AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey hey, Amy Porterfield here. Welcome to another episode of The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. You guys, we’re at #99. You know what that means, right? Next week we are going to celebrate #100! Finally!
It feels like it’s taken me a lifetime to get there. Next week’s episode is pretty special. It might actually include an opportunity for you to fly to San Diego and come to my house. But listen, I’m giving too much away. There’s a special contest. I wasn’t even going to mention it but I can’t help myself, there is something really cool in Episode #100. So do not miss it. I cannot wait to share it with you.
But let’s focus on today’s episode. The basic concept of today’s episode is to get as much mileage out of one piece of really good content while growing your email list every step of the way. Another way to put it is that the strategy we’re diving into today is all about getting deliberate about your content creation and extending it across all of your social media channels and your own platforms, like your email list, while putting a big focus on building your email list even more.
I’m calling this strategy a list-building blitz campaign. It’s a super snazzy title for something that, quite honestly, is pretty simple. I created the content framework because one of the big reasons many of my students struggle with list building is the lack of original content in their overall strategy, at least a lack of consistent original content.
The list-building blitz campaign makes sure that your content gets the mileage and traction it deserves. Let’s face it, we put some blood, sweat, and tears into our content. We take it really seriously. Why not put a bigger focus on getting it out in front of more people when we are creating it?
The strategy here is incredibly simple in terms of breaking it all down. But it also takes some thought and effort to execute it properly. I’m not actually suggesting that you do this with every single piece of content you create.
Instead, I’m suggesting you be selective with this mini campaign concept that I’m going to lay out for you. Maybe consider doing it once a month. I think once a month would be the sweet spot. If that’s too much for you then pull it back even more. But I don’t think you need to do it with every single weekly blog post you put out there. You’ll see, there’s some work involved, for sure.
I’ve heard that Brendon Burchard has something called circular viralocity. I’ve never learned it but I’ve heard it is kind of amazing. And I’m pretty sure it’s really similar to what I’m going to teach here. But where I think mine differs a little bit is that I’m going to put a bigger focus on list building and I’m not suggesting that you do this with all of your content. Just know this is a shout out to Brendon. I think everything he does is amazing and I’m pretty sure he’s got something really similar and that’s awesome too. For the record, I wanted to put that out there.
Before we get into the specifics and I explain the freebie worksheets that I designed for this strategy, I wanted to tell you that this episode is sponsored by my own List Builder’s Lab. My step-by-step list-building course that I am incredibly proud of because I know your entire business can change when you start to put a very big focus on list building.
I just created a brand new free master class called The Five-Step Plan to Grow Your Email List Using Free Social Media Strategies. You can watch it when you go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/listbuilding. So make sure to check it out. It will enhance everything you learn in this specific episode so we’ve got a lot of good synergy going on.
Let’s move on to the topic at hand. As I mentioned, this strategy is a mix of getting your lead magnet out there in multiple strategic ways and expanding your content to make sure that all the hard work you put into creating stellar content lives on beyond just a blog post and a few social media posts that likely get lost in all the noise.
I’m going to break things down for you and really help you understand how to create the content for your list-building blitz campaign. But first, I want to just lay out the strategy. I want to go through the steps of what this would look like.
There are a few ways you can do this and I’ve broken it up into three different checklists. Those are the freebies for today. I created a checklist if you have a blog but do not have a podcast or if you have a podcast or if you just love to do videos and you want to lead with that. There are three different checklists that I created.
I’m going to go over each of them right now but don’t worry, you don’t need to take a lot of notes because those are your downloadable freebies. All you need to do is go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/99download. Or you can text the phrase 99download to 33444. Don’t forget to grab your checklists because they will be incredibly helpful for you to stay organized as you do your first list-building blitz campaign.
List-Building Blitz Campaign if You Have a Blog But Not a Podcast
Step 1 – First, let’s talk about what the checklist would look like if you had a blog but you do not have a podcast. The first thing you are going to do is write an epic blog post that includes a content upgrade. If you’ve ever listened to any of my episodes about a content upgrade, basically that’s just a freebie that you build as an opportunity into your blog post.
Backing up a little bit more, you might have already heard me talk about an epic blog post in another episode I’ve done. But, what I mean by that, it’s blog post that’s better than your average blog post. It is usually a little bit longer, it’s really detailed, it tends to include a lot of images or a lot of links to other resources, it’s really a guide inside of a blog post. It’s something people want to share, go back to, find it incredibly valuable. They actually talk about it, “Have you seen Janet’s latest blog post about XYZ?”
That usually is an epic blog post and probably takes your twice as long to create. But that’s why I don’t want you doing this every single week. I’m telling you to write a really juicy blog post. Then include a freebie in there.
If you’ve ever asked the question, “How do I know what content to put in a blog post versus what to put in the freebie?” I will get to that. Just know we are going to talk about content.
Step 2 – The first step is to write an epic blog post that includes a content upgrade. The second step is to email your list with a link to the blog post. You’re going to email your existing list and encourage them to check out your blog post. You are adding value to them instantly.
Step 3 – You are going to create a one-minute video about that blog post, maybe one specific topic in the blog post, why it’s so valuable, or why they need to go check it out. It is a one-minute video and you are going to run a video Facebook ad to your blog post. Some of you are like, “Whoa! That’s a little bit advanced, Amy.” But I believe you can do it.
If you’re feeling like that’s over your head don’t let it be. The video can be totally off the cuff. You could be walking on the beach, walking down the street, doing it in your home office. I’m not talking about a professional video. It’s you flipping on the camera and saying, “Hey, I’ve got this brand new blog post about XYZ. Here’s why it’s so valuable. Go check it out.” That’s what I’m talking about.
Step 4 – Do a Periscope session about the topic and drive traffic to your content upgrade. Here you will say, “Hey guys, I want to talk about XYZ,” on your Periscope. Throughout you will tell people if they want to go deeper with this you have a freebie.
You have two options here. The freebie can actually live on its own registration page and that’s where you’re sending your Periscope traffic. Or, if you want them to read the blog post first you could just send them to your blog post. I don’t think that’s the most strategic way to go about it so one of the steps you might want to take is to create the freebie and have it live inside your blog but also have it live on its own registration page. From Periscope you could send them to the registration page.
Here’s where my strategy gets really specific. On Periscope you’re not just regurgitating the entire epic blog post. Instead you are taking one little theme in the blog post and then you are going to riff on it and elaborate on it and engage with your audience about that topic.
Your list-building blitz campaign is not like taking one piece of content and just putting the exact content everywhere it matters. You are actually adding a little twist here. You are elaborating or expanding in different social settings. But it’s all around that same core idea or core message that you’ve created in Step 1, and in this case you created in the epic blog post.
You are going to jump on Periscope. If you’ve never done Periscope, maybe it’s the time to try it out. If you want some pointers about Periscope, I did one of my most favorite interviews with Zach Spuckler (Episode #94); you can learn how to get started with Periscope.
Step 5 – Post the video you did on Periscope onto YouTube. Zach actually isn’t a fan of this. I wrote him an email and asked what he thought of this. He said he doesn’t like to share his original content on Periscope and on YouTube as well. But Zach also Periscopes daily.
If Periscope isn’t something you’re doing on a regular basis, I like the idea of putting it on YouTube to actually get more traction from that video and that’s what I’m going to suggest here.
Step 6 – Post the same video that you did on Periscope and you put on YouTube on Facebook. In this case we are repurposing the exact same content. The exact same video from Periscope is going to be on YouTube and Facebook.
Step 7 – Instagram. You have some options here. You can create a 15-second video to post on Instagram and drive traffic back to your blog post. Or you can take a few powerful quotes from that blog post and turn them into quote images and use that as an image on Instagram and then talk a little bit about it in the comment section on Instagram where you encourage people to check out your blog post.
Or, post any image on Instagram that will align with or spotlight your content and drive traffic back there. But here’s something important. During this time you need to make sure the link in your bio goes directly to that epic blog post. In this case, on Instagram I wouldn’t send people directly to your content upgrade, your freebie. I would send them directly to you blog post. From there they can get the freebie if they want it.
Step 8 – Create three different tweets that drive traffic to your epic blog post. That one’s easy, right?
Step 9 – If you use Pintrest I would create an image that represents something related to your blog post and drive traffic from Pintrest to your blog post. Remember this is in the cheat sheet and you can get all this content there, but what’s important here is that you are taking one central, core messaging idea (the epic blog post) and you are expanding it throughout all of these different platforms.
Sometimes you’re putting a twist on it. On Periscope you are talking about one topic from the blog post. On Instagram you are pulling out just a little bit and then you’re hinting at it and driving people to the blog post. To back up a little bit, on Periscope you are likely sending people directly to the freebie on it’s own registration page versus sending them to your blog post.
On Periscope you are going to talk a lot about the content so I don’t think they then need to read an entire blog post and then get your freebie.
Here is the mindset around your list-building blitz campaign. It’s all about building your email list with core, quality content. Everything you do, you want it to eventually lead to people getting your freebie and joining your email list. I want you to keep that as your central theme as you do each of these steps.
List-Building Blitz Campaign if You Have a Podcast But Don’t Love Videos
Let’s transition a little bit and go through the list-building blitz campaign if you have a podcast but you don’t love making videos. We’re not going to start with making videos. You have a podcast and we will start there.
Step 1 – You create an epic podcast episode that includes a content upgrade. If you follow my podcast you know I do this pretty regularly. I will create a mini training, like I’m doing now. I have some kind of free giveaway that goes along with it and I try to make that giveaway so very valuable, whether it saves people from taking a ton of notes or it gives them the exact roadmap to take action, whatever it might be. That’s what I do on my podcast and that’s what I’m encouraging you to do with your epic podcast episode.
Step 2 – You’re going to take that podcast episode and turn it into an epic blog post, not just show notes, you are actually going to build out a whole blog post so that if no one ever listened to your podcast episode they would still get immense value from your blog post. We are just adding more value there.
I use smart podcast player on my show notes. If I were to do an epic blog post from one of my podcast episodes, which I have done in the past, I would still put the podcast player at the top. I would tell people, “Hey, you can dive into this on my podcast or you can just keep reading here.” There is a little bit of a distinction there, it’s not just show notes.
Step 3 – Email your list with a link to the podcast episode.
Step 4 – Create a one-minute video about your podcast episode and run a Facebook ad to the epic blog post that has your podcast player on it. Then I’m going to encourage you to do the same stuff: Do a Periscope. Put that Periscope on YouTube.
Put that Periscope on Facebook as well. Do the same stuff for Instagram and Twitter and Pintrest. It just looks a little bit different in the beginning
List-Building Blitz Campaign if You Love to Make Videos
Finally, we are going to go into our last list-building blitz campaign. Let’s pretend you are nothing like me and you love to make videos. If you know me you know video is not my friend all the time.
Step 1 – Let’s pretend though that you love to make videos. Then you would start your list-building blitz campaign with a video. It should be a valuable, really rich video. It doesn’t have to be incredibly long but I would say it would be at least five minutes and maybe even go on to 15 or 20 minutes if you’re really teaching something substantial.
You are starting with a value-rich video. You are talking about a content upgrade in that video. You are telling people where to go to dive deeper into the freebie. You have a freebie attached with whatever it is you are teaching in that video.
Step 2 – You are taking the video and you will edit the audio to turn it into a podcast episode if you do have a podcast. That is just repurposing right there.
Step 3 – You are going to take either the video or audio or whatever you have and you will write an epic blog post that is very similar to the video and very similar to the podcast episode. In that epic blog post you are going to include a link to a content upgrade.
If anybody is new with the term “content upgrade,” I should have said this earlier, go to this episode (http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/99) and you will see that I have a big yellow bar in my show notes. That big yellow bar is my content upgrade to get these PDFs. If you don’t go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/99download you could just go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/99 to check out my show notes, and right there is your link to my content upgrade. That’s why I mean by that.
Step 4 – Email your list with a link to your epic blog post or you could send them directly to a video if you want, wherever you want to send people. You should email your list because you are giving them immense value.
One of the things my students ask all the time is, “What should I be emailing out every single week?” This one is a given and you’ve got some options in this case.
Step 5 – You are going to create a one-minute video and you will run your Facebook ad to your epic blog post because you own that. You don’t own YouTube so I don’t think I would send a lot of Facebook ad traffic to my YouTube video but I would send them to my blog post. You could embed your video in your blog post if you want.
You will also do a Periscope session. Here’s where it gets interesting. You’re not just going to do a Periscope session and regurgitate every single thing you said in that initial video you created for YouTube. Now you are going to take a theme of that video and dive deeper or put a slant to it or get some feedback from your audience and riff off that on Periscope. It’s going to be a little bit of a different video but along the same messaging and theme.
