Episode 355: How to grow your mailing list faster

In this very practical and powerful podcast episode, I’m going to help you grow your mailing list faster.

Let’s accelerate your list growth!

Here for the links referenced in the show notes?

Grow Your Audience free training: tashcorbin.com/audience

Nail Your Niche free training: tashcorbin.com/niche

Episode 255: How to build an email list from scratch: tashcorbin.com/255

Episode 296: 5 ways to increase email open rates: tashcorbin.com/296

Episode 309: What’s the best email service for online business? tashcorbin.com/309

Episode 352: Is bribing people onto your mailing list really appropriate? tashcorbin.com/352

Want to find more episodes on this topic? Search ’email’ here: tashcorbin.com/search

We know that your mailing list is one of the most important assets in your business. It has a direct correlation to income, so you really want to make sure that you’re paying attention to this podcast episode and check out all the free resources linked in this episode.

Let’s dive in!

As I said in the intro, your mailing list is one of the most important assets in your business.

There are two primary reasons for this:

1. It’s your asset.

Your social media channels could be banned at some point. You could lose access to your audience, or the algorithms could be swung away from your favour.

Having a mailing list is your opportunity to build your own asset.

If you move from Facebook to Instagram, you can’t take your audience from with you. But if you move your mailing list from MailChimp to Mailerlite to Kartra to Kajabi, you can take that with you every single time… because it’s your business’s asset.

2. Your mailing list has a direct correlation to your income.

The more I grow my mailing list consistently, the better my launches are. This is the case for launch after launch after launch.

If I’m not focused on list growth and my list stays the same or declines from launch to launch, then my launch results are not as good.

The more people I have joining my mailing list, the more inquiries I get about working with me. The more people I have joining my mailing list, the more that they’re sharing my content or engaging with my content, and the more that it grows my mailing list.

It creates this tipping point. Once you get to that consistent growth at a good high level, then it creates its own growth as well.

It’s like a compounding interest effect.

Growing your mailing list is really critical to your business survival long term, but also to growing your income.

Growing your mailing list is really critical.

However, a lot of people get to a certain level of list growth and feel like that’s it – that’s their stagnated level of list growth. That’s as many people as they can get joining their list each month.

But I would argue that we can absolutely scale that up and accelerate it. And not everything has to be in paid strategies!

Today I’ve got five strategies for you to really grow your mailing list and accelerate that growth.

1. Address all four stages of list growth

If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, then that means you probably haven’t done my Grow Your Audience free training.

You can grab that free training here: tashcorbin.com/audience

In a nutshell, the Grow Your Audience training walks you through the different stages of business and what the appropriate list growth strategies are for each stage.

There are four stages that you go through, and those stages stack on top of each other.

If you nail stage one, but then move on to stage two and stop doing what you were doing in stage one, then you’re actually missing out on some of the warmest leads on your mailing list. You will shrink the organic growth that you can achieve in stage two.

Even if you’ve already done the training, I would highly recommend going back and doing it again so that you can make sure you get that part of the process nailed in all four stages: tashcorbin.com/audience

That’s my first tip to grow your mailing list.

2. Get very specific and nail your niche

Again, I have a free training on how you can do that which you can find here: tashcorbin.com/niche

Your niche is who you focus on when you are marketing your products and services. It is not everyone who could be helped by your services. It’s not everyone you’d say yes to if they asked for your help.

Every single person that you’d say yes to is not a niche.

Sure, you can say yes to anyone (you are in the driver’s seat of your business), but when it comes to your marketing and growing your list, the less niched you are, the slower your list growth will be.

This is because your messaging and lead magnuts will be more vague, and the content that you create to get people towards a lead magnet will be more vague.

The more vague something is, the less we believe it will actually support and help us to achieve our goals… therefore, the less likely we are to engage with that.

If you’ve found yourself in a bit of niche resistance, or you’ve been niching based on a topic or a modality rather than based on who you are focused on speaking to, then I would recommend that you go and do my Nail Your Niche training.

Get that niche nailed down: tashcorbin.com/niche

If you stay un-niched, then that is going to slow down list growth.

Niche has a direct correlation to the speed with which you can attract and convert people onto your mailing list.

If this is something that you know is a priority for you, then it may be time to step out of niche resistance.

Even if it’s just for the next 90 days… focus all of your marketing efforts, your messaging and your list growth on one specific part of your niche just for 90 days, and see the difference that it will make.

This is something that I’ve received a lot of feedback from people in my audience on. Many of them were in such niche resistance, but they took my advice and experimented with one niche for a few months, and in turn their messaging was so much easier, they sold their offers far more effectively, and they were able to grow their mailing list so much faster.

It is so powerful to see that transformation for people.

I want you to really focus down on one specific niche.

That leads me into my third tip to grow your mailing list…

3. Make more specific and niched content

This is particularly important for your lead magnet (ie. the thing that gets people onto your list).

Even if you’ve selected a nice and specific niche, I want you to go into a sub-niche when you create a new lead magnet or freebie.

This will help you to ensure that the lead magnet is specific, tangible and helps people to achieve something.

Be really specific on what the outcome is that people achieve when they sign up for that lead magnet.

I’ve just given you two examples of mine: Grow Your Audience and Nail Your Niche.

Those lead magnets are for list growth, but they are created with very specific sub-niches in mind.

People who are early in their startup journey will be very focused on how to grow their audience. It’s one of the most common questions that I get asked in this space. They want to grow their audience on socials, they want to grow their mailing list, and they want to grow the number of eyes that are seeing their offers.

I’ve got a lead magnet that’s specifically focused on those people who are in that phase of growing their audience.

One of the things that people recognise a little further along in their journey is that their messaging and content is not niched enough.

For those people who’ve had that lightbulb, the Nail Your Niche training is really powerful and effective for them.

I have different lead magnets that support people at different phases of that journey.

They’re all within the niche that is ideal for the Take Off program, but I’ve focused on some of the tangible problems people face along the way. I’ve paid attention to some of the big tangible goals that people have. Growing their audience and getting really specific on their niche are two big ones.

That’s why they are lead magnets that I have for the Take Off program.

Another one is the $0 Facebook Marketing Strategy.

A lot of people ask me questions about how to build an audience and grow their followers online when they don’t want to spend money on ads. So I created an entire practical training on how to market and grow an audience on Facebook without spending any money.

Again, you can see it’s so tangible and it’s got a really practical outcome.

For those of you who are currently thinking that the outcome of working with you is not tangible or practical… the reason why you can’t articulate the practical or tangible outcome is because you’re not niched enough.

The more niched you are – the more you’re focused on a certain person and you’re clear on what the goal is that they’re looking to achieve, as well as the reasons why they say they can’t have it (this is all covered in my niche training) – the more you’ll be able to create freebies and resources that speak tangibly and practically to that niche.

The more you stay broad and un-niched, the harder it is to speak to a tangible outcome.

That is my third tip to grow your mailing list… have a hyper-specific niched outcome for every single lead magnet that you create.

Create every single lead magnet with the intention of what the next step is for them. What are they going to buy from here?

When you do that, those lead magnets are far more attractive to your audience and they’re far more likely to do their job (which is to grow your audience with highly qualified leads!).

4. Make it super valuable for people to be on your mailing list

Contacting your mailing list is really about adding value – that’s how it can grow.

Have a think about this… What makes it really valuable to be on your mailing list?

Is it that they receive no emails from you because you don’t send lots and lots of emails? I would argue that that’s not valuable. And yet, how many people have that as a little badge of honour? They brag that they hardly ever annoy their mailing list by sending them emails.

But that also means you’re hardly ever delivering value to them.

Rather than seeing getting in contact with your mailing list as being an annoyance, think about it as adding value.

Do you consistently and effectively provide valuable information and content to your mailing list? Is being on your mailing list of value to them? Or is it actually just that they hear from you occasionally and it’s only when you’ve got something to sell?

I would argue that’s less valuable for your audience.

The reason why I created this entire podcast episode is based on this tip.

Recently, someone posted on their Facebook page asking whose mailing list people enjoyed being on, and whose emails they open consistently. Someone tagged me and said that they love receiving my emails.

Then there were several comments underneath with so many people responding to that comment and saying how much they love receiving my emails, or saying that they needed to check out my mailing list.

People were having a full conversation about me in the comments of someone else’s post!

People are so keen to open my emails that when they’re asked whose emails they open consistently, it was me that they tagged. It was me that they thought of.

That’s because I consistently email my list with lots and lots of really valuable content. Not an overwhelming number of emails by any means – I’m very thoughtful and mindful of my sending habits – but I’m a content creation machine, so being on my mailing list is a way to get the summary of the most valuable content that I’ve created.

