This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Aside from your website, your email list may be your most important tool in growing any new business. But after you get it set up, what comes next? Now keep in mind that in setting up systems, there are often two separate parts. So one is the technical aspect of whatever needs to be done, and then there's the marketing aspect. So you make a website, for example, and you're like, "Awesome, I made a website." But then what?
Or you might set up a way to accept payments. And you're like, "Great, but who's going to pay you?" And generally speaking, I think you should spend a lot more time on this second group of tasks. Keep everything as simple as possible on the tech side so that you can focus your efforts on marketing. Like get these simple things out of the way so that then you're like, "Okay, now I've got that website. How do I get people there?
I've got that email list. How do I get people to subscribe?" And that topic is what we're gonna talk about today. Today's listener is wondering, "Okay, what comes next?" So let's talk about that in the episode. First, a quick thank you to our sponsor. I really appreciate them allowing the show to be completely free to our listeners.
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Hi Chris, this is John from Phoenix, and I've been listening to the show for a couple of years now. I signed up for MailChimp and have been enjoying the process of getting it set up. I put it off for a while because I was worried about the tech part of it. But it's easier than I thought it would be. I wrote a welcome message and figured out how to add the code to my site.
So that's great, but now comes the next step. How to get people to actually want to be on the list. I've thought about offering some kind of free bonus if they sign up, but I don't know what it would be. Any ideas? Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you.
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Great, thanks so much, John, and congratulations on getting the site set up and signed up for MailChimp, et cetera. And by the way, listeners, pay attention to what John said. He's like, I thought it was gonna be difficult. I put it off because I was worried about the tech part of it, but it turned out to be easier than I thought. Okay, so there's a good lesson for somebody right away.
And just so our listeners didn't miss out, let's recap those first steps because first, John had to sign up for an email list service. In his case, he chose MailChimp. There are lots of others. Then he created a welcome message that can be sent to everybody who joins the list. It's like, hey, thanks so much for joining.
Here's what you can expect. Here's the product that I'm offering or the service that I'm offering or the topic that I'm sharing expertise on, whatever it is. Then the email service, whether it's MailChimp or ConvertKit or some other company, they'll give you a snippet of code, little thing you copy and paste, and you install that on your site so that the email form would show up. Okay, so just wanna make sure everybody gets that. So far, so good, now what?
'Cause that's the extent. That's the whole extent of the tech work. Now comes the hard work and the fun part. It gets hard work and it's fun both. So now you wanna make a list of everything you can do to encourage people to join in that list.
The first thing John mentioned was, should I have some kind of bonus or incentive? That's a good idea. And John didn't mention what kind of site he has created, so it's hard to advise specifically. Usually it's something related to the topic or some kind of information that people would benefit from. So it's genuinely helpful and useful, not just something you're trying to sell.
You could also consider a discount on your first purchase. If it's an e-commerce business, if you're trying to sell various items, you can ask your friends and family to sign up. Nothing wrong with that. Write to your friends and family and say, I made this site. It would help me if you sign up for my newsletter.
Number four, make it clear on your website that the email list is really important. Like as you're writing your copy, don't bury the email list sign up. Make sure it's front and center on the about page. Mention the email list. Just really prioritize that this is a key action you want visitors to take.
And then lastly, so you wrote the welcome message. That's great, but you wanna write more messages. And you can use the next few to also be helpful in some way. And you can write these messages once and set them up in a sequence. Sometimes it's called a drip campaign or an autoresponder sequence to where your subscribers will automatically get them over the time period that you set up.
Now, these are different from broadcast messages, which go out to whoever's on the list at any time. But the welcome sequence goes out based on a schedule that you set. So you might say, okay, get the welcome message on day one. And then day two, it's like, oh, here's some tips. And day three, it's like, here's a case study or an example.
So you create a sequence that can go out to people based on whenever they sign up. So hopefully those things will help, as I said, focus much more on this kind of stuff than on that first part of things. As John has experienced and many of our other listeners as well, it doesn't have to be that hard, the tech part of it. You wanna focus your efforts on marketing. Okay, I'll stop there.
I could say more, but I'll stop. Listeners, if you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much, by the way, for being a part of the year of interaction. I'm so grateful. I look forward to bringing you more case study stories and hopefully some helpful tips and tools.
That's it for today. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
