246: Grow An Email List That Does the Work for You

Melissa:

Okay. So I am going to go to let me see. I think it was Tisha. Let me pull up my my little clock again. Here we go. Hello? Got the wrong thing. Oh, the timer looks totally different now. Hang on a second.

Melissa:

Oh, I know why. I was using the wrong thing. Alright. Let me put a 15 on here. Alright. So let me pull up your question.

Tisha:

It's a chaotic question, and there's a bunch of stuff in it. So we can pick 1, like, whatever

Melissa:

we need to do. Well, let's just get through it, what we can get through in 15 minutes. How about that?

Tisha:

That sounds perfect. Oops.

Melissa:

Hang on a second. Let me cancel that. It's it's a Monday. I can't do anything right. Hang on a second. Alright. So what I have here is you your initial, like, start to the question is you have several questions, but they're all tied to creating strategy for promotion of your offer, and you'd like to discuss how to build your email list. So you wanna start there with, like, strategies to grow your email list.

Tisha:

Yeah. And I think I'll just throw out there to that is that my struggle is that I've done all the things. I've started all of the things, but there's no strategy. I just task mark check them all off. Right? So I started a podcast. I started a newsletter. I started a LinkedIn. I did all of these things, but there's nothing that's making it cohesive to say, this is where I should actually put my energy and how I can actually do that, because obviously the most important thing for me is my email list as opposed to all the chaos and noise.

Tisha:

So that's kind of what I'm hoping to

Melissa:

to do some strategy ideas. Because your podcast, your LinkedIn strategy, that's all top of funnel to feed into, like, growing your email list. Right? Right. And so one of the things that have you, I'm sure you've built some opt ins or some freebies at this point. Right? Yep. Yep. So one thing I would love to share with you guys that is working really well for us right now, which is the whole reason we have a 1,000 plus registrants for our upcoming master class, is by running these and you don't even have to use you don't even have to use automation depending on, like, size and scale. You can manually do this.

Melissa:

We've been doing these Instagram, and you can do them on LinkedIn too. We're doing them across Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It's just that Instagram, you can automate with, oh, why can I not think of it right now? It's the chat guy. It's not chat g p t. ManyChat. There we go. You don't have to use mani chat, especially if you're not like if you don't have a huge following, you can literally manually go in and do it yourself. So I'll get into that in a second.

Melissa:

But what we're doing and if if I in a minute, if I've if I'm logged in to Instagram, I'll show you guys or you guys can go to my Instagram account. But what we're doing is we're creating, content that's creating curiosity around the opt in. Right? Give some value add around the opt in with a call to action. Right? With the call to action that if you want more, put in this little keyword, and we'll follow-up and give you that thing. Right? Which is so for instance, for us, we're 3 weeks away from the lead gen academy master class. Right? So, obviously, our opt ins are focused on LinkedIn specific tactics. Right? So, like, a 100 social prompts for LinkedIn or, you know, link you know, a LinkedIn profile mini makeover. Right? But the social content that we're creating is just a bite sized nibble of curiosity and value that's saying, hey.

Melissa:

If you want more of this or you want the full download on this, put the keyword LinkedIn, right, whatever, in the comment section, and we'll follow-up. Right? Now if you if you're tech savvy and you wanna go play with ManyChat, and I know Jackie's doing some training on this, but you don't have to. You can manually do this. We've got ManyChat set up. So we made a post, last week, and we've gotten almost a 100 comments on it if you go back and look. And, it's because people putting in a keyword, and you can either automate it through ManyChat or you can go into the DMs and give them the registration information for the opt in. That is gonna immediately grow your email list as long as the, you know, your opt in is tied to building your email list. What we have learned by accident because Instagram is tied into auto post for Facebook, we weren't really quality checking it, and it was auto posting over Facebook.

Melissa:

And we saw a bunch of people putting, randomly putting the call to action in the comment section on Facebook, which is not automated. So now we're in there manually going, oh, shit. Okay. Let's follow-up. We didn't realize people were following us on Facebook about this. Right? And then you can go do the same thing over on LinkedIn. So that's that is like we've had over 4,000 visits to our our pages through taking this strategy in the past, like, 3 to 4 weeks across platforms. Right? So that's one thing you can do.

