The #1 Best Predictor of Earnings For Your Online Business

As an online business owner, you deal with a lot of numbers!

From the number of visitors to your website to opt-in rates to conversion percentage, owning an online business can feel like you are taking a beginner’s course in data science.

No one can blame you for being confused about what you should focus on.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was one number that could predict how much money you were going to earn?

Here at Kajabi, we work with over 16,000 online businesses, we crunched the numbers and discovered that there is in fact 1 number that will predict how much your business will earn better than any other metric.

That number is email list size.

Email list size is a better predictor of earnings than the number of transactions, number of products, number of posts per product or any other metric as you can see in this graph.  

This is great news for you!

Knowing that email list size is the # 1 predictor of earnings makes everything simple; The bigger your list is, the more money you make!

As an online business owner, you’re probably already aware of some of the basics for growing your email list like using a lead magnet, and making sure that your opt-in information is visible in all of your social media profiles.  

In today’s blog post we’re going to get outside the box and look at 7 creative ways you can grow your email list and your income!

7 Creative Ways To Grow Your Email List:

1. Create different lead magnets for different types of prospects. You already know that you should be using a lead magnet or "freebie" to convince people to join your email list. But what you might not know is that you should have 2-3 different lead magnets that focus on various problems your prospects have. Prospects will sign up for your email list for a variety of different reasons so you want to have a variety of lead magnet options for them to choose from. For example, if you teach dog training, some prospects might want to learn about crate training, while others might want to know about obedience training or agility training so you'll want to create lead magnets for all 3 subjects. Start by thinking about the 2-3 most common reasons why your customers join your list. Once you have a few ideas, talk to some of your previous customers to make sure that your findings match up with why they joined your list. Once you know for sure what the 2-3 reasons prospects join your list are, create a new lead magnet and landing page for each different reason.  

2. Quizzes. Creating a quiz is a great way to get a lot of people to join your email list fast! A good quiz will allow you to grow your email list, learn more about your prospects, and boost your brand's awareness on social media! To create a quiz that will bring you qualified leads, you're going to need to focus on the big questions your audience has. To go back to our dog training example from earlier, you could create a quiz to help your prospects figure out what kind of dog trainer they are or what their dog's optimal learning style is. You want to keep the answers to your quiz positive so that your prospects are more likely to post the results publicly on social media or share them with their friends. No one wants to share that they are a terrible dog owner so make sure that all the results of your quiz have a positive spin to them. A well-thought-out fun quiz can be shared thousands of time on social media in just a few days and add hundreds if not thousands of prospects to your list.  

3. Submit guest blogs and articles. This is one of the most UNDERRATED ways to grow your email list. Start by making a list of 10-20 of the most popular blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. Then make a list of the big publications that cover your niche like Forbes, Fast Company, Entrepreneur. Once you do that you’re going to use a plugin called hunter.io to find the email addresses of the blog owners and editors for these sites. Next, you’re going to study these blogs for a few weeks. You want to read at least 3-5 of their posts or articles to get a feel for their content and style. When you have a good feel for the kind of articles they like to post you're going to write them an email complimenting them on a specific article and letting them know that you wrote an article you think might be a good fit if they'd like to take a look at it.   

Here's an example of what the email should look like:

Hi (Blog Owner),

I am a huge fan of your blog (Blog name).

I really loved your recent article on meditation, I had resisted trying it before, but you opened my eyes to some new benefits like increased willpower and better sleep. I actually started using the Zen sounds app you recommended in the article, and I love it! 

 I wrote an article on (Subject), and I think it might be a good fit for your blog. Would you like to take a look at it? I figure even if it's not a good fit you could tell me where I went wrong. 

Thanks again, for all the awesome content!

(Your name)

 4. Host your own events. A great way to gather a whole bunch of emails at once is to host an event using Meetup.com. Meetup is a platform where for $20 a month you can host your own group and they will promote it to anyone in the area who might be interested in attending. To go back to our dog training example, you could host a free dog training meetup and have a sign-up sheet to gather the name, and email address of everyone who attends. It might take a few meetups for your group to really start to grow, but if you're consistent you can create a meetup group that adds new email addresses to your list every week.  

 5. Get interviewed on podcasts. Another great way to grow your email list is to get interviewed on podcasts in your niche. The process for finding podcasts is similar to the process for finding blogs to contribute guest posts to. You'll start by making a list of 10-20 podcasts in your niche that take guests. Then you'll need to do some research, and listen to a few episodes before you reach out to the host asking what their process for booking guests is with an email like the example in the guest blog section.  

 6. Write a book, and give it away for free. This is the list building strategy made famous by our very own Brendon Burchard. With this strategy, you are going to write, and self-publish a book then send it to everyone who joins your list for free. The key to making this strategy work without losing your shirt is to make it clear that the book is free, but you charge a small fee to cover shipping and handling. Brendon himself uses our own Kajabi pipeline to create a simple 3-page process through which prospects can easily join his list and get their free book with just a few clicks.  

 7. Use Sniply when sharing links. Sniply is an awesome free tool which allows you to add a custom call to action to join your mailing list to any link you share online. With sniply anytime you share an interesting article, funny video or any other link anyone who views that link will get the option to join your mailing list. You can even configure sniply so that the ONLY way to see the content from the link you posted is to join your mailing list. Sniply also allows you to monitor engagement and track results so you know where your new members are coming from. Simply put there's no reason to share links without using sniply. 

Running an online business can be confusing!

You want to grow your business and make more money but you’re not sure what to focus on!

The data is clear.

The size of your email list is the # 1 predictor of how much revenue you’re going to earn.

It might seem intimidating to think about growing an email list from a few names to a few thousand and beyond but if you focus on the 7 creative ways to grow your email list you learned in this article you will be well on your way.

You now know what to focus on, so get out there and start growing your email list and income today!

Use Kajabi to Turn Your Knowledge And Content Into Products You Can Sell

Ready to be your own boss? Ready to monetize your knowledge? You need Kajabi - It’s a full-featured platform that allows professionals like you to create their own businesses from home.

Create online courses, establish membership sites, offer coaching programs, host a podcast, and sell other digital products. Plus, you'll get marketing tools like a website, CRM, email marketing, landing page templates, and helpful analytics to help you spread the word about your products and earn more revenue.

Fully explore what Kajabi has to offer and start building your business during a free trial. Start your free 14-day trial of Kajabi today!

‍Still researching? Check out Kajabi’s free downloadable ebook guides on launching and growing a knowledge commerce online business!

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