Growing an email is important for any business. Your email subscribers are people who are already interested in your business on some level. And perhaps most importantly, you own and control your connection to them – as opposed to social media, where ever-changing algorithms make it more difficult than ever to convert followers into customers.

I have put a lot of time and energy into growing my email list, and it’s been one of the best investments I’ve made in my business. I use my email list to connect with my customers and to drive sales, and I’ve learned how to effectively use email as a tool to grow my business. Here is a step-by-step guide to how I use my email list and lead magnets to drive sales.

Step One: Create a Lead Magnet

Creating a lead magnet is a crucial step to engaging your target customers and building your email list: a lead magnet or a free item or service you provide in exchange for someone’s email address. Businesses use lead magnets as a tool for nurturing potential sales. While it might take some time and creativity to develop a great lead magnet upfront, it can pay off significantly. 

The important thing to consider when choosing a lead magnet is to provide something that solves a problem for your audience. Ideally, your lead magnet will give your email subscribers something of value that’s useful to them, and build your credibility and expertise in their eyes.

There are several free resources I offer my audience, but my primary freebie is The Plan Behind Your Brand. It’s my most popular lead magnet and alone has gotten me more than 1,500 subscribers on my email list.

Here are a few ideas for free resources you can offer as lead magnets:

Step Two: Set Up Your Email Sign-Up or Landing Page

Once you’ve decided on a lead magnet and created it, your next step is to establish a web page where visitors can enter their contact information to receive it. The most common way to do this is by using your email marketing platform to build a landing page or email sign-up page.

The landing or sign-up page should confirm what your email subscribers are signing up to receive. This is a great spot to talk about the benefits they can expect to get out of your lead magnet. That way, you secure their interest and encourage them to sign up.

I create my landing pages in Mailchimp. The platform makes it super easy to create them and capture emails.

Step Three: Create a Nurture Sequence 

The next step to use lead magnets to get more sales is to set up an automated email that subscribers receive with their lead magnet. This step gets them on my email list and into my nurture sequence.

Nurture sequences are essential to maintaining your email list and developing a relationship with your email subscribers. A nurture sequence is an automated series of emails that subscribers receive after signing up for your list. 

If you have more than one lead magnet or entry point to your list, you can create multiple nurture sequences that are tailored to your subscriber’s interests. 

Step Four: Provide Value to Your Subscribers

Once someone signs up to receive a lead magnet and joins my nurture sequence, I want to build a relationship with them. It’s my goal to help them get to know me and learn that I’m an expert who can provide them value. 

Using my nurture sequence, I show my email subscribers that I’m a helpful resource on all things design and business growth. I sprinkle other freebies into my nurture sequence emails, so subscribers get practical tools they need and develop trust in me.

Then, toward the end of my nurture sequence, I pitch a paid product of mine. In that email, I talk about the value of my paid product and emphasize how it will make life easier or resolve a challenge my subscribers have. 

Step Five: Promote Your Lead Magnet

Now that I have my lead magnet and landing page, and my nurture sequence, it’s time to promote it! Promoting the lead magnet is what gets it in front of my audience and builds interest in the value it provides.

Lead magnets are the one thing I will invest in paid advertising for because I know the value of growing my email list. I currently run ads for my lead magnet on Pinterest and Instagram, which let me customize what demographics and audience traits my ad appears to. These ads help me place my free resource in front of new people to extend my reach past my current audience and followers.

And there you have it, the secret sauce behind my rapidly growing email list. Using lead magnets and my email marketing system to increase sales has been a game-changer for my business. It might seem like putting this plan into motion is a lot of work, but once you do it once, you’ll have the tools you need to repurpose and reuse the same landing page designs and email templates over and over again.

To help you get started, here is The Ultimate Marketing Kit. I created it to give you everything you need to design your lead magnet, start promoting it, and get more email subscribers on your list!