Notes are from Melyssa Griffin’s seminar on Teachable Live. While all attempts are made to present correct information, there is a chance I’ve written notes incorrectly!
Wow! This was a very informative talk on how to get your first 1,000 email subscribers so I wanted to publish my notes on Melyssa Griffin’s seminar on Teachable Live. Enjoy!
How to Get 1000 Email Subscribers in 90 days (2019 Teachable Live Notes)
Melyssa started growing her email list and creating courses, which earned her $25,000 in 30 days. She closed down her graphic design studio to work on her business and ended up earning over $1.3 million. She started without a business degree or MBA, had a tiny budget, and didn’t have marketing knowledge. Now, Melyssa’s taught over 12,000 students and created a community of over 300,000 people
She was able to achieve her results by prioritizing list building and email marketing, as well as creating and selling online courses.
Advantages of Email Lists:
- With an email list, you own your own following. No algorithm or company can take it from you!
- It is also a personal way to connect with your audience (speaking directly to them).
- People are more likely to buy from you through email. Higher conversion rates when comparing with social media
- Ensures more people see your content. Your content gets to the top of their inbox and is based on when you
Average Instagram engagement = 2-5%
- 1000 Instagram followers = 20-50 likes per post
Average Email List Engagement = 20-40%
- 1000 email subscribers = 200-400 people opening your emails.
Mistakes People Make
Here’s an example of an opt-in that isn’t good enough:
- Too vague. What exactly will I be getting?
- What problem is this solving for me?
One of the best opt-ins to create = a 5-day Challenge
5 emails sent out over the span of 5 days which teach valuable information and encourage participants to take action
- Actionable rather than passive
- Small quick wins each day (builds trust and loyalty)
- The challenge topic is directly related to your course topic
- High-value lead magnet which translates to quick growth. Feels like an event where you know you’re going to get a lot of good information and results out of it vs. a one page PDF
Breakdown:
- You’ll share a landing page with people online, talking about your challenge and the problem it will solve for people
- Registrants will get an email each day of the challenge (she recommends 5 days) to teach them something and give them an action item.
- By the end of the challenge, registrants will have accomplished something, fallen in love with your brain, and possibly even purchased something from you!
Case Study: Triple Your Traffic Challenge (A Challenge She’s Created)
- Goal for challenge AND course is the same (attracts the right people)
- Challenge was all email based (you can do video or audio too but this one was just email)
- 5 days
- Led into Pinfinite Growth course launch (an online course about Pinterest marketing)
Registration Page
- Your Headline = obvious what you’re getting out of it, clear and concise
- Your Description = add testimonial / social proof / success story…stats on what has been delivered
- Use CTA – “Sign Me Up for the Challenge” instead of “Enroll Now” or “Sign Up”. Feels more actionable than a “Click Here”.
- Add a photo of yourself to make it more personable if you are the face of the brand
Results:
- 8000 people signed up for the challenge
- 550 registrants purchased the course
- 7% of registrants bought the course (typical email conversion rates are 1-3%)
With these stats, you could already make $20k from a mere 1,000 people on your email list.
Next Case Study: Email List Accelerator Challenge
- Combination of video, workbook, live Q&A call, and a step-by-step checklist
- 4 days of content spread out over 8 days. She would do 5 straight days if she were to do the challenge again
- Led into PursuitHQ Membership site (her membership site)
- She also used and recommends a custom domain name (easy to remember and share) like emaillistaccelerator.com
- 5 days or less of content
- Directly connects to course topics (make sure you’re building the right list)
3 Ways to Come Up with Challenge Content
- You could put in the first module of your current/future course or a portion of the first module
- Or, you could put in one important process that you will teach in your course. Maybe it’s not the first thing you’ll teach in the course but there’s an important process that you’ll teach in the course – break that down into 5 steps in your challenge.
- General overview of the main steps in your paid course
Solve a Problem
- Decide what the goal of your challenge will be
- What problem does your audience need help solving?
- Which topic will you teach for your current/future online course? Work backwards!
Keep it Quick
- The content you teach should be something they can accomplish during the timeframe of the challenge (5 days).
- Longer processes can be taught in your online course.
