how to perfect the powerful thing that attracts your ideal client to your email list

This is episode #49 of The Goodness Squad podcast. When I first started with content marketing, I ignored email marketing altogether. I was blogging about emergency preparedness, but I was not building an email list.

Two things I would change if I could go back in time

I remember sitting in a class that was taught by Jodie and Julie, of Food Storage Made Easy, and they were talking about how important it was to have an email list. They said that it is the most important thing you could do for your business. I remember thinking, “I don’t have time to do that. I don’t want to add that to my list.”

I didn’t do it.

If I could go back in time and change one thing about my business, it would be to start email marketing sooner. But if there were a second thing I could go back and change, it would be to focus on getting the right people on my email list instead of just anyone you see.

Why your ideal email list might not mean a large email list

When I finally did start email marketing, I was obsessed with building up a very large email list and I was successful at doing that. Unfortunately, I didn’t focus on getting the right people on that email list.

In today’s episode, we are going to be talking about how you attract your ideal client to your email list. Your ideal email list will attract the person who is most likely to purchase from you. How do you get that person on your email list? 

The difference between a quality email list and just an email list.

A quality email list is full of people who are sincerely interested in what you have to say.

An email list, just any old email list, could be full of all sorts of people who may or may not really be interested in what you have to say.

Now, that seems really obvious, right? That we want an email list full of people who really want to hear what we have to say.  I don’t want to discourage putting people on your email list, but it can be so tempting to invite just anyone and everyone to join your email list because maybe you’ll convince them that they need what you have to say and offer.

Friends, this is a mistake.

You only want people on your email list who truly want to be there. 

Why? Because you will have a much better chance of helping the people who really need your help. Did you know that the lower your open rates on your emails, the more often they’re going to get sent to spam? Yes. That is something that spam filters check for. They check for how often your emails are opened.

If your emails aren’t being opened because people are on your email list that don’t really want to be there, then more of your emails are going to get sent to spam. That means that people who do want to be there and do want to hear from you, aren’t going to hear from you.

Even more than that, it’s simply more fun. You’re going to get more quality feedback. You’re going to be able to dig deep and build a better community of people who all relate to each other. You want to have a high-quality email list.

It’s also going to help you make more money because if the people on your email list actually want to be there, they are going to open your emails more regularly. And that means when you do have something to sell to them, they are going to be far more likely to open that email, read about it, and then purchase.

How do you get people on your email list that really truly want to be there?

The very first step I want you to take is to stop calling it a newsletter. That is not going to get the people on your email list who really, really want to be there.

1. It’s probably not going to get a lot of people on your email list at all, because who wants another newsletter? Who wants just another email that is full of random information like newsletter implies?
2. It’s also not clear enough. People may sign up for that newsletter, hoping you solve the problem they have, but they’re not sure that you do. This is going to increase your unsubscribe rates. It’s going to decrease your open rates and decrease your click rates. All things that you do not want inside of your email list. 

So what do you do instead? You think, “Okay Misty, I’ll stop calling it a newsletter once you tell me what I actually call it.”

I want you to offer to solve a problem. If you’re not sure what problem you should be solving, go back to episode #41, where we talk about how to figure out what problems people have and then which problem you need to solve.

In that episode, we talk about how you can’t teach someone Algebra before you’ve taught them how to count or add and subtract. The problem that you solve needs to fit in that – counting, addition, subtraction – difficulty level. It should be a simple problem. A problem that is preliminary to solving the more complicated problems that you know you can help people solve, but it should solve a problem.

People are willing to invest time and money when you solve a problem for them. They are not willing to invest time and money into your newsletter, but they will invest time and money when you are able to solve a problem that they are facing in their life.

This solution that you are going to give them when they join your email list, it should be something that they might consider paying for. Not hundreds of dollars, but if you were to charge $10 or $12 or $15 for it, they might consider it. “Hmm. Yeah. I might pay for that.” It needs to be high enough quality that they might consider paying for it, but you’re going to give it to them for free.

This is what we call a lead magnet in the marketing world. You’re going to hear it called a lead magnet over and over and over again because you are attracting leads through this solution that you are giving to people. You say, “I will give you a solution if you join my email list.” See how that’s like a magnet? You’re drawing in the right people.

But I do not love the name lead magnet, because to me it takes the focus off what is truly most important. Instead, I like the name freemium. It is something you are giving away for free, but it should be high enough quality that we call it premium. So combine the two and you get freemium. I want you to remember that the solution you are giving to people needs to be a premium level solution.

The goal for your freemium determines your ideal email list

Obviously, your number one goal is to solve a basic level problem for your people, an entry-level problem. But should this freemium be something that is going to take them weeks or months? Sometimes that’s what people think of when I say make it something people would be willing to pay for, but that is not what I mean.

I have done this before. I have created something that is big and huge, and takes people hours to consume, to use as a freemium because that’s how I create an eCourse. An eCourse is full of tons of information. That is not the way you want to solve a problem in your freemium.

