Action 1: The Lead Capture Page & Bridge Page
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…
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 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.
- It’s the same thing you titled your cheat sheet.
- The same phrase you used for the title generator to find.
- You need an opt-in.
- This opt-in is the place where people are going to enter their email address in exchange for the free cheat sheet.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Be sure to actually test your lead capture page and make sure it’s working. Make sure that when you enter an email address, the email address is actually showing up on your list.
- 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 (and really all you need) 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.
In our next actionable section, we are going to be doing a little writing, but don’t worry, it’s going to be pretty painless and 100% necessary. For now though…
Give yourself a pat on the back because you did it! Most people don’t make it even this far.
Action 2: Write Your First Autoresponder Sequence
Creating and building out the lead capture and bridge pages was a lot. 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.
But… you did it! You got it done!
Now, onto the next thing…
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. Once 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 – and it won’t cost you a thing!
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’s about impact with email marketing, not email length. These emails are strategic.
Email 1: 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’s creating an open loop in the form of that question. You will continue to get feedback from new subscribers as they join your list.
Email 2: 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’re 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.
Email 3: 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 those strategies with you today…”
Email 4: 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.
Email 5: 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’ll come back and add a little something to these emails, but for now, they are good the way they are.
Now that you have your autoresponder loaded and ready to go, take a break! You’ve earned it. When you’re ready, come back for the next section, where I’ll show you how to get some people signed up for your new newsletter.
Action 3: Get The Warm Organic Leads Flowing
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 in this section, 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…
Strategy #1: 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 #2: 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 (check the terms of the group before posting first):
“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 #3: 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.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.
You’re just wisely reusing content that you already took time to create here, and that’s good business!
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 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.
Take action on these and get some people on that list!
