The YouTuber’s Guide to Growing an Email List

I love YouTube content. I think that YouTube creators are such interesting people that truly know how to entertain. Often times I will navigate, or at least try to, navigate to their website to learn more about them. It is there that I discover one HUGE mistake.

They are not growing an email list. I will email them to tell them how much I love their channel, but more importantly I try to explain why they should be growing an email list. These emails are sometimes openly embraced, but often YouTubers do not understand why they would do this. They are already putting in so much work on their channel which is receiving thousands to millions of views. They do not know if they should split time to improve or make a website. Is it worth it?

The answer, YES. I reach out to these people because I do not want them to feel the wrath of YouTube. What do I mean?

As the proverbial saying goes, leaving all of your eggs in one basket is a huge risk. Google, the parent company of YouTube has been know to change their algorithms overnight. These algorithms can decimate the number of views that you receive in a month.

Recently, YouTube has changed policy and now algorithmically will demonetize YouTube videos. Watch this video by famous YouTuber Casey Neistat to hear his feelings on the matter.

I hope that YouTube pulls their shit together and stops devaluing their content creators, but content creators need to prepare for the worst. What should you do in this chaotic market? Build an email list.

This Picture Does Not Make Sense, But I Like It.

This guide is for someone who already has a website. If you do not have a website, I recommend that you start with that step. If you need help, email me and I will tell you all of the options you have for making a website.

1. Convert Your Current Subscribers

You might already have subscribers, but you do not have direct access to them. Unless you put out content on YouTube, you don’t have a way of reaching them. This is the main reason that you should grow an email list. How can we convert your current subscribers?

Hold a giveaway contest. For every person that goes to your website and signs up for your newsletter then they get entered into the contest to win some cool prizes you are giving away.

Hold the contest for 3-6 weeks to give people enough time and motivation to go sign up. Also, make sure that you explain the type of content you will be sending them (see below for more ideas) as well as the frequency in which you should send videos.

2. Make It Social

If you are going to have an online contest to giveaway free stuff, you might as well make it social. This can help you reach the friends of people who watch your content that might not otherwise tell their friends about it. This gives you the opportunity to reach a new audience that might not otherwise know about your content.

My Kind Of Weird.

You can make it so that anyone that shares your youtube channel and tags you in it will get an additional entry. You can also you cool websites like KickOffLab to help you hold a contest where people can easily refer their friends.

3. Diversify Your Content

Now that you have ran the contest and collected all of your subscribers emails, do not forget the most important part: staying in touch. Create email content regularly the same way that you make Youtube content. However, you should try and mix it up between your YouTube content and your email content.

You can make email content just once a week that gives a recap on the top videos of the week. Perhaps you would like to try out some written content that expands on some ideas that you did not cover in your video. I like the idea of having content that is completely unique so that people want to subscribe to your email content the same way that they subscribe to your YouTube content.

With your email subscriber list in place, you will be free from the hands of YouTube or of any channel for that matter. This can be an incredible feeling that if something happens with YouTube you will still be able to reach your audience and make a living.

In regards to sending out emails regularly the de facto service is normally MailChimp. However, their prices are on the higher side. I also like MailerLite and SendGrid.

Send me an email at justin@seedx.us if you need any help or want to talk about what might work best for your channel!

One More For The Road.