Tap Into Ready-Made Audiences and Grow Your Email List Faster Than Ever - Sara Ross

Website: https://thesaraross.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesaraross/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesaraross/

00:00 Welcome to tap into ready made audiences and grow your email list faster than ever. My name is Sara and I am going to be the host of this little presentation and I am a fellow entrepreneur who used to struggle with growing my email list the traditional ways. And after wasting so much time on social media and throwing money at ads, I finally cracked the code. And so, by leveraging other people's audiences, I was able to grow my list faster and attract engaged buyers and create a system that didn't have me glued to my phone. Now, I help mom entrepreneurs do the same.  

00:41 My approach is simple, it's effective, and it's built for business owners who want to see their efforts yield results. So basically, I empower mom entrepreneurs to boost their visibility, grow their email, list and increase sales by leveraging the power of collaborations. And so I'm so excited you are here with me today so let's dive in now. There are some common strategies that we are told to follow. When you think of growing your email, list you're probably think of three main things.  

01:12 So we are told to use social media to use paid ads and to cold prospect in order to grow our email list and get leads in order to convert them into paying clients or paying customers. Here's the reality of social media. It is very the time investment that needs to be put into it you are constantly posting, which means maybe you're posting every day or some people teach you need to be posting multiple times a day.  

01:53 The energy that goes into this particular method, it's can be a little bit draining, right so you're constantly creating content have you ever heard of that saying of on the content creation hamster wheel it's because you're constantly creating content. You are engaging on that platform all the time. You know, before you post, you should be engaging after you post, you should be engaging, right? To enrich that algorithm to start showing your content in front of other people's in other people's feeds. And it can be really overwhelming to just keep up with the trends of social media And the results that you get from social media can be, it can be effective, but it is definitely a long term game where you are putting all this effort up front in the beginning and hoping it kind of pays off in the end.  

02:46 So growth can often feel really slow and your results are very like, uncertain. And So what is your social media reality does any of this sound familiar? Maybe you're posting all the time or at least trying to stay consistent. You're not seeing any growth in your email list. You have a hard time even gaining followers, let alone converting them into email subscribers. Now, social media isn't bad and contrary to what some people may think, I do believe you need to have some sort of presence on on social media because people will go searching for you there. But in order for it to work as an email growth strategy, you need to really love being on the platform and creating content so the first thing that comes to my mind is like content creators who they just love being on those, that type of platform they love creating content, love putting things out there.  

03:42 So in order for it to work for you as a strategy, you need to love it too if you hate being on there, then you're going to hate using that strategy you're not going to be consistent because you're not going to want to create the content. And so that platform may not be the best option for you when it comes to growing your email list. Now, again, something we're told is, you know, paid ads so what are the burden of paid ads now the time that goes into putting up Facebook ads or Instagram ads, it can be kind of time consuming to set them up, especially if you aren't an expert in that field.  

04:22 You're going to be testing different creatives. You know, some images and titles and headlines will work better than others. You're constantly monitoring those campaigns and adjusting based on the results and energy wise, the constant need to be looking at them and making sure they're working can be really overwhelming, especially like I said, if you were not an expert and you're not quite sure what metrics to look at. And ads can deliver fast results. But like I said, they require constant monitoring and they can be really costly to to run and the ROI can be very uncertain. So does this sound familiar? Like have you paid about 3 to 4K to learn ads? Have you ran ads costing you at this point who knows how much you got leads but it was a terrible ROI.  

05:15 Or was that just me because that has definitely happened to me where I've paid 3 to 4000 to learn ads and they just didn't give me the results that I was hoping for. When it just like social media, paid ads can work. That's why people teach them, right that's why people tell you to do paid ads. In fact, you can see leads start flowing in the same day your ad goes live. However, you are essentially paying for each lead that gets on your email list. And depending on where you're at in your business and your goals for your business, that expense may not be an option for you.  

05:52 And so this brings me to the third thing that we are told to do when it comes to growing our email list and finding leads for our business and that is cold prospecting. So the in time investment that goes into cold prospecting, it's a lot, right so you're constantly researching leads, you're reaching out to them and you're following up with them so it can be really time consuming putting all that time and effort into reaching, researching those leads, reaching out and following up with them. The energy drain is massive i feel like with cold prospecting you, there's a lot of rejection that goes into it there's people don't respond to you and it can be really, really discouraging and just mentally exhausting.  