It’s really valuable to be on my list because you know you’re going to get my most valuable content.

It’s really valuable to be on my list because you’re going to be the first to know about any new free trainings, free events that I’m running, any limited space offers that I have, or any deadlines or price increases approaching.

It is valuable to be on my list because you get that very tangible, practical advice for growing your business consistently.

There are a lot of reasons why it’s really valuable to be on my mailing list.

Think about that for your audience as well…

Is it a valuable thing for them to be on your mailing list? Or is it that they’re just going to get an email from you once every three months, and by then they would have forgotten who you are so they unsubscribe?

A lot of the reasons why people don’t email their lists consistently is because they’re afraid of the unsubscribes. But actually, if someone joins your list and they hear from you consistently, then they’re far less likely to unsubscribe, compared to if they join your list, don’t hear from you for three months, and then get an email from you.

You’re going to have a spike in unsubscribes when you send that once-in-a-blue-moon email out because a bunch of people won’t know who you are. They won’t be invested in staying on that list because it’s just this once-in-a-blue-moon thing. They’re less likely to know who you are, they’re less likely to feel like this is valuable for them to stay on your list, and they’re more likely to unsubscribe.

You’ll actually get more unsubscribes if you send an email out once every six weeks than you would if you sent six emails out over the course of six weeks because that’s that consistency of value.

That’s my fourth tip to grow your mailing list – make it valuable for someone to be on your list!

5. Invest in list growth

There are a number of ways that you can invest in list growth. I would argue that ultimately, we don’t want to be putting time in to get list growth out. We want to be putting money in to get list growth out.

Your time is one of the most valuable assets you have. You can’t magically create more time. But you can absolutely create more and more money in your business.

If you can reinvest some of that money into more list growth, then it’s going to create that list growth on autopilot, and it’s going to free up a lot of your precious time.

There are a range of ways that you can invest in list growth:

1. Invest in SEO.

Make sure that you have that search engine optimisation nailed, so that when people Google topics and questions that you can help with, the first thing that they find is your website and your lead magnets.

SEO and making sure your website is optimised is an investment in list growth.

There’s only so much you can do in terms of relying on passive attraction (waiting for them to start Googling), but it is a great place to start.

2. Proactively get into people’s social media feeds.

Meta ads that go onto Facebook and Instagram are generally my primary focal point. But depending on your primary channel, you can do LinkedIn ads, Pinterest ads, Google ads, etc.

The reason why I love Meta ads in particular is because that’s where I’m engaging with my audience the most. Facebook is where I am creating a relationship and focusing my organic strategies, which in turn is supporting my ad cost being reduced in Facebook ads.

I primarily focus on Facebook ads because Facebook is my primary social media channel. If Instagram is your primary channel, I would focus on Instagram ads. But you can push to both channels with your ads.

There are lots and lots of different strategies you could choose.

For accelerating your list growth, I would recommend setting yourself the goal of getting to the point where you can invest in list growth.

It creates this amazing ripple effect where you’re really spiralling up that list growth.

If you’re investing a portion of your income into list growth, you can be increasing that amount over time and really start to accelerate the rate at which people are joining your mailing list.

That creates more income, which creates more investment in list growth, which creates more income, and so on.

It really is a beautiful virtuous cycle, and it’s a powerful way to grow your mailing list.

That brings me to the end of today’s episode!

I want you to focus on these really practical and tangible strategies for the next few weeks so that you can get yourself to the point where list growth is nailed.

If I could go back to the early stages of my business and fix one thing, it would be growing my mailing list and emailing my list consistently.

I resisted it for a very long time, which meant that I had to work around the fact I wasn’t growing my list effectively and put far more time and energy into being on social media and using high-connection strategies.

I know that if I could go back in time and get that list growth on autopilot nailed in 2014, my list would be multitudes of what it is now and therefore my income would be as well.

Don’t wait until your 10th year in business (like me) to really get this nailed.

It took me until my fourth year in business to really take this seriously and focus on list growth. I wish I could go back and do it earlier.

I make mistakes so that you don’t have to!

Make sure to learn from my mistakes.

Get that list growth prioritised because it really will set you up for success. Future-you will be so grateful that you did it sooner rather than later.

If you’ve got any questions about how to grow your mailing list, feel free to slide into my DMs on Facebook or Instagram.

And make sure you check out all the free resources mentioned in this episode! I also have several podcast episodes on other parts of list growth which I’ve linked to below: