How To Build A List Of Buyers
Mar 16, 2026
I worked with a client recently that had a 40,000 subscriber email list.
It’s a list size that a lot of business owners would kill for. (I mean maybe not, but you get the idea…)
Anyway, 40,000+ subscribers. Before I ran an email audit, I assumed she was bringing in a ton of money. But then I actually got access to her main software-
And she was barely cracking five grand a month.
(And a bit of background: in her industry and with that size of email list, she should have been making at LEAST 10 times that.)
The point here is obvious:
You don’t want a list of subscribers; you want a list of buyers.
Chase subscribers, and you have a hobby helping people.
Chase buyers, and you have a business.
In this post that's exactly what we are talking about:
Why you should NEVER confuse "subscribers" (or worse, "followers") with buyers, and five things you can do to build an email list of people that actually buy your stuff.
The #1 Rule To Build A List Of Buyers
Some basic definitions before I give you the rule:
Subscriber: somebody that voluntarily joins your email list
Buyer: somebody that voluntarily joins your email list and eventually buys
Obviously there is overlap here when a subscriber becomes a buyer-
But not always.
Which leads me to the #1 rule of building a list of buyers:
You don’t build a business off of vanity metrics.
I see a lot of people talk about “getting subscribers” (or even worse, “getting followers”), but not nearly as many people talk about buyers.
A big list feels great. But it only actually IS if it’s making you money.
You don't want a list of people that "subscriber to your list"-
You want a list of people that deposit money into your bank account.
Alright, with that said-
5 Things You Can Do To Build A List Of Buyers
#1: Create and promote paid lead magnets
Lead magnets (things people get for joining your list) are how you get people onto your list.
But when you give something away for free, it has a tendency to bring in people that don’t actually spend money. And those are the last people you want on your email list if you are trying to get more customers.
What to do:
This isn’t so complicated. You basically just take the place your free lead magnet would normally be and replace it with a cheap (~7 bucks or so) resource. Two things:
You bring in less leads.
The leads you do bring in are higher quality.
Just make the copy clear about why you are charging something, and why that’s actually good news for your subscribers (“When you pay you actually take it seriously and get better results.”) Something like that.
#2: Stop being so milk toast in your marketing.
There are a lot of business owners that are afraid of offending people.
This is understandable. You want people to like you. So you naturally edit the things you say.
But that’s not how you stand out. The more you take a stand on something (and embrace whatever your weird personality is), the more two things start to happen:
More people get annoyed and never buy
More people realize “damn this is my person”, and start to buy
If you want more of the second, you have to be willing to put up with more of the first.
What to do:
What do people in your industry do that you can’t stand? What do they not do that doesn’t make any sense to you? You don’t want to be a jerk here. But you can definitely respectfully take a stand-
And in a way that attracts buyers that think “you just get them.”
Another option: a periodic scalping. This is when you take a negative email response that one of your email subscribers sent you (usually complaining about something)-
And talk about why they suck. (Blur out the email address for privacy reasons.)
#3: Spend time making hyper-specific content.
Same kind of thing we just talked about.
The more specific you are with your content (and the problems you solve in that content), the more you attract a specific type of person:
Somebody that is ready to buy.
So get rid of the vague crap. Create detailed deep dives that are helpful for a very specific kind of person. That will result in more buyers than AI slop ever could.
What to do:
Top of funnel content is cool. It raises awareness of your brand and brings more people to your other content.
But it also attracts the sort of person that doesn’t really have a burning need to learn what you teach.
What does?
Specific, detailed, and (sometimes) technical content. Obviously only for a specific kind of person
But that person is infinitely closer to buying from you.
#4: Create low ticket offers.
Not everybody is ready to buy your expensive stuff. I wish it wasn’t true. But it is.
If the only product you have is on the more expensive side, what you end up with is a list full of people that would spend money, but aren’t going to.
One handy solution?
A low ticket offer that anybody can afford.
Sure, this generates less revenue up front (although it doesn’t have to if you have upsells in place). But a big payday isn’t the point. Rather, low ticket offers are all about turning people into buyers, which makes them more likely to buy again.
What to do:
Remember: making money is not the point here. The point is to simply move people from “non customer” to “customer.
You probably run promotions for higher priced products. But only a certain percentage of your list is ever going to buy those.
Make low ticket offers ($7-$47). Run a special promo once a month. See what happens.
#5: Get your main email sequences set up.
You see this way too often with business owners: they start to understand just how important email marketing is, they set up a welcome sequence, and then-
That’s it.
People buy more from you when they get consistent communication from you. And when you have the right email sequences set up, that communicating happens 24/7.
More emails = more money.
What to do:
Most businesses have at least a few email sequences set up. But that’s not enough. If you are serious about building a list full of people that actually spend money-
You need a full suite of sequences.
Here are a few ones that will keep putting your offers in front of people and get them to buy (repeatedly) down the line:
Post-purchase sequence
Upsell sequence
VIP sequence
So this and you build a list of buyers that actually get you paid.
Your Email List Should Get You Paid
Stop worrying about how big your email list is.
Instead, worry about how much moey is actually makes you.
This is a an obvious but HUGE mindset shift, and it makes all the difference.
…
I help education businesses make more money from their email list. Two actions for you:
If you're interested in working with me to maximize email revenue:
If you want to check out my 33 email marketing lessons from managing a $10-million email list: