Choose an Email Service Provider
Your first step is to choose a high-quality email service provider (email marketing platform). Look for the following types of features:
- Opt-in form templates
- Email templates
- Segmentation
- Built-in testing and tracking
- Automation
- User-friendly
- Good deliverability
- Good uptime
- Good customer service
- Good company reputation
- Easy integration with your other tools and platforms
My Recommendation - MailerLite - Right now it offers the best combination of features, great customer support, affordability, ease of use for solopreneurs and small business owners... and it has one of the most generous free plan (up to 1000 subscribers for free!)
Read the terms of service to ensure your selected email service provider can be used in the way you want to use it.
Be sure to start segmenting your list right away, even if you don’t know yet how you will use the segments. (e.g., segment based on how they joined the list – via a lead magnet? Registering for a webinar? etc.)
Select a Lead Magnet
Do your market research to see what type of lead magnet your audience would like.
- Survey your audience to find out what they’d like
- Do research to find out what your audience is buying
- See what your competitors are offering that’s popular
TIP: Consider what you’re going to be selling within the lead magnet itself as well as in the initial follow up emails. Your lead magnet should naturally lead to this paid offer. For example, if you’re selling a multimodule course on puppy training, then you might splinter one of the modules and offer it as a free lead magnet.
Your lead magnet should be something you can deliver quickly, easily and automatically (ideally). Does your lead magnet have these characteristics?
- It’s something your audience REALLY wants
- It’s valuable
- It’s high quality
Types of lead magnets to consider:
- Report or ebook
- Video
- Audio
- Course
- Access to a membership site
- Software, app or plugin
- Tools (checklists, swipes, templates, worksheets and similar)
- Free trial
- Discount coupon
- Access to a private group (such as a coaching group)
- Free webinar
If you’re creating a product, then check the following:
- Is the product high-quality (useful and engaging)?
- Could you sell it as a standalone product?
- Does it have a compelling title?
- Are the graphics/ecover professional and compelling?
- Is the interior professionally laid out and designed?
Be sure to test different lead magnets to see which ones help you grow your list the fastest.
Set Up a Lead Page
Your lead page is a mini sales letter that persuades visitors to give their email address in exchange for your lead magnet. You can create it yourself or hire a copywriter to create it for you.
Your lead page should include the following pieces:
- A compelling headline (put your top benefits in the headline).
- A sub-headline, which elaborates on the benefits mentioned in the headline.
- A few opening sentences introducing your offer
- A bulleted list of the benefits of your offer
- A call to action
- The email opt-in form
Check that your lead page has these characteristics:
- Is the overall webpage design professional?
- Is it immediately clear to visitors whom this page is for?
- Does the headline present the biggest benefit?
- Does the page showcase other compelling benefits?
- Does the page arouse curiosity?
- Does the page give visitors a good reason to act now?
Note: most popular email marketing platforms, such as MailerLite allow you to create landing pages from with their platforms.
Create an Autoresponder Sequence
When people join your list, they’ll get started on an autoresponder sequence of at least five to seven initial emails that are designed to build relationships and trust with this audience, as well as promote the paid offer.
1. Decide what to write about:
- What topic naturally leads to your paid offer?
- What does your audience want to know?
2. Your sequence should be useful yet incomplete:
- Useful in that it solves part of the prospect’s problem.
- Incomplete, so that you can promote the related paid offer.
3. Determine what type of sequence to create:
- An overview of a how-to process (share one step per email).
- A set of tips, tricks or secrets (one tip per email).
- In-depth instruction on how to complete part of a process (one step per email).
- Tools such as checklists, gear lists, templates, worksheets, and similar (one per email).
EXAMPLES:
You’re selling an organic gardening guide. Your lead magnet provides an overview of the guide. Your autoresponder sequence offers a set of five tips.
You’re selling a traffic-generation course. Your lead magnet is one of the modules from the course. Your autoresponder sequence provides a set of checklists for each traffic method you cover (e.g., SEO checklist, paid ad checklist, etc.).
4. Be sure your autoresponder sequence is evergreen so that you don’t need to update it any time soon.
5. Create compelling, benefit-driven subject lines for each email.
6. Test and track your emails (subject lines, preview lines, offers, etc.) to optimize conversions.
7. Focus on sending high-quality content, including sharing tips and other info your audience can’t get anywhere else.
8. Commit to adding to your initial autoresponder sequence over time.
For example, if you upload an additional 24 emails, that’s six months’ worth of emails (one per week) going out automatically to generate sales.
Send Traffic (Promote Your Lead Page)
Once everything is set up, then you can start sending targeted traffic to your lead page. Popular methods include:
- Paid advertising (Facebook ads, Google ads, etc.)
- Partner marketing (joint ventures and affiliates)
- Search engine optimization
- Social media marketing
- Video marketing
- Guest blogging
- Viral marketing
- Choose one traffic method, implement it, and tweak until you’re getting good results. Once this first method is bringing in steady traffic, then add another method. Rinse, repeat.
- Commit to taking consistent daily steps to grow your traffic.
- Be sure to test and track your lead page to optimize conversions. Test the headline, the main benefit list, the call to action, and the overall design of the page.
You can bookmark this checklist and refer to it again and again as you’re setting things up to create your email list.
If you enjoyed this checklist, then you're going to want to get access to the full Email Marketing Field Guide.
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