Melissa:

The other thing you can do, and this really dovetails into opt ins. Right? Because I'm a huge fan of if you're going to create something, like, use it, like, as many different avenues as you can. So what you guys are gonna see this week and next week is over on LinkedIn, we're marketing a live event this week and next week where I'm gonna run a workshop. Well, guess what the workshop is on? It's basically on the opt in that I'm gonna be talking about. Right? So it's a mini LinkedIn profile discussion. Right? Or it is, I can't remember what the other one is, but it's, oh, yeah. Like, you know, 30 minutes with LinkedIn to increase your productivity. Well, what is that? It's my LinkedIn checklist.

Melissa:

Right? I'm not creating anything new. But if you're growing your network on a weekly basis, they're gonna think it's new. Right? And when I show up and I do the live workshop, what am I doing during the live workshop? I have the link to grab that opt in. I as I'm talking, I'm saying, if you want the full workbook, if you want the full x y z, I'm dropping dropping the link in the chat. Go grab it. That's a strategic way to also grow your email list because people are self nominating that I desire this thing you're you're talking about, and I'm gonna give you my email address for it. So see how you can literally take that opt in, use it as a lead magnet for all social channels, and then you can also break it down as a free workshop over 30 to 40 minutes and drive traffic to your email list as well. Does that make sense?

Tisha:

Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. It does. Yeah. And I and I think I think my struggle is now that my offer is all locked in and everything else is kind of, like, crossed and dotted and ready to go, I have all of these things. Right? So there's multiple Facebook pages and groups and Instagram and LinkedIn and the podcast and the newsletter and all of these things. So I'm thinking, okay. I still only have this much time that I want to put into this.

Tisha:

Right. I'm gonna really hone in, which is why some of my other questions coming up in the same request is in regards to LinkedIn. Like, if if I'm gonna take 2 hours a day to promote business Right. Like, what is where is the most efficient place places maybe for me to go? And am I really trying to fit all of these different things into that 2 hour window so I do it all? Yeah. Is there a way for me to really just say, okay, look, next 90 days, just do these things. Yeah. You'll go check out the boxes, Melissa. You tell me what to do.

Tisha:

I'll get it done.

Melissa:

But Yeah. So I think I think we're we'd have to split up activities when you say promoting business. Right? To me, there's, like, 2 different activities. One is daily activity, and the other is more top level, like, marketing, mapping, and strategy and planning. Right? So that the day to day doesn't feel overwhelming. So if you take a step back from your marketing strategy with LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook newsletter, and you take a step back and you say, okay. Step back from all the different channels and just ask myself on a monthly map, like, what do I wanna strategically cover on a daily basis? Maybe 5 days a week. Maybe 3 days a week if 5 days a week feels overwhelming.

Melissa:

And pick an a and a b lane. Right? Like, you have to get really good at an a lane of traffic first. So Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, podcast, email marketing, pit one of them has to be your number one focus that you're actually getting traction and creating community on. And that b lane can be getting that second level of attention, but we're never going to get full momentum in any swim lane if we're not fully focused on going full throttle on 1. So what I suggest is taking a step back, looking at your marketing map, if you will, and saying, okay. If I'm gonna choose, let's name it LinkedIn as my a swim lane. What is my marketing strategy for the next 4 weeks? And I need to map this out. So we're doing this right now.

Melissa:

So I'll give you a classic example for us. Well, for the next 3 weeks, we're leaning it. We're leading into a master class. And we also, over the next 3 weeks, are really focusing on growing, registrations for our live event because it's around the corner. Right? So when I look at the marketing map and I look at the content I'm putting out, it informs why I'm doing these lives. Like, why am I doing these LinkedIn lives? Why am I creating the mani chat that's encouraging people to opt into this thing? Because I'm growing my email list to market the thing that I'm I'm working on. Right? So if you take a step back and you just look at your LinkedIn marketing and you say, okay. 3 to 5 days a week over the next 4 weeks, here are the key things I'm going to focus on on a on a weekly basis and map that out and plan it.

