If you’re struggling to grow your email audience, read this and watch the video above.

I did it once with HeadReach, and now I did it again with Encharge.io

I grew an email list from 0 to 300 subscribers in a week. Without spending a dime.

 This may seem like peanuts for some of the viral stars on Facebook and LinkedIn, but for most of us – startups and SMBs, this is big.

We did a survey of 50 startups, and half of them have a list size between 0 and 500 subscribers. Worst, some of these companies have been in business and have prominent lead captures on their websites!

 If you recognized yourself, please continue reading.

First of all, why you should build an email list?

If you’re getting a lot of traffic from social media and communities, this means that you will never have a chance to talk the majority of your audience twice.

At Encharge.io we have an average visitor to email subscriber conversion rate of 15%. 15% is pretty solid! Yet, this means that we don’t capture 85% of that audience.

I know of gurus having more than 40% this is an exception.  A lot of the blogs I know convert at some horrendous rates like 1%.

If you’re not doing your best to grow a community (with your email list, Facebook leads, etc.) you’re not giving your company a chance to grow.

So how to grow an email list to 300+ subscribers in a week?

Predictably and without spending cash.

I have a simple formula: 

  30% writing AUTHENTIC + VALUABLE content
10% creating content upgrades
60% promoting your content

Let’s break this down.

1) Write authentic and valuable content

First of all what is NOT authentic and valuable content?

- something that you create to rank on search engines
- something that you create because you’ve heard that “content is king.”
- something that you use to talk about yourself

Let’s imagine your best friend or closed one (wife, parent, child) ask you for your advice.

- What is the type of message you would convey to them?
- What is the kind of information you’d share with them?

You would probably avoid stuffing your message with “SEO keywords.”
Or rid your message with self-promotion and pop-ups.
Or worse - lie to them.

Instead, you will do your best to share the information that you genuinely believe will make them more successful.
 Treat your content audience like your closed ones. Be authentic and share ideas that will make them more successful.

2) Create content upgrades

Content upgrades are an expansion of your content piece that delivers even more value.

- an eBook
- spreadsheet
- video series
- packages of information
- a project
- access to a secret community

This is how you’re going to capture your email audience.

3) Promote your content

A lot of people forget the marketing in content marketing. They do 2 things:

- publish a post and pray it will do well
- or spray around with marketing

I design a promotion strategy for each of my posts.

I have a “Content promotion” list on my content calendar that is broken down into promotion projects.

For example: Re-publish the article on Medium. Promote on Quu, Promote in Facebook groups, etc.

And I spend a majority of my time promoting the content piece.

Good content promotion = traffic

Good content upgrades/bribes = email conversions

And this is how you grow your email list!

Let me know your tactics for growing your email list?

Download the Content Calendar.