How to Grow your Email List Without Paid Ads with Tracy Beavers

In this episode, I sit down with Tracy Beavers to talk about why email marketing still matters, even in a world dominated by social media. If you’ve been focused on growing followers while your email list stays flat, this conversation will help you rethink where real control in your marketing actually lives.

We talk through how organic list growth really works, why many lead magnets fail to convert, and what it takes to turn visibility into subscribers. Tracy also shares how AI has raised the bar for simple PDFs and checklists, and why more interactive experiences are starting to convert better. If you want a clearer path to building an email list that actually supports your sales, this conversation will give you practical insight.

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Transcript

Janice Hostager 0:04

I'm Janice Hostager. I've been three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur. I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business, and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing. When I first started my business years ago, my business coach told me, start growing your email list right now. But like the rebellious student that I was, I didn't, and it is really taking its toll on my business even to this day. So I wish I would have started building it earlier, but it's hard, right? And there are so many other things that will grab our attention away from doing something that seems kind of mundane, like growing an email list. But here's the thing. If you sell a service, especially if you do launches or promotions or something for like an online course or coaching program, I can tell you just by looking at your list number how many courses or programs you're likely to sell in a launch or promotion. So if growing your email list feels harder than it should, then this episode is for you. So today I'm talking with Tracy Beavers about how to grow an email list without paid ads. And more importantly, what actually makes organic list growth work? And listen for this as we go. By the end of this episode, Tracy's going to share one mistake most business owners are making that quietly gets in the way of list growth, even when you're doing everything else the right way. So this conversation with Tracy is practical and very doable. Here's my talk with Tracy. Welcome, Tracy. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.

Own Your Audience Beyond Algorithms

Tracy Beavers 1:52

Thanks. Thanks for having me, Janice.

Janice Hostager 1:54

So email has been declared dead about, you know, 147 times now. And yet here we are. Right. Does email matter? Does it still matter for business owners?

Tracy Beavers 2:04

Oh my gosh, yes. It matters now more than ever, in my opinion. The email list, as you know, Janice, I'm sure you've taught this to your clients and students as well, is the one of the only things we own as a business owner that allows us to maintain a connection and stay top of mind with our clients and prospective clients. As an online entrepreneur, if all I did was try to grow my business through social media, things even things like Substack, YouTube, you know, and then the platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, if I did not use those platforms to pull people from the online space to the offline space to my email list, then I run the risk of not being able to contact them at all if something were to happen to those platforms because I don't own them. And they all have an algorithm to them, and I don't have any control over that. And honestly, I don't even think the people that run the algorithm know what the algorithm's doing. I don't think anybody has control over the algorithm.

Janice Hostager 3:06

I think you're 100% right about that.

Tracy Beavers 3:08

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love I love the phrase, uh never build on rented land. And I think so many businesses do that. And we work all work so hard to build our social media following. And I have seen it over and over again just disappear overnight. Yes. And it just is devastating if you don't have an email list for sure.

Janice Hostager 3:28

For sure.

Tracy Beavers 3:29

So when um when all the hubbub started with TikTok, was it gonna stay? Was it gonna go? Was government gonna shut down? I was just like, man, I hope those TikTokers are growing an email list. Because some of those people, that's their livelihood and they make a lot of money. But if that platform disappeared and they didn't have a way to still reach out to the people that were following them, oh my stars, can you imagine? And then two years ago, I think it was, it might have been three years ago now, Instagram and Facebook both went dark for about 36 hours. And I'm in the Meta I'm in the Meta leader leaders network for Facebook. And when the lights came back on and we we were all back on Facebook, uh and I was in that group, there were so many business owners that lost a lot of money because they did not have an email list. But the ones that made money were the ones that had a list. When there's a very high-profile name that I know, and she sent a couple of emails during that time and she made $14,000. And I'm thinking, I'd rather be the $14,000 gal than the gal that couldn't reach her people and couldn't sell anything for 36 hours. That's really scary.

Where List Growth Breaks Down

Janice Hostager 4:35

100%. Yeah, I do remember that. In fact, I think I put an email out there saying this is why we build an email list because you own the list, basically. So for sure. So if somebody has like traffic but very few subscribers, where is that breakdown usually happening?

