“Write what you know.”
Mark Twain said that and I can’t argue with him. The advice is so elegantly simple that it is at the same time both graceful and profound.
I am going to help you build an email list. Before we begin though I need you to accept a couple things as truth.
Truth One) An email list is the most important thing you can do online. It should be your top priority.
Building an email list is not just a part of your online business, it is the heart of your online business.
In fact, without an email list, having a sustainable online business is infinitely harder, far more expensive, and essentially just less efficient in all ways. It’s a fact.
Truth Two) Your success will be defined by your action. It seems pretty obvious, but it’s good to be reminded and it’s absolutely true.
If you don’t take action on these daily tasks, then you will not succeed with this challenge.
I can show you the way, but you must decide to commit to this process alone. No one can force you. It’s a fact.
If you follow this challenge, you WILL have an email list at the end, and you will be that much closer to your goal of online success. It’s not a possibility, it’s a fact.
So get excited and let’s move on.
Now that we have those two simple truths, let’s build upon that solid foundation.
DAY 1 TASK: PREPARE
The First thing we need to do is prepare. This is your Day 1 task. Every new venture begins with some preparation, and this challenge is no different.
Here are the 3 things you will need for this challenge:
One) A name – All good online businesses and projects have names. Yours can be anything. I only have two strong recommendations.
First, don’t give your business a name that would make people think of something completely unrelated to your business.
For example, If you are selling weight loss products, don’t name your business “Dog Training R Us.”
It’s ok for them not to know what your business IS based on the name, you just don’t want them to make assumptions that aren’t true.
And the second thing is don’t make it too long. 4 word rule man. If it’s longer than 4 words it’s probably too long to remember.
You want people to be able to find you easily and remember you easily. So in the spirit of brand awareness, keep it short and sweet.
You don’t need to register the name with the small business association or anything. You don’t need to form an LLC. You just need to have that name in your mind.
Make sure nobody else is already using it.
Once you have the name, open a simple gmail account for your business. This is important.
If you called your business Super Smash Leads, you could open up a gmail account called “supersmashleadssupport(at)gmail.com”
Now that email will come into play later, but for now it’s enough just to have it.
Easy enough right?
Once you have it, let’s get to the second thing you need…
Two) An autoresponder – If you can accept the truth that email is the heart of online business, then you must understand that the autoresponder is the tool that drives email.
It is the most important thing you can have when working online.
This is the tool that is going to collect emails for you, it’s going to let you send out 1 email to thousands of people on your list, and it’s even going to allow you to set up entire sequences of emails to go out to people automatically when they sign up to be on your list.
There are a lot of different options when it comes to autoresponders.
From industry leaders like Sendinblue, Aweber, and Mailchimp to lesser known solutions, it can be overwhelming to select one.
Most of them cost money, and most of them offer some kind of free or trial start up option to soften that blow.
With your autoresponder it’s better to go with an option that is economically viable for you, but that has also been around for awhile.
Autoresponders that have been around for a long time tend to be more reliable and offer better deliverability with the emails that you are sending out.
For example, Aweber is pretty economical at around 20 bucks a month to start out, and they have been around since 1998.
You don’t get to be an autoresponder company for over 20 years by not doing a good job.
They aren’t the only good option, but just one example.
Anyways, the autoresponder is critical. Don’t bother doing this challenge without one.
Moving on…
Three) A website – The third thing I want you to acquire, is a website.
Now…can you build a list without a website? Yes, you can. But that’s not how we are going to do it here.
There is a method to our madness. The website is going to offer us a few things that we will be getting into in upcoming sections.
But for now, it’s enough that you get one.
If it’s not in your budget to pick up hosting and register a website, you can use a free option like WIX(dot)com if you need to.
Obviously you have a little more control if you own the site and pay for the hosting, but you can make this work with a free site.
Okay…
So that’s the homework.
To reiterate, you need these 3 things to start this challenge:
One) A name for your online business/project and an email
Two) An autoresponder
Three) A website
[DAY 2] About these leads…
I was talking to you about the 3 things that you will need to get started with this challenge.
They are a name for your business or project, an autoresponder, and a website.
If you don’t have those 3 things, go back and get them together before proceeding.
Now, today is all about lead education. I’m going to be showing you how to get some leads on your list, and put you in a position to make money with that list.
To do that though, you need to understand what you are looking at.
You see, email leads are not created equal and for all intents and purposes there are 3 main types. Let’s learn what they are…
DAY 2 TASK: GET EDUCATED ON LEAD TYPES
Type One) The buyer lead – This is a person who is on your email list because they bought something from you.
This is the most responsive kind of email lead, and the kind that will be the most receptive to immediate sales pitches.
They are the most valuable kind of lead you can have.
Type Two) Warm Organic – This type of lead hasn’t bought anything from you yet, but they have been exposed to your marketing or your content before they ended up on your list.
For this reason they are a little more receptive to your emails and your offers.
They aren’t as eager to buy as your customer (buyer) leads, but they know who you are and you have developed a little more rapport with them than just a stranger.
An example of this kind of lead would be someone who was exposed to you through youtube or some other form of social media, found their way to your free offer (more on that later) and joined your mailing list.
Type Three) Cold – Cold leads are people who don’t know you at all. They have no trust or rapport with you.
They very well could see your emails as a nuisance in their inbox and they will require more work to build rapport with them.
Many email marketers call this “warming up the leads.”
These leads are the least valuable but it’s important that you understand why.
The reason they are the least valuable is because they will require the most time and effort, and it’s a two way street when it comes to not knowing.
They might not know you, but you don’t know them either.
Depending on how you acquired the leads, they could be completely wrong for your list. However, cold leads still have an important part to play.
Less value does not mean NO value. It just means a little more work is required.
Throughout this challenge I’ll be showing you how to build 3 lists. One list for each style of lead, respectively.
We will be building a list for warm organic traffic.
Then we will move into cold list building and finally towards the end of this challenge, I’ll show you how to build your buyers list.
[DAY 3] First Asset…
Alright, you’re a champion.
You have your business name, your autoresponder, and your website together (nothing on it yet but don’t worry about that, having it is enough right now.)
Great work.
Earlier we were talking about lead types. We had buyer leads, warm organic leads, and cold leads.
Not all weighed equally for sure but still all valuable in their own right, and all have a place in your online ventures.
Now, we are starting on the path to getting warm organic leads. To do this we are going to be creating something that we can give away in exchange for an email.
Remember, this thing you will be creating is an asset. Even though you might be using it to give away for now, in the future you might use it in a different way.
It can be positioned and repositioned in multiple ways once you create it.
DAY 3 TASK: CREATING YOUR FIRST ASSET (THE LEAD MAGNET)
A couple things to keep in mind here.
First, free never goes out of style. Don’t let people tell you differently. It’s always popular. What DOES goes out of style is the offer.
That can get old, outdated, or just not great to begin with, and people won’t care about it.
Second, when you are creating a free offer, there are 3 things that you absolutely need:
One) It needs to be easy and quick to consume.
Two) It needs to offer quick results
Three) It needs to extend the invitation to continue the conversation
Now that you know you need those 3 things in your offer, I have 1 additional rule for you, and it is of the utmost importance that you follow this one. What is it?
My one additional rule: This is a 1 day project. Don’t spend days and days, or even weeks and weeks putting this together.
Money loves speed and so does success so we are going to be moving this forward quickly.
But how do you do it? How can you get this asset created in just 1 day?
We are going to be creating a simple one page cheat sheet.
Not only will it come together quickly but it also satisfies one of the 3 things we need, it is easy and quick to consume.
So let’s take this step by step and get our cheat sheet created:
Step One) Pick a problem – Research your niche for common problems and topics of interest that keep coming up over and over again.
Check the forums, the facebook groups, the niche related youtube channel comment sections.
An example for the internet marketing niche would be “how do I get traffic?”
Step Two) Research and Solutions – Now I want you to either draw from your experience in the niche, or do some research for a solution or for a few solutions on this problem.
Step Three) 10 Steps Or Less – Next, I want you to bullet point out a 10 steps or less approach to solving this problem.
If you have 22 steps, you have too many steps. Simplify it. If you want to offer multiple simple solutions to the problem then keep it to no more than 10.
An example would be coming up with 5 simple ways to drive traffic, or a 7 step action plan for getting more traffic.
Step 4) Word the Offer – This step is very important. It is the thing that will make people opt-in.
So what I want you to do is head over to title-generator(dot)com and enter in the keyword that represents the problem you are solving. For example, I’ll use traffic.
This generator is going to spit out about 700 title ideas for me. I just need to adapt 1 to my purposes.
Here are the top 3:
1) Quick and Easy Fix For Your TRAFFIC
2) What You Should Have Asked Your Teachers About TRAFFIC
3) Who Else Wants To Know The Mystery Behind TRAFFIC?
So if I have a 7 step action plan for getting more traffic I can easily adapt that first headline from:
Quick and Easy Fix For Your TRAFFIC
To:
This 7 Step Action Plan is a Quick and Easy Fix For Your TRAFFIC!
If I was creating a cheat sheet that is going to give them 5 easy ways to get more traffic, I could take that 3rd one and change it from:
Who Else Wants To Know The Mystery Behind TRAFFIC?
To:
5 Mysteries of TRAFFIC Revealed (For your quick results!)
You essentially use the generator for inspiration and ideas, and you adapt it to the problem you are solving.
Step 5) Create The Asset – The next step is to open up a simple word document (or a Google Doc, or whatever word processing program you like) and create this thing.
- Put the headline at the top.
- Write a simple intro explaining who you are, and what this cheat sheet is. 3 to 5 sentences here. Don’t write a novel. It’s quick.
- Give the actual content that solves the problem
- Extend the invitation to continue the conversation. By this I mean to let them know that if they got value out of this simple cheat sheet, be sure to check their inbox because you put out weekly emails with more awesome content to help them in your niche.
- Make sure you add a footer with a copyright notice that will have the name of your business. This should be a clickable link to your website. This is for brand awareness.
- Save the one page as a PDF document.
This simple one page is perfect.
It’s quick and easy to consume, it offers a quick resolution to the problem, and it extends the invitation to continue the conversation.
In addition, it builds a small amount of rapport with that intro and it builds a small amount of brand awareness with that footer copyright.
All that in a simple one page cheat sheet.
Remember, above all else…action is the key.
Even if you are taking longer than a day to get these tasks done, as long as you are moving your project forward every day, you will succeed.
So make sure you are keeping it moving forward, no matter what.
[DAY 4] Now what?
Well, you’ve done it. You have that one page cheat sheet ready to rock and roll. It’s a PDF. It’s strategic. It’s glorious. Now what?
First, I want you to go over to your autoresponder and create a new list. This list is going to be called “the (whatever you named your business) newsletter.”
So for example if you called your online business, Super Smash Leads, then you would call this list The Super Smash Leads Newsletter.
This list is going to be the place you collect warm organic leads. Next we need to build a couple of pages on that website, you acquired…
DAY 4 TASK: LEAD CAPTURE PAGE AND BRIDGE PAGE
We need two pages.
Get on your website and create two pages. A lead capture page and a bridge page. Just name them something associated with your free cheat sheet.
For example, if you had a free cheat sheet called:
5 Mysteries of TRAFFIC Revealed (For your quick results!)
Then maybe you call these pages:
5motr-optin
And
5motr-bridge
Call them whatever you want, but make sure you can relate the pages back to the offer, and make sure they are fairly short and easy to remember.
Now we need to build the actual pages out.
First we need to create this lead capture page. It’s basically just a page where people can enter their email, in exchange for something free that you give them.
How you build this page is going to be a little different depending on what you are using for a website.
If you are using your own hosting and wordpress you might use a free page building plugin like Elementor.
If you are using a free option like Wix, you will probably be using their internal page builder.
No matter how you are doing it, what you need on this lead capture page will be the same.
I want you to think simple. Don’t cloud this page up with a bunch of extra stuff here.
You need your headline.
i) It’s the same thing you tilted your cheat sheet.
ii) The same phrase you used the title generator to find.
You need an opt-in.
i) This opt-in is the place where people are going to enter their email address in exchange for the free cheat sheet.
ii) This opt-in will be connected to your autoresponder. In most cases you can actually create this opt-in form inside your autoresponder and embed it on your page.
iii) This opt-in will be connected to the new list you just created for warm organic leads. So when they enter their email and join your list, they will go on your “warm organic” list.
iv) When you create the opt-in form, you will have to decide where you want the person to go after they opt-in. Set it to where they will go to your bridge page after they opt-in.
You need to test the lead capture page.
i) Be sure to actually test your lead capture page and make sure it is working. Make sure that when you enter an email address, the email address is actually showing up on your list.
ii) Make sure that when you enter an email, you are actually transferred to the bridge page.
Alright…
Congratulations. You now have a lead capture page set up.
Now you need to build out that bridge page.
Again this will adopt the same simple style as your lead capture page. Here’s what you want on the Bridge page:
- A headline saying: “Thanks for Checking Out [title of cheat sheet]
- A picture of you (rapport building.) If a picture of yourself makes you uncomfortable you could use a cartoon style avatar or make a cover for your cheat sheet and use that.
- A simple message letting them know that their free cheat sheet is on its way to their email inbox right now. (this way of delivering the free asset will cut down on fake emails)
Later we’ll come back to this page, and add to this message, but for now this is enough. Just a simple instruction on how they get their free thing.
Woah, hey…
You’ve been working a little bit. Great job getting these two pages set up.
[DAY 5] Little bitta writin’…
Okay, let’s just admit something. I gave you quite a bit to do. I can own that. BUT…
Here’s the thing.
Sometimes that’s just the way it goes when you want to set yourself up for success. If you want to get to where you are going some days are just going to be a little harder.
Just the way it is.
Now, onto the next thing…
DAY 5 TASK: WRITING YOUR FIRST AUTORESPONDER SEQUENCE
Before we get into the writing stuff, let’s take care of something important real quick. That cheat sheet that you created as a PDF…
…I want you to do something with it now.
When I told you to create a gmail account way back in the beginning of this challenge, what you need to understand is that every gmail account gets 15 gigs of free storage in a google drive account.
So you automatically have a google drive with 15 gigs of storage with your gmail. It’s 100% free.
This is free online cloud based storage through google.
I want you to upload your PDF cheat sheet to your “google drive” account.
One there I want you to change the share permissions on the file from “restricted” to “anyone with the link.”
You’ll get a URL. Copy and paste that into a simple notepad document for later use. This url will take someone to your free PDF cheat sheet.
We’ll come back to that but for now…
Let’s get into writing some emails for your warm organic list.
You are going to write 5 emails, and these emails you are going to schedule to go out automatically, one email a day, to everyone who signs up for your free cheat sheet.
The length of the emails don’t matter. It is about impact with email marketing, not email length. These emails are strategic.
EM1 – The Welcome Email
This first email will be the “Welcome to the Newsletter” email. In this email you want to welcome them to your online businesses newsletter and the community.
You then want to give them that link to your free cheat sheet you just stored on your google drive.
Then you want to let them know that you will be back tomorrow with a really important message for them. After that, you want to ask them a question.
Ask them what they think is the hardest part about trying to be successful at [whatever your niche is.]
This simple email is going to not only deliver what you promised, it’s also going to build rapport and tease the next email a little bit.
In addition it is creating an open loop in the form of that question. You will continue to get feedback from new subscribers as they join your list.
EM2 – Origin Story
This next email, what you want to do is talk about how you came into your niche. How did you go from working a normal job to starting this online business?
How did you get into the niche that you are in? Tell that story in a few paragraphs. Just tell it in your own words. You don’t need to be a great writer at all.
As you tell your origin story, remember that no matter how boring that you think your story might be, it doesn’t matter.
People are interested in how you came to be involved in this niche they care about.
Towards the end of this email, be sure to let them know that you are super interested in how they got into [whatever your niche is] and to reply back to this email and let you know.
This email is largely rapport building and it created another open loop for feedback with your list in the form of that invitation to tell you about their story.
EM3 – Actionable
In this email go back to your research of the niche you are in. Consider another problem people have in that niche.
Use this email to talk about some simple solutions for that problem. Again this doesn’t need to be long and it definitely doesn’t need to be in depth.
Sometimes just simply describing a 5 to 7 bullet point strategy that you were learning about from some youtube video is great.
“Hey guys, last week I saw a great video about driving traffic to blogs and took some notes as I was watching. I wanted to share one of the strategies with you today…”
EM4 – Actionable
In this email you are going to give some more actionable content just like yesterday. It could be a personal experience.
It could be something that you read or watched that would be valuable and helpful to people in your niche.
But the main point here is to provide content that your readers can take action on.
EM5 – What’s next?
Alright, this is the last email in the 5 email sequence.
What I want you to do here is briefly talk about the original cheat sheet that you created and gave everyone on this list.
Let them know that you want to create some more simple and helpful cheat sheets like that, and possibly even a more in depth training at some point.
What you want to know from them though, is what they would like to see you create something on. What do they think would be the most helpful to them?
This last email is going to yet again create an open loop for feedback.
Okay, so that’s 5 emails. It’s a sequence.
What I want you to do now is upload these emails to your autoresponder list for warm organic leads. These should be set to go out one email a day.
They get the first email as soon as they opt-in.
Later we will come back and add a little something to these emails, but for now, they are good the way they are.
Yikes, that was a long day right? But guess what…you are done now. That’s enough for one day.
Tomorrow we are moving onwards and upwards. I want to show you how to get some people signed up for your new newsletter. Until then, take care and remember to take action. Get this stuff done!
[DAY 6] Let’s get some leads…
As of right now, you are set up to start getting some people on your warm organic subscriber list.
I’m going to give you 3 simple strategies right here but before I do, I want you to commit to something.
Be sure to send an email out to your list at least once a week. It’s not hard and it doesn’t have to be long.
But once a week you want to send out some kind of entertaining/value driven email to your list.
We aren’t going to go too deep into email marketing here, but just keep in mind the simple rule, no matter what you talk about in that email, make sure it circles back around to your niche and your market.
No matter how much it might sound like you are talking about yourself, remember, it’s always about them.
So make sure there is always a lesson in there or a takeaway for them in your emails.
Alright, that being said, let’s get into 3 strategies for putting people on your warm organic list…
DAY 6 TASK: Get the warm organic leads flowing
Strategy One) Manual Outreach
The first thing I want you to do is reach out to any friends or family you have, that you think might be interested in the subject of your newsletter.
