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Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

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Welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, Evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer.

Today I am talking about the three organic and easy ways to grow your mailing list. Now, before we get into this, if you’re listening to this and thinking, I’m really running ads, don’t need to hear this or I’m too early on in my business journey don’t need to hear this. Let me tell you something, you do. Okay. If there is one area of your business, one bit of data that has a really clear correlation to how many sales you’re going to make today, this week, next month, the next year, it’s the size of your mailing list, your mailing list is going to have a vast impact on how much money you make. And yes, I’m kind of repeating myself here. But I really want to make sure this lands. Because in the online business space, so many of us are chasing these vanity metrics, okay. And it’s easy to understand why, you know, when we first started out in the online business world, you probably follow one of your competitors, and you’re like, wow, they got 1000s of followers and I’ve got like 53 I can’t wait to be like them, we associate people with big followings with therefore being established and haven’t been around a while and known what they’re doing. And so you know, a lot of us think once we have that people are going to trust us more, and like us more, and assume that we have that authority to. And yes, while some of that’s kind of true at the same time, I don’t know about you, but I shared three posts today, because I’m in launch mode, so I’m hosting away. But honestly, the percentage of my following that it has met, I think it’s something like 1% 1%, I could probably reach more people with a reel. But what I’ve noticed is the reels I share the quality of the likes, the quality of the followers didn’t tend to be that great.

So basically, organic marketing right now, I’m just not seeing it hitting the mark. And I’m hearing that from a lot of other people too. And the truth is, I’ve probably referenced this before, and you may have even heard this elsewhere. But do bear in mind, there are stories of influencers out there with millions of followers who can’t sell a frickin t shirt. Okay. So having a large following does not equate to more sales, the only thing it might show you is that you’ve got something right in terms of your messaging, because people want to follow you. But that’s about as far as it goes. And if you are getting something right, and your messaging is good, and people are following you then listen up to what I’m about to share. Because what that means is you 100% Could be growing your list better. And I’m gonna be sharing some really good tips that are going to help you do it. Because like I say, there is a correlation between how many people there are on your mailing list and how many sales you will make this month, you could show me someone with 5000 followers 15,000 followers, I would not be able to give you any indication as to how many sales they could forecast this month. Show me the size your mailing list, and I can pretty confidently tell you how many sales you can make this month, if you do all the right things, okay. So it really, really matters. And it is never too soon to be growing your mailing list. Never too soon start writing a regular newsletter. And similarly, you should never just rely on one source alone to grow your mailing list, you should always have at least two or three different strategies constantly on the growth on the grow on the go to grow your mailing list, because you know, relying on ads is not enough ads can fluctuate times like now we’re about to head into November as I record this, and November is relaxed Friday season, which tends to see the cost of running ads saw very high and all the way into December as all those Christmas ads are running too. And then it comes right back down again. And January is prime time to be running ads. But it does mean if you’ve been relying on a really nice low cost per lead ad that you’ve been running.

You shouldn’t be relying too heavily on that and have a few other tricks up your sleeve. And are you lucky because I’m about to share a few really good ones with you today. Okay, so I’ve called this the three organic and easy ways to grow your mailing lists, but I’m looking at my list and true to my style, there’s five things on there. But actually two of them are kind of the foundational elements you need to consider as to why people join your list in the first place. And then the three other ideas like where to get in front of people to invite people onto it. So let’s start where we need to start, which is, you need a lead magnet, or a newsletter, which essentially could also be called a lead magnet. Essentially, a lead magnet does what it says on the tin darling, it magnetises leads. But what it does is, it’s a reason why people would give you their email address and their name, they’re not going to do that willy nilly, they don’t want you to spam in their inbox, sharing the latest on your life and your business, they won’t do that unless you are offering them something in exchange. Now, people do all sorts of different things for lead magnets, they do quizzes, they do little PDF, downloadable things with checklists, they do ebooks, they do mini video series, they do private podcasts, you name it, there’s a lot of different things out there. I think the really important thing to say regardless of what stage you’re at in business, is that actually simple really is best.

If someone has just discovered you, if they’re new to your world, they probably don’t want to spend an hour consuming your content, they probably also don’t want to spend five days taking five minutes out of their day to watch your video series. Because let’s face it, we live busy lives, chances are, we’ll forget, we’ll watch the first video that was great. And by day two will have lost that motivation we had in that moment that we signed up to your mailing list, and we will not watch video two, or three or four or five, and we’ll forget about you again. So you want something as simple and effective, that they can get a kind of result from immediately. And one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of quizzes is that they’re kind of fun and entertaining in the moment. Everyone loves a quiz. But does it actually demonstrate your knowledge? Does it really help them want to work with you? In the majority of cases, the quizzes I see do not do that. So it’s not to say all quizzes are bad. But all quizzes certainly are not equal. And if you are going to create a quiz, don’t just base it on woohoo, I’m getting one pound leads because I’ve supported people with Facebook ads to quiz funnels before. And their cost per lead was Yeah, ridiculously low. But how many of them actually turned into clients also incredibly low? So do think very carefully about your client journey? Think about what does your client need to know? For them to feel like working with you is a no brainer? What is the current objection standing between you and your ideal client? What do they need to know is possible for themselves? What can you give them evidence of to help them feel like oh my gosh, if she can help me do that, then just imagine what would happen if we work together? Okay, so that’s a really good place to start from a lot of times people like, Oh, should I do a quiz? Should I do this? Should I right? Don’t look at it through its functionality. Don’t look at it as like, how am I serving it up? Look at it in terms of what problem you’re solving. And if you lead with that, then you’ll create something that people actually want. You won’t be thinking how many pages does my PDF need, it requires as many pages as a problem needs solving. And like I say, keep it simple if you if you help them, like figure out how to like put a pixel on your Facebook, and it’s complicated and overwhelming, they’re probably gonna be like, Oh my God, if it was that complicated sorting out pixel for Facebook ads, there’s no way I want to learn the rest. So think carefully about what you support somebody to do, which gives them an appetite for more.

So that’s the first thing to think about. Think about what problem you’re solving. Another really clever little thing I’ve spotted recently as a kind of trend in the online business space is little seven minute trainings, I think they’re pretty nifty. I think it’s quite nice to know what I’m talking in the slight kind of a Brighton accent today. But you know, but yeah, I think they’re pretty nifty because they take seven minutes to record. And you can just share a little bit of valuable advice probably similar to this podcast that I’m recording for you now where you’re like, I’m going to give you a really valuable takeaway that’s going to transform how you do business and help you make more money. But obviously, you could do that in any context. You can do that in health, you can do that in. Well, everything. There’s probably something that people ask you all the time that you could distil into a seven minute training and you could do a little post saying people ask me all the time, how is it that I’ve got such amazing skin? Or how is it that I never forget anything or how is organised I’m going to break down for you in the next seven minutes how I do that and people be biting your hand off for it because people have got seven minutes. They have not got 30 Most of the time it seems these days. So things like that a good fun either think about a really valuable lead magnet or let’s say you’re an incredible writer people already love consuming your content. This is obviously where substack comes into its own but you know also similarly beautifully written newsletters you know I follow their As people just because I’ve seen little snapshots of the newsletter and thought, Oh, that looks like a tasty read. Yeah, I’ll take some time out to do that. Now most people don’t write newsletters like that. But if you are one of the few that does that, make a point of it. And make sure when you’re sending out that newsletter, that you share a little screenshot as to what it is you’re sharing this week, and give them a little teaser as to what they would be receiving if they’re on your mailing list, so that they can still join it and see that newsletter too. So it gets to be really simple as what I’m saying here, I’m saying that if you don’t have the time to create a lead magnet, at least lead with your newsletter, and let them know that they’re missing something pretty special if they’re not on your mailing list. Okay. Now, how do we let people know about your mailing list? How do we let people know about your lead magnet? How do we make sure it’s not just some little link at the bottom of your link tree just gathering dust and nobody sees it occasionally, once in a while someone might kind of stumble upon it.

