Growing your list is crucial to growing your business. As Sandra Yancey so eloquently stated at this years eWomenNetwork Entrepreneurs Conference & Expo, “you need to have a way to develop your following and build your list. If you’re not doing that, then you’re not growing.”
With all the ways to grow your list out there, it can be not only overwhelming, but also a challenge to figure out what to focus on in order to attract your ideal audience to your list. There are COUNTLESS success strategies for entrepreneurs out there, so instead of focusing on trying to do it all, we wanted to focus on what is most effective. Success minded business owners know that in order to “make it,” you have to be laser focused. So today, we are going to share Sandra’s 3 favorite strategies that she has used to build her list of 500,000 entrepreneurs.
1. Create a Free Opt-In
It isn’t enough to invite people to join a newsletter anymore. Women entrepreneurs are bombarded with hundreds of thousands of emails already. The LAST thing they are looking for is another email newsletter to open. If you want to grow your list, it is imperative to provide something of value. Whether you are providing business ideas for women, hosting entrepreneurs networking events, or selling a product, creating a downloadable opt-in is going to be a complete game-changer for your list-building.
2. Host a Free Webinar
Again, creating value for your ideal client is the name of the game. What can you share that would solve a pain-point of your client in less than an hour? Take whatever “that” is and build a webinar around it. Promote your free-online-class or webinar on all your channels, and before you know it, your ideal customer is signing up to learn more, and will get more acquainted with you and your business in the process.
3. Create a Leave-Behind
How many business cards do you receive that you’ve either thrown out or have piling up in a drawer that you’ve done nothing with? How many business cards have you given out that are probably doing just that? Again, the million dollar secret to building your list is creating value. Sandra's go-to strategy to NOT becoming another business card collecting dust in a drawer, and ACTUALLY converting people to her list, is creating a simple "leave-behind" instead of a business card. A leave-behind is typically just a little bit larger than a business card, folded in half, contains some tips about your area of genius, and on the back is a CTA to your awesome opt-in on the website. Now you have given your new lead a valuable reason to go to your website and give you their email.
and then Add to Home Screen.
