You’re here because you want to build an email list.
You already know that building your email list is one of the most valuable assets when growing an online business, and you either:
- Want to get to your first 500-1,000 email subscribers with your online business
- Already have some traction and a few hundred (or thousand) email subscribers, and want to get 5,000-10,000 email subscribers as your next big benchmark
- Already have a proven system for growing your e-mail list and thousands of e-mail subscribers, but want to learn how to scale up to 10,000-20,000 email subscribers (and beyond)
If any of the above describes you, you’ll love this guide.
It will help you get from 0 to your first 1,000 e-mail subscribers…
All the way to getting hundreds of new e-mail subscribers every month:
I interviewed 20 established online entrepreneurs with e-mail lists of 1,000-40,000 e-mail subscribers to ask them how they did it, and compiled my data, insights and countless real-world examples in this insanely detailed guide.
In this guide, you’ll find everything possible tool you need to grow your e-mail list to 10,000 e-mail subscribers and beyond – from the “big picture” strategy to specific strategies you can use through different stages of growing your e-mail list, to a step-by-step walkthrough to building your e-mail list.
There’s nothing like this guide out there, and I’m so excited to share it with you!
Table of Contents
Here’s a quick preview of everything that’s included in this 93,253-word step-by-step guide to building your e-mail list.
PART 0: Introduction & Overview
Here, you can read a quick overview of why I wrote this guide, who it’s for, and how it can help you. You can also go through a high-level roadmap that will guide you through going from 0-10,000+ e-mail subscribers.
Chapter 0: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Email List: The Introduction
Chapter 1: Your List-Building Roadmap to 10,000 E-mail Subscribers (And Beyond)
PART 1: How to Get Your First 100 E-mail Subscribers
Finding and validating a Profitable Online Business Idea is the first (and most important) step of growing your e-mail list that most entrepreneurs skip.
Through the strategies outlined in the first few chapters of this guide, you’ll learn how to find and validate your Profitable Online Business and build an e-mail list of your first 100+ e-mail subscribers in less than a week (without setting up your website or writing any content).
Chapter 2: How to Find a Profitable Online Business Idea
Chapter 3: How to Validate Your Online Business Idea
Chapter 4: How to Get Un-Stuck With Your Online Business Idea
PART 2: How to Get to 500-1,000 E-mail Subscribers
In the second part of this guide, you’ll learn how to set up a simple High-Converting Website, create an EPIC Lead Magnet and go through the exact steps to collect your first 500-1,000 e-mail subscribers.
By the time you finish these chapters, you’ll already have enough e-mail subscribers to sell a coaching program or an online course to your e-mail list (if you choose to do so).
Chapter 5: How to Find Problems Worth Solving
Chapter 6: How to Create an EPIC Lead Magnet
Chapter 7: How to Write Mouthwatering Opt-in Copy
Chapter 8: How to Set up Your E-mail List (Plus my 3 Favorite E-mail Providers)
Chapter 9: How to Get Over Your Fear of Putting Yourself Out There
Chapter 10: How to Promote Your Content
Chapter 11: How to Create a High-Converting Website
PART 3: How to Grow to 5,000-10,000 E-mail Subscribers
In the third part of this guide, we’ll take a deep dive into the world of Content Creation – a key strategy that every entrepreneur I interviewed to grow their e-mail list.
Through the steps in the following chapters, you’ll be able to create your own Bulletproof Content System and grow your e-mail list to 5,000-10,000 e-mail subscribers.
Chapter 12: How to Grow Past The Magical 1,000 E-mail Subscribers Mark (Plus 7 Mistakes to Avoid Along The Way)
Chapter 13: How to Create Remarkable Content
Chapter 14: How to Consistently Create New Content Every Week
Chapter 15: Your Long-Term Content Strategy
PART 4: How to Scale to 20,000-40,000 E-mail Subscribers (and Beyond)
In the final part of this guide, we’ll talk about a few advanced list-building strategies that you can use to grow your e-mail list beyond 10,000 e-mail subscribers to 20,000-40,000 e-mail subscribers and beyond.
Chapter 16: Advanced List-Building Strategies
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You can download the FULL PDF version of this guide by entering your name and e-mail below, save it on your computer, print it out, and read it with your favorite cup of coffee.
Are you ready to build an e-mail list of 1,000+ BUYERS?
Download the full 393-page PDF version of this EPIC list-building guide, to print it out or read it on the go!
The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Email List: The Introduction
This Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Email List is the most detailed and comprehensive piece of content online on building your email list. There’s nothing else like it out there.
