If you’re treating your YouTube Channel like a business, something that goes hand-in-hand with that is an email list. Do you have an email list for your channel? Do you know how to grow it? Do you need convincing that it’s a good idea to have one? We will discuss all of that today.

Creator Spotlight

Ryan Gentles asked us this week about calls to action. He has a book releasing and a podcast episode on the same topic. He would like to overlap these with a YouTube Channel to utilize video content discussing the questions his kids have about the Bible. He’s thinking about using the last 20 seconds of his shorter videos to point to the longer videos discussing the same subjects. But he wonders if it would be better to just point them to the next question instead.

Our advice is to look at your target audience. If the longer form content is directed towards the same audience as your short term, then yes! And cross-promoting on different platforms is great for discoverability. And remember, if your goal of video is to sell or get people to an email list, then your call to action might be different than just watching another video.

The Importance of an Email List

An email list is another way to stay in front of your audience. Like our creator we mentioned above, people put tons of effort into being on multiple platforms and for good reason. Email is just like this. People typically check their email multiple times a day where they don’t always check Youtube multiple times a day.

The push back would be the fact that email open rates are going down and there are spam filters designed to block your emails. But, think about it: If you have 1,000 on your email list and 30% are opening your email, that’s still 300 people that you are reaching.

Also, you have so much more control over email content going out than you do for a video. There are no algorithms to worry about and the more helpful your content in your email is, the more they will be read. And the more they are read, the more the spam filters will just put them right in the main inbox instead of a promotions tab.

How to Grow Your Email List on YouTube

I learned early on that if I was going to make Video Creators actually work as a business, I needed a better way to stay in front of my audience than to just post a video and hope they see it.

So how do you do this? Well, first I’ll tell you what not to do. Do not make the goal of every one of your videos to plug your email list or send people to your lead magnet. Sending people away from your content all the time is going to .

Instead, make sure you are using the Three Bucket Strategy. Every video that you make should fit into the following buckets:

  • Discoverable Content (Content providing value to the masses)
  • Community Content (Lots of engagement with you as a person)
  • Sales Content (Intention of pitching something specific, like an email list)

People aren’t ready to sign up for your email list before they even know who you are or before they know that you will provide any value to them. So make those videos first. And by the time that you make your pitch, they are far more likely to sign up. And in that “sales content,” make sure you are still providing value as well. (Here’s a great example of how to do this.)

Good Campaign

After you get their email, how do you get them to not immediately regret it? First of all, deliver on whatever you promised them. If you got their email with the promise of a pdf list of the best types of plants to grow in your region, then send it! – And promptly! Don’t immediately try to sell them something without delivering on your promise. But then, after you deliver on your promise, send them another email a day or two later with even more value. Keep it going. Make them want to keep opening your emails. Then, by email number 5 you begin presenting a problem and starting to pitch your product which will solve the problem.

You teach your email list how to treat you. If you are immediately bombarding your audience with sales and false claims of time running out on discounts, etc. They will learn to not open your emails or unsubscribe as soon as they can.

So to do this well, you need to have a lead magnet. Something you can give away for free at scale. Digital products are very good for this.

Then, it is a good idea to have a good newsletter strategy. (Like this one. :D) If you send them the emails leading up to the sale and then just drop off the face of the planet, you are missing it! Find a way to provide value regularly. We take our podcasts and turn them into these lovely emails, blog posts and a newsletter on . Why? Because we want to help you! We want you to continue to come to us to find value and to know that you can trust us to provide the resources to grow your YouTube channel. And when you decide you need someone to look at your channel and , we hope you will turn to us. Your goal is to be that reliable resource in your field.

If you want to hear more how to do this, check out our . And feel free to see our landing page for that lead magnet and find inspiration for your own.

Platforms for your Email List

Personally, we have been using Convertkit, which is designed specifically with creators in mind. There are lots of good tools that we really like. But, and are good platforms as well for starting your email list. We personally just really like Convertkit for all of its features. ()

Power Tip

Go check out our free guide, Product to Profit. It’s a step by step process to go from having a product idea, to testing that idea with your audience, to creating the product, and then launching and selling it. We also include a survey that we use – along with the psychology behind what we are asking.

It’s is all the things I have learned the hard way, so go save yourself some heart-ache and . And bonus! – Doing so, will get you on our email list, so you can see our email campaign as well. :D

Keep Changing Lives!

Tim Schmoyer

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