AP 0368: Should I Pay for Facebook Ads to Build My Email List?

AskPat 368 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 368 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week. Thank you so much for listening in.

Now before we get to today's question from Joed, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is LegalZoom.com. You know, there are a lot of great reasons smart business people choose LegalZoom. For starters, if you want to incorporate, form an LLC like I did, file a patent or a trademark or get a DBA and more, LegalZoom provides the help you need. Over the past 10 years, more than a million business owners, including myself, have started with LegalZoom. That's how Flynndustries, LLC started, was actually through LegalZoom. Did you know that they are also your first stop when you need advice from an attorney? They're not a law firm, but they do have a built-in network of independent attorneys in most states to provide legal advice, so whether you need a contract reviewed, or advice on whether you should incorporate or form an LLC, whatever your legal question, start with LegalZoom. They provide upfront prices, no surprises. Make the smart choice for your business: go to LegalZoom.com and enter “Pat” at checkout to save even more. Again, that's “Pat” at checkout for more savings. And now, let's get to today's question from Joe. Here it is.

Joed: Hi, Pat. This is Joed Lopez from Panvisio.org, P-A-N-V-I-S-I-O, dot org, and my question for you is this: When it comes to building my email list, is Facebook a viable option, especially in regards to creating a funnel of Facebook … Paying for Facebook ads to get them to my opt-in page through Facebook, as opposed to just trying to build traffic through SEO and all that stuff? I am a part-time entrepreneur, and wanted to know if I should kinda start that way. I have an opt-in page on my homepage as well, but in terms of investing, marketing and advertising, should I just kinda try to build a funnel there? Let me know what your thoughts are. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Joed. What's up? Thank you so much for the question today. It's cool to see that you're putting a focus on building your email list, because we all know how important that is, but I also think it's really cool that you are checking out Facebook for doing it, because a lot of people think Facebook is just a place to play around or a place to share posts, links and things like that, when really it's a fantastic place to build your email list, and there's none other person that I would recommend than … Well, there's actually two people I would recommend for people who do this very well. This is Amy Porterfield, from AmyPorterfield.com. She actually talks so much about her passion for building an email list specifically using Facebook ads, and doing it in a lot of different ways which I'll mention in just a second, but I would also recommend Rick Mulready from The Art of Paid Traffic, which is a podcast I recommend you all listen to, especially if you're doing paid traffic stuff, but RickMulready.com is a place you can go to as well. We'll have the links in the show notes at AskPat.com for episode 368 there for you. But I would also just mention a few ways that Amy and Rick are both using Facebook to grow their email lists, and by far, they both say that … I know Amy said this multiple times, that Facebook is the number one way that they've been able to grow their list, because of what it has done for them and the funnels that they've created.

So here are how these funnels work: They pay for advertising, and there's a lot that goes into that which I can't go to in this particular episode, which is why I recommended them, but there's a lot that goes into the targeting, to the type of ads, like using unpublished ads and video ads and things to start this whole process. But you get targeted audiences, you follow or perhaps target people who are following pages similar to yours who have a target audience similar to yours, and what you do is you get them to either sign up for a free webinar, that's something I know Amy and both Rick do very well, so in signing up for a free webinar where people are gonna learn something related to whatever niche that you're in. They're going to give you their email address in that process, and you get to lead them into a better relationship-building sequence through a webinar.

Webinar is a fantastic way to take somebody who's cold through Facebook and warm them up a bit before you pitch them. That's much better than just driving ads to a sales page. It's gonna convert much better if you first give value, in this case through the webinar, and then pitch after that. That's the funnel. Or, you can have people download a free lead magnet, for example, something that you give a way that's not necessarily a webinar, but something that gets them on your email list through you giving them some sort of giveaway. Maybe it's an ebook of some kind, or a video series or some short email course or something like that. Some incentive to give you their email address, from Facebook.

That's again, another way for you to build and warm up that relationship, because the last thing you want to do is just drive cold leads … Even though they're targeted, they're still cold leads because they don't know who you are necessarily … To a sales page, where you're gonna ask them to pay for stuff. No. Give them stuff first, provide massive value, build that relationship, and then you can ask. “Jab jab jab, right hook,” as Gary Vaynerchuk would say.

So that's how I would go about it. Now, there's a lot that are involved with the kinds of ads, the copy that goes in the ads, and you don't have to start big. I think it was Rick … Or Amy, I don't know, I kind of use them interchangeably in terms of Facebook advice, but I believe that they said that you don't even need to start out with that much money, to start to get some data that you can use to see how these things are going to convert and how it's actually going to grow your list. For example, just $10 a day for a week can tell you so much about how you're targeting, how they're converting, what kinds of offers are working, what kinds of copy's working, what kinds of images or videos within those advertisements are working, and so on and so forth, and again they both praise and I agree with them and I haven't even gotten to this point yet because I'm more growing organically as opposed to paying, but if you're just starting out and you have a little bit of money in your budget for paying for advertising, this would be a great way to go about it, specifically for the purpose of getting people on your email list. So you're building and warming up that relationship through a webinar or a giveaway of some kind, and even when they get on your email list, perhaps you have autoresponder emails that come out and provide even more value, but then in a autoresponder sequence like in our recent episodes of Smart Passive Income with Steve Chu and a few others, we've talked about the importance of having that autoresponder actually serve a purpose, so actually in that autoresponder sequence, sharing and pitching and offering value, but also offering products and services, and things like that.

So, Joed, I hope that all makes sense and that's the basic idea. So again, check out AmyPorterfield.com or Rick Mulready, M-U-L-R-E-A-D-Y, RickMulready.com for more information about Facebook advertising and funnels and all those sorts of things. I think even Amy has a lot of … She's been giving away a lot of lead magnets at the end of each of her podcast episodes, and one of them, I believe, as it related to different kinds of things you could do on Facebook and targeting and things like that, so check her out for sure. Her podcast is the Online Business Made Easy podcast, and Rick's is The Art of Paid Traffic. So go ahead and check those out.

And thank you again for your question today; really appreciate it. Everybody who's been submitting questions, thank you so much. Obviously, this show would not exist without your questions, and Joed, we're gonna send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. Thank you so much. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com; you can ask right there on that page.

I also want to thank today's sponsor, which is LegalZoom.com. LegalZoom helping me out big time back in the past, because I used them to help me incorporate, they helped me through a DBA and also a trademark as well. Now, you can go ahead and check them out. You can also get legal advice from them. They're not a law firm, but they've built a network of independent attorneys in most states to provide legal advice, and other useful services to help you run your business, so no matter what you need done, they are all about complete transparency, which you know is what I'm about. Upfront pricing, they got great customer reviews, and 100% satisfaction guarantee. You can save money by going to LegalZoom.com today, and also using “Pat,” P-A-T, during checkout. Again, that's P-A-T at checkout for more savings. LegalZoom.com, promo code “Pat.”

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, and here's a quote that I'm gonna serve here at the end of this episode to lead you into the rest of your day, and this is from John F. Kennedy. He said, “Once you say you're going to settle for a second, that's what happens to you in life.” Keep hustling, guys. Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks.