List-Building

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away from here, there was a younger version of me.

A version who was still playing the social media game, posting at least five tweets a day (sometimes more), interacting with dozens of other like-minded creators, “networking” all the time, trying to do whatever pleased the holy algorithm most, and even hosting weekly “spaces” (a live podcast type event on Twitter/X).

I used to do all that (and more) with the sole purpose of growing my email list, helping my readers to the best of my abilities, and ultimately getting paid.

And I must say, it worked.

It was by no means sustainable over the long term. At least not how I approached it back then. But it got me started, paved the way for my future endeavors, and helped me understand the foundational principles of persuasive writing, email marketing, and direct response copywriting.

Not to mention how easy it was to grow an email list, even with basically no prior knowledge, experience, or noteworthy achievements to speak of.

Just a man with a purpose.

Now, not all email subscribers are created equal of course. Some are pure and utter thrash you don’t want on your list. Yet, to this day, I still have hundreds of high-quality readers from back then (early 2023) reading my emails every single day (as well as interacting and even buying from them).

It simply depends on where those subscribers came from.

For example.

One of the best sources of high-quality, long-term, and paying readers I’ve found was the weekly Twitter spaces I did back then.

Just think about it.

Someone, somewhere, is sitting there in their room, scrolling through Twitter, when they just so happen to stumble upon one of these “spaces” (podcasts) I’m hosting. The title of the podcast catches their attention. They decide to check it out. Ended up listening to me ramble about some topic for a full 1 hour and 30 minutes. And at the end of all that they decide to follow me AND sign up for my email list.

Boy, I don’t know about you, but that person is already sold and will read almost everything I write at that point, most likely buying lots of products in the process.

Long story short, podcasts truly are a goldmine for list-building.

More.

It doesn’t have to be your podcast either. You could simply join other people’s podcasts as a guest, educating and entertaining their audience, while simply plugging your list at the end of the episode.

Almost every podcast out there nowadays is interview based, everyone’s always looking for people to interview (they need content after all), and they’ve already done the hard work of building up an audience, all you need to do is show up, talk about whatever you’re knowledgeable about, and reap the benefits.

The hardest part about this list-building strategy is looking up podcasts with similar audiences one by one and writing all of them personalized emails to get yourself booked.

But not anymore.

Let me introduce you to today’s sponsor, PodPitch, which allows you to easily find tons of podcasts that share your target audience with a single click of a button (they have a database of over 3.85 English-speaking podcasts), after which you can automatically email the ones you like with automatically personalized emails based on your tastes, experience, and goals, all in your own voice & style.

Before you know it you’re booked on dozens of podcasts and easily growing your list without any issues.

The best part?

You can try their service completely free, no credit card required whatsoever.

This truly is an amazing opportunity.

All I can say is, be sure to check them out below.

With that said, I’ll leave you with PodPitch’s own personal ad copy:

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Imagine if I’d ask 100 people the following question:

“Should you run ads if those ads aren’t making you any money?”

Now, I’d imagine all 100 of those people would answer “no”. You’d probably give me the same answer (at least I hope you would).

But then you look at what people are doing, and boy it’s a mess out there.

The amount of people who are running ads to their free lead magnets, straight to their opt-in page asking people to join their (free) email list—without making any upsells or qualifying their readers—or, and this is the worst of all, asking them to follow their social media page.

See, I get it.

The thought process goes something like this: “Me want make money. Guru says build following with big numbers. Me run ads for big numbers. Big numbers give me money.”

Although I might have explained the thought process in too much detail and made it too complex to follow—especially for the types of people who follow that type of thought process.

That said.

I hope you can see the issue. If not, let me explain it to you step-by-step.

Let’s say you are in fact running ads straight to your free lead magnet. You probably already understand the importance of building a list and good for you. But you clearly misunderstand what it means for a list to be “high-quality” (spoiler alert: big numbers isn’t it).

In this case, you’d be building a list filled with people who only joined your list because of the free stuff you were giving away.

The result?

You’ve got a list full of freeloaders and tire kickers, none of who will ever pay you a single penny, no matter how good of an offer you make them. They simply won’t pay and they won’t care.

(This is the same reason why you never run “Engagement” Facebook ads if you’re hoping to get some sales—you’ll only get people who like, comment, and follow everything they see, but never, ever buy something. But that’s another story for another time.)

“But Alex, I’ve seen plenty of famous and well-known entrepreneurs such as Russel Brunson, or big multinationals run ads “selling” free stuff”.

Do you have the same budget they do? Do you know your numbers as well as they do? Have you been in the game for as long as they have?

No?

Then stop comparing yourself to them. They’re quite literally playing a whole other game than you are.

The point is this.

Ads are an incredibly powerful (and surprisingly simple) tool you can use to build an effective, consistent, and reliable business. As long as you’re using them to to get clients or sell your offers.

In fact, I find them so useful myself that I’m building an entire course teaching you how to write, run, and profit from ads in a simple and straightforward manner—specifically focused on creatives and those who work in the entertainment industry.

I’ll let you know more about this course later, so definitely keep an eye out for this one.

It’s going to be worth it, I guarantee it.

First and foremost: I just plain don’t like them.