Your Challenge
Day 1: Introduction – Easy Win
- Introduce yourself and your brand to your new subscriber
- Share some myths or misconceptions that hold people back regarding your challenge
- Give them step 1 with a quick easy win
Days 2-4 : Teach Steps 2-4
- What are the next few steps that will help them accomplish your challenge’s goal?
- Give them an action item to complete each day (15-30 minutes)
- Give them quick wins to build that trust with people. Don’t give them things that take hours to do because they won’t actually do it
Day 5 : The Final Step + Soft Pitch
- Lead them through the final step before they can accomplish the goal of the challenge
- If you’re using your challenge during a course launch, this final day is when you can share more about your course.
What You Don’t Want to Do:
- You give them so much that they leave your challenge feeling like they know everything. They’re going to think they got everything and don’t need more.
- They’re overwhelmed with too much to do (give them too many action items to do)
- You give them things that are not actionable and just “theory” (remember, quick wins!)
The Tech:
- Create a landing page where people can sign up.
- Schedule your 5 challenge emails into an Email Service Provider so that registrants automatically receive the emails each day.
- Want to host videos? Audio? Use Teachable – give people access to that, or use a landing page
90 days of list building – First 15 days: Creating and uploading your challenge content
Grow your email list:
First, promote internally
Optimize your website so that people can opt in to your challenge.
- Add “Welcome mat” opt-in. Right at the top of your website. Sumo is a software where you can do that. When she put an opt-in at the top her subscribers doubled
- Add “Pop-up” opt-in. Pop up after they’ve been on your site for a while
- Add “Hello bar” opt-in
- Add an opt-in within relevant posts.
Tools for your opt-in forms:
- LeadPages
- OptinMonster
- Sumo
- ConvertKit
- Hello Bar
Create Pre-challenge Content + Strategically Repurpose it
- Blog posts / podcasts / YouTube – create 1-2 pieces of content that will lead into the topic of the challenge.
- Repurpose the blog posts into emails to your list. They are ways to send them to landing page to sign up for email challenge.
- Your email list users may share it with others as well.
- Use the same content on Facebook and Instagram lives. Post on Instagram feed as well.
- Reach out to family and friends
- Invite your family and friends (your biggest fans) to join your challenge
- Don’t think they’re a good fit? Ask them to invite anyone who they think will be a good fit.
- These people want to support you and likely give a wholehearted testimonial about you to the people they know. easy win
Take Your Challenge On Tour!
The Top 25 List
- Make a list of 25 people or brands you’d LOVE to collaborate with to promote your challenge
- 22 should have a similar or slightly larger following
- 3 should be stretch collaborators that might feel a little “out of your league” right now
Ideal collaborators
- They have your ideal audience – the audience you want to reach
- They have an engaged audience (comments, shares, “word on the street”)
- They have complementary products (rather than competing products)
What kinds of collaborations?
- Hosting a Facebook Live in their Facebook group or on their page.
- Guest posting on their website
- Instagram story takeover on their account. They post your IG story and if they have a swipe up feature they can lead to your landing page easily.
- Podcast interview on their podcast
The Key?
- You’re always getting in front of new audiences
- You can repurpose your pre-challenge content during your collaborations since only your audience has seen it! Teach the same things all over the place and that’s how you get buzz on your brand
Days 46-90: Collaborating your way to list growth
Repurposing your content is key!
Batch your collaborations. Write all of your guest posts in one day. Record all your Instagram story takeovers in one day. Have your collaborators schedule them.
How to Pitch Collaborators?
She recommends:
- Sending an email versus social media
- Frame it as a win for them (not about you)
- Why are you the person to teach this? Try to show results and social proof as well as challenge results so far if possible.
- Have a specific collaboration idea – don’t just say let me know if you have a collaboration idea
Summary:
- Create a stellar 5-day challenge that solves a problem and correlates to your paid course topic
- You promote it internally (social media, emails, friends and family)
- You go on tour (collaborative list growth tactics, like podcast interviews and IG story takeovers).
The results you can get:
- You’ve attracted at least 1,000 subscribers in 90 days or less.
- You have a killer tool that you can use before an online course launch!
- You can keep using your challenge to grow your list
- You’ve built relationships with tons of other creators and brands!
Hope you enjoyed these notes on how to get 1000 email subscribers in 90 days. It makes me realize I have so much to work on. Did you benefit from this? Let me know in the comments below!
