Module 3 of 8 · A List of Your Own
Read: about 20 minutes · Build: about 90 minutes · Week 3
You have something worth an email address. This week you build the thing that asks for it.
This is the most technical module in the course, and I want to take the fear out of that sentence straight away. There's no code. Nothing to install. Nothing to pay for. It's a series of forms and a drag-around editor, and the only reason people get stuck is that they don't know which of the forty menu items to look at.
So this module is mostly a map, followed by a test. The test is the part that matters.
I'm an affiliate for LeadsLeap, which I said in Module 1 and will keep saying wherever it comes up. Everything below works on the free account.
A capture page. One web page with one job.
It is not a website. It has no menu, no About page, no links to anywhere else, and nothing to click except one button. Every extra thing on it is a door out of the room.
It has four parts, and that's all:
That's it. If you find yourself adding a fifth thing, that's the moment to stop and ask what it's for.
Most templates give you two fields: name and email. I want you to delete the name one, and I want to give you the reasoning rather than a number, because I don't have a number and neither does anyone who quotes you one.
Here's the reasoning. Every field is a small ask, and small asks add up at exactly the moment someone is deciding whether they can be bothered. A name field is worth including only if you're going to use the name. And right now you can't use it well - putting "Hi Margaret!" at the top of an email is the single most recognisable tell of automated marketing, and this audience spots it instantly.
So today it costs you something and returns nothing. Take it off.
You can add it back later. In Module 7 you'll be able to run that as a real question with your own numbers instead of taking my word for it, which is the honest version of this advice.
Here's the part that trips people up, and it's a sequencing problem rather than a technical one.
You need a list before you need a page.
The list is the container the addresses land in. The page is the form that collects them. If you build the page first, you'll get to the step that says "which list should this go to?" and there won't be one, and you'll have to leave the editor and come back.
So: list first, then page. About twenty minutes for the list, about an hour for the page, then the test.
One naming thing before you start. LeadsLeap calls its email side SendSteed. Same account, same login, different name - it's the part that stores your subscribers and sends the emails. You'll see the word inside the page editor and wonder if you've missed a signup somewhere. You haven't. It confuses everybody exactly once.
Open List Manager - one of the four tools you found in Module 1.
1. Click "Add a new list." Give it a name and click Add Now. The name is only for you, so name it after the person, not the product: "Beginner gardeners," not "List 1." You'll have several eventually and "List 1" tells you nothing in six months.
2. Open the list settings. Everything under List Settings is compulsory. There are five fields.
It's a legal requirement, not a form field LeadsLeap invented. Commercial email in the United States falls under a law called CAN-SPAM, and it requires two things of every email you send: a real physical postal address, and a working way to unsubscribe. Both. Every time.
LeadsLeap handles the unsubscribe link for you automatically. The address it has to get from you.
The usual worry is that this means putting your home address at the bottom of every email you ever send. Fair worry. Two normal ways around it: a PO box from the post office, or a mailbox service that gives you a street address for a small annual fee. Both are legitimate and both are what plenty of people running one-person businesses use.
What you cannot do is leave it out or make one up. Do not skip it and do not fake it.
3. Skip the optional sections. Advanced Settings and Global Email Signature can wait - you'll set the signature up properly once you know what you're signing off, and that's Module 5.
4. Tick the terms box and click "Save & Activate."
The list now exists. LeadsLeap will point you toward writing a welcome email next. You can put a placeholder in for now if it asks - one line is fine - because we write the real one line by line in Module 5.
LeadsLeap uses confirmed opt-in. In plain terms: when somebody enters their address, they are not on your list yet. They get an email asking them to click a link, and only when they click it are they a real, verified subscriber.
Three consequences, all of which matter:
This extra step costs you some signups. It also means the people who remain actually wanted to hear from you, and it keeps you on the right side of the rules. It's a good trade, and it isn't optional anyway.
Now open Page Manager.
Video slot goes here if you record one.
1. Click "Add a new page campaign." Enter a page name - again, for your reference only - and click Add Now.
2. Notice the page has a URL. It appears in the page's control panel. That URL is the thing you'll advertise in Module 4, so it's the one piece of this you'll want to write down. The page is hosted by LeadsLeap, so there's no hosting to buy and nothing to set up.
3. Add a design. Click Add a new design to start, or the + button.
Now you get a choice, and there's a shortcut here I'd take if I were you.
A share code is a short code that imports a finished page straight into your account, where you change the words to yours. It saves you every design decision at once.
I've built these for you. Have a look, pick the one closest to what you're offering, and paste its code into the Share Code field. Then click Import Now.
Then the page designs - Image widget, then a Text Editor under it holding the code. Style the code block: background #FAF9F6, 3px left border teal #1E5E73, padding 16px.[
IMAGE: page design 1 ]
[SHARE CODE 1 - to be added]
[ IMAGE: page design 2 ]
[SHARE CODE 2 - to be added]
Give both screenshots real alt text - these are Image widgets, so alt applies.
Don't agonise over which. They do the same job and you're about to replace all the words anyway - pick on looks and move on.
If a form appears asking for your List ID, your affiliate link, or anything else, fill it in and the page will slot your details in automatically.
That's the design done. Skip to step 5.
If you'd rather build it yourself - and there's a good argument for doing it once, because then you understand what every part is - click Add A Blank Design instead, and carry on from step 4.
4. Template route only - click "Launch Editor." The page builder opens in a new tab. This is the only place page design happens.
Then pick your page type: Opt-in page, the first option.
This is worth slowing down for, because it's the most common wasted half hour in the whole tool. If you pick "Download page" or another type, you get a page with no opt-in form on it, and then you're hunting through menus for a form that was never there. Opt-in page. First option.
