Will your business or brand thrive, or let alone survive without a website?
Surprise, surprise. The answer is yes.
This photographer built his business around Instagram. And I know a freelancer who earns a 7-digit income without a website portfolio.
You were probably on the fence about starting a business website too. Have read lots of “business successes sans the websites” articles. Have started to really believe that you don’t need a website. Or haven’t you?
Hmmm. Fortunately, the universe (or your profound research skills) has led you to this post. You, arriving here affirms that belief.
Perhaps, you’re at a point in your business where a website isn’t a requirement or a priority yet:
- You’re just starting out and you’re just testing business ideas
- You’ve been in business for a long time and people know you in the industry. However, you have no plans of acquiring new clients just yet.
- You’re perfect where you are right at the moment and you’re not actively looking to expand your business.
- You’re focusing on other important stuff like marketing and connecting with the right people.
That’s okay. Don’t be pressured by the lack of this online property. Remember,
Building relationships >> Building a website
A big BUT, though, don’t be like the rabbit who ignored the race. Don’t relax on your tracks just yet. You need to protect your business in another way. Having an email list is the best way to do this.
Marketing experts can’t stress it enough: email is the most important marketing channel that any business should work on.
So if you’re already sold on the idea of building a mailing list, but aren’t planning on putting up a website pretty soon, get your hands on the 101 on how to build an email list sans the website.
Step 1. Create a standalone signup form
First things first. You need a form. And not just any form. You need a standalone signup form, meaning people can access it by just putting a url on the browser that they’re using.
This is where we can help you. Use email list building tools like ours to create beautiful subscription forms like this one:
If fancy is not your thing, you can go simple and build on from this mailing list template.
Now I’m going to stop you right here before you get the chance to leave this article and start working on your form right away.
Before you send people to your form, take time to explore the cool things your form can do.
It pays to make a good first impression. And so does planning the workflow automation behind the form’s flow.
Your email signup form, beyond data
Building an email list from scratch is not your end goal, remember? It’s building better relationships for your business through automated processes.
Know that the signup form that you’re about to create
is an extension of your marketing arm.
Make it play with your automation tools.
That’s why EmailMeForms were built for more than just data gathering. Here are the equally important functions that these forms should be doing.
Make it hold your branding
- Apply your brand’s color and include your logo in the form’s header for branding
- Use a personalized and unique url (try clicking this to see the live link)
Use it to communicate with your future brand advocates
- Personalize the confirmation message of the form
- Setup an autoresponder message to people who subscribed or ordered
Set it and forget it through web form integrations
- Forward the email addresses to Google Sheets so you can keep a backup copy
- Import the list to your favorite email marketing platform
Share it and get more responses
- Share the form’s link through social media
- Embed/Connect the form into your Facebook Page
All right now. Rub your hands together and get your form’s link out.
Step 2. Market your signup form business
More likely, you’ll be tempted to spam your prospects with your form’s links. Don’t.
Mindlessly leaving your form’s url trails online will not give you the outcome that you’re looking for. Instead, you should…
Market the heck out of your business, not of your signup form.
And don’t be icky when doing so.
Don’t pitch your services straight away to the CEO’s whom you just invited on LinkedIn. Or tell a new connection that he or she needs your business, when clearly, you haven’t talked to them about their business yet.
These “how to get email subscribers” approaches are overly aggressive and are self-catering.
These will just put your business (and you) in a bad light. You’ll end up being ignored.
So what’s the better way?
Below are two people who are experts in making connections with people and businesses. Learn a trick or two or ten from them.
- Garin gave away 10 business ideas to 30 people and scored 10 possible collaborations (or paid work)
- Bryan started adding people from his own personal network (with their permission of course) and got 200+ subscribers in just 2 days
Looking at these two success stories, the steps to take are kind of simple after all:
Connect —> Offer value —> Ask if they want IN
Sounds easy, but in real life, it’s going to take a while to make it work.
This isn’t a bad thing, though. Great things take time anyway.
So, just be consistent. Be sincere in talking to them. Get ready to accept failures. Be ready to embrace the opportunities (take courage!).
Most importantly, create a system to make your outreach easy to manage and prevent list building burnouts.
There. You just didn’t learn how to make a mailing list. You learned how to build an email list for marketing — and that makes all the difference.
I promise that when you get the results, you’ll be glad that you didn’t purchase that expensive web hosting just yet.
Aiza Coronado
Aiza is a Content Developer and Marketer at EmailMeForm. She easily gets upset when random dogs don't bark back at her hello's.
