In this post you’re going to learn exactly how to build an email list using a proven system we’ve tested across hundreds of industries and types of businesses.

Over the last 5 years, we’ve used this system to not only build our own email list of 300,000+ subscribers, but also to help hundreds of businesses get their first 1,000+ subscribers. (100 of those stories are documented right here.)

Most email list building posts give you a big, long list of tactics with step-by-step instructions and case studies that show you how to implement them.

But the truth is, you need more than just tactics. In fact, I’ve found that the tactics you choose to build your email list will be among the least important factors in your success or failure.

Think of tactics like the “sweets” section of the food pyramid we all saw in elementary school:

In this post you will learn how to write an effective email sequence to welcome new subscribers and sell your products automatically.

In fact, over the next 4 weeks, you’re going to see behind the scenes of email sequences from 6 successful online companies. You will see everything from open rates, to click rates, to sales numbers, to the exact copy that’s used for their most successful email sequences.

For example…

Laura Elizabeth, who runs Client Portal, a software service that helps freelancers manage their client work better. She makes $2,000 per month automatically from her email sequences.

Website optimization is like working out.

Even when you want to do it, it feels impossible to get started.

What gym should I go to? What machines should I use? What’s the proper way to deadlift? Should I sign up for a class?

Forget all that.

In this post, I’m going to show you the 3 parts of your website that matter most if you want to immediately grow your email list, increase leads, and boost sales.

Of the 6,000+ students and 1:1 clients I’ve worked with, I’ve NEVER (not one time) seen someone doing all three of these things. Yet, I regularly see businesses double their daily subscriber count and sales when they do.

Thing #1: Is your homepage converting 10% of visitors to subscribers?

Thing #2: Are your top 10 blog posts converting 20% of visitors to subscribers?

Thing #3: Are your 5 most linked to articles bringing in 5,000 visitors per month from Google?

By the time you make it to the end of this 3-step website optimization process, you’ll be able to answer “yes” to all three.

Ready? Let’s get started!

What would happen if 3,483 people shared your website on Facebook today?

You would get…

More website traffic.
More email subscribers.
More customers.

But how do you get your content to go viral?

Most people think that viral marketing is a fad and something that requires you getting lucky. So I thought I’d test to see.

Is it possible to make your content go viral?

Are there repeatable and reliable methods you can follow that consistently produce 1000s of visitors and shares? 

Yes, there are!

And in this article we’re going to dissect 4 highly effective viral marketing campaigns and give you the tools and best practices you need to increase your traffic and shares.

Let’s jump in.

Campaign #1: Viral Facebook Campaign (by I Heart Sweet Life Planners) 

Before I started researching this topic, I was looking at the I Heart Sweet Life Planners Facebook page when I came across a post that had 3,483 shares.

What was weird was that all of the other posts on the page had 2 to 5 shares each.

But this one had gone viral and had 1000s. Why?

The first time I tried to start a business I had no clue what a sales funnel was.

It was 2012, I’d just read an article by Tim Ferriss on how to create iPhone apps, and I was sure I could start making $10,000 per month doing the same thing.

One year later, I had two apps under my belt and a balance sheet that looked like this:

• App development cost: $2,000
• Revenue from apps: $615
• Net profit: -$1,385

It didn’t take me long to figure out the problem. Simply adding my apps to Apple’s app store and hoping people would find them hadn’t resulted in the flood of customers I thought it would.

Shocking, right? 🙂

It took two years before I was ready to try my hand at launching something again. During that time, I studied every sales funnel I could find and worked hard on building one that would make selling my next product as easy as possible.

The results? I launched an online course that generated $15,460 in total revenue within a few days.

Key takeaway: if you want your business to grow, it’s tough to find an activity with higher ROI than building a sales funnel.

In this post, I’m going to show you what most articles don’t—practical steps for actually creating and implementing a sales funnel so finding customers no longer feels like pulling teeth.