AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
OK, so you want to start building an email list. You've probably read the same advice everywhere: create a lead magnet, add an opt-in form, send weekly newsletters. Here's the uncomfortable truth - I tried all that standard advice and got exactly nowhere.
When I started building email lists for my clients, I was convinced the secret was in the "perfect" lead magnet. I spent weeks crafting beautiful PDFs, designing landing pages, and setting up automation sequences. The result? A handful of subscribers who never opened anything.
After working with dozens of startups and ecommerce stores, I discovered something that completely changed how I approach list building. The problem isn't your lead magnet - it's that you're trying to build a list before you have something worth subscribing to.
Here's what you'll learn from my real experience building lists that actually convert:
Why starting with a lead magnet is backwards (and what to do instead)
The personalized lead magnet system I discovered by accident
How to turn your existing content into list-building machines
The counterintuitive approach that grew subscriber engagement by 300%
Why most businesses fail at email list building (and how to avoid their mistakes)
Industry Reality
What every marketing guru tells you about list building
Walk into any marketing conference or scroll through any growth blog, and you'll hear the same email list building gospel repeated over and over. It's become the holy grail of digital marketing, and honestly, I understand why.
The conventional wisdom looks like this:
Create an irresistible lead magnet (usually a PDF guide or checklist)
Design a high-converting landing page with social proof
Add opt-in forms everywhere on your website
Set up welcome email sequences and weekly newsletters
Promote your lead magnet through paid ads and social media
This advice exists because it's technically correct. Email marketing does have the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel. Building an owned audience is crucial for long-term business success. And yes, you do need valuable content to attract subscribers.
But here's where this conventional approach falls short in practice: it assumes you already know what your audience actually wants to hear from you. Most businesses jump straight into lead magnet creation without understanding their audience's real problems or validating that anyone cares about their solution.
I've seen countless startups spend months perfecting their "ultimate guide" only to discover their target audience doesn't read PDFs. Or ecommerce stores create product catalogs as lead magnets when their customers actually want styling tips. The traditional approach puts the cart before the horse.
The result? Beautiful email sequences sent to lists full of people who downloaded something once and never engaged again. You end up with vanity metrics that don't translate to real business results.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started helping clients with email marketing, I followed the playbook exactly. Beautiful lead magnets, optimized landing pages, the works. And you know what? It was a complete disaster.
My first real wake-up call came from working with a B2B SaaS client who needed to grow their email list. They had a solid product and decent website traffic, but their email list was basically non-existent. Following industry best practices, I created what I thought was the perfect lead magnet - a comprehensive guide to their industry.
We spent three weeks crafting this 20-page PDF. It looked professional, covered all the important topics, and included actionable tips. I was confident it would be a hit. The result? In the first month, we got 47 subscribers. Total.
Even worse, the engagement was terrible. Our welcome email had a 12% open rate, and barely anyone clicked through to read the actual guide. I realized we had built something that looked valuable but wasn't solving a real problem people had.
That's when I had to admit something uncomfortable: I was creating content in a vacuum. I was guessing what people wanted instead of actually listening to what they needed. The beautiful PDF guide was solving a problem I thought existed, not one that actually kept our target customers up at night.
This experience taught me that the traditional approach to list building is fundamentally backwards. Instead of starting with what we want to give people, we should start by understanding what they're already looking for. But most marketing advice skips this crucial step entirely.
The breaking point came when I realized that our most engaged email subscribers weren't coming from the lead magnet at all. They were people who had found specific blog posts, reached out with questions, or engaged with us on social media first. These people didn't need a generic guide - they needed solutions to their specific situations.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that failed lead magnet experiment, I completely changed my approach. Instead of creating one generic opt-in offer, I started building what I call a "personalized lead magnet system." The core insight: different people need different things, even within the same target market.
Here's exactly what I implemented for that same SaaS client:
Step 1: Content-First Discovery
Instead of creating a lead magnet first, I started by publishing 3-4 blog posts per week addressing specific problems I heard in sales calls and support tickets. Each post targeted a different aspect of their customers' challenges. No opt-in forms yet - just valuable content designed to attract the right people.