Tracy Beavers 4:54

Oh, this is a great question. So it can happen in a couple of different places. The first thing that I would ask, if somebody says to me, Tracy, I have my list is stalled. I am going to want to ask them, okay, do you have any free assets that you give away? People call them leave magnets, freebies, opt-ins, whatever. And do those pertain to the actual offer that you want people to buy? Is there an actual customer journey? Because a lot of times somebody will develop a really great freebie, but turns out it has nothing to do with their paid offer, and that confuses the audience. So they end up not staying on the list. But if the list growth has stalled and the answer is yes, I have some freebies, then my next question is how often are you promoting those? Because do we have a visibility problem or do we really have a traffic problem? Because a lot of times my my students will say, Oh, well, I promoted it once two weeks ago. And I'm like, that's not enough. Every week in our weekly content, we need to be promoting one free thing, one of our free lead magnets every single week. And I also don't want people to forget that things like having their own free Facebook group, like I do, that's a lead magnet because it grows my list because of the way I have the entry questions set up to join my group. Your podcast, when you set up the right, set it up the right way with audio that leads to your list and show notes that has links to your list to list growth, that's a top of funnel lead magnet strategy. And so if the so I ask them, do they have the lead magnets? And then if they are truly promoting it enough, then the question is, okay, let me see the lead magnet. Let me see the copy that you're using on social media to attract people to it. And then we look at where is the funnel breaking down? Is it the is it the initial messaging that I'm seeing on social media that is not truly attracting me and making me want to opt in? Or is somebody, are people actually clicking to opt in and they're getting to the landing page and they're not actually opting in? And that right there in the funnel is a signal that the copy, the messaging between the social media post promoting it and the landing page where you opt in for it, the messaging is off. There's something there that's making people think that they're not in the right spot when they get to that landing page. So those are all the things that we look at. There's so much that goes into it, but once you understand the logistics of how it works, then you can start to ask yourself, am I promoting it enough? Is my messaging on point for the promotion? Is my messaging on point when people get to the opt-in? And if all of that is correct, you know, then we just kind of have to go back to the drawing board. A lot of times it's a messaging problem, but but sometimes it's not.

Janice Hostager 7:41

So much good stuff here to unpack. And I and I'll get to all of it here in a little bit here. But um, and you're clearly very well grounded in what works. But that usually comes from experience. So was there a time in your business that your growth wasn't happening in your list uh the way you wanted? And what did that period teach you? And and does that so tell us a little bit about what you learned about growing an audience organically.

Tracy Beavers 8:06

Yeah, that okay. So my background is from corporate. I had an over 20-year award-winning sales career. Truly never thought I'd leave corporate until I was working for a CEO that wanted to monkey around with the commission structure every other month. And it was like ridiculous. You just couldn't really trust him to keep his word. So I was like, okay, I don't think I can stay in this corporate structure after all. And so I decided to build this online business, being a business and sales coach, and I built it alongside my corporate job. And at the time, this was years ago, this was 2019, 2020, uh, all of the list growth, let me back up. I recognized immediately through some of the people I was following in the podcast list, podcasts I was listening to and things like that, that the email list was key. You have to have an audience. And you can have an audience online. But again, if that platform goes down, how are you gonna reach those people to sell to them when you go to launch? And also, just because you have a big follower count doesn't mean all those followers are actually your ideal clients, right? So that email list is so key for so many reasons. So I'm like, okay, I've got to build a list and I've got to build an audience. And all of the list growth programs that I saw, they they did two things. Taught me how to identify my ideal client, which I already knew, and how to create a free lead magnet and put it on on social media. And that was it. And then still to this day, I haven't found a list growth, a list growth course that teaches anything other than that, except for mine. And so being a very impatient person in a corporate job that I wanted to leave, I needed list growth faster than when it was happening. And I tried paid ads a couple of times. And while people did join my list from the paid ads, they didn't stay and they didn't convert. And so paid ads, I was like, those are expensive. I'm not trying that again. That was a waste of thousands of dollars. And I thought to myself, there's got to be other ways to grow this list. And for me, what I helped my clients and students do is pick one platform, go all in on it, get it to convert for you before you even think about going to a different platform. For me, that was Facebook, because this is at a time when I didn't know anything about Instagram. I wasn't on it, wasn't familiar with it. And LinkedIn at the time was a place to go find a job or get recruited for a job. So I was like, all right, Facebook. I know Facebook, I know how to use it, I know people that are on it. I've been in Facebook groups, I got this. And I dove in and I analyzed the platform. And there are so many nooks and crannies in that Facebook platform where you can maximize list growth outside of having lead magnets. So what I teach in my my eight-week group coaching accelerator called Business Visibility Made Easy is essentially everything else you can do online on Facebook, especially to get list growth and leads outside of paid ads and more lead meet lead magnets. So the answer is yes. There are so many other things we can do. And some of them are super simple, and some of them are more of a long game.

