growing your email list gets you a pipeline of people who can't wait to sign up for your next offer.
Building trust through familiarity
So you’ve created a wonderful mindfulness program or course. Great work! 👏
You post about it on social media. You get likes from your family and friends…but where are the potential clients?
Most likely, they’re not signing up because they don’t know you yet. They don't feel comfortable investing their precious time and hard-earned money into working with someone whom they've only heard from or come across once or twice. But don't lose hope, because this is something you can easily fix!
Now imagine that you have an email list of 1000 people who are truly interested in living more mindfully. They trust you because you've been consistently showing up in their inbox with value-packed content.
Who do you think is more likely to sign up for your latest offer?
Of course the people who feel like they know you and your work. This is the power of an email list.
It allows you to cultivate relationships with people who otherwise would’ve just been strangers.
And if you’re still not sure about the power of email marketing, here are 5 more data-backed reasons to embrace email marketing to grow your impact.
Now let’s look at some ways you can grow your email list while providing value to your audience so they can't wait to work with you.
1) Provide a value-packed incentive
Do you want to subscribe to another newsletter? 📧 Unless it’s from someone you love to follow already, your answer is likely to be “No thanks, my inbox is already waaay to full.”
This is where the power of using incentives known as "opt-ins" and “lead magnets” comes in. Think of ebooks, free guides, meditations, or free training videos that give people an immediate win. These are marketing assets that earn you an ongoing return as they help grow your email list.
People are much more likely to share their email address in exchange for something that can help them feel inspired, educated, or solve a problem right now.
Think of these incentives as an opportunity to provide value to people even before they start working with you. You can learn more about creating effective lead magnets for your target audience here.
2) Share this freebie across different platforms
Once you have your value-packed incentive created, focus on driving people to it through as many channels as you can. Figure out where your target audience hangs out online.
What challenges are they facing that mindfulness could help them with? And where can you get in front of them to help them address these challenges quickly and effectively?
What kind of podcasts do they listen to?
What online magazines or (print) magazines are they reading?
What types of authors are they following?
What sorts of webinars or online conferences do they attend?
Based on this knowledge, put together a plan to make your freebie visible to people so that those who are interested always have an easy way to get it.
If you use social media, consider making the freebie your main call to action. Instead of asking people to sign up for your core offers right away, ask them to check out your value-packed incentive. This is how you invite them to get to know your work better before asking them to commit a larger amount of time or money.
Ultimately, however, don't forget that they will benefit most by working with you directly or through your programs/courses/offers! So don't ever be shy about scattering more direct call to action in your marketing materials... including at the bottom of your free ebooks or guides.
3) Guest post in a magazine or on someone else's site
Being a guest for someone else’s audience shows your expertise and builds credibility. If someone else trusts you enough to allow you to publish on their platforms, it shows your audience that you know what you’re talking about.
To get started with guest posting, first brainstorm where you want to guest post. Always keep your target audience in mind!
How likely are they to be reading on the platforms or magazines you want to publish in? Are they going to have the willingness and the means to take action and eventually work with you?
Give yourself a few weeks to build an ongoing list of places where you’d like your content to be featured. Then start reaching out to these places to inquire about writing for them.
Make sure you'll be able to place your bio at the end of the post along with a link to...you guessed it...your value-packed incentive for them to download in exchange for their email.
Bonus: you could then ask for permission put a badge on your website that shows you've been featured in this publication or magazine. This further builds social proof and credibility.
4) Be a guest on a podcast that your audience listens to
If you appear on a podcast that already has thousands of followers - and a 100 of them sign up for your email list - that’s another 100 subscribers without you having to do extra work!
So start searching for podcasts that your ideal clients would likely be listening to. Still not sure who your target audience is? Learn how to choose your niche within mindfulness to reach more people.
Once you have your eye on a podcast that your audience listens to, email the host. Offer them some topics of what you could speak about that their audience will find helpful.
Outline your key speaking points in a way that also ties in with your email incentive.
If your niche is mindfulness in the workplace and your audience likely struggles with burnout, talk about some mindfulness tips for burnout.
Then create an incentive (free guide, ebook, guided meditation) focused on this topic. At the end of your talk, encourage people to learn more or try out a free practice by downloading your value-packed freebie on this very topic.
5) Host a webinar or online conference about mindfulness
Another way to build your brand and email list fast is to host your own webinars or conferences. Provide tips and insights related to integrating mindfulness into the lives of your audience. Consider inviting other fellow mindfulness teachers to create a bigger conference that you can lead or co-host together.
Once you have an idea for a relevant topic to speak on, send invites out to people who are likely to be qualified leads (i.e. who would most benefit from working with you). You can either do this through posting or messaging on social media or by sending emails to people in your network who would be happy to share the event with their network.
As with the tips provided above, the key to growing your email list is to have something that you can give away at the end of your webinar for people to download. Get them excited about gaining access to this freebie and watch your email list grow.
The quality of your list counts
One more note to keep in mind when it comes to email marketing…quality counts. While it may be nice to think that buying a list of thousands of “free” subscribers will help you get more sales, this approach doesn’t work and isn't sustainable in the long-run.
First, it’s an old-fashioned marketing tactic that’s unethical (and illegal in most places) as it’s considered spam. Second, the quality of your list directly determines how likely they will actually click on the links you provide in the email.
It’s worth taking the time to build an email list that loves to hear from you.
If the people on your list are there because they want to hear from you, they’re much more likely to buy whatever you’re promoting. If they're not interested in your offers, they're more likely to unsubscribe. This is completely ok and a normal part of the business.
When it comes to unsubscribers, practice the attitude of letting go. These people were unlikely to ever sign up for your programs to begin with so let them go with ease. Instead, focus on all of the amazing people who ARE excited to hear from you. Trust me, there’s plenty of them who love what you’re putting out into the world (even if they don’t always tell you).
Want that perfect email opt-in/lead magnet and subscriber welcome emails done for you in just 2 weeks? Schedule a call with me to save your spot on my calendar so I can help you grow your reach faster. Let's keep bringing mindfulness to more of the world together!