Email Marketing Strategy - How To Build An Email List Fast And Free

If you are blogging for money, having an effective Email Marketing Strategy should be one of your blogging goals.

Email marketing is a very profitable way for bloggers to make money online. One email sent to your list can result in blog traffic, engagement, and sales INSTANTLY.

As a new blogger, you maybe have no means yet to spend on blogging tools. That should not stop you from getting started and making sales with your email list.



In this blog post, I'll show the benefits of email marketing and how to build your list fast and free. 




This post might contain affiliate links. I might receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you when you purchase from this site. Please, know that I only recommend products and services that bring value to my readers.

It is not easy to get someone to like your freebies and give you their emails. It takes more than creating a freebie and putting it up on your website.

The initial work with email marketing is challenging. Well, It took me months before I started creating freebies for my audience. But if I were to start over, I would have a killer freebie before sending traffic to my website.

If you are new to blogging, grab the Free- First Month Blog Plan that will be your everyday guide to growing your blog.  

Benefits of email marketing

If someone visits your blog post and there’s no way to sign up for your email list there’s also no way for you to reconnect with that person directly again. 

You can’t bring him back to your site to read your new post.

You can't follow up to make sales!

More reasons to start Email Marketing now!

With Email Marketing, you don’t have to worry about the algorithm changes

Google Traffic should be another goal to achieve long-term growth. But it takes months before your post rank in Google. 


When you have an email list you can reach out to them at any time. No one is stopping you to connect and engage with your email list. 

Engaged Audience

Since your subscribers provided you with their emails you already gained their trust. 



They are most likely to open and click your emails and engage with you. 



Grab the free 50 Headline Templates for your emails to get opened and clicked. 

Instant traffic, engagement, and sales 

I always check my Google Analytics whenever I send my newsletter. 




It is such a wonderful feeling to see traffic referrals from my list after sending my newsletter.

More blog traffic means more engagement and sales.

Free to start

Email Service Providers offer a free trial like Mailerlite where you are getting free services until you reach 1000 subscribers. 



It is also inexpensive when you need to upgrade.

It can be automated and scheduled

It will continue to work for you once you set it up and scheduled your emails.

Like for example, you can trigger an email to deliver your freebies when someone signed up for it.

I love that I can batch-create my emails and schedule them for a week or even months.

Scheduling a few emails for your new subscribers is a perfect way to nurture your list, connect with them and get engagement without you writing your newsletter every time.

What do you need to get started with Email Marketing?

Okay, the Email Marketing Strategy in this post is the easiest for beginners.



I don't want to overwhelm you. My goal is to get you started growing your email list fast and without spending any paid tools.   


What you need...

• Free offers (lead magnet and content upgrades).

• Email Service Provider (Mailerlite) - to capture your audience's emails and to send the freebie (This is free for up to 1,000 subscribers). 

• Pinterest Business Account - to quickly get traffic back to your free offers and website. 

• Tailwind- to pin for you (You'll get $15 credit to use). 

• Free Pinterest Templates - to quickly create Pinterest Pins fast. 

1. You need a lead magnet and a content upgrade as your freebies. 

Getting subscribers will be hard if you are using the generic opt-in box that says “Sign up for our newsletter.”



You need to offer a solution to make your reader's situation better so they sign up for it. 

To grow your list fast, you can offer two things in your blog. A content upgrade and an opt-in freebie.

You are going to offer these for free to get your readers onto your email list. 

What is a content upgrade and do you really need it?

For me, a content upgrade converts better than a lead magnet. 


A content upgrade is a free offer that adds more value to your content. It should be specific to a particular blog post.  

For example in my post about “How to make Pinterest pins quickly" I offer free Pinterest Pin Templates as a content upgrade. 



In my example, I already have readers who use Pinterest to grow their blogs. My content upgrade should be something they can use to help them with Pinterest. 

What is a lead magnet and why do you need it?

A lead magnet or opt-in freebies should entice your general audience. 

Here are some ideas for your content upgrades and lead magnets

• checklist

• to-do list

• worksheets

• ebook

• email challenges

• mini-course

• templates

• cheat sheets

• video training 

• resource library

• discount

• free chapter from a paid course or ebook

• swipe file

• monthly freebies (stock photos)

• Planner

• Calendar

• Pdf guides

2. An Email Service Provider

I use Mailerlite and I love it. It is user-friendly and very affordable. You can start for free until you need to upgrade. 


Mailerlite's customer service is outstanding. They respond quickly and are very helpful.

How to use Mailerlite

Mailerlite is used to collect email addresses and to create, send, and track email promotions. 

One way to collect readers' emails is to offer them a freebie that you are going to send to their emails.

In this post, we are going to use Mailerlite to capture your reader's email and to deliver the opt-in freebies.

You can create landing pages, embedded forms, and pop-ups with Mailerlite.

Types of Email forms to collect email addresses

Landing pages

It is like a small website that encourages visitors to take a specific action like downloading your free ebook, signing up for the webinar, or joining your email challenge. 


It has a URL that you can share with your audience.


This link will show you a landing page for one of my opt-in freebie. Just to give you an idea.

Pro-tip

If you have a product of your own you can create tripwire offers to turn new subscribers into buyers. 

Pop-ups

It is also called email pop-ups and opt-in pop-ups. It is a great tool to get your website visitors onto your email list.

You can customize the pop-up form and choose when to show it to your readers. It can appear when someone lands on your page, scrolls or about to exit the page.

You have to test your pop-up forms on mobile because they don’t look good on smaller screens.

Embedded forms

I love using embedded email forms in blog posts.

These are the boxes that you can add to the body of your posts.

Embedded forms for content upgrades convert better for me.

For example, in my post about saving money, I embed a form within that post for my free money challenge that readers can just enter their emails and names to sign up. 



Readers are not going to miss the embedded form because they will surely see it as they scroll down to read the post.


Do you see my embedded form in this post?


This one below!

Click here to sign up for Mailerlite to create different forms to capture your reader's email.

Finish these 3 things first to automatically collect emails and to deliver the freebies

Email Marketing sounds daunting but to be honest it is super easy to start. 




 Complete these 3 things first so you don't feel overwhelmed. 



I promise once you started and experienced the benefits of Email Marketing you will never stop! 

1. Welcome email

The welcome email should be the first email your subscribers must receive once they signed up for your opt-in freebie.

Introduce yourself and deliver the promised freebie. Also, take this opportunity to engage with your new subscriber.

2. Automation

Now, you are going to create and set a trigger to automatically send your welcome email to someone who signed up for your freebie.

Again, it is super easy to set up with Mailerlite. They even have video tutorials on this.

Another email that you can schedule to nurture your new subscribers is the Welcome Email Series. But You should not worry about this yet.

3. Send traffic to your freebies

Your free offers and the welcome email that delivers the freebie are now ready.

It is about time to send targeted traffic to your opt-in forms and content upgrades to capture your reader's emails. 

Using Pinterest to drive traffic to your free offers

Why Pinterest? 


Pinterest is the quickest way to get traffic to your pages. You can create Pinterest Pins and use your opt-in freebies landing page’s URL.

Also, send Pinterest traffic to your posts where you added your pop-ups and embedded forms.

Use Tailwind to pin for you

Pinterest is a powerful platform for driving blog traffic. You can even automate the pinning to save time.

You only have to feed the always-hungry beast (Pinterest) its favorite new and fresh pins.

Grab the Free Pinterest Pin Templates to help you make multiple Pinterest pins fast.

Use Pinterest Scheduler to pin for you

Before, you can only manually pin on Pinterest. There was no option to schedule the pins unless you have Tailwind or another Pinterest scheduling tool. 




But now, we are so lucky that Pinterest already added a native scheduler that we can use to schedule our pins. 

Social Media

Share your Landing Page’s URL on your Facebook Page and tweets it. 



You can also join Facebook groups that have promo days for your opt-in freebies. 

Grab the list of Facebook Groups for promotion

Header Bar

It's a great tool to use for promotion and collecting emails.

It is a long bar that sits at the top or bottom of your posts.

You can use HelloBar or Zotabox (They have a free trial and free plan). 

Conclusion

That's why and how to get started growing your list fast without paying for any tools.

What's next?

Grab the 22 Email Marketing Templates to help you get started with email marketing.



Easily Create different Printables for your freebies and products using these Printable Templates.

Join the Pinterest Pin Template Subscriptions for just $1 on your first month and receive 5 new Pinterest Pin templates every month. 



If you are ready to bring your list building to the next level you need this. 

Also, read  

6 Re-engaging Newsletter Ideas To Re-engage Your Subscribers

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