Instead, you want to create a quick win.

Your freemium should solve a problem for someone without them having to invest a lot of time.

Here are some examples. I have the Product Idea Generator. It has hundreds of ideas for digital products and some tips on how to generate more ideas on your own, but it does not take a lot of time for you to use. You can go through this and scan it. It is set up in such a way that there are headings. It is very well organized and you can find product ideas very quickly.

Now does that solve a real problem for you? Absolutely. If you cannot come up with a product, then you cannot move forward in your business. It solves a big problem or a real problem, but it’s one of the most basic level problems, right?

Once you have a product idea, you’re going to have a whole bunch more problems that you need to solve in order to get that product out to your people. But the first step is the idea for the product. A very simple tool that you can use to solve a real problem without an enormous amount of time.

The second freemium that I have offered is called The Subject Line Blueprint. So once again, this freemium is going to be very easy for you to use. There are some tips in there about how to write quality subject lines, but the bulk of this freemium is basically swipe files. Templates that you can just add in your words to a sentence, that you can use as a subject line, a high quality subject line, one that is going to get your emails opened.

Does this solve a problem for you? Absolutely. If you can’t get your emails opened, nothing else that you do in email marketing matters. So it is a very entry-level problem. One of the very first things, you need to know how to do with email marketing is to get people to open your emails by creating very high-quality, engaging subject lines. So this freemium takes a lot of the work out of the way for you. 

For example, one of the items you will find in here says “how to tell if ___.” So you would take that and just drop in something in that blank. So for me, “how to tell if you have the right email service provider, how to tell if people are loving your emails,” you can simply take these templates and drop in your own topics and have excellent subject lines ready to go.

So those are two examples of how a freemium can create a quick win for your people. This is what you need to figure out.

Your freemium must do two things:

1. It must solve a problem
2. It must do so in a simple way

Why is this so important?

Well, the fact that it solves a problem that is going to get people onto your email list. People invest time and money in solutions. So your freemium must be a solution to their problem. This is going to attract the right people to your email list, the people who really need what you have to offer.

And it is going to get rid of the rest of the people. The rest of the people, they are not going to benefit from your products later down the line. You need to get the people on your list who are really going to benefit from what you have further on up in your value ladder.

If you were unfamiliar with the term value ladder, go listen to episode #39. The reason why your freemium must solve a problem for people is that it is the first step on your value ladder, but why must it be simple? Why does the solution need to be simple?

Simple solutions are going to build trust quickly. 

People invest time in solutions, but typically you have to prove yourself before you’re going to get them to invest large chunks of time.

So if in your freemium, they invest minutes, but come away with a problem solved. Next time, they’re going to be willing to invest tens of minutes, and then maybe the next time they’ll be willing to invest an hour or two. And then maybe next time they’re willing to commit to a full course or mentoring program with you.

You have to build that trust slowly. If on day one, they join your email list, you ask them to commit to hours before you will solve a problem for them, you are going to lose their trust, and they’re very likely to unsubscribe. 

In summary, you build your ideal email list by telling people exactly what problem you are going to solve for them. And you keep people on your email list by making sure that the solution is very simple and does not take a lot of time for them to use.

Now, the fun part – making it look pretty

Once you’ve overcome those two hurdles, the problem and keeping it simple, what’s next? Well, you’ve got to package this in a way that looks attractive. It needs to, it does, it needs to look attractive. That’s part of what makes it a freemium. It’s part of what makes it look like something people would be willing to pay for.

So how do you do that?

My very favorite tool is Canva.

It’s simple to use. There’s lots of great tutorials out there. And if you would like some additional help, I have lots of Canva templates that will help you just drag and drop your own content in and have a beautiful freemium.

Recently Lynette, from Stand with Lynnette, used one of these templates to create a freemium. She says:

“I just have to tell you, I used your workbook template to create a beautiful new lead magnet within a few hours yesterday. I sent a copy over to Sarah Allred (her coach from SarahGraceLive) so she could give me some feedback and she was like, I’m dying. How did you create all this in an afternoon? It’s amazing. And then I told her it was all you, she was blown away. Awesome job my friend, your templates are beautiful and so easy to use.”

If you would like to have the same experience that Lynette had and get your freemium ready in just hours, I would invite you to check out the templates you can find them at TheGoodnessSquad.com/templates. If you are a member of Tech School, you likely have enough points to purchase those templates using points and get them for free. 

Coming Up

 In episode #50, we are going to be diving deep into email subject lines.  Yes, I have a product called The Subject Line Blueprint that you can get over at TheGoodnessSquad.com/subjectlineblueprint. But that really focuses on just swipe files and templates that you can just drop your own words into and have a ready to go subject line.

Podcast episode #50, we’re going to dig deep into why those subject lines work and how you can create your own in a very powerful way. I’ll see you there.