I’ve Added 35K+ Names to My List (Here’s What I’d Do If I Were Starting From Zero)

Michelle Leotta:
Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast. I'm Michelle Leotta, ex-corporate girl turned certified health coach with over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice. I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom. I created a health coach power community over a decade ago to make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.

Hey there, health coaches, you wanna hear a crazy number? I mean a crazy number. Since starting my health coaching business in 2009, I've added over 35,000 names to my mailing list, and I started at zero. Just like you. So when I look back, I see how growing that list has been. Definitely one of the most important things that I've done in my business.

It's probably the most important thing that I've done in my business. And if I were starting from scratch today with zero subscribers or zero advertising budget, here's exactly what I would do. Now, just to be clear. Right now, I do not have 35,000 names as active subscribers on my mailing list. I wanna be transparent about that.

Of course, I don't, I've added those names through the years, but people come, people go, and let's be honest, some of those a AOL or Yahoo addresses from like 10 or 15 years ago, they probably aren't active anymore. So when you think about your mailing list, remember that it isn't something that you're gonna build once. Call it done. It doesn't work like that.
It's something that you are continuously adding to, and that's exactly what I've been doing for the past 16 years, adding over 35,000 names. So before we get into the nitty-gritty today, if you know your mailing list isn't working for you, uh, if you're not really sure where to start, I am teaching my brand new List Growth Lab workshop.

Soon, I'll be walking you through a simple formula I use to grow a mailing list. That actually creates paying happy clients. I'm gonna go through the process step by step so you can plug the system into your own business, and you can sign up now at HealthCoachPower.com/ListLab. This is a workshop specifically for health coaches because you know, I've been in your shoes, and I know that it can be tricky.

So why not get a clear plan to follow? You can go to HealthCoachPower.com/ListLab to sign up now. So let's get into it for today. If I were starting from scratch, wow, let's going back a bunch of years. First of all. I would start with a true email service provider, and I suggest that you do the same.

Okay, so no Gmail accounts for this game. Those are not appropriate for marketing emails, and they're not gonna give you the data that you need to grow, 'cause you wanna be able to see your open rates or your click rates. So for those of you that are here live, tell me what email service you're using in the comments.

I have my eye over here 'cause I'm curious, whatever service you use, I just want you to know that you're, you're getting the, the benefits, you're getting the data, you're getting that unsubscribe link at the bottom. You're gonna be compliant, you're gonna be more professional when you're using an actual email service.

My favorite for health coaches right now is called Kit, used to be called ConvertKit. Now they call it Kit, and they have a very generous free plan, and that's why I like it for you. We have a free setup tutorial for that. If you need it, you can go to HealthCoachPower.com/MailingList. It'll be all set up with Kit Lookie split. Ooh, that rhyme.

Or, of course, you could use whatever service that you like. I see Linda here is on Kit. Lisa says she's on MailerLite. Great. Go with it. Use whatever service you like as long as you have one. The next thing that I would do, and I had to think about this because I mean, I have added a lot of names to my list through the years.

So what would I do differently if I were starting over? What would I do differently given the climate like today, you know, the way people act today, and I realized the one thing I would definitely do differently is I would lean into my network, friends, and family, of course. Even better, like if I have friends or if few have friends with their own audience of some kind.

They run a group, they have their own business, whatever it is, they have their own podcast or their own blog or their own social media following. Great. Lean into that because maybe if I have friends like that, and I did in those early years of my business, and I did this to a small degree. I should have done it more.

Those friends can offer your free stuff to their audiences. They can help you get in front of new eyes, like exponentially more than you could ever do on your own. So lean into those people. Um, also think about any groups that you belong to, like a book club or a walking group. Goodness, start one. You know, any local businesses that you frequent or that you can start to frequent, organizations, though I'm talking about the school PTA or the natural food store, or the yoga studio, or the gym.

You know, head down to the YMCA and start talking to whoever's behind the desk, that sort of thing. The smoothie shop in town. I would go in there with flyers these days. You would have a QR code on that flyer and invite people to like my next free event or to download a free resource, and I would make friends with the owner.

