Have you started an email list yet? Do you have a place where you keep email addresses in and write to that list on a regular (if not weekly) basis? Last week was all about why you needed an email list for your coaching business.

Today, I am going to walk you through how to set an email list up for your regular piece of content – regardless if this is a vlog, blog, or podcast. You desperately need to start reaching out to your email list pronto. So without further ado, here is your step-by-step tutorial guide on getting set up on your new email marketing journey.

Disclaimer: There is an affiliate link inside of this post so if you decide to go with Constant Contact, I will get a commission off of it. 

Pick an email marketing campaign

While there are many different forms of email marketing sites out there, I’m going to be showing you a guide using Constant Contact as a reference. If you click on the banner, you’ll get a free 60-day trial of it so that you can test out how you like the system.

Sign up for it

Then you want to sign up for the email marketing site you desire. Answer any follow-up questions the email server has you do (for example, Constant Contact wants to know a little bit more about you). Verify your account and move onto the next step.

Verify Your Email

After verifying your email address, you’ll come into the backend of your Constant Contact account.

Create a Content Upgrade

You’ll need to create a Content Upgrade (aka Freebie) for someone to download. I have yet to create a video on how to do this, so while we both wait for that to happen, I’m going to entrust you with Megan Minns (part of the Femtrepreneur team) who will teach you how to do this using Canva:

Want to know what you could create for a content upgrade? Read this article that list over 20+ different ideas for your content upgrade!

Upload Content Upgrade onto Google Drive

Next, upload your worksheet, PDF, or guide that you created onto Google Drive and get a shareable link for it using these tips:

1. Click the “+ New” button on Google Drive
2. Click “File Upload”
3. Find the file you want to upload and click “upload”
4. Once it has uploaded, right click on the picture of it inside Google Drive
5. Click “Get Shareable Link”
6. Turn the “Link sharing” dial from off to on
7. Click on “Sharing settings” beneath the “link sharing” button
8. Click on the button that says, “Anyone at Monica Writes can view…” and a drop down menu will appear 
9. Click on “More”
10. Check the button that says “Anyone with the link can access. No sign in requires” 
11. Save
12. The link that is now available is the link you’ll give out for those who will download your free PDF inside of your welcome email.

Make a landing page

Getting back into Constant Contact, click on “Sign up Forms” on the banner at top. This is where we’ll be creating a landing page of sorts for our content upgrade. Click the “+” button to get started.

Then select a sign-up form type. We’re going with “Landing Page”.

Click on “Create a Landing Page”

You’ll be led to this pop-up:

Fill out the sign-up form information. All this information can be changed at any time, so don’t worry if you’re unsure what you should call it. Then press “Continue” when you’re done.

When you come to the second page, you always want to check that you want to get a person’s first name as well as their email address (the email address is crucial and I don’t think you can uncheck that). Press Continue.

You will choose your logo and the color of the background you desire by clicking on the color buttons and choosing a color which represents your brand.

Now you can see what the preview of my landing page will look like. If you like it, then press “Finish”.

Next, you’ll be taken to the “Landing Pages and More” page where you’ll see the Landing Page called Guide at the bottom. In the next section, I’ll teach you how to grab the URL for people to sign up for your free content upgrade (which is a Guide in my case). 

Get Link for the Content Upgrade

On the “Landing Page and More” page, you’ll go down to where you made your landing page. I named mine “Guide”. Click on the word, “Actions” to bring down a drop-down menu.

Choose “Form URL” if you want to attach the URL to a picture (I like doing this because I find pictures prettier. Click here to see what I mean by a picture. If you decide to do it this way, then attach the link to the picture which will guide your new subscriber to your landing page).

Or you can click “Sign-up Button” where you can customize your button on the pop-up screen and click “Get Code.” The code will be used if you click “HTML” version of your blog or page. 

I have placed the code in the backend of my blog, which is where the coding is. Depending on what website you use (SquareSpace or WordPress), this will be different. For me, it looks like “<>“, but for WordPress, I believe you click on “HTML” button where your font and other tools are. 

Here is the button I created from Constant Contact: 

Write a Welcome Message

After creating your landing page, click on the “Welcome Email” in the gray box on the right-hand side of the “Landing Pages and More” page. It will be under “Contact Emails.”

Then click the yellow button that says, “Create.” It will give you several different options to chose from and for the sake of this tutorial, we are going to go with “Email Automation”.

Then click the blue button that says, “Create List-Join Series”. You’ll name your auto-responder series and I’m naming mine Guide. Click on the email list, “General Interest” (you can change this later) and click the circle that says, “Copying an existing email”, then Continue.

Select the email and press Continue. 

You’ll see your landing page name and the Welcome email that you already written and rename it as another campaign.

Writing Your Email

I have written a basic welcome email after someone download my free guide. Remember how we created a shareable link inside Google Drive? We’re going to plop that link into the welcome email after someone has signed up for it. Here’s how to do that:

1. Write the text that you want people to click on. Here’s what I wrote: “Click here to download the guide right away!” 
2. Highlight the text
3. Click on “Link”
4. Click on “web page”
5. Copy and paste the link from Google Drive to the “Link URL” box
6. Click “Insert”

When writing a welcome email, there are some important rules you need to keep in mind:

1. Give the link to the content upgrade in the email (never forgot this!)
2. Always let people know what they have downloaded to remind them that they asked to get something from you
3. Ask to whitelist your email. This simply means they move your email address from spam or promotional folder into their main inbox
4. Let them know what is coming their way. If you were to make an email sequence, then you want them to know a little bit about what your next email will be about so they will get excited about what is next.

If you’re wondering how I made the greeting personalized (meaning that when someone opens the email, it’ll say, “Hello Monica,” instead of “Hello”. People like to know that you are personal, so here’s how to do that.

1. Click on your text 
2. Click on “Insert”
3. Choose “Greeting Tag”
4. An “Edit Greeting” Popup will come up where you can edit your greeting. Instead of saying “Hello”, you can say, “Hi” or “What’s up” or whatever you want. Then you can choose if you want just first name only or first and last name or last name only. 
5. Click “Insert”

Next, edit your headline. Constant Contact will have one pre-written, so let’s change that.

1. Click on the subject line
2. An “Email Settings” popup will come up where you’ll be able to write in a new subject line. You can add personalize to it and even an emoji. EMAIL SETTING PICTURE
3. Click “Save”

Press Continue in the upper right-hand corner to save your email and campaign. Then you want to Activate the campaign and once you have done that, you have just created your first landing page and welcome email!

Attach freebie to a piece of weekly content

Now all you have to do is put your picture of your content upgrade into your blog post or podcast page on your website and link it to your landing page found under the “Landing Page” section. If you want a button, you can do it that way. 

If you’re creating a vlog on YouTube, then consider creating a bit.ly link or even a unique link on your website to redirect people to your landing page (for example, if my URL to my Guide was www.monicawrites.com/Guide, then I’ll redirect it to the landing page URL inside of Constant Contact). 

The rest is promoting your content upgrade across several platforms like social media, Pinterest, podcasts, magazines or wherever else you’re at.

---

Now that you understand how to set up your own Constance Contact landing page and first welcome email, then consider creating a 4-part email welcome sequence by downloading the Free Write Your First Email Welcome Sequence by clicking the picture below!

You’re going to get a step-by-step guide on what to say and how to say it in each email and how to lead to a gentle sale or even to another free gift! You can write your first email sequence inside the workbook, and then apply it to your email marketing campaign when you’re ready!