I interviewed 20 online entrepreneurs with established, profitable online business that have e-mail lists of at least 1,000 (and as many as 40,000) e-mail subscribers about how they built their e-mail lists to their first 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 e-mail subscribers and beyond.
Then, I spent hundreds of hours working through hundreds of pages of interview notes, and organizing them into a complete guide for growing your e-mail list to 10,000 e-mail subscribers and beyond.
In this guide, you’ll find:
- A complete, step-by-step system for getting your first 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 e-mail subscribers (and beyond)
- The best proven tactics and strategies that established entrepreneurs have used to grow their email lists (that you can use to grow your e-mail list as well)
- The biggest myths and mistakes you should avoid when growing your e-mail list to prevent it from plateauing
You’ll also find hundreds of real life examples to support every tactic, strategy and principle that we talk about, so you can take what you’ve learned from the guide an apply it to growing your e-mail list for your online business.
About Me
Hi, I’m Primoz!
Over the past few years, I went from earning $7/h as a programmer in Slovenia to consistently earning over 6-figures/year with my online business (you can read my full story here).
During this time, I was mentored by and worked with some of the top online entrepreneurs like Derek Halpern, Ramit Sethi and Selena Soo, and coached 1,000+ entrepreneurs on how to start and grow their own online businesses.
I also spoke at conferences of 500+ entrepreneurs like Forefront and was featured in places like Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, Entrepreneur on Fire and GrowthLab.
I love doing two things more than anything:
- Coaching 5-6 figure entrepreneurs on how to explosively grow their online businesses
- Writing insanely long and detailed Ultimate Guides like this one
But most of all, I love helping ambitious entrepreneurs like you who are willing to read these ultra-long guides, implement them in your business, and make magic happen.
I’m so excited you’re here, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading this guide as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Why I Wrote This Guide
For online entrepreneurs, e-mail list is the life and blood of your business.
If your e-mail list keeps growing and you keep attracting new potential customers to your business every day, your business will keep growing. You’ll be able to get more clients for your coaching services and online courses, and help more people.
But if your e-mail list tanks, it’s only a matter of time until you “burn out” your e-mail list and your revenue tanks as well. No matter how many new products and services you create, you’ll feel like your online business is a ship that’s bound to sink.
But even though there are hundreds of resources out there on growing your e-mail list, I still talk to entrepreneurs every day that have hit a plateau with their e-mail lists and would love to get more e-mail subscribers.
It seems like even though there are so many resources out there already, there seems to be something missing. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this guide.
I wrote this guide (and am giving it away to you for free) because I never want you to worry about growing your e-mail list again.
How This Guide Is Different From All Other Free Resources on Growing Your Email List
The truth is that there’s no one proven, complete guide out there for growing your e-mail list.
Sure, there are plenty of articles along the lines of “50 ways to grow your e-mail list”, but you don’t want 50 different ways of growing your e-mail list with one-paragraph explanation on how to do it. “Just set up a Pinterest account!”. As if it were that easy.
Sure, there are plenty of articles that tell you to “create a free e-book or a lead magnet” and give it away for free. But what should you create it about? How can you spread the word about it? And how can you grow your e-mail list after you already have a lead magnet?
There are even plenty of so-called “ultimate guides” about growing your e-mail list out there, although sadly, there is very little “ultimate” about them. I’m sorry, a 3,000-word article (possibly written by a “professional blogger” who never actually ran an online business) isn’t a definitive guide about such a broad subject as growing your e-mail list.
There’s no resource that dives DEEP into the different stages for growing your e-mail list, that breaks down what you should do at each stage, and what you shouldn’t worry about. There’s no resource out there that uses enough data points from real, established entrepreneurs that would tell you how they actually build their e-mail lists over time.
I know why there isn’t a guide like this out there yet. It’s an INSANE amount of work.
Even before I wrote the first word of this guide, I spent hundreds of hours surveying my readers about their challenges with growing their e-mail lists, interviewing established entrepreneurs about how they grew their e-mail lists, and organizing their strategies and insights into a system for growing your e-mail list that would be easy to understand and implement.
I created a spreadsheet with 452 different insights on growing your e-mail list. I turned that spreadsheet into a 50-page Google Document with the outline for this guide. I then turned that outline into 4 giant paper mind maps to make it flow as best as possible and create a step-by-step system that is easy to follow.
I spent countless hours banging my head against the wall on how to write this guide in the best way possible and organize this enormous information in a guide that made sense for you. Then, I spent over 6 weeks writing the guide, day after day, until it was done.
After going through this process, I can understand why there’s no guide like this out there yet.
And it’s exactly why I’m super excited to write it and share it with you.
A Word of Caution: This is a LONG Guide
When I set off to write this guide, I knew it would be an enormous guide (though I din’t expect to essentially write a book).
To truly write the ULTIMATE guide to growing your e-mail list and cover all the different tactics and strategies that you can grow your e-mail list would mean that I’d have to cover information that will guide you in growing your e-mail list for years to come.
It would mean that I would have to find countless real-life examples that would show you how to put the principles, tactics and strategies from this guide into action.
Plus, I love writing long, detailed and comprehensive content (I’m not a guy that would write 500-word blog posts).
If you’re looking for a “quick guide”, this guide isn’t for you. If your “attention span” is short and you aren’t willing to read a 90,000+ word guide, this guide isn’t for you. If you aren’t willing to work hard to grow your e-mail list, this guide isn’t for you.
But if you want to read the most comprehensive and detailed piece of content online on growing your e-mail list, this guide is perfect for you.
Who This Guide is For
“Can I benefit from this guide if I have 0, 564 or 13,231 e-mail subscribers?”
The answer is YES, YES, YES.
Because I’ve interviewed 20 established entrepreneurs with profitable online businesses about how they built their e-mail lists to write this guide, I’ll take you through all the different stages of growing your e-mail list your first 100, 500, 5000, 10,000 e-mail subscribers and beyond.
You can simply jump to the section of this guide that’s the most relevant to you (or binge-read the full guide).
You’ll benefit from this guide if:
- You are looking for a complete, proven system for building your e-mail list
- You’re looking for new and innovative tactics and strategies for building your e-mail list
- You want to attract more paying customers to your online courses and coaching programs
- You’re willing to work hard to grow your e-mail list
- You want to grow your e-mail list “organically”, without spending a single dollar on paid advertising
However, since I couldn’t possibly write a guide that would serve everyone, there are also a few situations where this guide isn’t the best fit for you:
- If you’re looking to grow your e-mail list “quickly” or “fast”, this guide isn’t for you, as the long-term strategies for growing your e-mail list all take time and require a considerable amount of effort
- If you’re looking to grow your e-mail list with paid advertising, this guide isn’t for you, as very few of the people I interviewed used paid advertising as the main method to grow their e-mail lists
- If you’re looking for a guide that goes into a ton of detail into specific tactics like growing your e-mail list through Instagram or Pinterest, this guide might not be the best for you as we’ll focus more on the high-level principles and strategies in this guide
Acknowledgments
Before I dive into this guide, I’d like to thank and acknowledge everyone who I interviewed for this guide (plus a few individuals who contributed to the guide but preferred to stay anonymous).
The advice, the knowledge and the wisdom you shared helped me write this guide better than I ever would without your help, and for that I am deeply grateful. Thank you (in no particular order):
- Geraldine Lepere from Comme un Francaise
- Christina Rebuffet from Speak English With Christina
- Ryan Hildebrandt from Viral Message Lab
- Jesse Gernigin from Live Gold Rich
- Vickie Gould from vickiegould.com
- Peter Nguyen from The Essential Man
- Luke McIntosh from Become a Bassist
- Matt Rosenblum from mattrosenblum.net
- Will Darling from EDMTips
- Jenni Waldrop from Fuzzy and Birch
- Danny Margulies from Freelance to Win
- Sara Kirsch from Marketing is Not Selling
- Sam Gavis-Hughson from Byte by Byte
- Olivia Angelescu from oliviaangelescu.com
- Gabriela Pereira from diyMFA
- Karen Dudek-Brannan from Dr. Karen Speech and Language
- Nagina Abdullah from Masala Body
- Rusty Gray from Rusty Animator
I’d also like to thank my mentors Ramit Sethi, Derek Halpern and Selena Soo for showing me what excellence looks like, my friends Marc Aarons and Diana Tower for supporting me through the rough times, and my girlfriend for always being there for me.
Thank you.
Get Started With Reading The First Chapter of This Guide!
What are you waiting for? Get started with reading the first chapter of this guide (or download the PDF through the box below)!
Continue to Chapter 1: Your Step-by-Step Roadmap to 10,000+ E-mail Subscribers.
Are you ready to build an e-mail list of 1,000+ BUYERS?
Download the full 393-page PDF version of this EPIC list-building guide, to print it out or read it on the go!
