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People often say newsletters aren’t a thing anymore, but here’s the truth: email marketing is one of the best ways to grow and maintain your business. Many business owners struggle to grow their list, which makes it difficult to gain momentum in this area.
Today, let’s focus on a simple strategy to start building your list, even if you’re feeling stuck.
Recently, I worked with a client who wanted help growing her subscribers’ list. One of my suggestions was downloading her connections from social media and personally inviting them to join her list.
If you’re on Facebook or LinkedIn and have a following, even if it’s small, why not start there? Recently I realized there are twice as many subscribers on my LinkedIn newsletter as my main email list. That’s a goldmine of warm connections to reach out to.
We’ve all heard the horror stories of people being locked out of their social accounts and losing their audience overnight. When you regularly download your contacts lists, you won’t have to suffer the same fate. Just think of the time and energy you’ll save if it happens to you.
How to Download Your LinkedIn Contacts:
- Log into LinkedIn.
- Click on your profile icon and choose Settings & Privacy.
- Select Data Privacy, then click Get a copy of your data.
- Choose Download larger data archive.
- LinkedIn will email you a file that includes your contacts (and email addresses, if they’re available).
How to Download Your Facebook Friends List
- Log into Facebook on a desktop.
- Click your profile photo (top right)
- Click on Settings & Privacy and then on Settings.
- In the left sidebar, click See more in Accounts Center.
- Scroll to Your Information and Permissions and choose Export your information.
- Choose your profile, then where to export it (You can choose your device).
- Uncheck all categories except Friends and/or Followers.
- Click Create Export.
- You’ll receive an email when your file is ready.
Clean and Merge Your Lists
- Open your lists in a spreadsheet.
- Clean up the formatting and remove duplicates.
- Compare it to your current email list.
- Highlight anyone who isn’t already subscribed.
Then prepare and send a personal message (email, DM, or even a voice message) to those warm contacts, inviting them to join your list.
Why Should You Download Contacts Regularly?
The first time will probably be time consuming, but once it becomes a regular habit, it will be just another maintenance step in your business.
It’s a good practice to export your social media contacts at least once a quarter. Not only does this protect your connections in case you ever lose access to your account but also makes growing your email list easier over time.
Both LinkedIn and Facebook include the date you connected with each contact in their data exports, so you can simply filter or sort your list by date and only reach out to new connections you’ve made since your last download.
This eliminates the hassle of cleaning duplicates or wondering who you’ve already contacted. Just focus on the fresh connections and add them to your outreach plan.
By adding this to your monthly or quarterly business routine, just like reconciling expenses or scheduling your content, you’ll always have an updated list of warm leads at your fingertips.
If you’re not sure how to start your outreach, just click here for a checklist and some message script templates you can customize to jumpstart your efforts and grow your list. Once you start, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to gain momentum, grow your list and expand your business organically.