If you’ve been following the blog for a while you’ll know that I do a lot of list-building through blogging. I have a lot of tips on how to use a blog to build your email list, so do check those posts out. Today I’m sharing my ten Facebook hacks to build your list, because Facebook is, aside from using my blog to build my email list, my favourite list-building strategy. It’s a really powerful tool and a very easy way to get direct access to a very specific crowd if you know how to use it.
If you don’t already have an email list I really recommend that you start one. It’s a brilliant way of building trust, an easy way to share information, and get your blog, products and services out to your ideal client. Through your list you’re going win sales and long-term customers, which is always good.
Facebook is really useful for loads of different things, but for list building there are a few specific things you need to do that are really going to optimize your Facebook page, and ensure it’s building your list as much as possible.
One thing before we get started: I’m talking about your Facebook business page, not your profile. Your business page is the one that people ‘like’, your profile is the one people make friends with you on – two different things. We’re dealing with the business page today.
If you’re looking to drive signups, these simple Facebook hacks to build your list are perfect…
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Facebook Hack #1: Set Up A Signup Tab
This is a really easy thing to do, but it’s something that quite a few people who have a Facebook page don’t know you can do, or think there’s little point in doing it because ‘nobody is going to click on it anyway’. Two things…
1) It s absolutely worth doing. Even if you only get a few people clicking on it, that’s still a few people you wouldn’t have got elsewhere. There is certainly no harm in doing it.
2) It’s a lot easier than you think, it’s not at all complicated.
A lot of people are put off by the concept that it’s a really tricky thing to do. It’s super easy to set up, all you need to do is log into your business page and go to the main page and look at your cover image. At the top there will be a big blue button that says “Add A Button”.
Click that, follow the instructions and you’re sorted.
It will take 10/15 minutes tops, and it’s a really easy way of getting people to sign up. The second they land on the page, they see that button and just click it.
Facebook Hack #2: Have A Dedicated Opt-in Page On Your Website With A Freebie To Download
You’ll see these all over the place, constantly popping up in your news feed: download our free eBook, download our free guide, download our free toolkit, etc.
Everybody has these; they’re brilliant. They’re a really good way of getting people to hand over their email address and sign up to your list because in return you are giving them something for free.
It’s really important you set up at least one of these opt-in pages with a freebie. Because really, if you’re not going to give people things in exchange for signing up to your list (other than an email telling them about your blog post, which they can read on your website), if you’re not going to give them an incentive then they’re not going to sign up. You’ll get a few people, but the key is to make sure you have something they really want, something only you have.
You need a really good opt-in freebie (or two, or three). Don’t worry about doing them all at once, start with one that’s nice and simple, build from there and get a little collection going.
[Tweet theme=”tweet-box-shadow”]Ensure your #freebie epitomises your #IdealClient. Ensure the people wanting it are who you want on your #list.[/Tweet]
If you get your freebie wrong, the people signing up to your list aren’t going to be the right audience for you. They’re not going to be your ideal clients. They’re not going to be the people you want on your list. Spend quite a bit of time thinking about your freebie and getting it right.
Once you’ve got it, you need to set up a page dedicated to it.
It’s useful having signup boxes and things on your website, but for the purpose of Facebook, you need a dedicated link that sends people straight to a single page that has nothing else on it; it’s literally a form they stick their email address in, click ‘sign up’, and that’s the end of it.
You need to make it as easy as possible for them.
Facebook Hack #3: Optimize Your Cover Image
By optimize I mean ensure there is something on that image telling people who you are and where they can find you. You might want your logo on there, or the name of your business, the URL of your website, you might want all three, but you want something on there. It doesn’t have to be large or in your face; it can be small, subtle, just in the corner. Just to make sure that if someone is on your page and they think, “Oooh, I’d like to look at their website”, they have to faff around going to your ‘About’ section and finding your website address somewhere else; it’s right there on the photo.