Let them know that you are starting a brand new newsletter in your niche, and you plan to put out an email a week.
Ask them for permission to add their email to your list.
Repeat this process with all your social media accounts. Any social media friends who you think might be interested, reach out to them and ask.
The worst thing they can do is say no, and often these are really easy and really STRONG leads to get.
These leads already know you so they tend to be more willing to open your emails. It makes for a really nice strong foundation to start your list.
Next ask them if they know anyone else who might be interested in your subject who you could reach out to about joining your newsletter.
Again, the worst they can say is no.
Many people can get their first 10 or 20 people in just this way. Heck maybe more if you know a lot of people.
Take action on this before you move on to my 2nd strategy. Don’t discount this because it makes you uncomfortable, or it’s embarrassing.
To get to where you want to go you’ll have to step outside of your comfort zone.
You need those strong leads to build a nice foundation for your list.
Strategy Two) The Facebook Groups
The next thing I want you to do is head over to Facebook and join 5 facebook groups in your niche.
You want these groups to be active and you want them to have at least a thousand members.
SIDENOTE: If you are out there and you are reading this, saying to yourself, I don’t like Facebook and I don’t want to do that. Listen, Facebook is the 3rd most popular website in the world, only behind Google and Youtube. Your target market is 100% absolutely represented there. You want to be there. So take one for the team, and get over there and join 5 Facebook groups.
Okay, now that you have joined those groups, I want you to give them all 5 minutes of your time a day. Make the rounds. That’s 25 minutes devoted to Facebook.
During that 5 minutes, all you need to do is be a part of the scene there. Like posts, comment on interesting conversations. Ask questions.
When you have a positive interaction with someone, be sure to friend request them.
Doing this will actually start to build a friend network around you of future customers. Don’t friend request more than 10 or 15 people a day.
This is a slow organic process.
After a week of doing this, post in all 5 groups a message that says something like:
“Hey guys, is anyone struggling with [the problem your cheat sheet solves], if so just comment yes to this post. I think I have something totally free that might help… “
When people respond to you on that message, that is when you reach out to them privately by direct message and give them a link to your opt in page.
Be sure to friend request them, and let them know to feel free to reach out to you if they have any questions for you.
Repeat the process every week or so, changing the message up slightly.
As you add more friends in your niche, you can start posting your message to your Facebook profile as well for more results.
This is a surprisingly effective method and can easily get you up to 50 subscribers and beyond.
Strategy Three) Medium Syndication
The last 2 strategies I gave you are active strategies that require “action” to work. If you stop taking action, they pretty much dry up.
Now we are going to cover something that is a little less “immediate gratification” and a little more passive slow build.
I want you to head over to Medium(dot)com and start an account.
Medium is a simple blogging platform where you can post articles. It’s currently getting 163 million visitors a month.
The great thing about it is that the readers can only read 3 articles per month for free there so many of the readers are paying customers.
Another great thing about Medium is that once you have 100 followers, you can apply to join their partner program, and then start actually getting some rev share for your content on the platform.
So what you want to do with Medium is simple.
Take those 5 emails that you wrote for your autoresponder sequence, and I want you to adapt them slightly to make them look like blog posts instead of emails.
With that first welcome email, what you do is invite them to join your newsletter and drop a link to your opt-in instead of a link to the actual cheat sheet.
At the end of every article I want you to add a simple paragraph at the that pitches your newsletter:
Hey if you found this article interesting and helpful, be sure to check out my free weekly newsletter and grab your cheat sheet about [whatever your cheat sheet is about] HERE. [insert link to your opt-in here]
Now…every single week, when you send out a new email to your list, just adapt it and put it up on Medium as well. This will help to pull in organic traffic to your list.
Alright, that’s 3 free and simple strategies to get going with your warm organic list.
[Day 7] Is blogging dead?
A quick search on google will answer this one for you:
“Is blogging dead in 2022? No, blogging is not dead in 2022 and will stay relevant for some time. Blogs are powerful and it is the 5th most reliable source of information on the internet. Readers trust what they read in blog posts.”
Now I’m not saying you can always trust what Google has to say, in fact, I think sometimes Google is full of crap but in this case, it’s true.
Blogging is still a trusted source of information for people.
So now we are going to put your website to more use. We are going to start a blog on that site.
DAY 7 TASK: Fire up the blog
A couple things we need before we start the blog posting.
First, we need an “About me” page. This one is easy. Essentially, you want to tell the simple story of why you decided to start this business.
Who are you trying to help and with what?
Also be sure to put a link to your opt-in on this page. Just let them know that if they are looking for (whatever the problem your opt-in solves) then click here!
Another thing you can put on your “About me” page is your support email.
Now that you have that page done, we need some legal pages. Here are the ones you want to make sure you have:
- Copyright Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- Privacy Policy
- Terms and Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
There are a lot of ways you can get these pages.
If you want to go the free method, you can do a quick google search for the kind of page you are looking for followed by the word “examples” and it will give you many results for that style of page.
You can then modify the example to fit your needs, copy it and recreate it on your page.
That is the free and fairly simple way. There are also lots of software, plugins, and services that can create these legal pages for you.
It’s up to you how you get them done, but make sure you get them done.
After that you are ready to start the blog.
The way you start the blog on your website is going to be a little different depending on where your website is (meaning the process will be different on a free Wix site vs. a self hosted WordPress site.)
However, there are simple video tutorials on youtube about how to start a blog pretty much wherever you have a website.
Once you have the blog installed and you are ready, what I want you to do is take those adapted emails that you posted on Medium, and go ahead and post them on your website as blog posts.
Make sure you include those pitches with links to your opt-in page.
Now you should have these pages on your website:
- Opt-in page for free asset
- Bridge page for free asset
- About me Page
- Copyright Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- Privacy Policy
- Terms and Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- Blog post 1
- Blog post 2
- Blog Post 3
- Blog Post 4
- Blog Post 5
That’s 13 pages so far.
Now, every week when you send out an email to your list, you can adapt it for medium and repost that on your very own blog.
This also will circulate more organic traffic to your list but not just people stumbling off of google…
…do you remember back when you created that free cheat sheet? One of the things I had you do was put a copyright notice in your footer.
