How Do I Grow An Email List Of Potential Customers, No Tire Kickers?
The $100 MBA Show
Hosts Omar Zihome and Nicole discuss strategies for building an email list composed of high-intent buyers rather than 'tire kickers.' They s
Key takeaways
- A lead magnet acts as a signal; what you offer for free dictates the demographic of people who join your list.
- The 'Automated Webinar Challenge' served as a highly effective, targeted lead magnet for Webinar Ninja by attracting specific users.
Main topics
- Email list quality vs. quantity
- Lead magnet strategy
Notable quotes
A big email list filled with tire kickers is worse than a small email list filled with buyers.
Conclusion
Focus on attracting specific, high-intent subscribers through targeted
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) A big email list filled with tire kickers is worse than a small email list filled with buyers. Today's Q &A question comes from Fabian, and Fabian asks, how do I grow an email list filled with potential buyers? I love this question because it's a great question. You're aware, Fabian, that not all email lists are created equal. Most people that are chasing a large email list or trying to increase the size of their email list and they neglect the quality of the list. And I'm here to tell you, Nicole and I have built multiple businesses off the back of quality email lists, especially with our software company, Webinar Ninja. We're Speaker 2 (0:36) going Speaker 1 (0:36) to share a lot of examples, and I'll show you what actually works when it comes to building a list of potential buyers. Nicole, thanks for being here and helping me here on Q &A Wednesday. Speaker 2 (0:46) Hey, Omar. Speaker 1 (0:52) Welcome back to the $100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Hey, if this show has helped you in any way, leave me a quick review wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps us reach even more people who need the same no-fluff practical business advice. It literally takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey. Nicole, back when we were running our software company, Webinar Ninja, before we got acquired by ProProfs, how much did our email list matter? Speaker 2 (1:30) I remember it was everything. Now, you definitely took the lead on this. I learned so much about what it means to have the right email list and all the moving parts of your CRM and your email list. You definitely took the lead on this. And I know that we had... copywriters on our team that wrote each weekly email. We sent multiple emails. I know you're going to have a ton of information because it was pretty much what drove most of our sales, right? Speaker 1 (1:57) A thousand percent. And my number one tip, if you take anything from this episode, is whatever you offer your audience in exchange for their name and email address, your lead magnet, your bribe, whatever you want to call it. this is what's going to allow you to increase the quality of that subscriber. So whatever you're putting out there attracts a certain type of person, a certain type of demographic, a certain type of buyer. So it's a signal. It's sort of like you're putting out in the world, hey, if you're this type of person that's interested in this, then you're going to join the list. So if they join the list and then you're unhappy with them, it's probably because your lead magnet or what you offer them for free is not attracting the right type of buyer. Speaker 2 (2:36) Okay, you're going to have to, this is one of the things I had to understand and learn. Learned so much about email marketing. All right. And you said lead magnet. Maybe a lot of our listeners and audience knows what that is. And you said bribe as well. So what is a lead magnet? Speaker 1 (2:52) It's a piece of value, something free that you can offer. This could be a guide. This could be a cheat sheet. This could be a template. in exchange for their name and email address. So basically you're offering value for free. So people could say, hey, I want to learn more about these people. I want to get this free guide or this template. So I'm going to give my name and email address so I can get that sent to me. And now they're on the email list. They're going to continue to get emails from you, whether it's your newsletter, your offers, whatever it might be. Speaker 2 (3:17) So the lead is the person that's eventually going to be, hopefully, the buyer. Speaker 1 (3:21) The customer, correct. Speaker 2 (3:22) So Speaker 1 (3:22) back in Webinar Ninja, our number one lead magnet was actually... a paid thing. We offered a program called the Automated Webinar Challenge. Remember that? Speaker 2 (3:33) Yes. I remember how much you invested in that and how successful that was and how many people came in through that challenge. Speaker 1 (3:40) Yeah. At Webinar Ninja, we started with just live webinars and then soon we launched a new type of webinar called automated webinars, which is exactly what it sounds like. You have a webinar that's just a recorded video that people can watch. And they can then see your offers, all that kind of stuff, and buy your products off that automated webinar. So it was kind of an up and coming. This is circa 2016. It's an up and coming kind of trend. And what we did is we created a program, a 30-day challenge, where they can create their automated webinar with, of course, our software. And we would show them step-by-step how to do that, how to write the email copy, how to create their landing pages, how to follow up, how to make offers, all that kind of stuff. So what was great about it is it was a 30-day challenge. So our free trial was 14 days. So they would sign up to use the software, implement what they learned in the challenge, and therefore they would continue to be a user once they saw results from their automated webinars. Speaker 2 (4:35) Yep. Challenges is something that I've realised really works for people. I think especially people that are on the fence. I've seen it work in the fitness industry, at gyms, obviously in our case with the software where you wanted them to get a result. We really got those people who were like, oh, do I really want to do this? Let me try. And the challenge kind of gave them that timeline and that deadline to implement and then eventually, yeah, get converted to being our customers for a longer term. That was really powerful. But I also remember that we had an email opt-in box pretty much everywhere on our site, right? Like at the end of every blog post that we posted. Do you want to speak to that? Because I do think like the challenge was one thing that we did as a lead magnet, but didn't we always have that opt-in box everywhere else? Speaker 1 (5:25) Yes. I'm going Speaker 2 (5:27) to Speaker 1 (5:27) talk about that in a moment, but I do want to just quickly say, just dissect a little bit. Why did that? challenge work so well? Why did it attract the right buyer? Well, because it was very specific. It was like, hey, if you want to run an automated webinar, I'm Speaker 2 (5:40) going Speaker 1 (5:40) to show you how to do it. And I know that you can't do it without software. And I'm the software provider. So it was a good match. I'm not getting somebody who's just like thinking about it as somebody who's actually willing to do the work. They're willing to invest money to learn how to do this. But also that they're not just like, hey, I want to make more sales and they're not interested in webinars. This is somebody who's really interested in running a specific type of webinar, automated webinar. So the more specific, the better, because it's going to attract a little bit more of Speaker 2 (6:07) a Speaker 1 (6:07) targeted customer. Now, you mentioned that we had a lot of opt-in boxes. Our goal at Webinar Ninja, if you hit our website, is I want your email. I want your email. All right. I'm not going to let you go without an email. We had opt-in boxes at the bottom of blog posts, like you mentioned, but we also had like, if they visited for the first time, we give a little pop-up where they get a discount code for the first month on Webinar Ninja. We also split tested extended trials. We had a free trial, which is an opt-in in itself. They get to use the software for free for 14 days. We just wanted to make sure that if anybody landed on our website, because they found it through SEO. a blog post or an article, or they learned about us from a competitor or a comparison site that they didn't leave without putting their email address. Now, the reason why I did this is because once they leave your website, there's no way to contact them. There's no way to give them an offer. They're gone forever. So if you can give them even something of extreme value, something that you would sell so that they can leave their name and email address, this would allow you to then... follow up with them, invite them to your next sales webinar, invite them to take on a new offer that you have a new product. They're in the loop. You have a direct contact to their inbox. And we always say that your inbox these days with social media and all these things that we've thumbed through or the feeds, those are very easy to ignore. But your inbox is