You can’t make it clickable, unfortunately, but once you’ve uploaded your photo with the URL on it, go into the description of that photo and add an active link to the description. So make sure the image itself has your website address on it somewhere, and make sure that the description has your website address on it as well with an actual active link that people could click.
Now, if you really want to drive signups to your newsletter, make the URL on your image a direct link to that opt-in page that we talked about in the last tip. You can use Bitly to make a pretty little shortlink that says something cool (i.e. bit.ly/ListbuildingHacks).
Facebook Hack #4: Use Your Updates To Drive Signups
When you post a photo, meme, question, or any kind of update, link it to your newsletter with a very quick, “By the way, sign up to my newsletter”, followed by a link to your opt-in page. Every time you have an update that even loosely ties to your opt-in, add that link! It doesn’t need to be fancy, just make sure you are using your updates to your best advantage for your list.
It’s really easy to completely forget about your list when you post on your page. You’re so focused on making sure you post things regularly, and that you’ve got good content and good engagement, you totally forget that you actually need those updates to do something tangible for you.
[Tweet theme=”basic-white”]Getting people to sign up to your #list is one of the most tangible benefits #Facebook has for your #business.[/Tweet]
Facebook Hack #5: Use Facebook To Run Events
Events can be competitions, questionnaires, or quizzes, they can be any kind of event that you can post on Facebook. You can make it as simple as an image and, “Comment below to win your free bag/coat/strategy session/whatever.”
Give them an incentive, give them a reason to get involved, then give them really clear instructions on how to take part.
Loads of people get caught up with ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ competitions on Facebook, where the only things you have to do is qualify are ‘Like’ a photo and share it, or ‘Like’ a photo and comment on it. While that’s really good for your engagement, you’re not actually getting any long-term benefits from it, other than a little bit of temporary publicity.
Make one of the qualifiers for your event or competition signing up to your list. Pop your dedicated URL in the description, and say, “Anybody interested, sign up here, 3 of you will win a free spa day!” (Whatever you’re giving away)
Facebook Hack #6: Use Call to Action Buttons
The signup button on your cover photo (see tip #1) is a Call to Action button. But there lots of other Call to Action buttons you can use on Facebook. Particularly if you’re doing advertising or any kind of promoted post, there is the option to add a Call to Action button to it. You can have it say anything from “Sign up” to “Read more”, “Click Me”, “Buy Me”; it doesn’t matter. But if you’re trying to drive list signups, make it “Sign Up” or “Read More”. That way you’re far more likely to get people to click on it.
You’ll probably find more people click if you just use “Read More”, rather than “Sign Up”. That’s because this was, by the time they realize they actually have to give you their email address to get the information that they want, they’ve already gone to the bother of clicking the link. It’s not much more effort to put their email address in. If you tell them upfront they have to click through AND signup, it’s double the work, and we are all time poor, lazy people!
Facebook Hack #7: Crowd Source Products And Service Ideas
This is a really good way of getting extra engagement and publicity. On its own, it’s amazing, but if you couple it with list building it becomes really powerful. Create a few posts around a particular product or service that you’re brainstorming. If you’ve got a pad of paper with all your ideas written on it, take a quick photo, post it and say something along the lines of, “Putting together some ideas for a new product. What do you think?”, or “Looking into a new service idea and I’ve got 3 different options, which would you prefer?”
I often do this with book covers to start to raise interest in my book, and also to get valuable feedback on the type of cover my clients will respond to best.
The idea is to get your audience actively engaged in what you will be offering them. Not only do they get a sneak peek of what’s to come, and get quite excited about it, but they actually feel they’ve got some say in it, that they’re in charge. This is a great way to get people talking about your products and services, but it’s also a great way to get people to sign up to your list. All you need to do is stick a little bit on the end that says, “If you want to be kept informed, sign up” or “If you want to be the first to know when this is live, sign up”, or “If you want to be in with a chance to win my amazing new product/service for free sign up”.
It doesn’t matter how you do it, just make sure you get that in there.
Facebook Hack #8: Provide Incentives For People To Share Your Newsletter
One of the easiest ways of doing this is saying, “When I hit 1,000 subscribers I will do X.” It might be a prize giveaway, a special post, a webinar, a look behind the scenes, whatever you think people will REALLY want. The idea is to get them hustling for you. Your goal could be 2,000 subscribers, 5,000, 10,000, even 100,000. It could simply be 100, or 500. It doesn’t matter what you’re aiming for.
If you have a goal in mind and you’re trying to get to a specific number of signups, or you’re just trying to get a little bit of momentum going, tell people you’re going to celebrate a particular milestone with this fab freebie, or a flash sale, or doing free calls – anything you like, just give them an incentive. Give them something they want and tell them how to get it. “All you need to do to get this is get other people to sign up to my list!”
Now, this isn’t necessarily the best way to build your list because you can end up with a load of people that don’t really want what you’re after, they’re just doing it because people have asked them to. But you will often find that people who are genuinely interested in you have a lot of friends who are also genuinely interested in you, so it’s worth doing occasionally.
Another way to do it is to always encourage people to share posts that have a signup link in them. If you’ve got any updates you’ve been using in any of your competitions, events, anything in which you include a link to your signup form, make sure you also add in there somewhere, “Don’t forget to share!”
That’s it, “Don’t forget to share” or “Please share”. It’s a really simple thing but that little prompt can help so much.
Facebook Hack #9: Use Video To Promote Your Newsletter
It’s really easy to record a short introductory video. You can use a decent camera on a tripod (like I do for my Vlog), but you can just as easily use your iPad, web cam, phone, anything. It just needs to be a quick video explaining who you are, what you do, and what people get if they sign up to your list.
It could be something along the lines of, “Our latest news and blogging/social media/coaching advice includes X, Y and Z – don’t miss out. Get it delivered straight to your inbox!” Videos get the best organic reach on Facebook, it gets the highest engagement, and it’s the best form of media to use on Facebook (and on a lot of social media platforms). But on Facebook in particular, video is KING, so make sure you’ve got it working for you, and that there is at least one video on your Facebook page encouraging people to sign up to your list.
Don’t forget to include a link in the video description, and superimpose the link in text over the video itself.
Facebook Hack #10: Whittle Down Your Audience
Facebook is brilliant because it can reach so many different people, but you don’t want all of those people on your list.
You want your ideal clients and nobody else.
[Tweet theme=”tweet-box-shadow”]The only people you want on your #list are the people you want to #work with, who are likely #convert into #clients.[/Tweet]
Otherwise you’re expending energy, effort and resources marketing to people who are never going to want what you have, and people you really don’t want to work with.
There are quite a few ways to whittle down your Facebook audience:
If you’re advertising it’s really easy to target very specific people.
If you are creating opt-ins and freebies you can make sure you really hone them so they’re specifically directed at exactly who you want on your list.
You can do the same thing with your posts and updates. Ensure all content you put on Facebook is designed to appeal to your ideal client and dissuade everyone else. Include things in it that only your ideal client would be interested in, that other people would really not be interested in. This is really important because it’s going to be the difference between a list of ideal clients and a load of random people who aren’t really interested, and a list of JUST your ideal clients.
You don’t have to be too ‘in your face’ about it. You don’t have to say things like, “Only signup if you’re interested in this”, “Don’t sign up if you’re not interested in this”. Don’t be negative about it. Just find very specific things people will naturally gravitate towards or away from, like Marmite (it is the go-to example for things like this; people either love it or they hate it).
You need to find something that your ideal clients will love and everybody else will hate automatically and perfectly naturally, so that you whittle down your audience and hone it to only include people who fit exactly with who you want signing up to your list.
And that’s it – nothing more to it. Use these quick and simple Facebook hacks to build your list, you’ll soon have email contacts pouring out of your ears.
Do you like my list? Did I miss anything? I’d love to know what you think – comment below and let me know!