That was a clickable link to your website.
So some people as they consume your cheat sheet will circulate back to your website from your cheat sheet.
Also if they happen to share it with others, you’ll get some traffic from that as well.
Okay… now things are starting to get interesting. Methods to madness so to speak.
I have one more email to talk with you about warm organic list building strategy and then we’ll move on to cold lists.
Many times people get frustrated with how slow warm organic traffic can come together…
…the fact is though, building trust and rapport with people takes time in real life and we shouldn’t expect that not to be the case online as well.
Your investment of time and energy will pay off with these leads.
[DAY 8] Free television show?
Did you know that Youtube is the 2nd most popular website in the world? It’s true.
Over 2 billion people are registered on this platform and over a billion hours of content is consumed every single day. Suffice it to say it’s very popular.
But you already knew that. The thing about Youtube is, it’s completely free to start a Youtube channel.
So basically, Youtube is handing you the keys to a free television show on the 2nd most popular website in the world.
Now…
I know that many people do not like the idea of video. They don’t want to show their face on camera, or they don’t have the time to edit video.
They don’t want to learn a bunch of fancy editing software or they have no ideas for content.
The excuses and reasons go on and on and hey…I respect them all.
The truth is though, and I’ve said this before in this email series but it bears repeating; it doesn’t matter if doing a video makes you uncomfortable.
To get to a new level of success with a project you will do many things outside of your comfort zone.
There is a reason they call it the “comfort zone…”
…you’re comfortable there. To get to new levels of success, you’ll have to leave that place.
The fact is that whatever your niche is, that market is absolutely represented on youtube. They are there, and they are your future list subscribers and customers…
…they just don’t know it yet.
The other fact is, there are lots of ways to do video. If you don’t like editing videos, you can do simple live stream videos that you don’t need to edit.
If you don’t like being on camera, you can record your screen while you talk.
No matter what your hang up might be, there is a work around. So let’s get this video strategy going. It’s important and it’s going to help you build your list.
DAY 8 TASK: Get Your Video Strategy Going
There are many ways you can do video, but I’m going to propose a simple strategy here that will tie into the other things that I’ve already told you to do so far.
Obviously, it’s not the only way you can approach it, but it is a great way to get started and an easy system to adopt. So let’s get into it:
Step 1) Start a new youtube channel.
Use the gmail that you signed up for when you picked your business name in the beginning. Fill out the basics of your Youtube channel. About section, Banner, etc..
Be sure to point a URL at your website.
Step 2) Streamyard.
Go over to Streamyard(dot)com and open up a free account.
These guys will allow you to easily live stream to various social media platforms (including Facebook and youtube.)
*optional – If you don’t mind being on camera, get yourself a simple webcam. Some computers already have this built in, some don’t.
Step 3) Audio.
Get yourself some kind of mic together for recording audio. You can easily pick this up at a local Walmart for less than 20 bucks.
If you can’t afford that there are other cheaper options, even down to free text to speech converters online, but I recommend picking up at least a headset mic to be able to record audio.
It’s a very small investment, for a big payoff.
Step 4) Content.
When you send your weekly email to your list, I want you to write down the bullet points of that email.
Think about the main point of what you are trying to say in that email.
Step 5) Livestream the Video.
Livestream the video to your Facebook using Streamyard. It doesn’t matter about length here, this is about impact.
It doesn’t matter if your video is 2 minutes or 10 minutes. Just tell the story of the email. Hit the bullet points.
Explain the lesson, and above all, be sure to let them know about your free thing over on your website.
Step 6) Syndicate to Youtube.
Next, simply download the video from your Facebook profile, using a simple free online resource like fdown(dot)net, and upload the video to your youtube channel.
Be sure to put a link to your free asset in the description. This strategy will get you at least 1 video a week to your youtube channel.
Those videos are like free commercials for your lead capture page.
Step 7) Embed the youtube video.
Every week you are adapting your weekly email to your medium account and your blog.
You can now take your weekly video and embed it with your corresponding blog article on these 2 sites. This will add to the value of the articles.
That’s pretty much the whole strategy.
It works synergistically with the other stuff you will be doing and it’s a fairly passive strategy, as those videos will continue to work for you months and even years after you post them, especially on youtube.
The important thing is to stay consistent, and to always pitch your free thing in every video.
Alright, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow we are going to be getting into the wide world of cold traffic, but for now, try out this strategy and get your video on!
It will pay off in dividends long term.
[DAY 9] Burrr…It’s getting cold in here!
Cold email gets a bad wrap, it really does.
The truth is plenty of people make their living on cold email alone, and over the next sections we are going to be getting into some cold email strategy.
Today though, I want to start things off by really defining what I am talking about when I say “cold email.”
DAY 9 TASK: LEARN ABOUT COLD EMAIL
Cold Email – any email sent to a potential client that doesn’t have an existing connection to you
If you were to send someone you’ve never had any contact with before an email you found through a publicly available email address, that’s a cold email.
If you were to email someone you’ve never met, asking for feedback on a youtube video, that’s a cold email too.
The first problem with doing cold email is that many people go about it the wrong way. That’s why we didn’t start with it in this newsletter.
Another problem is unrealistic expectations. We’ll get to that later on, but first, let’s talk about doing it the wrong way vs. the right way.
By including the following in your email you will raise your chances of success with cold emails:
- Your actual name (not some fake name)
- A conversation starter
- Some degree of personalized content
- A specific request
- Your contact info
Sending a cold email should feel like a personal conversation. It’s like a cold call, but less intrusive.
Your goal with cold email is to get them on your warm organic list, not to sell them anything.
Cold email is not spam. Think about this:
- Spam uses fake names all the time.
- Spam is not big on including contact information.
- Spam is very generic in nature as though meant for thousands of people.
- Spam is done for commercial intent 99 percent of the time
Let that last one sink in. Spam isn’t meant to start a conversation, it’s looking for a direct purchase, so very commercially motivated.
These types of emails get filtered by email service providers routinely.
We’re not going to be sending spam. This is just like a cold call, but in email.
With cold emails, ideally you want to:
- Not be going for the direct sale
- Address the person you are emailing by name
- Have a specific and relevant request
- Be transparent about how you got their email
[DAY 10] Jumpstart from a cold one…
Okay, so in the last section we talked a lot about what to do and what not to do when it comes to cold email.
Today we’re going to be taking actionable steps so that you can actually get some cold email leads.
One thing that I want to make clear when it comes to these cold leads:
Don’t email them from your autoresponder.
Use the simple Gmail account that you created at the beginning of this newsletter to email these particular leads, individually one at a time.
Now I know that sounds really inconvenient and slow, but it is in your best interest.
The fact of the matter is these leads are completely cold and you’re at a high risk for them labeling you as spam if you try to email a bunch of them all at once.
You have to be careful because you don’t want your autoresponder to get upset and terminate your account.
So as you get a handful of cold leads, it’s better to just email them from your standard Gmail account individually with a simple goal of just getting them on your warm organic list through opt in.
So, how do you get these cold leads?
DAY 10 TASK: ACQUIRING COLD LEADS
I’m gonna give you a simple method to use here today and then tomorrow I’ll give you a few more.
What I want you to do is email these cold leads using the template I’m going to provide below.
Uplead(dot)com is a place where you can get five leads for free. All you have to do is simply create an account and sign up for a free 7 day trial.
You don’t have to enter any credit card information or anything like that.
Just make sure to use a gmail account when you register, they don’t accept yahoo emails for whatever reason.
When you are inside the software, there will be different categories. Pick the one closest to your niche and get your leads.
You will have 5 free credits. 1 credit = 1 lead.
Now that you have your first five free cold leads Let me give you a template for an email to send to them:
[TEMPLATE]
Hey [FIRST NAME]
I’m [enter your name here] and I was referred to you from Uplead for people interested and working in [your niche.]
The reason I was reaching out is because I thought you might be interested in joining my free newsletter on the subject. I created a free cheat sheet on [whatever your free thing solves] which you can find here if interested:
[link to your lead capture page]
Thanks for your time. I’m looking to build a strong newsletter in the [enter your niche] space, that provides value and helps people in the niche.
If not interested, feel free to delete this message. I understand and won’t keep pestering you. But…I’m really excited about the newsletter and looking to make some strong connections with others in the space.
Hope to see you on the newsletter!
[Your Name]
[Your business]
[Your website]
[Your email]
[END TEMPLATE]
Okay use this template. Notice how it’s pretty transparent and unassuming.
Model it to fit your niche and your market, and email those 5 leads you got from Uplead, one at a time.
Now the truth is, you have no idea how these people will respond.
On average, cold email response rate is around 1%, so if we use that logic you would need to email 100 of these cold leads before you would get somebody on your list from cold emailing.
So that being said, don’t get frustrated if you don’t see amazing results right away. Keep it in perspective. This is just another way to build your list.
A tool in your tool box.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about some more ways to get free cold leads. And we’ll talk about a way to automate the process a little bit.
In the meantime take some action on this method. Email all five of your cold leads and see if you can get some of them to opt in to your warm organic list.
It might seem like we’re taking things pretty slow considering how fast and how many cold leads that you truly can acquire (which is a lot.)
What I will tell you is there are laws against spamming, and unsolicited email is a little bit close to spamming.
There is a difference between what you are doing here and spamming but a lot of things come down to how many people read your email and decide to mark it as spam.
So in this world of cold email it’s much better to take a slow and steady approach.
[DAY 11] Jumpstart from a cold one PT2…
DAY 11 TASK: GMASS AND MORE COLD LEADS
If you go to Gmass(dot)co, you will find a pretty amazing Google Chrome extension.
It’s called Gmass and essentially it will work with your free gmail account to (in their own words)…
“turn your regular Gmail or G Suite account into a powerful mass and cold email platform. When you send mass or cold email campaigns from Gmail, you send emails through the world’s best servers in terms of deliverability. Prepare for the highest open rates you’ve ever seen from a mass email service. Mass and cold email features include open tracking, click tracking, mail merge personalization, scheduling, and more.”
Although Gmass is truly a paid service, it has a free version. You can use this free version to email up to 50 cold emails a day, just by sending one message.
I won’t go into how to use Gmass here, as there are plenty of tutorials on youtube to help you with specifics, but suffice it to say it makes it fairly easy to build lists of cold leads and mass email them with a single message.
Remember though, the goal is to get them on your warm organic list.
Now, how to acquire some more cold leads for free:
First tactic – Uplead Alternatives:
There are other sites out there just like Uplead where you can get some free cold leads. Just simply do a google search for “Uplead alternatives.”
Most of them have free trials that do not require a credit card to try out. Again, put these leads on your Gmass account and work to get them to your warm organic list.
Second Tactic – MLGS:
MLGS stands for My Lead Gen Secret and you can find it at myleadgensecret(dot)com. This one is not free. There is currently a set up fee of $30 plus $30 a month.
So initially you will pay $60 and then only $30 for every month after that.
For that you will be given 100 drip fed “Business Opportunity” email subscribers every 24 hours.
You can email these leads directly on the platform and pitch your free thing to put them onto your warm organic list.
After that first month you will have roughly 3,000 leads.
If you don’t want to keep up the $30 a month subscription you can download your leads as a CSV file and cancel the subscription.
Then you can simply email those subscribers from Gmass at 50 subscribers a day.
Third Tactic – Safelists:
A safelist is a group of email users that have agreed to add their email address to a mailing list and use that list to send their promotional emails.
It is a closed group where people send emails to each other.
If you head over to getrichwithjerry(dot)com you are not only going to find a lot of great information about safelists, but you are going to find up to date safelists that are actually working well right now.
The thing about using safelists is this. Make sure to have a different email address that you use to sign up for these safelists.
Make this one a special email that is just for safelists.
For your free email ads that go out to the safelists, pitch your free opt-in.
Just like everything else with cold emails and cold advertising, your goal is to get people onto your warm organic list.
Fourth Tactic – LeadFeeder:
Lead Feeder is a cloud based software that allows you to gather emails and contact information from everyone who visits your website.
This can be pretty powerful if you have people visiting your opt-in page but they decide not to sign up. It gives you the power of follow up.
This is a paid software BUT you can actually sign up for a 7 day trial.
This is a tactic that you want to use once you have some of the things I talked about earlier already working for you.
Obviously, if you try to use this first before anyone is visiting your site, it’s not going to do much for you.
Fifth Tactic – LinkedIn:
Linkedin(dot)com is often overlooked but it’s the 21st most popular website in the world with over a billion people visiting a month.
If you build a Linkedin profile and join a few groups in your niche, you can start to network with people in your space fairly quickly.
Unlike, Facebook, many people on Linkedin have their contact email readily available on their profile under “Contact Info.”
This creates a great opportunity to start manually finding people with like minded interests who might be interested in your newsletter.
LinkedIn actually has a tool called the LinkedIn Sales Navigator that will speed up this process greatly, however it is not a free tool.
You can sign up for a free 30 day trial but you’ll have to remember to cancel before it is over.
Alright, that’s 5 more ways to go out there and get some cold leads.
Again, these aren’t the highest quality leads and this is far from all the ways to get them…but this is a great start, and cold leads definitely have their place in list building strategy.
[DAY 12] Free to Paid…
Today we are going to be creating something to sell, but before we get into that, we need to add a few extra pages to our website.
TASK 12 PT1: More Legal Pages
Go ahead and create the following additional pages on your site:
One) Legal Pages – This will be a simple page that lists all your existing legal pages and links out to all of them.
Two) Contact – This will be a simple page that gives people a way to contact support. Your support email listed on this page is fine.
Now on with our real task today…
TASK 12 PT2: Creating Your First Product To Sell
This is going to be easier than you think.
I want you to take your free cheat sheet that you are currently giving away, and imagine what a paid version of that would look like for a second.
I want you to realize that pretty much every piece of content online has a free version and a paid version.
Sometimes those versions get made and sometimes they don’t, but regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that it COULD get made.
Right now you have a one page cheat sheet that solves a problem in your niche. It’s limited to no more than 10 steps or 10 ways.
First) I want you to expand upon it a bit. Think about how you could go a bit deeper into each way or each step. Bullet point those expanded ideas. Take a few notes.
Second) Now, open up your favorite mind map software and create a mind map based on your original cheat sheet. Be sure to add in your expanded notes.
There are several free and open source mind map softwares out there to choose from.
Third) Next, use a simple screen recording software like streamyard or something similar to record you narrating as you walk people through the mind map.
Now you have a video presentation that not only covers what is in your cheat sheet, but it goes deeper.
Fourth) You also have a mind map that you can download to supplement the video presentation, and you can rip the audio from the video using a free open source video editor like “shotcut” found over at shotcut(dot)org.
To learn how to use shotcut, just watch a couple of freely available youtube videos.
So now you have the video presentation, the mind map, and the audio presentation, but what else?
Five) Next, go over to descript(dot)com and sign up for a free account.
Here you can upload your audio and have it transcribed for free by artificial intelligence in a matter of minutes. It will be 95% accurate.
With just minimal editing, you now have the transcription of your video presentation.
Okay, so what we have now is a decent low ticket offer.
It’s got a nice video presentation for our visual learners, an accompanying audio for those who like to listen passively while doing other things, a mind map and a transcription for those who like to look at the documentation while watching or listening.
And most importantly, this paid offer is highly congruent with that free offer you created towards the beginning of this challenge.
You are essentially creating the paid version of your free offer. It’s awesome.
In our next email we are going to talk about how to put all these parts together into a nice simple package and how to sell it from your website.
For now though, this is enough.
Yes, today’s tasks might take a little longer than a day to complete for you.
It just depends on how much time you have to dedicate to this challenge, how fast you learn, and how motivated you are to get things done.
Just remember, no matter if you are moving quickly or moving slowly through this challenge, if you keep your projects moving forward every day, you will win.
If you stagnate you will lose. It’s a simple rule that never really changes.
Action (no matter how imperfect) always trumps lackadaisicalness. So let’s get this thing going!
[DAY 13] Let’s sell something…
Alright so yesterday, you put the pieces together for a nice low ticket product that will make a great upsell for when someone opts-in for your free offer.
Now what?
Well, we need to do a few things today. Let’s take it in steps:
Step 1) Create the Navigational PDF (this is your finished product)
Step 2) Create the sales page, and incorporate into your existing funnel
Step 3) Release the product
Okay, that’s 3 simple steps, but the devils in the details, so let’s get started and make this a reality:
TASK 13: Getting Your Paid Product Live
Step One) Create the Navigational PDF (this is your finished product)
Alright, so you have a video, an audio, a transcript for the video, and a mind map as well. How do you package all these pieces together to give a customer?
First let’s upload these resources so that we can link to them. The transcript, the mindmap, and the audio can all be uploaded to your google drive account.
Once uploaded, change the share access on these files to “anyone with link.”
Next, head over to youtube and upload that video presentation to your channel but make sure the video is “unlisted.”
That unlisted status will ensure that only people with the URL link to the video can find it.
Now that your resources are uploaded and can easily be linked to, let’s create a PDF document that can act as a sort of navigational hub so that people who buy your product can access everything easily.
I want you to create a document, using Word or Google docs or whatever word processing program you prefer. Here is what it should look like. Let’s take it by page.
Page 1) Cover page
GO ahead and name your UPGRADED version of your free offer, and put that name on the first page of the document.
Right underneath the name of the product write “An official [name of your business] release.”
Next you want to put a cover on that page as well. To get that just head over to Canva(dot)com and sign up for a free account.
They will have plenty of free templates for book covers that you can adapt to your purposes.
Once you have that cover, download it as a PNG file and then insert the cover onto page 1 of your document.
Page 2) Warning Page
On page 2 you want to put a simple warning, to help deter people from sharing your paid product around. Here is a template:
[TEMPLATE]
DOWNLOADABLE COPY
If you have this special downloadable edition of [INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE] It is because you have purchased the product and
have been given this copy of it personally by [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE]. It is not to be distributed freely to people who have not bought the product.”
[END TEMPLATE]
Page 3) Legal Page
Here is a simple template for a legal page that you can use. Just modify it to fit your needs:
[TEMPLATE]
Legal Page
Legal Notice
This publication includes personal use rights only.
You may not:
Redistribute or give this book away
Sell this book
Claim authorship of this book
Copy, swipe, or rewrite this book
Re-transmit any part of this publication in any form (text, video, etc.)