Lead Magnets After ChatGPT

Janice Hostager 11:09

Yeah, I agree. I you have to kind of get scrappy sometimes if you're not willing to pay ads. And when I first started building my lists, and this is a business I used to have, it was a design and marketing business. It was when Facebook ads were really inexpensive. And I would get, I don't know, conversions that would be like 12 cents, you know. So it was like, this is great. You know, I just put the lead magnet out there and it worked really, really well. But that's not the case anymore. And, you know, and I think for myself, I'm noticing that my organic growth has definitely slowed down. I don't put money in paid ads or as often as I did. Yeah. Um, but I also think that with AI, information has become really easy to obtain. Yes. So, how do you recommend that we approach lead magnets in this new world of, you know, Chat GPT and Clyde and so on?

Tracy Beavers 12:03

Yeah. I was asked this question on a podcast a week ago and I'd never been asked it before. She asked me, are lead magnets dead? And I was like, huh. Because you know, the last six months we've been hearing that courses are dead. We both know they're not, they're just different. Our our audiences are looking for more actual help and live help from us in the courses. And so I was like, huh, are lead magnets dead? And I I I don't believe they are. But much like court the course industry, they've changed. Our audiences are more savvy. They are not going to waste their time and give their email address for a cheat sheet or a basic PDF or something that they could get from AI. It has to be something deeper and different than what AI is going to give them. AI can give you the top 10 secrets to growing your email list without paid ads, but they can't, it can't give you what Tracy Beavers is going to teach you in a short video as a lead magnet. So I believe that the lead magnets that are still going to be relevant are the things that actually help people get a quick win, not just review information. And so the majority of my lead magnets are a short live training from me. And then you have the checklist or the PDF or the little workbook that allows you to dive deeper into the into the work and actually do what like I have a social media made easy guide, and Matt walks you through creating 90 days of content topics and only 30 minutes. And so I do the video where I walk you through the exercise, but then you also have a download for you to make notes and really do the work. But that's that to me is an example of a lead magnet that will be evergreen because it actually teaches people something. What do you tell me your opinion on that, Janice?

Janice Hostager 13:55

Well, this is the same, you know, question that I've encountered for myself and for my clients too. It's that a simple cheat sheet or a checklist that used to work isn't, it's just not going to cut it anymore. And I think I've noticed is that people are looking for something either sp very specific that I want to be able to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible to learn something. And if that can be part of a lead magnet, that's perfect. Or something I would say that is more of an experience, so more experiential. So I have been, I'm actually playing around with putting on free workshops, for example, for lead generators. Because I think people just really need to realize that if AI has its place, no doubt about it. And it will become more and more powerful as time goes on.

Tracy Beavers 14:47

Right.

Janice Hostager 14:48

But right now, it's not there yet. And you can't just go into ChatGPT or whatever your platform is and say, I want a marketing plan and it it expect anything other than, you know, AI slot, really. I mean, it will send you somewhere, but it may not be a place where you want to go. Right. But so that's kind of how I feel about it.

Tracy Beavers 15:10

But I I love that you're doing free workshops. I think that's a great idea. I'm doing something similar. So for the members of my free group, I have a uh first Friday of every month, we have a networking session. They do have to register for it. So it does grow my list. And then I'll also each month I'm doing a live QA, ask me anything on a specific topic. So it's kind of like a workshop, but not, I'm not creating a workbook or anything really deep. And it's not more than about 45 minutes, but they have to register for it. And it's been great, you know. But to your point, AI can't give us Janice and her wisdom. You know. Right. And yeah, it could spit out a marketing plan, but there's nothing like having you, the pro, walking me through the marketing plan and answering my questions and explaining why this is a good idea or maybe why this part isn't a good idea. You know, so like they could do their AI marketing plan, but then they're still gonna need to find somebody to help them with the expertise to truly get the the result that they're wanting.

Janice Hostager 16:13

I agree. And I think the other problem with AI is that it's really easy to get answers from AI that either will send you in the wrong direction or a slightly off direction, which I think is even worse because you think you're going in the right direction, but it's not going to take you where you want to go. Um the other thing is that I think it there's so much information out there that you just really need to have somebody walk you through into still down. Here's what you need. Yeah. Don't worry about that right now. Because I mean, marketing paralysis is so real. And I mean, not just marketing, any any part of business is is that can happen in, but I definitely think that that is something that an advantage that people have other over AI.

Tracy Beavers 16:59

For sure. The human the human aspect is still going to be needed. And I've I agree with you so much. There is so much noise in the online space. I can't tell you how many of my students have said, well, this business coach told me to do XYZ, and then this business coach said, no, XYZ is wrong, do ABC. And it's like, holy mackerel, you know, no wonder people aren't making progress. They don't know what to do. They don't know, yeah. They don't have any leadership, you know.

Janice Hostager 17:28

Yeah. And I get a little frustrated with business coaches that say, you must do this, this, this, and this because that maybe is what worked for them. Yeah. But like I talked to somebody yesterday and she was like, Well, my coach told me to do this, but I did this instead. And I said, Well, it's working for you. And the thing about marketing is that it really is all about testing. Oh. Nobody has your your product, nobody has your audience, nobody has you. I mean, it really is like how you really have to test things to see what works. Yeah. You really do. So I just don't think that even business can be that prescriptive. It has to be something that we try a few different things and see what works out. Right. Yeah.

Tracy Beavers 18:10

Yeah. I like to remind my students, we're not building a McDonald's franchise that you can just follow a blueprint for, put the casters in, buy the uniforms, and then stand back and go, isn't it beautiful? I'm going to go build another one. I mean, that's not how online business works. And I thought it did in the beginning. I was like, I was so naive. Coming in from corporate, I thought, I'm going to build this and then it's just going to print money for me and I'm going to be able to do other things and be have the time, freedom, and da-da-da-da-da. Okay, about eight months in of running 150 miles an hour, thinking I was going to get to the finish line faster, the faster I went, I realized this thing's never going to be fully built. It's going to be constantly evolving, and I'm constantly going to be testing and tweaking and throwing things back out there. And and to your point, one of my clients last week said to me that an old business coach of hers, I can't, I found out from this client that she was still doing all of her own social media content in spite of the fact that she has a VA. And I was like, Well, no wonder you are stressed out and overwhelmed. I mean, I I when she finally said that, I was like, ah, there's a thing we need to fix. But then she said that this old business coach told her she needed to post on Instagram twice a day. And she said, I can't do that. So I'm doing seven days of reels. And I'm like, How long does it take you to make a reel? She goes, Sometimes it takes me about an hour. I'm like, are these converting for you? She's like, I think I'm getting followers, but I'm not sure. And I'm like, no. But that's a prime example of this person told me to do it because it made them success. And so I said to her, I said, you know what? And I love that you're not this way, Janice. My students will never hear me say, if you don't do this, you will not be successful. I teach the strategies that have worked for me. And then I find out what they want to do. You know, going live on social media worked really well for me for years, but not everybody's okay going live. So I can't say to them, if you don't go live, you're not going to be successful, because that's not true. You know, we all have to find our own way. But yeah, I get frustrated with that also because there's not only, there's not just one way to do it. There's lots of different ways to do things. And we have to do things that feel good to us. Otherwise, we're not going to do anything at all.

Janice Hostager 20:23

That's 100% true. And one other thing, just based on what you're saying, is that you really have to take an I I love that you said that, you know, if you're not comfortable going live, don't go live. Yeah. Because if it doesn't fit you, you're not going to want to do it. You're going to put off doing it. You're going to hate it. And which I kind of feel like about reels, making reels myself. I just I hate it, but I have to do it and I do it. You know, I don't do it.

Tracy Beavers 20:45

I stopped doing it. I did. No kidding. I stopped doing it. Yeah. And we would take my live video and my assistant would throw it into Opus Clip and she would make some stuff. And I was like, okay, that sounds great. I just I don't even I can't do a real. No. Stupid frustrate.