Then pick a template that's close to what you want. Close, not perfect - you're about to rewrite all the words on it anyway. Don't spend forty minutes browsing. Pick one with a headline, a form and a button, and move on.
5. Open the editor. If you imported a share code, click Launch Editor now. If you came the template route, you're already in it.
From here the two paths are the same page and the same steps.
6. Connect the page to your list. In the editor, click "2. List".
You get three options. Choose Use SendSteed (LeadsLeap List Manager) - that's the first one, and it's the one that means "the list I just made."
Then click Get List ID, which shows the lists on your account, and pick the one you created. Leave the redirect URL field empty for now.
Click Close. You should now see a List ID displayed. Check that you can see it.
If there's no List ID showing, the page is not connected to anything, and every address anybody enters goes nowhere at all. This is the single most expensive mistake available in this module, because the page looks perfect while it's happening. Look for the List ID.
7. Write the words. Click on any text on the page to edit it. Replace the headline, the line under it, and the button with yours. The next section covers what to put there.
8. Take the name field off. Click the name input on the page and delete it, leaving the email field on its own.
One caution while you're in there: don't change the Input Name setting on the email field. That's the setting that tells the form what the box is for, and changing it breaks the form. The placeholder text - the grey words inside the box that the visitor sees - is a different setting, and you can change that freely.
9. Click Save. Then close the editor tab and go back to Page Manager.
10. Set the page to Active. New pages are Inactive by default - deliberately, so that half-finished pages don't go live. Click Inactive to switch it to Active.
If you only remember one thing from this module, make it this one. "My page doesn't work" is almost always a page that was never switched on.
11. Final check. Status is Active. The page is linked to the right list. Then move to the test.
The page has room for about forty words. Here's where they go.
The headline is the promise. In most cases it's the title of the thing you made in Module 2, or very close to it. You already did this work - don't reinvent it here.
The line underneath says what it is and how big it is. "A one-page checklist. Takes about ten minutes to work through." Naming the size does two jobs: it makes the thing feel finishable, and it's honest about what they're getting.
The button says what happens next. Not "Submit." Not "Sign Up." Something that describes the outcome: Send me the checklist. Send me the list. Yes, email me the plan.
And one line under the button, small: what else they're signing up for. "You'll also get my Tuesday email. Unsubscribe any time." That sentence costs you a few signups and saves you every complaint, and it's the difference between building a list and harvesting one.
What doesn't go on the page: countdown timers, fake scarcity, "limited time only" on something that isn't limited, or any claim about what people earn. Same rules as everywhere else in this course.
Check it on your phone. Most of your visitors will be on one. The editor shows you a desktop view by default, and a page that looks fine there can be a mess on a phone. Look at it on your own before anyone else does.
This is the actual build task. Everything above was setup.
1. Open the page URL on your phone, not on the computer you built it on.
2. Enter your own email address and click the button.
3. Go to your inbox and find the verification email. Check the spam folder - if it landed there, that's useful to know now rather than in Module 4.
4. Click the verification link.
5. Go back to List Manager and look at your list. Your address should be there, showing as verified.
If it is: the wiring is right, end to end, and you have something real. That's the module.
If nothing arrives, work through it in this order - it's almost always one of these three, and this order finds it fastest:
Don't move on until a test address has made it all the way through to verified. Module 4 sends real people at this page, and a visitor who lands on a broken page is gone permanently. You get one run at each of them.
A domain name. A logo. A thank-you page. A redirect. Images of yourself. A second page for a different audience. A privacy policy page - though a link to one is worth adding when you have it.
All of that is later or never. Today the page works, and "works" is the entire target.
Ninety minutes, five steps.
One. Create the list. All five compulsory settings, including the postal address. Verify your own email when it asks. (20 minutes)
Two. Create the page. New page campaign, Opt-in page type, a template you don't fuss over - or one of my share codes. (20 minutes)
Three. Wire it up and write it. Connect it to the list and confirm the List ID appears. Rewrite the headline, the line under it, and the button. Delete the name field. Add the small line about your emails. Save. (30 minutes)
Four. Switch it on. Set the page from Inactive to Active. (1 minute, and the whole thing fails without it)
Five. Test it end to end with your own address, including clicking the verification link, and confirm the subscriber appears as verified in List Manager. (15 minutes)
Then write the page URL down somewhere you'll find it. Next week is entirely about sending people to it.
Module 4 is your first twenty visitors. How credits work, how to write an ad someone actually clicks, and the daily half hour that generates the traffic on a free account.
Twenty visitors is not a business. It's proof that the wiring is right and that real strangers behave roughly the way your test did. That's what it's for, and it's worth more than it sounds.
One last thing before you go. If you finished the page but didn't run the test because it felt like a formality, go and run the test. Of everything in this module, it's the step that saves you the most, and it's the one most often skipped.
Talk soon,
Bob
That's the free three.
You've got something worth an email address, a page that asks for it, and a list ready to catch what arrives. That's a working system. Small, but real - and it cost you nothing.
What's behind the next link is the part that makes it run: your first visitors, what to say to people who have just joined, the sequence that sends itself, how to read your own numbers, and what to do in month three when the novelty has worn off. Modules 4 through 8, plus the Resources page.
That's $17, bought once. No subscription, no upsell, nothing else to buy later. You'll get a password that opens all six pages and keeps working.
If you'd rather stop here, stop here. What you've built is yours and it still works.
$17, BOUGHT ONCE
Module 4 - Your first twenty visitors
Module 5 - What to say to new subscribers
Module 6 - The sequence that runs without you
No subscription, no upsell, no reseller rights.