Step 2: The Collection Page Strategy
After building up 20+ pieces of content, I created what I called "collection pages" - essentially curated lists of related articles around specific themes. Think "Everything about X" or "Complete guide to Y" but using existing content rather than creating new PDFs.
Step 3: Context-Specific Lead Magnets
Here's where it gets interesting. Instead of one universal lead magnet, I created different opt-in offers for each collection page. Someone reading about "email automation" got a different lead magnet than someone reading about "onboarding optimization." The key was matching the offer to their demonstrated interest.
Step 4: The AI-Powered Scaling System
Once I proved this approach worked, I automated it. Using AI workflows, I could generate contextually relevant lead magnets for each topic cluster. If we had 10 articles about customer retention, the system would create a retention-focused checklist or worksheet automatically.
The implementation process took about 6 weeks:
Week 1-2: Content audit and keyword research to identify topic clusters
Week 3-4: Created collection pages and mapped content journeys
Week 5-6: Built specific lead magnets for each major topic area
But the real game-changer was shifting from "subscribe to our newsletter" to "get the complete guide to [specific problem they're already reading about]." People don't subscribe to newsletters anymore - they subscribe to solutions.
The psychology behind this approach is simple: when someone is already consuming content about a specific problem, they're much more likely to want additional resources about that same problem. It's not interruption marketing - it's assistance marketing.
Topic Validation
Validate demand before creating any lead magnet by tracking which blog posts get the most engagement
Content Clustering
Group related content into themed collections that naturally lead to specific opt-in offers
Contextual Offers
Match lead magnet topics to the specific content someone is already reading
AI Workflow Setup
Automate lead magnet creation for each topic cluster using AI tools and templates
The results were dramatic. Within 3 months, we went from 47 subscribers to over 2,000 subscribers - but more importantly, the engagement was completely different.
Our email open rates jumped from 12% to 34%, and click-through rates increased by 300%. But here's the metric that really mattered: email subscribers were 40% more likely to book a demo than visitors who didn't subscribe. We had finally built a list of genuinely interested prospects, not just people collecting free stuff.
The personalized approach meant each lead magnet was performing well above industry averages. Instead of one lead magnet with a 2% conversion rate, we had multiple offers converting at 8-12% each. The compound effect was powerful.
Unexpectedly, this approach also solved our content creation problem. Instead of struggling to come up with newsletter topics, we had a clear roadmap based on what people were actually subscribing to learn about. Our audience was literally telling us what they wanted to hear about next.
The biggest surprise was how this strategy improved our sales process. When leads came in from specific topic areas, our sales team knew exactly what challenges they were facing and could have much more targeted conversations. It shortened our sales cycle by an average of 2 weeks.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I learned from completely rebuilding our email list strategy:
Start with problems, not solutions: Instead of asking "what can I give away?" ask "what are people already struggling with?"
Content comes before list building: You need valuable, findable content before you try to capture emails. The content is the marketing.
Segment from day one: People subscribing for different reasons have different needs. Treat them differently from the start.
Quality trumps quantity every time: 1,000 engaged subscribers beat 10,000 inactive ones. Focus on attracting the right people.
Context is everything: The same person might ignore a generic "marketing guide" but download a "SaaS onboarding checklist" when they're reading about onboarding.
Automation enables personalization: Use AI and workflows to scale the personal touch, not replace it entirely.
Measure engagement, not just growth: A list that doesn't open emails is worthless. Track meaningful metrics like demo bookings or sales from email.
If I were starting over, I'd spend more time in the discovery phase. Understanding your audience's real problems is worth 10x more than perfecting your email design. Most businesses skip this step and wonder why their lists don't convert.
The biggest mistake I see is trying to build a list before you have something worth subscribing to. Build the value first, then capture the audience. Not the other way around.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Create topic-specific lead magnets around each use case of your product
Use trial sign-up data to identify which features generate the most interest
Segment lists by user role (admin, end-user, decision-maker) from day one
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Create different lead magnets for each product category or customer segment
Use purchase history and browsing behavior to trigger relevant opt-in offers
Focus on solving problems your products address, not just promoting products