Oh my goodness. If you write down one thing today from this episode, write down make friends with the owner. If you don't already have friends in these positions, make some because they're gonna want to collaborate with you. They are also running a small business, so maybe they put my freebie into their newsletter.

Maybe I can put something from them into my next email or whatever. Maybe I can hold a workshop in their space and they're offering more value to their clientele. Make it a win-win for both of us. Don't forget about local events either, because these are definitely other things to get involved with. And I did a little bit, like I said, a little bit of this back in the day when I started my coaching business, but now hindsight's 2020, right?

I can see that for every minute spent. Having a real conversation with someone, the payoff is much, much greater down the line versus being on social media. I'm just saying. So basically, if I were starting today, I would spend way more time talking to real people. I know that's a crazy idea than I would sitting there like scrolling and refreshing Instagram.

So I'll just pause here and ask those of you that are live with me. When was the last time you made a connection in your local community? Or it could be online, but with another business owner, someone else who has their own audience. Are you going out of your way to make friends? That's all it is, you can get so much marketing done when people just know and like you.

Now, here's something I definitely wouldn't do if I were starting over. I would not waste time. I would not waste money with Facebook ads. My lips to God's ears. You heard it here first. I've probably told you this, if you haven't heard this story, I wanted to tell you about the time that I ran an ad for my health coaching business, and I got completely kicked off of Facebook ads.

I mean, I was banned like a bad person. You know, I don't know what I did wrong because it was an ad that was, it was totally normal. It wasn't anything spammy or weird, and they had approved it. And then it's running, and bam, I get kicked out. And when that happens, like you have no one to talk to, there's no recourse.

So years and years later, I started hiring. Ad teams read very expensive ad teams to, uh, help me get back on the platform, get my account functioning again, run some ads the right way. 'cause obviously I didn't know what I was doing. It's very expensive to hire those people. It was very expensive to run ads, and I felt like by the time I paid for all of that, you know, I got, yeah, I got some results from the ads, but they weren't, they weren't that great.

So I wasted a lot of time, wasted a lot of energy here. I wouldn't do it again. One star would not recommend. If you're a newer coach, just skip all that. I feel like you really need money to burn before you can be successful here, 'cause there's gonna be a lot of experimentation with ads before you figure out what's working.

Okay. Lisa says that last Tuesday, she attended a local benefits fair. Great. I don't know what a local benefits fair is, Lisa, but hopefully you met some people. You exchanged contact information, and you're going for coffee next week. Do that. Like, no technology required, right? It's just relationship building.

Linda says, I've made some new connections online whereby we are now going in front of each other's audience. Yes. Cross-pollinate. That is exactly what you wanna be doing. And sometimes you'll do this kind of cross-pollination with somebody else's audience, and it doesn't lead to anything. Or they have a very small audience, and you're like, oh, why did I bother doing this?

But, every now and then, you're gonna hit the right person, the right audience, and it blows up for you. So just stick with it. Just keep practicing doing those sort of joint ventures. It's gonna pay off. Alright, so content creation is another way to reach new audiences for sure. And you can definitely build your list this way.

I think it has a very important role. Now, if I were starting over today. Yes, I would absolutely start a blog or a podcast or a YouTube channel, or maybe all three. I don't know. But I would do it knowing that this path is gonna be a little bit slower. It's just a slower road to getting in front of people and finding that list growth.

Unless by some miracle you just hit the algorithm just right or whatever, and you go viral. But that is like a one in a million chance, maybe a one in a 10 million chance. Really, what's gonna happen is you're going to create consistent content, and it pays off in the long run. And I know because I spent a lot of time blogging in my early years of business.

I mean, I would blog like several times a week, and it was one of the main activities, I would say, of my work week. Back then, it took time. Now, if you are gonna do this first, I'm, I'm glad I set your expectations around that. But the key is to always pair your content with a relevant freebie. So that you're collecting those email addresses every time someone is reading your blog post or listening to your podcast episode.

Super, super important. So I didn't do this in the beginning. I was blogging for years and years and years. If I could start all of that over again, I would make sure that I was blogging about topics that would strategically, on purpose, lead to someone wanting my freebie so that my readers wouldn't just be readers now, they'd be names on my mailing list.