Rebuilding Trust With Live Access

Janice Hostager 20:59

Yeah. Well, I mean, I do find that the more I do them, the better, the more comfortable I get with it. So I'm going to keep going with them for now. But the other thing is that it has to fit your life. And if you're overwhelmed with something and you've got, you know, young kids at home or a lot of people start out working part-time while they're still in corporate or doing something else, you know, if it doesn't fit your life, then it's not going to work for you no matter what. So yeah, that's the place to really look hard at what you're doing and determine whether or not you know, scale back. I think that's that's the thing. And I find myself drowning in new name it. I've I'm I always I found myself today doing that. Like I I get distracted by something. I was, you know, redoing a lead magnet actually and and updating it. And I thought, okay, this is not what I had on the calendar for today. I gotta, you know, get back here, like get back to what it what's moving the needle. Right. That's the thing that I think I see a lot is. That it's easy to get distracted by things that don't move the needle. Yeah. So anyway, that was a bit of a tangent, but love it. I think the more honest discussions we have, the better off we all are. Oh, 100%. Yeah. I think that's it. I like you said, it's easy to come into a business and think, oh, I just need to buy the uniform and get the manual together and it'll all just flow. And I think we all kind of had that in the back of our mind too. It's just, I'll just need to get set up and it'll just run. But what you don't take into consideration is the fact that the economy changes, that we change, that our audience changes, that, you know, like who saw, you know, AI coming 10 years ago? Like I didn't, you know, I would have never thought. So I was like all in on online courses, and then suddenly, oh, they're not selling like they used to, you know. So yeah, you got to remain flexible and it is a journey. But so back to list growth here, though. How how much does trust play? Like, let's talk to me a little bit about uh I've heard so many people say there's a trust deficit now going on. Yeah. And that we really need to garner trust maybe before the lead magnet or maybe in the lead magnet, or maybe so tell me about talk to me a little bit about that.

Tracy Beavers 23:21

Yeah, you're totally. So I started noticing in mid-2024 the trust deficit recession, whatever you want to call it. And in my opinion, it's warranted because this space became the wild, wild west from 2020 to like 2023, early 2024, a lot of people out there claiming to be a coach, charging $10,000, $15,000, making a lot of promises and not delivering a darn thing. And so people that are in our audience are more hesitant to buy. And I don't blame them because they've been burned. And it breaks my heart. But I hear it every single time I launch my program. That's why I offer free info calls for people that are considering joining my accelerator because they want to talk to me. They're like, when I say that I am the coach in there with them and that they have access to me, and I am the one that's going to be reviewing their homework, and I am the one that's on the live strategy call. And I stay until all questions are answered, and I'm not going to, you know, put them on a timer and all that jazz that other people do. They almost don't believe me. And I don't blame them because I've been in programs with big names where there's thousands of people and that big name promised live QA, and they end up cherry picking the questions they're going to answer and not answering every single question that everybody has. And that kind of stuff is not okay. And so I understand how we've gotten where we are. And but but the good news for people like you and I, who are truly genuine, who truly care about our students and our clients, who truly are available to do whatever hand holding is necessary on whatever day it's necessary, we are the people that are going to be successful in 2026. And so to establish that trust, it could be that it needs to happen before a lead magnet, but it could be that it happens after someone's opted in for a freebie. I last last summer, I started doing live low-cost workshops as a way, not as an income, not as a big income earner, but more of a list growth, audience growth. Come in, pay $77 to be in an hour and a half workshop from with me. Let me teach you something. And then you'll know right away whether or not you want to come into my group coaching program or hire me as a one-to-one coach. And it was a nice way for people to come in at a lower price point because they're they're scared, you know? So it allowed them to kind of tiptoe into the pool before coming into the deep end with me. And so we did that. And then I thought, I would really like to offer some free things. So for my free Facebook group members, I have that first Friday networking session. They have to register for it. So it grows my list, but also they they get to meet me. I get to meet them. They we get to see each other in the room. And they can tell right away by the way I lead that session and as how goofy I am. And I talk with my hands and, you know, connecting people and then getting into the breakout sessions and visiting with them. They're gonna know right away if they like me to know if they're gonna can trust me and feel like I know them and they know me, that know, like, and trust factor. Also, those live QA, ask me anything, those are free. And again, the purpose of that is for me to really get to know the people that are in my community on a deeper level and for them to get to know me on a deeper level without a barrier of entry of paying for something. Now, it time will tell if these things are really going to translate and convert the way I want them to. But so far, it looks good because when we go ahead and launch the program, I'm tracking when someone buys and joins the either hires me one-to-one or buys the group coaching. We're tracking, did they ever come to anything? Did they come to the free networking? Did they come to the live QA? Did they come to a live workshop? And sometimes, yes. And sometimes they've come in by an affiliate, you know, somebody that they trust has recommended me in my program. And so the trust transfers to me. It's like, oh, if Liz likes Tracy, well then I know I'll like Tracy because I like Liz and I trust Liz. Yeah. So I I firmly agree with you that we can't just throw stuff out and expect people to just buy it. Those days are gone for in my opinion. What do you think about that?