Not just as in "I don't like using them to build my list" But as in "I don't like other people's lead magnets".

Meaning.

I might like certain people's content and would happily opt-in to their list. But often the only way to opt-in is to first download their lead magnet—which is extra friction and makes me less inclined to opt-in.

Why?

First, I simply don't care about your lead magnet and have no need for whatever it’s trying to teach me.

So forcing me to download it?

Nah.

Second, most lead magnet landing pages don't talk about what happens afterward.

How many emails will you send me? What are they like? What will you talk about?

Are you even going to send me regular emails?

And god forbid if the only way to read their emails is to go through a "10-day email course" I don't care about, forcing me to wait 10 days before I can read your (daily) emails and actually keep up with what you're doing on a daily basis (which more often than not is a lot more entertaining and interesting than the email course itself).

And yes, yes, maybe I might just be a special snowflake in this regard

Obviously, every market, niche, and person is different.

But these are mine.

And because I plain don’t like lead magnets, it would make negative sense if I made my (future) readers go through the same process I dislike.

On another note.

Most lead magnets only attract broke people and freeloaders—you don’t want those on your list. You want people willing to invest, willing to buy what you offer, and willing to engage with your stuff and work towards a better future.

That’s a high-quality list and one that’ll get you paid by selling products, landing clients, or both.

Speaking of getting paid.

Consider checking out Email Valhalla if you’d like to learn how to write daily emails that get you paid Alex Style.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

A few days ago I wrote an email ranting about the current state of social media and the boring, unfulfilling, and downright soul-wrenching game you have to play if you want to achieve any kind of ‘success’ according to most “social media gurus” out there.

That message seemed to have struck a chord somewhere because I received quite some responses.

One of those responses was from a long-time reader (whose name I won’t share for obvious reasons) who felt exactly what I was talking about.

He mentioned how he felt like he “had to” play this social media game to build social proof and authority to get started as a beginner in his market.

Obviously, that didn’t please him. So he asked me, yours truly, what I would do if I were in his shoes instead and wanted to build my business from the ground up when nobody knows my name.

So here goes:

First, realize that social media is a new thing.

Marketing and sales aren’t.

There have been plenty of ultra-successful marketers selling all sorts of products, services, and even experiences for far longer than social media has been around.

Don’t get trapped in this mindset that social media is the end-all-be-all. The only people who want you to believe that are the ones who want to sell you their social media course.

I’m not saying social media doesn’t work—it clearly does.

But it’s not for everyone and it definitely isn’t your only option.

Second caveat:

Realize that social proof, while definitely being powerful and useful, is far lower on the ladder of necessity than you might think.

90% of all the ads you see (if not more) don’t use any kind of social proof. They simply make you aware of a problem you might be having, and then offer you a potential solution to said problem.

If the advertiser did his homework, aka he knows what keeps his market up at night, then the problem will be so close to home you can’t help but pay attention to whatever solution the ad might be offering. And if the solution is positioned correctly then you, the customer seeing the ad, will end up buying it.

Regardless of whether you’ve heard of the product before or your next-door neighbor Nancy also happened to have used that same product.

Once your realize this, that’s when countless doors will open for you.

You’ll realize all you have to do is get your product, service, or better yet, yourself (and a plug to your email list—the most valuable asset you’ll ever build and which allows you to create repeat buyers and die-hard fans instead of having to survive on one-time sales) in front of your target audience while talking about their problems or their interests—regardless of what market you’re in (every single product in the entertainment industry solves the “problem” of boredom—which just so happens to be at an all-time high right now; making it the best time ever to grow your entertainment business if you know what you’re doing).

Some possibilities:

• Run ads on Google, Facebook, Amazon, popular forums, or wherever your target audience hangs out (simple yet effective)

• Get on podcasts as a guest speaker: start small and build your way up. You won’t get on Joe Rogan’s podcast as a no-name but there are thousands of people with dreams of building a big-name podcasts who just so happen to always have a need for guests to interview. Mention what you’re working on and how that could interest their audience and chances are most, if not everyone, would like to talk to you.

• Write blog posts, articles, or press releases for online newspapers, other people’s blogs and email lists, internet magazines, or any of the tens of thousands of media outlets all scattered around the internet (most of which are owned by people who dislike writing articles but want to publish as much content as possible so they can make a living off the ad revenue)

• Message local newspapers, radio shows, or television channels: Most people lead boring lives. So just by building a business or doing something artsy or creative, you instantly become so much more interesting—which is more than entertaining enough for every local media outlet to want to interview you (what’s a better story than the “local celebrity”?)

• Meet new people and keep an eye out for potential joint-ventures: You’re not alone in your market. Use this to your advantage. Work together with other creatives or entrepreneurs. Ask if they’d be interested in recommending you or your products to their audience if you’d do the same for them (or simply pay them to recommend you).

There’s a lot more where that came from, but this should be more than enough to keep anyone busy for quite a while already.

After all, no amount of information will save you if you never get to implementing things.

So get to it.

Start implementing at least one or two of these and build yourself a big email list.

At that point, you might want to master how to write engaging, entertaining, and persuasive emails that’ll help sell your products while keeping your readers reading day after day as well.

For that, consider checking out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla