Have you ever been frustrated because everyone says how easy email marketing and lead generation is supposed to be?
If that’s the case, then hey I get it.
I’ve been the unwilling witness to marketers bragging about how easy building their email list is, but to be frank, my experience has been different!
In fact, I’ve sacrificed untold hours, weeks, days, months, and even years in an effort to promote my humble little email newsletter.
Building Your Email List Isn’t Easy! It Takes Effort, Grit, And Luck!
The main point to me ranting about this (lol), is that I’d like to brainstorm 5 of my favorite email list building methods.
Because, I honestly believe, that email marketing is still one of the best ways for just about any entrepreneur to build a brand, generate rapport, and share their best content with their audience.
How To Build Your Email List? My Honest Two Cents.
I’m always trying to brainstorm cool methods to promote my own email newsletter!
To make a long story short, and in my opinion, one of the best ways to build your email list, to promote your email newsletter, and to generate leads, is by having some type of opt-in funnel that’s properly optimized to accomplish three primary goals.
Lead Generation Funnel Goal # 1 – Generate The Lead!
The very first goal of any decent opt-in funnel, in my humble opinion, is to convince your lead to subscribe to your email newsletter!
The trick, of course, is knowing that you need to offer something of awesome perceived value in order for your end user to agree, and actually, give you their email address.
Lead Generation Funnel Goal # 2 – Introduce Yourself And Share Powerful Stuff!
In my honest opinion, in this day and age, it can be so difficult to build rapport, trust, prestige, or authority.
It can also be hard to get others to actually read your content or remember you.
So, personally, I always try to introduce myself and make my content as helpful and as valuable as possible.
That way, at the very least, hopefully my end user gets the impression that I’m at least a sincere human, who wants to help! I also try my best to prove that I can indeed offer valuable content, and that yes I’m capable of helping them.
Lead Generation Funnel Goal # 3 – Promote Something!
It’s also important to promote something!
If you’re going to be spending money on advertising, then it would behoove you to actually try to generate some type of a sale, right?
That’s why, I honestly think that your opt-in funnels or any type of lead generation funnel should be equipped to promote an offer or a product of some type.
Maybe you could promote an affiliate offer, a network marketing offer, your course, your book, your service, or maybe even a consultation call so you can potentially generate a really warm lead for some type of service that you offer.
The Beauty Of A Proper Email Marketing Funnel Is That Many Of These Goals Can Be Automated!
These days, there are tons of nifty page builders and marketing tools that can help you to automate many of the components that make up a lead marketing funnel.
In fact, personally, I try my best to automate as much as possible, and if you’re capable of keeping a secret (lol), I’m building a massive email autoresponder campaign, and am always trying my best to make it long as possible!
Imagine having an email autoresponder series that lasted a month, 6 months, a year, or even MANY years.
Wouldn’t that kind of automation feel good, especially if your content was stuffed to the brim with powerful, and valuable content? (And of course, your content could also include some of your own offers and promotions sprinkled throughout).
How To Build An Email List? Focus On Building A Powerful Marketing Funnel!
That way, you can focus your energies on advertising that funnel, and you can also split test and measure your marketing creatives.
I think that split testing, measuring, and experimenting with your marketing funnels is drastically important and is a step that is very easy to overlook.
I’d also like to brainstorm 5 of my favorite marketing funnel types, all of which can be ingeniously designed to help build your email list.
In any event, I’d like to spend some time brainstorming more about the different types of email marketing and lead generation funnels, and how they can help you to generate email leads and to build your email list!
Email Lead Generation Funnel Idea # 1 – Automated Webinar Funnels
I’m always writing and talking about automated webinar funnels because they can be a really cool way to generate email leads.
The best part about an automated webinar funnel, is that it can also help you to share awesome content with your new prospects.
So, once your end user registers to your webinar, they can also be added to your email followup sequence at the same time, allowing you to share awesome email marketing content with them.
The beauty of an automated webinar funnel is that webinars can also be a really smart way to introduce yourself and your business, share powerful training content, and of course, you can use this opportunity to make a special offer to your prospects.
(I think that small business owners especially can benefit from automation, as it frees us up to work on our business, instead of slaving away in our business!)
Email Lead Generation Funnel Idea # 2 – Lead Magnet Funnels
A lead magnet funnel is the typical marketing funnel that generates email marketing leads.
But first, ask yourself, what can you give away to your prospect as an ethical bribe, that would actually entice them to give you their email address?
Because never forget, that your prospect probably won’t join your email newsletter for the heck of it.
You need to pre-sell all of those awesome benefits that you offer to the world.
That’s where your lead magnet funnel comes into play.
When trying to figure out the perfect lead magnet, I think that it’s important to spend a lot of time brainstorming the problems that your end users are having.
That way, when your ideal prospect lands on your lead capture page, they can’t help but be enticed by your awesome lead magnet!
Email Lead Generation Funnel Idea # 3 – Squeeze Page Funnels
A squeeze page funnel has one purpose and one purpose only, and that purpose is to generate a lead!
I personally love squeeze page funnels, and one of the first courses that I ever taught was on this very topic.
After generating many thousands of leads with squeeze page funnels, my honest advice is to keep it simple.
I’ve personally found, that having a simple, light, quick, and blatantly OBVIOUS call to action can greatly improve opt-in rates.
However, as always, please never take my advice for granted. And remember, before we test, all we have is a guess!
Email Lead Generation Funnel Idea # 4 – Hero Funnels
A hero funnel is a very special type of funnel that is, in my opinion, underrated, and little-known.
The beautiful thing about a hero funnel is that it’s designed to be very versatile.
You can use a hero funnel to feature your books, your courses, your products, your services, your stories, your affiliate links, and of course, your email newsletter.
If you have a powerful message that you want to share with the world, and if you want to brand yourself while building your email list, then hero funnels are worth checking out.
Email Lead Generation Funnel Idea # 5 – Affiliate Bridge Funnels
Finally, let’s talk about how awesome affiliate bridge funnels are.
An affiliate bridge funnel is a type of funnel that’s perfect for network marketers or affiliate marketers.
But how does it work? Well, the main idea is to pre-sell an affiliate offer, generate an email lead, and then actually promote that affiliate offer as soon as your lead subscribes.
There are a few advantages to this type of funnel. First of all, instead of promoting an affiliate offer outright, an affiliate bridge funnel focuses instead on generating an email lead first and foremost.
After the lead is generated, the lead is then shown a video that ideally pre-sells the affiliate link that is being promoted via a big button below the video.
Of course, the real magic then involves sending awesome followup content to the new lead, which of course is an art and science unto itself (and worth studying!).
Check Out This Powereful Infographic That Showcases An Easy Step By Step Guide For Building Effective And Intelligent Lead Generation Funnels!
The awesome blogging team over at Albacross recently published an amazing infographic that shows the full step by step process for building an effective lead generation funnel.
I honestly believe that the art and science of lead generation funnels is tremendously important, and Albacross does an excellent job of illustrating exactly what an effective lead generation funnel looks like.
If you want to visualize the steps for building an awesome lead generation funnel, or if you just want to learn more about this topic, then click here to check out the lead generation funnel infographic.
Or, if you’ve ever been frustrated because you’re just not sure what a lead generation funnel looks like in the most practical sense, then I totally recommend checking out the infographic.
Albacross does a great job talking about how to raise awareness for your lead magnet, how to effectively identify your prospects, and also how you can engage your leads so that your message is designed to resonate with your audience and make an impact!
Thank You So Much For Reading This Blog! You Rock!
I want to let you know that I absolutely love email marketing and email list building.
That being said, I also think that many marketers oversell how easy email marketing is.
Make no mistake, email marketing and managing an email newsletter requires effort, imagination, creativity, grit, guts, and luck!
That being said, I honestly believe, that if you love your industry, and if you want to generate rapport, build authority, and share awesome content with your prospects, that email marketing totally rocks, and publishing an email newsletter can be one of the coolest things in the marketing world.
As always, I invite you to contact me if you ever have questions.
Until that time, please have an amazing day.
Cordially…
Mike “The List” DeVincent
MrComputerScience.com