Hey Primoz,
Loving that you are writing an ultimate guide about building an email list! I’m looking forward to reading more chapters in the near future 🙂
So my question is… How do you make sure you are attracting high quality people who have the intent to pay you in the future for something that you provide/promote/create etc vs just building a list of “lookieloos” or “tire kickers” or dare I say… “freeloaders”?
And of course it goes without saying I’m not a get rich schmooze or trying to take advantage of people. I want to help people transform their lives. I would love to get paid while doing that 🙂
Hey Laury, I love this question. I’ll address it in the future chapters of the guide (likely Stage 2 or 3). Thanks for sharing it with me!
This UG can’t be more timely for me. I just completed implementing one round of creating my Sticky Idea using your UG too, and your writing engine didn’t delay to keep creating in-depth valuable UG for us. Thanks for that, Primoz!
I am excited that you’ll release Chapter 2 this week, that’s where I am. But at the same time I’m also very nervous. I’m so tired of changing from ideas to ideas. The worst part is sometimes after I moved on from an idea, another adviser said that was actually a potentially profitable idea with a few fine-tuning. This has happened for several times. Maybe I did immersion the wrong way. Also you have coached many Accelerators to refine any idea into something profitable, so I believe the key is to have that guidance on how to know when an idea is good enough, when it needs further refinement (if so how to approach the refining of the idea), and if the idea is just best to be discarded and start over with new idea.
So, my biggest hope and expectation from Chapter 2 is that, I’ll learn how to assess my idea, and refine it to get more traction, before I’m told to find new idea. And I am pretty confidence that however you’re writing it, I’ll benefit from reading it.
You’re always awesome, Primoz!
Hey Stephanie, this is a GREAT question! I’ll cover it in the Chapter 1 FAQ :).
Echoing what Laury said: how do you get quality subscribers that are not just there for your freebies (and people won’t just subscribe for updates or a weekly newsletter)? My list has grown in the past few months but engagement is very low if I ask for feedback or ideas. These entrepreneurs that say they have 100,000 subs – is it just a numbers game for them where even a low conversion rate will still net them sales? I’ve heard of people that have only 1000 subs that have high conversion rates because they only have quality subs. That’s where I want to be.
Hey Marc, great questions. I’ll address these in the future chapters of the guide (likely Stage 2 or 3). Thanks for sharing them with me!
Hey Primoz,
what about testing a lead magnet by using paid traffic?
If you have a product in place and get an idea of how the Sales Funnel Converts and thus whar a new optin is woth monetarily, this can be the fastest way to scaling your Email List I guess.
Best
Michael
Hey Michael, I can’t speak to that as (1) I’ve never done it, and (2) the entrepreneurs I interviewed for this guide used organic methods to test and promote their lead magnets as well.
Could paid traffic work? Probably, though based on the data I’ve collected, it’s definitely not necessary.
Primoz, I like that you over-deliver time and time again.
This is more like an in-depth step-by-step journey than just a guide, and I’m excited to join the ride 🙂
The steps that this guide outline still seem relevant to any business model; email subscribers, for example, are leads for the business, even if we’re not connecting with them via emails.
So my question is: If you are to start a business for an audience that doesn’t majorly use emails, what would be the possible platform substitutions to “email”?
Hey Moh, I’m glad you’re enjoying the guide!
As to your question, can you share more details? Who is the audience? What kind of a business are you trying to build? Why don’t they use email? Having more context will be helpful here :).
My main offer is a live workshop targeted for teachers/ caring adults to help their students thrive in schools and in life.
My audience majorly uses social media and phone calls/chats to communicate (for social/ demographic reasons).
It has got some traction, but I’m still wondering how to promote/scale it without “emails”.
Hey Moh, I haven’t ran into a situation like that yet, but perhaps doing something like a Facebook group might make sense. Or, you could always try e-mail and see how it goes :). Best of luck!
Q: How do I become an Early Riser? ^_^ I’m looking all over the place but I don’t find something that convinces me!
To make sure you get the updates, go into your inbox, find an email called “Click This Link to Subscribe to Ultimate Guide Updates”. (Nothing in inbox )
Click the “Subscribe for updates” link in the e-mail
The above instructions don’t work for me. I have to sign up every day to get guide.
Hey Gayle, you should be all set! You’ll receive the updates as they get published (next chapter is coming next Monday). If you didn’t receive an e-mail with a link to confirm your subscription, make sure you check your spam folder in your inbox :).
I LOVE you man and your approach to writing content.
I LOVE that when I see you wrote the UG about something, I know I found the light on the end of the tunnel – which means I don’t have to search for another XYZ articles.