Melissa:

And then that becomes your springboard to spray across anything else that you're working on instead of trying to overcomplicate it. If you're creating content that's gonna go out on LinkedIn Monday through Friday, then just go do the same thing on Instagram because it's a b it's a maybe a b, c, d, e, f, g lane Right. That you don't need to overcomplicate it, like trending right and matching right with x y z. And, Jake, I wouldn't worry about that. Make sure you've got the a lane right and tight, and then just spray it across the other channel. Right? Same thing with Facebook, also with your newsletter. Right? So, again, what you can do is out of all the content you're writing this week or planning for LinkedIn, which post is gonna be the most long form, the most compelling, and just make it your freaking email newsletter. Like, again, don't try to recreate the wheel.

Melissa:

And even better, just go to last week's content and find which one got the most traction, which post, which piece of content. Maybe for some of you, it's audio. Maybe it was a podcast that had the most downloads. Right? And how do you convert that into a quick little email newsletter? But the bottom line is what I want you doing, Tisha, is, like, not recreating, but, like, sticking to one marketing plan for 1 platform and then just getting really militant about dumping it over to the other ones without perfectionism. Knowing that it's gonna be a little sloppy, it's gonna be a little messy. Like, if you go to my Facebook page right now, you're gonna be like, what is she doing? Because it's just a bunch of graphics dumped over there, auto posted from Instagram, doesn't fit the form or the purpose of Facebook at all. That's because Facebook is like z for me and priority right now.

Tisha:

Right.

Melissa:

But I'm also not gonna miss an opportunity to dump the shit I'm working on over there in case it does pass by some people. Does that make sense?

Tisha:

Yeah, absolutely. And that's such a great idea. And I think you told me that last time because that's what I'm doing now. So, like, LinkedIn is my my main lane.

Melissa:

And I

Tisha:

and I hired a VA who's kinda just, like, repurposing everything since January and kind of just throwing it over over my shoulder kind of thing. Right. But I think that kind of pulls me then into LinkedIn. When I first joined up with the, LinkedIn Academy, lead gen Academy now, whatever it was, it was a lot more comfortable for me to seek out connections and engaging in things because we could add notes and you could, like, hey. You could comment on somebody. And now and then they changed that. And ever since then, I've kind of been like a deer in headlights. Like, how do like, what do I do with this? So I think that I'm I've you know, I fine tune my offer, my marketing, my messaging sounds good, but now I feel like I'm looking at this platform again.

Tisha:

Like, this is supposed to be my lane, and I'm putting stuff out there 5 to 7 days a week. But, like, I I feel like I should be engaging

Melissa:

more. Yeah. And I saw your note, like, you've got a large network that you wanna reengage. Right? Yeah. And so I think the best way to reengage a large network that you already have is because you can't leave a personal note, what you can still do is go to their profile and hover over their their engagement. And what you basically do is go hang out where they're hanging out. So when you wanna get into a conversation with an ideal prospect, but, you know, instead of, like, cold DM ing them, right, is, like, go to their go to their page and go find a comment or a post. Just go to their activity and make a comment.

Melissa:

We all how many of you notice in your notifications, you notice people who are engaging in your content?

Tisha:

Oh, yeah.

Melissa:

You're like, Oh, who was that? You go check them out, right? So it's an extra step, but if you go make that a practice, you know, and, again, you don't necessarily have to do this, but you would need to make a list for your VA on who to go do that with.

Tisha:

Right.

Melissa:

Right? So I have a social media manager who goes in on a daily basis, and one of her income producing activities is to engage for, like, 5 to 10 minutes on perspective, you know, leads. Right? And so, you just want to make some comments so that then they're like then you can go in to conversation in the DMs. Right? Because then it's relevant. Right. But just warming them up through, like, I hate to say it, but kinda like stalking them. You know? Like

Tisha:

Well and I and I had thought even just, like, reaching out via DM just saying, hey. It's been a long time since we connected. Do you know I have a career shift now? This is what I'm doing. Like, if you're not up for this, like, disconnect for me. But, like, if you are cool, I'd love to reconnect again or something like that. I just feel like there's this there's this group of people that I could be doing something with that I haven't kind of pulled the trigger to engage yet because I've been trying to figure out the best use of my time to actually do that.

Melissa:

Yep. So

Tisha:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that works for me.

Melissa:

Makes sense? Yes. Okay.

Tisha:

It does. Thank you very much.