06:38 And the conversion rate can be really, really low when you're cold prospecting because you're reaching out to people that may not want or need what you are offerings.  

06:51 And so does any of this sound familiar to you? Have you created a list of 100 people you know, you started calling them, DM, ING them, emailing them, and then trying to sell them on what it whatever it is you're selling? Again, I'm not saying the strategy can't work because people do it all the time. And in some industries, this is a very standard way of doing business. But one, it's not growing your email list with a list of ideal clients that want to be there and to this method can be very time consuming and it can feel a little bit icky. So what do you do? Well, let me tell you a little secret.  

07:31 Your idol clients are out there, right? They are out there you know they're out there that's why you're searching for them and they are actually on someone else's email list. They've already opted in they're already there. And I'm going to show you how you can just tap into that ready made audience.  

07:51 So this is what we call a collaboration. And I'm going to dive into the power of collaborations and how this can really help you grow your email list faster. So the time commitment that goes into a collaboration is really up to you and it's going to depend on whether you're just a contributor into this event or you are hosting the event. Is this event a micro event or is it a large event so the time can definitely vary across each collaboration.  

08:21 For example, if you want to host a summit like this event, then you may put 90 days into from start to finish of planning and launching that event. Now if you do say a micro event saying like a mini bundle where you're only working with maybe 5 collaborators, then that can take, you know, maybe 14 days. So it really is going to depend on what you are doing and how long it's going to take.  

08:54 And the energy drain, Again, it's really up to you like how many events do you want to be a part of if you are constantly collaborating, saying your, your collaboration goal is to get on other people's podcast, well, the energy drain is going to be like, OK, I'm going to focus on one podcast a week that I want to be interviewed for versus the energy drain compared to I want to commit to 10 podcast each week, right so again, it's really up to you how many events you want to be a part of.  

09:24 And again, if whether you're hosting the event or being a participant in the event, if you're hosting it, then there is quite a bit of back work sometimes that is put into that. Again, if you're hosting a bigger event, it can take 90 days to launch and to plan and launch that event and doing all the back work. One thing I will say about hosting an event is that you, once you create it, like say you're creating a summit or a bundle, a lot of times once you do 1, now you have all the assets created.  

09:55 So it is kind of a little bit of a heavy lift upfront. But once they're created, you can reuse those constantly for future events.  

10:05 And so the results is you get quick access to highly engaged audiences and then often it has really higher conversion rates since you're already leveraging the trust of an established community. So if you think about it for an email, list those who actually open the email list or obviously really engaged with the person you're partnering with so if they're opening that email, list they're already really engaged. And then if they're clicking on that, the link in that email to the event, then they're even like they're a hot lead, right because they're actually taking action.  

10:43 And then so from there, those hot leads are coming into this event. And so when you present your offer inside of this event and they sign up for you, then you know those leads getting on your list are super highly engaged in hot leads because they are the ones that are taking action.  

11:04 So the power of collaborations now I have been doing collaboration since the end of 2022 That was when I host my first event and since then I have hosted, I think I'm on my fifth summit and I've done 2 bundles of being the host. I've been participant in events i can tell you that the amount of effort I've put into these events is very comparable to the amount of effort I had put into creating like social media content. And the results I've gotten from the events have been thousand times more than whatever I got from social media i never was able to grow my email list using social media.  

11:46 So I was going into these events with a 0 list and now I have close to 3000 on my list. Over the years they come and they drop off and I clean my list pretty regularly so over the course of the last couple years, I know for sure I have gained thousands of people onto my list. And so that's way more than I ever got from doing social media. That's way more than I ever got for when I was cold prospecting. And even when I was running paid ads and I was getting leads, I never paid that much in to get that many leads in a fun fact about if you are doing a summit or a bundle, whether you are hosting or even being a a partner, depending on how that person is putting together event, a lot of times you can actually earn money from being in those events you know, for my events that I host, there's always AVIP option and people, we'll buy those VIP upgrades.  

12:49 And so therefore not only am I getting leads on my list, I am actually getting paid to grow my email list so it's just the kind of an interesting thing to think about when you are looking into collaborations, whether you're hosting or being a participant and like, is there a way to earn an income from that event as well? And on the back end, I have been able to gain clients from those events. So how do you actually go about leveraging collaboration so I'm going to just walk through a couple steps with you. And step one is you need to 1st off, develop a Erasys will offer if you plan on doing bundles or craft a compelling speaking topic if you are going to want to be a Senate summit.  