Janice Hostager 27:41

I 100% agree with you. Yeah. And even like for freebies, I think I don't my email inbox is brimming. It's just, it's so full all the time. And for me to download something now, it has to be really good. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And I have to and I have to go in there with, like you said, a recommendation or know that that person is really going to give me some quality information. So what I have been trying to do is, you know, this is something I'm kind of working through myself, is just trying to really communicate my brand, garner that trust ahead of time, which I think I do somewhat on the on the podcast. Yeah. And so that when I ask for an email address, they know at least that I know what I'm talking about. So it's not just somebody putting something out there that's not going to convert. So what is something that people are doing that can actively hurt their organic list growth?

Tracy Beavers 28:40

This question so much. One of the biggest things I see that's a major gap leak in their visibility and their list growth is not having their social media profiles set up as a list growth funnel. So I teach Facebook, because that's my jam, but the the strategies that I teach, you can take over to LinkedIn, Instagram, you can take it over to Substack, you can take it over to YouTube, to Circle, Mighty Networks, Heartbeat, wherever you have a social media profile, I want it to say who you are, who you serve, and how, like immediately. And I want your cover photo to drive to your email list. Because one of the strategies that I teach from an organic standpoint is being visible in communities. So if you're visible in a community over on Circle, for example, and you have commented something, somebody's asked a question and you have commented something brilliant about marketing, answered their question brilliantly, and somebody else sees that, they're gonna go, who is this girl? They're gonna click on your personal profile in that community. And when they go there, I want them to see a way to join your list. That's a major gap. That it's a leak. If you don't have that, you've lost that connection. Also, you have to make it really easy for people to connect with you off that platform. So if you don't have like if if their favorite platform is LinkedIn and you don't have a LinkedIn link, there goes that connection. If they love Facebook like I do, and you don't have a Facebook link, there goes that connection. And so for Facebook, though, when we are active in Facebook groups where our ideal clients are hanging out, or maybe our potential collaboration partners are, or we're in a collaborate, a great group of other online entrepreneurs who we could collaborate with, a major miss is not having that personal profile dialed in. Because for the reason I just said, when you post something or you share something and you're visible in that group over and over again, week in, week out, not all day, every day, but a few minutes, a couple of times a week, people are gonna say, Who is this Tracy Beavers person? I see her name a lot. They click on my personal profile, they go there. If there's no information about who I am and a big old picture of my family or my dog or a sunset, okay. How are they gonna? I mean, they could send me a DM, but I mean, they're there for me, it makes my brain go, wait a minute. I thought she was an expert. Based on what she said, I thought, and I get here and I'm like, is she serious about her business? You know, or is she just doing this as a hobby?

Janice Hostager 31:19

I love that you said that because that's something I have not thought about. But you're right, in groups, we don't go in as our business name, we go in as our personal profile. So if there is nothing on our personal profile to say, this is what I do, or at least, you know, some kind of link to let them know that that's where they should go, then you're right. That's a lost link or a leak in the funnel, basically. Yeah. Yeah. So that is great. I thank you for saying that because I'm gonna change mine because I think I have my family picture up there, but I'm sure I do. But yeah, that's a really great observation.

Tracy Beavers 31:54

I love that. Thanks. Thanks. And it applies to other platforms too, like I said on LinkedIn. If you're if you're in a LinkedIn post that somebody that is going like gangbusters and you've commented something that's really impactful and somebody wants to click on your profile, man, we've just got to make sure they know how to take the next step with us.

Janice Hostager 32:14

Mm-hmm. And I also love that, you know, because I uh because I work with a lot of smaller businesses, a lot of solopreneurs, and a lot of times I will tell them, you can't be on all platforms. Just focus on one because you will wear yourself out trying to be on LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok and da-da-da. But what you're saying also makes a lot of sense in that it if you're not going to be active on that profile, at least get your, you know, a cover photo or something like that set up so that when they are on that and they do follow you, that they can find something else about you. So for sure.