And I would make sure to do that. I don't mean once or twice, always, like any piece of content that's going out there. I'd be trying to make sure that there was some connection. How do I get this person on my mailing list? Because that's the path that we want them to take. We want them to find, you think you're pretty cool, get on your mailing list.

Now they think even cooler, and the relationship builds from there. So, anyway, if I was starting from scratch, yes, start a blog, start a podcast, whatever. But I wouldn't worry so much about going viral because I'd rather get 10 new names on my mailing list than 10 million views that are just views. And as I keep mentioning.

I would like kind of put that over here on the side and lean more heavily on making real-life friends and having conversations and working out those mutually beneficial arrangements with other small businesses. You're just gonna get there faster if you're not hiding behind a screen. I know. It's hard.

It's scary. So, um, so when we're talking about. You know, blogging, podcasts, content creation. Are you doing any of that now? And I want you to decide and maybe tell me in the chat what your gut is telling you. Should you double down on doing that in a more strategic way? Put that long-term strategy into place.

Make sure you're always connecting to some way for people to opt into your mailing list. Or are you spending a lot of time on that? Too much time like I was, and maybe it's worth just hitting pause there and going back to the easiest, I say easiest, the most simple technology-free ways of marketing yourself, which is relationship building, right?

I would say just pick a path. There's no right or wrong. I just wanna make sure that you have, you know, you have finite energy. Make sure you're using it wisely. Alright, so I keep mentioning freebies. That means free downloads, free resources, free events, in-person, online events, any of these things you can be inviting people to.

They are essential in building your mailing list. Right now, tell me yes or no in the comments. Do you have a freebie to offer me? If I just met you for the first time, I was interested in what you do as a health coach, whatever. Do you have anything for free that you can offer me right now? Yes or no? I mean, sometimes if you have a free event coming up, then you have that event, and that's awesome, but then it's over.

You wanna make sure that you always have something to offer, if not multiple things, 'cause you know, if you find yourself in a conversation about. A certain topic. It's nice if you have a freebie that is relevant to that topic versus if you're having a conversation about something slightly different, a different freebie might be more, uh, what's the word I'm looking for?
Not attractive, but you know, might be the right thing to offer in that conversation. So, main things that you always have something. And I see that Lisa does, and I see that Linda does. That's great. Um, but also make sure as time goes on that you add to your repertoire so that if people are talking about, um, I don't know, like should they go keto and you're in the weight loss space, like, it'd be really helpful if you had a freebie that like specifically address that if you find the same question coming up over and over again.

That's a great time to think about creating a freebie around it because you're gonna have so many opportunities to share it if people are always asking. The main thing here is that your free stuff is so highly attractive to the people that you want on your mailing list because you want them to sign up for it, like you want them to give you that email address.

And I know an email address isn't money. You're giving this something for free, but it's not really free because an email address is valuable. We all know that, so you've got to give them something valuable in return. So if I were starting from zero today, I would skip a lot of the generic, like 10 healthy tips or, you know, five healthy breakfast recipes.

That's the kind of stuff that he used to try to give away and instead, create free stuff for my ideal client that's designed to make her think or to make him think, ooh. I need this, I need more from this coach. That's what they should be thinking. They shouldn't be like, Oh, I'm gonna go make this recipe.

Okay, bye. You know, it's like you're wetting their appetite. You're not just giving a gift in these cases. Like it's not just a bribe. We used to hear the term, uh, like an ethical bribe. You're giving someone something, and they're giving you; you're bribing them to get on your email list. I mean, that's not the spirit of it at all.

A freebie that's going to lead to paying clients down the road. It needs to demonstrate your value and make someone think like, Huh, I bet this coach can really help me with my big problem. That thing that no one else has been able to help me with. Like, I'm seeing stuff here. I'm seeing that they understand.

No one else seems to understand like I have. I need to get more from this person. And they're not gonna feel that way when they read 10 generic tips that they could find anywhere. Like that's not gonna make them go, Ooh, I need more from this health coach. So if I was starting all over again, I would be much, much more strategic about what I put out there so that my freebies tracked people who actually need my help, not just people who like healthy recipes, you know, and they just want the recipes. And then I'm never gonna hear from them again. And I would spend, I wanna talk about this because it's really important when we're talking about freebies or, you know, again, any of your free events, anything that you're trying to get people to, um, as an entry point.

Your headlines matter so much. Like, I didn't think about it. Too much back in the day, which is funny because I came from advertising, and you would think headlines would be top of mind for me, but I just didn't know how to make a great headline. And when I go back and I look at those early landing pages, you know, where I was offering my free stuff, I read it and I'm like, oh God, who would want this?

You know, it sounds boring, or it sounds irrelevant, or it sounds confusing. No wonder. It didn't work that well. Like, even if you are giving away something that is amazing in this box right here, your freebie is amazing. It's so great. No one's gonna get it. No one's gonna open the box unless your opt-in page sounds compelling.

So you need a great headline. Now, thankfully, these days we have ChatGPT. So it's a whole lot easier to come up with headline ideas. I mean, if you just say, Hey, ChatGPT, gimme some headlines like this, or around this topic, that the first few headlines it gives you may not be winners, but keep working with it.

Say a little, a little more intriguing, a little bit more about this, like, you know, use your own, uh, knowledge and skills to edit them, like work with ChatGPT, and I think you're gonna come up with much better headlines than I ever did back then. So if I were starting over, I would absolutely get comfortable with ChatGPT and lean on it, especially for headlines in this case, because you need those pages to be high converting.

You want at least. 25%, 30% of the people who land on your freebie opt-in page or your free event opt-in page to go ahead and give an email address because it sounds so good to them. Like they really need that. They really are interested in that. It has to be like sounding so attractive or else they're not going to.

And I see I have some questions and comments over here in my chat. I'm gonna get to that in just a second. But first, I wanna give you a really terrible headline from a freebie opt-in page that I created like a hundred years ago. I went and dug it up just so that I could share it with you. And for the record, only 4% of people who saw this headline gave an email address.

In fact, I was probably one or two of those people just testing the page, so it was probably more like 3%. Anyway, here's the headline. Imagine it on a webpage. It said, Meal by Meal, Cheat Sheet, how to pack more nutrition into your child's food, Meal by Meal Cheat Sheet. I wrote those words.

I read them yesterday, and I was like, huh, what does that mean? Confusing. It looked confusing. It was way too long of a headline, too. Why would I want a meal-by-meal cheat sheet? And why would as like, if I was just like a normal person, not a health nerd, why would I want to necessarily pack more nutrition into my kids' food?

I think I'm feeding them just fine. Like, why would I change that? Just for fun. I should have been talking about a pain point, something that the mother was maybe experiencing with her kids. Like the why behind why she would wanna change what she was feeding them, not just packing in nutrition for the sake of it.

So I would've spent more time with the headlines. That is my point. Now let's see what we have over here. Do, do do, Lisa, going back to the idea of blogs. Lisa says, do you think blogs add to your credibility, help people find you trustworthy? Yes, I do. Go for it. But like I said, it's just a long game. You know, people, um.

We'll be reading your blog like one person here, two people there. You know, just a few people are gonna be seeing it in the beginning. It just takes time when your blog really starts having a return, like an ROI for you, and all the effort that you've put into it is when people are searching something, and your article pops up.Right.

Or, um, people are talking to their friend, and the friend goes, Oh, I just read something about that. And they remember your article 'cause it was that specific, it was just exactly what they need to share right now. So, like, it has like a snowball effect over time in terms of getting in front of mass quantity of people.

But yes, for the people who read them, absolutely helps add to your credibility and your trustworthiness. Okay. Velma says, this year I committed to network and build in-person relationships one to two times per week. Yes. She says I have so much value in it. I currently have a summer-inspired, gluten-free, dairy-free, refined, sugar-free recipe collection I'm offering as my freebie.

Okay. I'm so glad that the relationship building is working for a vema. That's fantastic. I'm glad that you shared that because I know when I started my business, like I was very introverted in the beginning. Anybody else? Like you grow as a business owner, you know, just in life, you grow, you change. And I don't, I don't find myself to be nearly as introverted as I once was, but I was so happy to just like sit behind my computer all day.

I didn't wanna go have those coffee dates. I didn't want to talk to people. But when I did, that's when magic things happened. Alright, what's next here? If I was starting over, if I were trying to add 35,000 names to my mailing list all over again. I was thinking, you know, something else important would be, 'cause like I told you, people come, people go, if you add 35,000 names but you also lose 35,000 names, then you're at zero.

Right? So you are always adding new people. Um, I think I would've put more effort. Into keeping my subscribers engaged, paying more attention to the open rates and the click rates. What do people want from me? And I would send just one simple email each week. Back in the day, I would write. A whole email newsletter, four topics, five topics, maybe three recipes, book recommendations, 12 other pieces of content, just like all packed into this one long newsletter.

It would take me days to write one email, and that does not work anymore. It certainly doesn't work for my schedule, but it also doesn't work for today's readers because if you think about it, people are just scrolling like quick, quick on their phone like this, so.

It needs to be something they can easily understand that they can consume at a glance. One clear message, one call to action. No fancy formatting, no images. Just cut to the chase. And finally, if I were starting all over and I was trying to add names to my mailing list, I would immediately, as in today, unsubscribe from other health coaches' lists.

Yes, I did do it eventually. I wish I had done so much because. The more I watched what other people were doing in the same space, right? So we were all offering health coaching, we were all offering our little like health coaching programs or whatever. I saw what they were doing, and I was tempted to, I couldn't help but compare myself, and if it looked like they were doing better than I was, and I don't know how I judged that, but somehow I just assumed they were doing better than I was.

It's just that hole, compare and despair thing, and that will get you nowhere. That is the wrong energy to be bringing into your business. Or, I found that I would unintentionally, or maybe even intentionally, get inspired by what I saw them writing or saw them doing in their emails, and then my brain would try to copy that.

That did not help me. I needed to develop my own style and my own voice, and if I kept thinking that these people were doing a better job than I was and probably had more clients, and I was believing that they were so much more successful than I was, then I wanted to mimic them. And that's not developing who I was.

I was never gonna stand out that way. And hot tip. It wasn't even necessarily the case that they were so successful through the years. I can tell you this just because by now I've known, I've met so many, uh, practitioners, health coaches, you know, in the health and wellness space, and there are these personalities out there, and they look shiny and successful, and many of them are.

But when you actually meet these people, sometimes they'll tell you how they're struggling and they're not making any money. And I was always shocked. I'm like, you kidding me? Your website is so nice. Your emails, you always sound like you're on top of the world. And they're like, Nope, not making a cent.

Not everybody. I'm just saying enough times that's happened that I had to realize that when I was looking at the exterior of someone else's business, I was not seeing what was really going on in there. So it was so helpful to just. Block it out, right? Stay in my own lane, run my own business. Kind of mind my own business.

If you need inspiration, I suggest looking for it in other places. Look at what other industries are doing, like other products, other services, and like what can you glean from that? What can you bring in from that? Because if you know a business is successful and there's something you admire about it, then you can use that without getting into that whole comparing yourself thing and all the negativity that comes with it.

Linda said, that's such a great point. Mind my own business, literally. Right. You know, halfway through preparing this episode for you, I had to go back into my email service. I needed to double-check that number because I was like, gosh, 35,000.

It seems like an awful lot. And you know what? It turns out it's really more like 40,000, but I don't wanna change the name of the episode because I'd already started promoting it. So if you're starting at zero or a couple hundred or like wherever you're at today, just know that it does take time. It takes small, consistent effort over time.

Where have you heard that before? To do anything, right? And in this case, to build a substantial mailing list and you can do it a lot more efficiently if you don't try to reinvent the wheel. So let me show you what works and what doesn't inside my List Growth Lab Workshop for health coaches, where I'll give you an exact formula, exactly what I use.

You can follow it, and you can see results. It'll be much more smooth for you. Hopefully more efficient and faster. You can sign up now at HealthCoachPower.com/ListLab. And hope to see you there. Take care, everybody.

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