And you might get a little trickle of people coming through joining your mailing list each week, how do we create a flood? Okay, well, here’s how we create a flood. It’s really simple. Like I said, I would really recommend looking at it in like three different ways. And bearing in mind, by the way, I’m talking organic here. So don’t wait for the moment I say ads, I’m not going to talk about ads, ads is an obvious one, okay, you should 100% Once you can afford to run ads, you should be doing it. The second, you’ve got any kind of consistent revenue coming in, you should be list building with ads. And I’ve got a course that will help you with that. Just by the way, just by the way, you can go check it out, it’s on my website. But organically. If you’ve got a podcast, you can be using our podcast to promote your lead magnet. It’s as simple as having an episode like this and saying And hey, if you want the downloadable version of what I’ve just shared with you, if you want to know the three tips on how to do it and a template to help you get started, click the link below and sign up to my lead magnet. Boom. I mean, I’m saying this again, I wish I’d done that myself. I mean, I have got the one Academy by the way, which is full of valuable resources.

And the link is below and I do recommend you sign up. And now I’ve shared this if there is a demand, pop it in my DM say Polly Yes, please give me a template. And I will create one for you. Because I’m nice like that. Okay, so that’s point number one, point number two. And by the way, if I’m sounding really energetic, it’s because the kids are with their dad this week. So I’m feeling all levels of energy that I have not. I don’t know, I don’t know where they went. But they’ve come back. So point number one podcast. Place number two, because you might not have a podcast, I get that you might be like, Paul, come on, you’re talking to me. I haven’t got a podcast yet. Well, if that’s you, you can also be promoting it in your stories. So rather than just saying, Oh, just send out a newsletter, I hope it’s alright. Hope you like it. You can be doing a poll saying, I’ve just sent out my newsletter. Are you on my mailing list? Do you want to see it? Yes. No. They say yes. You say great. Where’s your email? I do too. But you know, like GDPR? By the way, if you do that, do you also follow up with do you give me permission and take a screenshot, and then save it? If you want to make sure you’re being GDPR compliant? I’m sure it probably goes a little bit further on that. But that’s one way, the way I get around it is I simply give them the link for them to go sign up, okay, because I just prefer not to avoid potentially messing up what I meant to do there. And instead say, fabulous, here’s the link, you can sign up here. And then I follow up and say, Did you get it so that if they’ve forgotten about it, they don’t forget about it? So yes, polls are a wonderful way to get people to engage and interact with you and tease the things that you want them to. Because if you say do you want the link, we share the link links really damaged your stories reach. So sharing an actual physical link in your stories, generally speaking, not a good idea. Similarly saying DM me for it again, people are like, Oh, but what do I say? Should I do it now? Or maybe I’ll carry on scrolling, they won’t do it. So that’s where polls really come into their own. Okay, so polls use them. Um, point number three hand raise the posts as they call them on your grid. Now, when I say on your grid, I mean, you could do this on Facebook, you could do this on Instagram, you could do this on LinkedIn in what do I mean by a hand raise a post, I mean, saying something like I’ve just been working on a spreadsheet to help my new client calculate the profit in their new group programme.

Comment below the word profit if you’d like to get this too. And then they will go profit, profit, profit, profit, profit. And then you could reply and say, fab, I’m going to send you a link to your inbox right now. Now you can also by the way, be uber Uber sophisticated, and use many chat, which then has this automation thing which basically gets triggered by the word in your comments so that the DMS are automatically sent to that person with the link. But as I often say to my clients, you don’t need to put the cart in front of the horse. If you are testing the waters with this kind of strategy. And you’re only getting the odd bite. Don’t start investing loads of money and time and systems you don’t need yet. Okay, so now it’s there so that it doesn’t intimidate you. So you’re not like well, what happens when this does really well and I got 1000s of people responding well, great. You can then use many chat. You can do it for hundreds if you want you could do it for 10 And but if to begin with if you’re anything like me and you’ve got a relatively small following, and to begin with every time you say stuff like that you get like two or three comments.

Don’t don’t go by Many chat though. Just be silly. So those are my three tips, hand razor posts where you say, this is what I’ve got, this is what it solves. This is who it’s for. Do you want it? Comment this word below. Interested, by the way is a word I’ve been told is a very good word to use. interested. That’s the tip I’ve been given by the lovely Liam from videos for coaches, FYI, who edits my reels very, very well. So interested is a word he’s told me to use. So yeah, do those Henry’s posts on your grid share essentially the same question in your stories and use a pole use poles however you like, I use a pole in a different way all the time, just so I encourage that engagement. And then means when you throw in a question to do with something that’s more self serving than them, they tend to still respond. And the first one, of course, is podcasts. Just make sure whether you’re a guest or whether you have your own that you always have some kind of freebie up your sleeve that you can say, Yeah, and if you find today really helpful, I’ve actually got a fabulous resource that will help you get started, you can find it on, I need that.com. Okay, that’s another tip I give my clients. So I’m like, if you’re going to have a really useful resource that you’re going to promote everywhere, go really easy domain, if you’ve got some really hard spell name, like Polly Lavarello, create something like I have the one academy.co.uk

Because I know people know how to spell the one academy.co.uk They don’t necessarily know how to say or spell Polly Lavarello I’ve got Polly Polarello the other day, which I thought was pretty neat. I mean, I was almost tempted to go to depol, but then I would have been, you know, I’m gonna go that I was gonna make a joke that about losing the pole in my name the depol. But that’s just one step too far one step too far. So there we have it. Those were the three organic and easy ways to grow your mailing list hand raiser content, you know, stories hand raiser a content in your grid, share it all over the place, share it and in podcasts. And yeah, just make those invitations all the time, just see it as making invitations, because I’ll tell you something, when you get used to making invitations to your lead magnet also makes it so much easier later on to sell. And of course, as people join your lead magnet, make sure you’re not missing any fabulous opportunities to sell to them by ensuring that it comes alongside a wonderful nurture slash welcome sequence, which introduces them to yourself how you help people, and you know, usually an invitation to book a call or something like that. So they can learn how they can work with you, or perhaps an invitation to get a discount on when you’re low ticket offers. Whatever you want that to look like. I mean, I feel this should be obvious. But believe me, I work with clients who are really deep into their entrepreneurial journey. And they will confess they still don’t have things like this. So make sure you’ve got that because, again, just such an easy thing to do. And so impactful. And as far as I see, it is an act of hospitality, you wouldn’t invite someone into your house and be like, Alright, then you get on with it, you know, you you’d show them around when you show them around. So there you have it, grow your mailing list, you will thank me later. Okay. And next week, I’m going to be back talking about the tools you need to be a C E, oh, that sounds a bit weird, then the tools you need to be a CEO. And in the meantime, if you want to get your hands on my SEO tools, head on over to the one academy.co.uk and knock yourself out. I really really highly recommend if you’re not on there to get on there asapp Because in November, we have got some one academy.co.uk member exclusives and when I say member like it’s free, you can join for free. But those of you who are in there specifically already maxing out the tools and having all the fun in there. You will get some very juicy invitations. Okay. I’m not going to say any more just know that if you’re not already in there, get in there because all they know you’re special. And you’ll then get the special treatment. Okay, so hope see you in that next week. I will be back talking about those SEO tools and how you can use them to help you scale and grow your business. And just yeah, have the best 2020 forever in business. Let’s talk about it. Okay, see you that bye