How To Start Growing Your Email List As a Beginner

I’m not an expert — that’s why I can help

Taking advice from experts is great.

But the truth is, it’s impossible for most experts to remember what it was like when they first started.

It’s why most of their advice is generic, and frankly, unhelpful.

I’ve always found it best to learn from those that are 1-2 steps ahead of me.

So, if you’re thinking about, or have just started growing your email list, this story entered your life at the perfect time.

In the past 2 months, I’ve increased my email list from 42 to 317 subscribers.

Although 10X sounds much better, here’s exactly how I increased my email list 7X, with no prior marketing experience.

Simply start

This may sound obvious — but why haven’t you done it?

If you create things online, you are a creator. If you write, you’re a writer. And if you have even one follower, you’ve built an audience.

I’ll be honest. It took me 2 years to collect my first 42 emails. This is because I was too shy to ask for subscribers.

I felt like I didn’t have anything valuable to offer.

The first step to growing your online empire is to throw away limiting beliefs.

Even if you don’t have anything valuable to offer yet, you will. It just takes practice. But you don’t get better at something by not doing it.

The best thing you’ll ever do, is get started.

But how?

Give 90% of it away for free

One of my favourite creators is Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi. One of her best pieces of advice is to give 90% of your content away for free.

My entire online game changed when I created a free product on Gumroad.

Instead of waiting to write my million-dollar ebook before collecting emails, I got started with something I knew — a journaling guide.

It was around Christmas and I noticed lots of people vowing to start journaling in the new year. So, I made a guide on how to create a flexible journaling practice.

People liked it and it made the rest of my content seem more valuable.

I’ve since created 3 more free products, including a guide to Create Your First Gumroad Product.

If you don’t have a product, niche, or don’t know where to start, download this guide. It will give you literally everything you need to get started.

Bonus:

Some kind people have even chosen to pay for my products— even though they’re 100% free.

Start a Substack newsletter

If you write online, you’ve probably heard of Substack.

And if you haven’t, it’s the simplest way to create and run a newsletter — plus it’s free.

If nothing else, it’s a way for people to keep in touch with you. Don’t worry if you don’t know what to write about, just make it, experiment, and everything will become clear.

Believe it or not, you don’t have to be perfect — in fact, people can relate to you more if you’re not.

Here’s my newsletter. It’s called Finding Balance.

It’s one 2-minute post per week. Plus, it allows me to play around with Canva — my guilty pleasure.

If you don’t have a Canva account, this link will give you a 30-day free trial of Canva Pro. Plus 8 cover image templates to get you started.

Diversify

Make it easy to follow you.

Have you ever come across a piece of content you really liked but couldn’t figure out how to sign-up for more of it? Chances are, you gave up in about 3 seconds.

If it takes your reader more than 3 seconds to follow you or opt-in for more, chances are you’ve lost them.

So, provide multiple opportunities for people to keep in touch with you. This means multiple call-to-actions.

Here’s an example of my Twitter profile. If you look closely, you’ll see 3 unique call-to-actions — each catering to a different type of reader.

1. “In my bio” — for people that like free stuff.
2. “Check out all of my writing” — for people that like reading articles.
3. “Newsletter” — for people that like short-form content.

Bonus:

Twitter has a newsletter function powered by “Revue.” This allows you to add a sign-up page on your Twitter profile (seen above).

But, you don’t have to use Revue to send out your newsletter. You can set up the sign-up feature and then manually export sign-ups. Personally, I prefer Substack, So I manually move over new subscribers each week.

Be transparent

Imperfect is the new perfect.

If you’re just starting out, the worst thing you can do is pretend you’re farther ahead than you are. People can spot a faker and don’t like it.

I’ll be honest, I engage the least with people that preach about having everything figured out.

No one does. It doesn’t feel human. The people I interact with the most are those I can relate to.

Remove the idea of “followers” from your mind and replace it with “friends.”

Be honest, curious, and engage with your audience as you would your friends. People can sense authenticity and will stick with you because they relate to you.

Track your sign-ups

I’m all for unstructured creation. But, there comes a time when you need to listen to the numbers — they don’t lie.

Let’s say you create your first Gumroad product (congrats, by the way). So, you Tweet about it, add a link to your LinkedIn bio, and share it at the bottom of a Medium article.

You start getting downloads (amazing).

But, you have no idea where they came from. So, how do you know where to invest your energy?

You don’t.

Using a free tool like Bitly allows you to create trackable links. You can easily see where traffic comes from.

Create a learning email

We’re often stingy with our emails — for no good reason.

If you want to learn how to create great content, learn from those around you. There are so many great products out there that you can download 100% free.

This allows you to play customer.

See what you like, don’t like, and how you respond to different types of emails. If you don’t want your personal inbox full of spam, create an email specifically for learning.

You may have created an email to give to department store clerks. It’s full of spam and you never check it — smart. So, do the same thing for online content.

Don’t be stingy with your email. Spread the love, learn from others, the love will return to you.

Lastly, stop thinking so darn much

If you’re afraid of failing — join the club. It means you’re human.

Remember, there’s no perfect time to do anything. The only way to get anywhere is to take the first step.

Websites are less and less frequented nowadays. But every smartphone has access to email. So show up where people are. There’s no better time to start an email list.

To summarize — you have no excuses. Start building your future today. Here are 7 ways to do it:

1. Take the first step
2. Create a freebie — here’s everything you need
3. Start a Substack newsletter
4. Diversify
5. Be transparent
6. Track your sign-ups
7. Learn from others

Your future self will thank you.

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