5 Steps to Build & Grow an Email Marketing List

Did you know that an email marketing list typically degrades by about 22.5% per year? Mostly from your subscribers unsubscribing, changing email addresses or just flat out abandoning an email they were using.
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As the email marketer of your fitness business, it’s your job to obtain a consistent flow of new subscribers each week. Here are 10 of the best ways to grow and retain your email subscribers.
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1. Get an Email Marketing Software

An email marketing software, like Mailchimp…
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​​… or Aweber… 
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… is the easiest way to obtain new email subscribers for your fitness business and send them regular emails.

Without an email marketing software you can’t get a subscribers explicit confirmation that they want to receive emails from you and your emails could be marked as Spam.

This explicit confirmation comes in the form of a confirmation email when the new subscriber signs up for a lead magnet or to receive updates from you. Like this:
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They click on the confirmation link which grants you permission to email them what you said you would email them.

The other way an email marketing software can make your life much easier is by mass emailing lots of people all at once. Instead of having to email subscribers individually or worse, as part of a group email, you can send hundreds or even thousands of emails to list of subscribers and they can self manage their updates.

2. Create the Right Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is the most important step to gain new subscribers. Unfortunately, most personal trainers rush through this first step with a view to just having something a website visitor to can subscribe to. Here are some we designed for our clients.
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​But a well thought out lead magnet can mean the difference between a volatile list that gets unsubscribes each week, and an engaged list of readers. Here’s why:

If your service is personal training and your lead magnet is 30 Fat Loss Recipes, you’ll get a lot of subscribers who are interested in recipes, not personal training.

So your next email, with an offer to set up a free consult is going to be on deaf ears because your subscribers only wanted your list of free recipes in the hopes their evening meal might be easier and healthier that night.

If your lead magnet doesn’t match what you intend on selling, your offers will go unnoticed and your subscriber list will decline.

3. Promote Your Lead Magnet

If you’ve created a lead magnet that’s both irresistible and relevant to your offer, the next step is promoting the lead magnet.

This usually begins on your website:

1. Add your lead magnet to your blog header or sidebar
2. Add relevant lead magnets to your service pages
3. Create landing pages for your lead magnet
4. Create blog posts with related content and promote your lead magnet from within the post

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​Then on social media:

1. Promote your lead magnet directly on social media
2. Promote blog posts that contain your lead magnet on social media
3. Retarget website visitors who visited your site but not your lead magnet landing page
4. Add calls to action on your YouTube videos

Promoting your lead magnet is a constant and consistent effort, especially to begins with. Eventually, when you’re getting enough traffic to your personal trainer website, your lead magnet will obtain more subscribers with less effort.

4. Create Amazing Content

This one goes without saying but if you’re getting new subscribers and sending them boring or irrelevant content, your readers will unsubscribe.

To avoid this, create content that is relevant to what the subscriber signed up for. This prevents lots of unsubscribes and your list growth should look like this list we manage for one of our Managed Website clients:

For example, if they signed up for a how to guide, they’re probably still trying to solve their own problem so informative emails with more value added content would be received well.

If they signed up for a cost comparison between your online training service and a local face to face service, they’re probably a “warmer” subscriber in the consideration stage of their buyer journey and may benefit from your offers.

Whatever you decide to follow up with, ask yourself, will this benefit me AND them. If it will only benefit you, it’s the wrong content.

5. Do Your Housekeeping

Keeping your list clean and tidy will ensure of all of your email marketing statistics are accurate and reduce the likelihood that your emails will go to spam. Here’s how:

1. Create multiple lists to ensure people receive what they asked for. 
2. Don’t add people to the list without their permission. For example, if someone fills in your website contact form, they shouldn’t be added to your list unless they specified they wanted to be.
3. If you plan on sending updates on a regular basis, tell them. Your sign up form should say “Sign up for the eBook AND weekly updates”
4. Send regular updates to ensure people keep you top of mind and don’t forget who or what they signed up for.
5. Segment and unsubscribe people who haven’t read your previous 5 campaigns. If they haven’t opened up your last 5 emails, they’re probably not going to open anymore.

That’s It!

​Building and growing an active email list for your fitness business isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but it’s certainly worth the effort.

If you’re stuck with ways to promote, build or grow your email lost, get in touch with a member of the team or ask your questions in our friendly Facebook group.