Tracy Beavers 32:50

I do I do that, I teach the same thing, Janice. I think if you have a team that can repurpose your content and put it on the other platforms, that's outstanding. But I have students that tell me, Tracy, I'm exhausted. And I'm like, well, tell me what you're doing. And they're like, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and I did a TikTok and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, no wonder you're exhausted. I mean, just don't do that. Let's figure out where is your audience, what platform do you like, and let's go all in on it. And then when you can afford to hire somebody to put you on the other platforms, then you'll be on the other platform. The only reason why I'm in on Instagram at all is because I have an assistant. And quite frankly, between you and me, it does not convert. And I really just want to shut it down. But she's like, no, it only takes me 10 minutes to put your stuff there. I'm like, okay, fine, we'll keep it. But yeah. Yeah, it's too much.

Realistic Organic Growth Expectations

Janice Hostager 33:37

Yeah, yeah. Um, gosh, I have a lot of questions to ask you here, but I want to be respectful of your time here. But what are some healthy expectations for organic lisp growth, especially for smaller audiences? Like, what can they expect organically? Let's assume that they are doing a lot of what you recommend.

Tracy Beavers 33:56

You know, I had a student a couple of weeks ago in our group and she said, Tracy, I just feel like this is gonna take forever. She's like, How long before I see results? And I get it. Organic growth is slow. It's not fast. And I'm not gonna tell anybody that it is. It's hard to guarantee a number to somebody. Oh, you if you follow my strategies, you'll grow your list by hundreds of people every month. I cannot guarantee that. Because as we were talking about at the top of the interview, or one of the second or third questions you asked me, if they're if they've got great lead magnets, but they're not making them visible, and they're not, if they're not doing all the things that I teach and all of the things they possibly can do week in, week out, and getting that consistency, then it's hard to say what their results will be. I do know that for me though, I grew to my first thousand people on my list within about 10 months of employing the strategies that I now teach. And I've grown to my list is now this really surprises people. So my list is probably 5,600 people. The healthy part of that list is more like 3,000 people, but I have a multi-six-figure business. And so we do not have to have 10,000 people on an email list to have a six-figure business. And I don't have thousands and thousands of followers on these platforms. I have followers that are true ideal clients of mine. So I I want us to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to numbers. And I also don't want us to get discouraged if it takes longer than it feels like it should, because it's going to. So I would just like to share that using consistent strategies week in, week out, and you're making sure you are doing all of the leading indicators that you have control over, the lagging indicators will catch up over time. But it might take six, eight, 10 months of that consistency and patience and tweaking things and the messaging and all that before it starts to pay off. And don't discount conversations in the DMs as a way to drive list growth and leads. A lot of people are not comfortable having those conversations. And that's a big miss. That's a big gap because you might have enough visibility and you actually might have enough leads. I have over 4,000 people in my free Facebook group. I don't have a leads problem. But if I end up saying, Janice, I've got a conversion problem, that's where you're gonna be like, well, Tracy, are you talking to your people in the DMs that are in your group? And I'm if I say no, then you're gonna be like, bingo, there it is. You know? So it's hard, it's hard for me to put a big number. I wish I could say, oh, you're gonna grow your list 30% every month. You know, I wish I could do something like that, but I can't. It varies, it varies for everybody.

Janice Hostager 36:50

Yeah, yeah. And it's what you said too. It's what you put into it is what you get out of it. And really, I think what one of the things I tell clients is just really be creative at what opportunity you have that you can share something. You know, it might be that you're giving a speech to a networking group and you can share a QR code. Or, you know, just really be creative about uh how can you get that information out there and really really making sure that you give value because that's people can sense if you're just looking for an email subscriber versus like here, I want to share this with you. I really want you to succeed. I really want to give you some value because I think that's something that people can pick up on for sure. For sure. All right. So since we're kind of wrapping up here, I just really want to do a rapid fire QA. Okay. Uh, and we'll see how fast you can. I'm not gonna time you or anything.

Tracy Beavers 37:46

So Okay, good, because I'm a little nervous.

Janice Hostager 37:48

Short answers, no overthinking. Uh do you pop-ups on your website for your for email? Yes or no?

