How to create an opt-in

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Building an email list of people who are interested in your business, so you can contact them directly, is a great idea. We've talked about email marketing on the show before, when I spoke to email expert Yael Keon (Ep039 'How can email marketing benefit my editing business?'). It's recommended to have an email list for your business, rather than relying on people randomly seeing the content you post to your social media pages. But clients often ask me how to go about getting people to sign up to an email list.

We do this using an 'opt-in' or 'lead magnet' and this is something I took a while to get around to doing. If you're not familiar with opt-ins, they just mean a piece of valuable 'content', like a pdf document, a checklist, or a webinar, for example. You offer this for free so that people will join to your mailing list, giving you their email address in exchange for this thing that they'd find useful.

There's no need to go all out with a 100-page e-book. There was a time when this was a trend but, more often than not, people just downloaded the e-book and left it unopened! The best lead magnet is something actionable that your ideal audience wants and will use.

I've taken ages to get started on creating a lead magnet I'd be comfortable using. I had made various excuses around why I hadn't put my opt-in out there. Whenever I feel resistance to doing something, I know I need to look deeper and find out what's blocking me. I had to coach myself through the process.

Are you also thinking about growing your email list? I thought that sharing my process for developing my email list and how I've started to create an opt-in for my own business might help you.

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If you want to get clear on your money, marketing and mindset, check out 'Boost Your Editing Income', my e-course and group coaching program.