From our first moments in business we are taught that in order to be successful, we must build our email list as quickly as possible through some kind of lead magnet, be that a webinar, digital download, 5-day challenge etc., in exchange for a person's email address.

I started out this way myself, but now I choose not to use a freebie to build my list, this blog article explains why.

— In this article —

How and why I stopped using freebies to grow my email list

I’m a keen observer of human behaviour. I notice patterns, speculate potential causes, and then confirm (or not) my assumptions by analysing the available data.

What I found after a few years of analysing my email list is that the quicker someone joins it as a result of a free thing, the lower the open rate and the higher incidence of spam reports. This is especially true for online summits.

I can accept that there will always be a percentage of unsubscribes and non-openers, but what choose not to accept is a business system that results my words (my art), ending up in peoples inboxes and their response being “Who the hell is Danielle Gardner?”

What I choose is for people to make a very conscious choice about inviting me into their inbox, and when they see an email from me they say, “Oh it’s Dani, I wonder what she has to say today!”

So I decided to cease using lead magnets and instead I simply invited people to join my list — but there was a catch!

The sign-up form included a few ‘required’ market research questions for people to respond to. For some people this was just too much to ask. And that’s perfect, it means they are not ‘really’ ready to invite me in.

It felt bold, cheeky and deliciously audacious to make these questions part of the process, and I’m so glad I did because the responses to those questions have been ever so helpful for my messaging and offerings.

{There has been a further evolution to how I approach my email list so the form mentioned above is no longer used. The only way to join my list now is by enrolling in one of my offerings}

What happened to my email open and click-through rates

I took this opportunity to also do a little ‘list cleansing’. By that I mean I archived contacts who had been on my list for a few years and had either never opened an email, or very rarely.

What I noticed over the preceding months is that my open rate started to move into the 35% range, then 45% and sometimes into the 50% range. And the click-through rate started to average around 15%.

My list was smaller than it had been, but now it was a quality list, rather than a quantity one.

Impact on sales and my level of self-expression

Now that I felt I was speaking to people who actually did know me from a bar of soap, I felt inspired to be more ‘me’, and that flowed through into my writing.

And when I announced a new offering, there was way more interest -- and sales -- than there ever had been. In many cases I was able to sell out my online classes and mentoring programs solely through my email list -- without posting the offer to socials.

I loved the feeling of doing so much more, with so much less!

By gently and quietly allowing people to get to know me through my free ungated content such as blogs, YouTube and social media, prior to asking for anything in return, I built a valuable list.

Nurture your audience ‘before’ they join your list

We are all taught to grow our email lists as big and as quickly as possible, and then ‘nurture’ our people through an email sequence. While I understand that this can be effective, it does not actually make me feel good. And how I feel about every part of my business is of utmost importance.

What does feel good is to give people the freedom to get to know me from a distance, and then when they are ready, they can make a conscious decision to invite me into their inbox.

You don’t need a 10K email list to have a 6-figure biz

Right now my email list is pretty tiny (under 800 peeps), especially when compared with my industry peers. And yet I have been able to create the 6-figure I always dreamed of.

The reason we are told we need such a big list is because that is based on a conversion rate (to sales) of 1-3% of your list. And conversion rates have everything to do with ‘how’ people join your list.

If people enter your list without really knowing you (they just want your free thing, not necessarily you) then the conversion rate will most likely be down at 1-3%. But when people join your list already knowing you, and without a freebie, the conversion rate is very different. My own conversion rate can be between 10-15%.

Suggested actions to take:

Check that you have a number of publicly available content pieces that help your audience think differently about their situation.
Do you want to make it super easy for people to join your list? Or do you like the idea of doing something different that will cause them to pause and make a conscious decision to invite you into their inbox?
There is a more recent change to my list-building approach that you may be interested in. In a nutshell, the only way to join my email list is now is by enrolling in a tiny course or becoming a client — and wow what a change this has made to my income!).

What speaks to you most in this article?

Let’s chat in the comments!

Danielle Gardner
The Quiet Marketer
View my bio