Tracy Beavers 37:55

Yes.

Janice Hostager 37:56

Okay. One lead magnet that you'd retire immediately.

Tracy Beavers 38:00

Oh gosh. Oh my god, there's so many. I have a lot of lead magnets. Let me think. Oh, probably the one about how to build a business of your dreams or something. It's kind of cheesy. I don't like it anymore.

Janice Hostager 38:11

So like the type, like more of the type. Oh, the type. Oh, the type. Yeah.

Tracy Beavers 38:15

So if it's like a simple PDF or checklist or cheat sheet or something, nobody nobody wants that.

unknown 38:21

Yeah.

Tracy Beavers 38:22

Okay.

Janice Hostager 38:22

Um, do you do opt-ins in blog posts, other places on the website or or just the homepage or where the website is where the website?

Tracy Beavers 38:31

But no, absolutely. So what I teach in my students is that all roads lead to list building. So if I'm gonna do a podcast, it's gotta grow my email list. I've got to give you a link audibly in the in the show to join my list, and I've got to give you something in the show notes. Same goes for the blog. If I'm gonna do a blog, then it's that thing's gotta grow my list. So if people are searching and they find my blog, then that blog has to have a call to action that grows my list. Otherwise, that's wasted content. I mean, why do don't do it? If it's not gonna grow your list, don't do it.

Janice Hostager 39:05

How how quickly do you email a new subscriber?

Tracy Beavers 39:09

Oh, so we have a three email welcome sequence set up. So you go opt in for one of my thingies, my freebies, and then immediately you get the thing, but then you also get the email sequence. So it's immediate. You'll get the you'll get the thing you opted in for immediately, and then you get three emails from me. And then I email my list. After that, you go into the regular pot of the email list, and I email them once a week.

Janice Hostager 39:35

Okay. How quickly do you send that first follow-up email? Oh, so they're just going to-

Tracy Beavers 39:41

The next day? No, so they they opt in, they get the lead magnet email, and then they get the three, it's like day one, day two, day three, the welcome sequence.

Janice Hostager 39:50

Oh, three days.

Tracy Beavers 39:51

Yeah, three days of that. And then they just go into my regular weekly email, which I sent I've been sending on Tuesdays. Now I'm playing around with Thursdays. So depending on when they came out of the welcome sequence, it's possible they might get another email from me that next day.

Janice Hostager 40:05

Gotcha.

Tracy Beavers 40:06

Does that make sense?

Janice Hostager 40:07

Yep. Total sense. Yeah. I was just wondering because there I know that there are people out there that like spread out like two weeks worth of welcome emails. And and I I just was curious about what your take was on it.

Tracy Beavers 40:19

No, I don't want to read two weeks of welcome sequence. No.

Janice Hostager 40:24

So one organic list growth tactic that works surprisingly well.

Tracy Beavers 40:29

Yeah, setting up that Facebook personal profile for list growth works like crazy. Yeah.

Janice Hostager 40:35

Love that. I I am on that one. Okay, and finish the sentence. Your email list won't grow if..

Tracy Beavers 40:43

You're not visible online offering your ideal clients what they really want.

Janice Hostager 40:49

Love it. Love it. Where can people find out more about you, Tracy?

Tracy Beavers 40:54

I have a podcast that I love. It's called Create Online Business Success. And then also, you've heard heard me mention my free Facebook group. It's called Be a Confident Entrepreneur. Come over and join us. You know, you can ask, you're you're allowed to move around the cabin in my community. So many groups are just so locked down and strict that people feel like they can't even move an elbow or they'll get kicked out. In my group, you can you can come in and you can ask for help. You can connect with other people, come to our networking session, you can promote your offers on certain days. It's just a really cool community. So I'd love for people to come connect with me there.

Janice Hostager 41:30

It is a cool community. I'm in it, I believe. So all right. Well, I'll put the links to all of that in the show notes for today as well. So thank you so much, Tracy. I have learned a lot and I am going to go change some things up. So I appreciate it.

Tracy Beavers 41:47

Thanks for having me.

Janice Hostager 41:48

I hope my conversation with Tracy today gave you some ideas for growing your email list. And if this episode helped you at all, I'd love for you to share it with a business friend who's trying to grow their list too. For more information about Tracy or anything we talked about today, visit myweeklymarketing.com forward slash one five three. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.