I recently launched an email list building course on Udemy. This course talks about 4 systems you need to start building your list.
- Getting FREE traffic to your site
- Offering a killer lead magnet
- Email capture plugins
- Email marketing tools
Since the target audience for this course is bloggers, solopreneurs, and small medium business owners, I focused on tools and tactics that you can use for FREE ($0 cost). e.g. Did you know that you can use MailChimp for FREE if your list size is less than 2000?
Here is a great question from one of the students
Hi Ali,
hi thank you ali for the course actually i haven’t started watching the course yet but i am intending to do it today ..i have a simple question is free traffic going to do us any good in building a big email list !
First of all AWESOME QUESTION.
Typically in life FREE means “low quality” or “no good”.
Now here is the thing…
It doesn’t matter if you are getting FREE traffic or PAID. Your traffic has to be relevant to your blog.
If you are a food blogger, you need people who love food and recipes.
If you are building a fashion app, you need people who are into fashion.
If your product is for single moms, you need single moms on your website or blog.
If you have the budget, of course, PAID media will be awesome. Paid advertising can be costly but, here are 3 types of paid digital advertising you can use
- Search engine advertising (e.g. Google Adwords)
- Advertising on Social Media with Facebook, Twitter or Instagram ads
- Banner ads on other websites or blogs (Just make sure these are relevant)
If you are just starting out and don’t have any budget, you can still do it. You just need a good strategy and lots of hustle. Here is what I do for my blog
- Write awesome content
- Distribute your content on your social media channels
- Repurpose the sh&% out of your content. (Hint: Use medium and LinkedIn)
- Participate in FREE communities where your target audience is active. Facebook groups and Quora are great places to start.
On Quora here is the strategy I use for myself
- Add your blog link in the bio
- Answer lots of questions (educate people)
- If it’s a relevant question, add a link to your blog post in the answer
- Repeat this process consistently
Look at this example below
So the bottom line is this. Your traffic HAS to be relevant.
If it’s not, then forget it. They will not opt in to get your awesome lead magnet.
You can definitely use paid media to get traffic but I would challenge you to use all of the FREE channels (tactics) first.
Now over to you.
What “FREE tactics” have you used to grow your blog traffic and email leads?