Lesson 2: The Most Powerful Email Newsletter Strategy

Just to remind you, this email course is about significantly growing your blog traffic.

And in this lesson you’re going to learn how to build the most sustainable source of traffic – your email list.

We’re going to start off with the biggest mistake that bloggers make in growing their email list and then I’ll teach you to do it the right way.

Don’t. Offer. A Freebie. Ever.

Go to any blog and look at the sidebar – in most cases there’s some freebie that you can download if you leave your email address.

Nice. But can you recall your own actions in this situation?

I will help you out.

Usually, if the freebie is tempting enough, you will type your email address to have it sent to you. A few moments later an email with a download link will be in your inbox.

You got your freebie and the blog owner got you into his email list.

But then…

You start receiving email updates from this blog. Why? You only wanted to download a freebie and now you’re being sent stuff that you’ve never opted for.

So what are you gonna do now?

Some of you will look for the “unsubscribe” link. Others won’t bother just hit the “Spam” button to make sure they’ll never see these emails.

Got the point?

Subscribing people onto your email list with a freebie works insanely well. I won’t argue here. But then you check the “open rate” of your newsletters and find out that only 30% of your subscribers read your emails. Not cool.

If a freebie was the only motivation for a person to get onto your email list, he won’t care about any other stuff you’re considering to send him.

Why would you need 10.000 people in your email list if only 3.000 of them actually read your emails? Especially when email services like Aweber are charging you based on the size of your list. Why pay for extra 7.000 when they don’t care about you?

So our challenge is: make people subscribe to our email list with a sole intention to actually read our email updates.

The Perfect Scenario

Ideally you should just place a tiny box called “Get Blog Updates By Email” at some visible spot on your blog.

If your blog is awesome enough and if your readers feel comfortable getting updates by email – they will signup without any extra bonuses. And they will be looking forward to getting email updates from you.

But let’s be realistic. No one will signup this way, unless of course you’re some kind of online superstar.

So how can you incentivize people to sign up to your email list and make them look forward to every new email that you send?

The answer is…

Free Email Course!

A Free Email Course will convert people the same way (if not better) as any freebie does. And then they will be actually looking forward to your emails (because this is exactly what they’ve opted for), instead of just downloading some freebie and unsubscribing from your list.

Want a proof? You’re taking my email course at this very moment. I hope you’re enjoying my lessons and looking forward for the new emails to arrive.

Generating “Passive” Traffic To Your Blog Posts

So I’ve promised you the passive way to generate traffic to your blog with an email newsletter. Here it goes.

Look at the posts you have on your blog. I bet many of them are somehow related. This means you can easily turn them into an email course!

Example:

You’ve been running a blog about SEO for like a few years and you have lots of good insightful posts on different topics: keyword research, linkbuilding, website optimization, etc.

You can use these posts to create an email course called “5 Emails From SEO Noob To A Pro“.

Just setup a few email newsletters referencing appropriate posts on your blog and you’re done.

BAM!

You’ve just built yourself a “passive traffic source“.

Every person who signs up to your email course will eventually visit your blog a few times to read the posts that you are referencing.

You’re probably thinking: “But once the email course ends, my subscribers will no longer be willing to get any further email updates.”

Well that is something absolutely not true. If you did a good job of delivering tons of value to your readers, why would they want to stop getting even more value from you?

The end of your email course is actually a magical moment when you have build some credibility for yourself. This means you may start sending some unrelated email updates and your subscribers will still enjoy them, as long as they bring some value to them.

This happens quite often to me:
I opt for a 5-email course and I enjoy it cause it has tons of value for me. And then I find myself reading update #15, which is totally unrelated to the original email course, but I still enjoy it, because there’s still lots of value. So I’m not even thinking of unsubscribing.

Something Endlessly Epic About Email Courses

Now you know the rule: “Don’t email people things they didn’t opt for.”

This means you shouldn’t go and email a link to your new post to the list of people who have subscribed to your email course. They are expecting a certain sequence of emails from you, not some random blog updates.

But what you CAN do is “blend” a link to this new post into your email sequence.

You can either update the existing sequence of emails if your new post fits there or perhaps add an extra email to it. Just make sure it all flows naturally and fits with the rest of the emails in queue.

You should treat your email sequence as something that needs endless tuning and improvement.

An email service like Aweber will give you tons of statistics about how each email in your sequence performs. You may also use the built-in A/B testing tools to improve the performance of your emails.

With every new revision your email sequence will much better. And while you’re adding new emails to it – the amount of visits you get from a single email subscriber will grow accordingly.

Eventually, every visitor who will opt for your Free Email Course will read a few dozens of your articles and might even become your regular reader.

Easy But Powerful Ways To Setup Email Opt-In Forms

Most likely you’ve heard about them already, as they are massively popular among bloggers. But just in case, I’m going to outline them here.

OptinSkin

This powerful WordPress plugin lets you create gorgeous email opt-in forms with just a few clicks of a button.

I could go on talking about the benefits and features of this plugin, but a 3-minute video on their homepage tells it all. Just go and check it here: http://optinskin.com/

As far as you can see, I’m using it myself at BloggerJet to promote my email course. And since you’re here – you can tell that it works :)

PopUp Domination

This one isn’t an alternative. You need both if you want to grow your email list at an insane pace.

This WordPress plugin let’s you create a beautiful lightbox with an email form that pops to every new visitor.

Again the home site says it better than me: http://www.popupdomination.com/
And yet again I’m using it myself and I can honestly tell you it works like a charm :)

In case you’re afraid of popups and you think your visitors will hate you for using them, please read the following article:
 
Popup Email Form in WordPress Blog: 6 Tricks To Make Visitors Love It
 
And for some examples of how famous bloggers use popup email forms, please check this one:
 
11 Vivid Examples of High Converting Popup Email Forms
 
Now there should be no excuse of avoiding this powerful tool!

Take Action

1. Start with registering an account at Aweber

2. Use it to setup a series of autoresponders around a certain topic – this will be your “Free Email Course To…”

3. Invest into OptinSkin + PopUp Domination & fill your website with opt-in forms promoting your email course.

4. Monitor in Aweber how your email sequence performs and keep tweaking and optimizing it for better performance.

5. Think if every new post you publish deserves to be added to your email sequence.

That’s it for this lesson. In case you have any questions, feel free to reach out!