13:34 Now I focus on bundles and summits mainly, but this can definitely play into other collaborations as well so if you want to do like a podcast, we can on podcast, you're going to have to have a speaking topic. So you just definitely need to develop something that you want to offer inside of this collaboration. That's what makes collaboration work too, is the everybody coming together, right? So yes, you're borrowing other people's audiences and you are using it to grow your list. But the part of the what makes the collaboration work is if you don't have an audience yet, then you are now putting your expertise in this event and that's benefiting it.  

14:13 If you are coming with a list that is also putting a benefit into that event. And it's also, which I didn't add to these slides, but collaborations when thinking about like social media, paid ads, cold prospecting, and then collaborations like working with other people, it is by far the most fun out of all of them because you do get to meet new people, you get to engage with new audiences, you get to make friends in the online community, you know, people that kind of understand what you're going through like other entrepreneurs.  

14:48 And so that is definitely something a benefit of collaborations that I absolutely love. I am a complete introvert and so doing these collaborations helps fill up my little social cup. And then then I can kind of go behind the scenes and create things. So it gives me a very good balance in working online. All right, let's get back to your action steps so the next thing I want you to do is identify three potential collaboration opportunities.  

15:16 And if you're wondering, OK, where am I going to find these? I find opportunities in Facebook groups a lot of time so I will find Facebook groups that are geared towards looking for speakers or if you have speaking opportunities and you're looking for guests, if you can get into groups like that, then you will have probably daily posts in there about speaking opportunities. Another thing for me, because I'm already participating in events, then you and once you start to as well, you should get people reaching out to you to be part of their events so that's another way to find these opportunities.  

15:58 And then step three, I want you to actually reach out to the host and of that bundle or that summit or podcast or wherever you want to collaborate with. And I want you to pitch your offer and your speaking topic. Now, you might be wondering, but you just said cold prospecting like that's a bad like don't do that one do this oK, here's the thing about pitching yourself for an opportunity or reaching out to somebody to join your event. I can hundred percent % when I am running an event and I am a looking for speakers or looking for contributors for a bundle, I hundred percent welcome any email in my inbox that's saying, hey, I saw you were looking for speakers or hey, I saw that you were looking for contributors.  

16:44 I'd love to be a part of your event. I love getting emails like that because when you're hosting the event, then you are kind of on the opposite end where you're reaching out to people and you're inviting them to join your event. And I get it's a little bit like called prospecting. But again, if I'm getting an email in my inbox that says, hey, I am running an event and I want you to be an expert on it, I'm going to love getting those emails. And I'm going to open the email i'm going to look and see what the requirements are i'm going to look to see when the promotion dates are i'm going to check my promotion calendar.  

17:20 And if it feels like a good fit, then I will reach back to them and be like, hey, I would love to be a part of this event. Or I may reach back out and be like, you know what, this sounds amazing, but I'm already have another promotion that time. Keep me in mind for future events, right so it is cold prospecting in a way, but it's in a way that doesn't feel icky and both parties get something beneficial out of it.  

17:46 And last but not least, if you want extra credit, I want you to host your own event. Hosting your own event will actually get you the biggest return for the time when you host the event, you get a full the full lead list that comes into that event whereas if you are a participant in event, then you get the leads that whoever grab your offer. So if you're watching this and it's in somebody else's summit and not my own summit, then my list will grow based on whoever grabs my freebie that I'm going to talk about in a second.  

18:20 Whoever grabs that that's how I grow my list if I am a participant or contributor in somebody else's event. Now, if this is your own event, then everybody coming into that event, opting into it now is on your email list. So extra credit, post your own event. But if you want to just start out small and you're like, I'm not ready to do that, then you know, look for other collaboration opportunities that you can join and just be a contributor to.  

18:47 Now here's the free guide I was talking about. So this is your collaboration Kickstart guide and it's 7 simple ways you can grow your email list using collaborations. There should be a link somewhere around here that you can just click on and grab it but if not, here is a URL that you can type in and go to as well. I hope this presentation has given you a little bit of a new way of looking at how you can grow your email list in a fun way and and in a way that will allow you to kind of tap into that already made audience that other people have and bring those leads into your onto your list.