Disclaimer
While the author has made every attempt to provide you with the most accurate and effective information possible, he cannot guarantee your success. Your own work ethic, copywriting abilities, ability to follow instructions, and perhaps even luck, coupled with current market
conditions, may all play a role in your results. The author assumes no liability for any expenses incurred by the reader as a result of following the advice set forth in this book.
Earnings Disclosure
As demonstration of the author’s compliance with the legal guidelines set forth by the
FTC, he wishes to
offer you full transparency. It should be assumed that many of the links included
throughout this
publication are, in fact, affiliate links. The author may receive financial compensation for
purchases
generated via these links. Thank you for your support!
[END TEMPLATE]
Page 4) Main Content
Here is where you simply write “Main Content” and a brief description of what you have listed and how to access.
After that you simply list the resources and you link out to them. It would look something like this:
[TEMPLATE]
MAIN CONTENT
Below are direct links to the complete [insert name of product]. Simply click on the link to access the resources:
- Video Presentation
- Audio Presentation
- Transcription
- Mind Map
[END TEMPLATE]
Page 5) Support and Recommended Resources
Page 5 is simply where you put your customer support email, in case your customers have any questions for you, and you also put your recommended resources section here.
The recommended resources section is a great way to introduce customers to your blog, as well as pitch other products that you have out, or affiliate offers.
Last Thing
The last thing you need to do is add a footer to the product. In this footer make sure you include copyright year and the name of your business.
Link the name of your business out to your website.
After that go ahead and download the document as a PDF and BOOM, you have a finished product ready to go.
Don’t worry, we’ll upload it somewhere later, but for now it’s fine sitting on your hard drive.
Alright, on to Step 2…
Step Two) Create sales page, incorporate into your existing funnel
Before we do anything else, I want you to go over to your autoresponder and create another list.
This one is going to be your Buyers list, and you call it [Insert name of your business] Customer Newsletter.
After you have that created, set it up to where when someone joins this list, they come off of your Warm Organic list.
When you send your emails out weekly, they will be going to both lists and you don’t want people getting double emails.
Now that we have a finished product, we need to create a sales page for it.
There are many ways that you could create a sales letter/page but I don’t want to send you down too many rabbit holes here.
The fact of the matter is, simple is best. Simple is great.
Just look at the Google homepage, it’s the most popular website in the world, and there is nothing there but a search box and a logo.
What really matters with the sales page is the offer, not how the sales page looks, contrary to popular belief.
A great offer can be sold with mediocre sales copy and an amateur sales page, while a bad offer doesn’t have a hope on the most professional copy money can buy.
A simple strategy for sales letter writing is the 12 step method:
1) Headline – Get their attention with a headline that stands out
2) The Problem – Let them know you know what their problem is and exactly how it feels.
3) The Solution – Now let them know that you have the solution to that problem.
4) Credentials – Why should they trust you? How do you know how to solve their problem?
5) Benefits – Now let them know the benefits of the product. This is all about what it will do for them. Think about a feature like “gets you traffic” and add on to that “so you can…” When you start answering that “so you can” question, you will be getting some good benefits.
6) Social Proof – Now comes the part where you add any testimonials you might have. Don’t use fake testimonials. If you don’t have them, skip it. This one might be something you come back to after you sell the product a little while.
7) Offer – This is where you make the offer. Minimally it will have a section that lists everything included, a call to action, and a buy button.
8) Guarantee – Give the strongest guarantee you are able to give. Be fair, but don’t be a pushover. “30 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee” is very foolish on an info product.
9) Inject Scarcity – The fear of loss is always greater than the promise of gain. This can be added to an evergreen product by simply stating that pricing is being experimented with currently and buying now can ensure the best possible price.
10) Strong Call to Action – Tell them what you want them to do
11) Warning – Tell them what will happen if they don’t take action. An example would be, “If you don’t take action on this today, you know exactly what will happen. Nothing. Nothing will change at all.”
12) The P.S. – This is a great place to remind them of that scarcity.
That’s the whole thing. After that, just make sure you have a link to your legal page, and your contact page at the bottom of your sales page.
Now we have to get those buy buttons in place. We need some kind of way to take payments from people. That’s the next step…
Step Three) Release the product
First) We need a way to sell this thing and make money.
Now you can go directly through Paypal or Stripe (two payment processors) and they both have the ability to give you buy buttons to place on your sales page.
Just simply look up how to videos on youtube for quick tutorials.
Alternatively, you can go through a platform like WarriorPlus (free to create an account,) which will allow you to tap into a network of affiliates that could potentially promote your product.
All of these services can be integrated in one way, shape, or form with your autoresponder so that when customers buy your product, their email is automatically added to the buyers list.
Now going in depth on how to list products and offers on a platform like WarriorPlus or how to set up automation with autoresponder integration is beyond the scope of this challenge.
It’s something that is best explained in a dedicated video on the topic.
However, just like Paypal and Stripe, the videos are out there on Youtube and easily accessible to anyone who wants to learn.
Second) Once you have your buy buttons on your sales page and everything is working properly, you want to add this product to your existing free offer funnel.
All you need to do is go over to your bridge page and add this small bit:
“Thanks for picking up our awesome Cheat Sheet! Be sure to check out [INSERT PRODUCT NAME] as it is the more in depth video guide covering everything outlined in the cheat sheet and more!”
Then you drop a link to your sales page.
Third) Go into your autoresponder and add that same message as a P.S. to all 5 of your email messages.
Fourth) Update your cheat sheet to include a simple pitch for your paid product. Make sure you update the link to the new PDF in your Welcome Email.
Now everyone who opts in for your free thing will be exposed to your offer 7 times.
Five) Once you have all those things done, send out an email campaign to your list, letting them know about your new product. Ideally, make it a 4 day campaign with at least 1 email a day.
That’s it. You’ve just released your first paid digital product and it is installed in your funnel.
Now you can widen the funnel if you like by creating more free offers. You can deepen the funnel if you like by adding more paid products. It’s pretty exciting stuff.
Although there is a lot we didn’t cover here in this simple challenge, you now have the foundational pieces to start building your customer list. It will be your most powerful list of all.