In the past – your UG about writing UGs helped me double my business overnight (after I’ve followed the steps a did the work).
Now I believe this could do the same.
Right now the timing couldn’t be better too. I was stuck in my business for the last two months – I wasn’t sure what to do next and without adding new clients, my revenue started to fall down).
Now after reading the first chapters, I’m starting to feel optimistic and excited again.
What I like most about this UG is that is divided into parts not by themes but by stage of your business (e.g. number of subscribers). When I was reading other articles about building a business, I never know if those pieces of advice are for my stage of business, or if I just wasting time with them.
Can’t wait for next chapters ( especially for website conversion and How to Grow to 5,000-10,000 E-mail Subscribers).
P.S.: Primoz, if this UG will help me double my business again, I’ll come to Ljubljana, Slovenia to personally thank you.
Hey Martin, I’m so happy to hear about your amazing results with the Ultimate Guide Checklist, and I’m glad to hear you’re digging the guide!
Do let me know once you double your business again (I know you will) and we’ll hang out!
Thanks Primoz, I’m reading this and loving it!The Moment of Traction really hit home for me, I’ve been playing with a lot of ideas, but it never seemed to be ‘easy’, where people really wanted to know more. Now that I’m looking for the moment of traction, I can see it in other posts, and I know what to look for. Thanks 🙂
I love that Lisa! The Moments of Traction are such a key concept that can make or break your business. Can’t wait till you find yours!
I read this guide during the last couple of days and I love how thorough and straight-forward it is. Can’t wait to implement your ideas and for the next chapters!
Thanks!
Hey Eran, thanks for the kind words and sharing what you love about the guide! Can’t wait to see you implement to skyrocket your e-mail list 🙂
I hope I’ll never have to write a List-building guide… It’s impossible to beat Primoz’s! 🙂
Once again, Primoz has *knocked it out of the park* with his super helpful resources for entrepreneurs like US! He is a master of the bullet point, selflessly shares invaluable information, and inspires with success stories from his many satisfied clients! His writing is efficient and encouraging, and he is always willing to give the *best* he has to offer!
Thanks, Primoz!
I’m so grateful to Primoz for creating this guide! I’m new to email marketing and his guide has been incredibly helpful as well as giving me a good idea of the quality of opt-in item I want to provide subscribers. He’s placed the bar pretty high, which is a good thing. I look forward to reading future chapters and learning more!
This guide is so detailed and helpful it makes me feel guilty for having it for free.
That’s probably why I trust Primoz – he cares more about helping than making money.
God bless you Primoz for the pdf compilation. It’s easy to print and highlight and I am working my way through it.
I have a feeling certain people will be upset with you though – this UG will make all those webinars etc redundant!
Happy Friday
You’re welcome Vatsala! It was impossible to fit the whole guide into one page on my website as it’s just too long, and the PDF version is definitely easier to print out, work through, and highlight :). Let me know how you end up implementing the advice!
I’m new to this whole thing, Primoz, but I’ve had you on my radar for quite some time. I look forward to diving into this guide and getting the ball rolling. Thank you so much for your generosity!
THIS IS EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED!!! Thank you Primoz for creating such an amazing guide. My favorite chapter is “How to Create Your Content Strategy” because it finally answered for me the difference between the types of content to send out.
I’ve been so stuck on what to send, when to send it, and why to send it. But now that I understand the difference among Growth Content, Engagement Content, and Launch Content…everything makes a LOT more sense.
Thank you!! And great job!!
You’re welcome, Dan! I’m so happy you enjoyed the guide, and thanks for sending me all of your list-building questions as I was writing it. They definitely contributed to the Content Strategy chapter :). Can’t wait to see you grow your list!
Hey Man, Just wanted to say Thank You !! I generally don’t bother writing up comments. However, after reading your ultimate guide, i thought i should give you one Thank You. You deserve it !! I think your psychology matches to me. I am also a ZTL student. Still thinking and validating my business idea !! I like the analysis you did. You won’t believe me, I also think the same way. I take methodical and systematic approach. That is why may be i fell for ZTL. I am taking my time to prepare for my business. Hopefully, very soon i will kick start it. You made me think more about my idea, content creation strategy. Excellent work done by You. Kudos to You !! would love to be in touch. I am a professional accountant. It was my day off today. I spent the whole day reading your content. I have build enough knowledge how to promote my business to my audiences…keep up the good work…
You’re welcome Abdullah! I’m glad you enjoyed the guide :).