From there I would put the Periscope video on Facebook and I would do the same thing with Instagram, Twitter, and Pintrest as I laid out in the very first example.
I know I ran through these quickly but I ran through them quickly knowing you would get the free giveaway. I definitely encourage you to go get those checklists so you can start applying them with your very first list-building blitz campaign.
Let’s take a big moment to first take a breath. I’m talking so fast, I need to slow down. But we’re going to back up a little bit and make sure you thoroughly understand the strategy in terms of content. I think we need to talk about the content you are creating to make sure that your blitz campaign is actually extremely successful.
Here’s the dilemma I think many of my students face when it comes to creating content. I hear questions like, “How do I know what to give away for free versus putting into my paid program?” Or another one I get is, “How is my content on my blog supposed to be different from the free content I use as a giveaway?”
There is a lot of confusion around content. Quite honestly, I sat down and started to map out what the content looks like in different scenarios. It kind of had me baffled a little bit as well. You’re not alone, friend, if you kind of feel unsure about content and where it should go and how you should create it depending on what you’re creating it for.
I actually called my good girlfriend, Gina, who used to work in the content department at Tony Robbins with me. Gina Onativia is her name and she is a content queen to me. She is so good at dissecting the content and figuring out how to explain it to other people in terms of what they should create. Together we worked on these scenarios so I just wanted to give her a shout out. She’s a dear friend and she was really helpful.
There are three stages of content that I am identifying in your list-building blitz campaign:
- Paid – Your paid program or course.
- Free lead magnet – Your free giveaway.
- Free – in front of an opt in. It would be your podcast or your blog post or your YouTube video.
Step 1 – If your paid product is already created I want you to start with your paid product in mind. Take a look at what you offer in that product and choose one of the main themes you can use for your free content, both your opt in and your blog post or podcast or whatever.
You are just choosing one theme out of the entire paid product you have already created. If you’ve never created a product yet I bet you have a good sense of what you want to put together. Maybe you’re selling services or something a little bit different.
I want you to take whatever it is you’ve created to make money and then just take a sliver out of that, I call it a theme, so that you can expand on one theme versus trying to talk about the whole thing because then it sounds really promotional when you go there. Take a theme out of the paid program, product, or service you are offering.
Step 2 – From there, I want you to create a lead magnet that is aligned with whatever it is you are selling. For me I like to think of my free giveaway as something that is really specific, actionable, and dives really deep into one area.
A lot of times in my free giveaway, I set it up, like I have done with your cheat sheets today, so that people can take what I’ve just taught them in my free podcast and apply it and take action with it and organize it easily in their head. I tend to use my content upgrades as ways to easily organize what I have just taught.
You might want to do some kind of blueprint or cheat sheet or maybe you want to create a special training video as your free giveaway. Whatever it might be, for those that are in my Webinars That Convert course, maybe it’s your webinar and you’ve already gotten that taken care of. But I just wanted to give you some guidelines.
Make sure your free giveaway moves your reader to take action. Make sure it’s easy to digest. You don’t want to do a 50-page eBook as your giveaway. They will never get through it and they will never move to the next step with you which is, eventually, to become a customer. At least it will take them a long time to get there so I’m not a fan of really elaborate giveaways that take forever to get through.
Step 3 – Once you create your lead magnet, the third step is to create a piece of content such as an epic blog post or a podcast episode. For that I want you to think about how you can create content that’s really valuable and also teases the next piece of the puzzle, having people opt in to your free giveaway.
You want to leave your audience wanting more or wanting to dig deeper like I’ve done throughout this entire episode. I’m teaching you a strategy, I’m making it super valuable, but I’m also having you take one extra step so you make it actionable as well.
One thing I want you to think about is that the three content pieces: Paid, free giveaway, and free in front of an opt in all build on each other. You want people engaged in your blog so they want to get your opt in. That opt in is a direct link to your product. They will eventually want to buy. They are all varying levels of how folks engage and how they connect with you but they also need to stack the value and relationship each step of the way.
One of my favorite ways to teach is to do it myself and then kind of dissect it for you. Let me paint the picture here. As I mentioned in the intro, I have a program called List Builder’s Lab. It is a step-by-step course to help you decide on your lead magnet topics, create a solid foundation in your business for list building, and then create an entire strategy to attract your perfect, ideal audience with a free giveaway and then really engage that audience and build relationship so that people want to buy from you. That is my paid program.
Today I’m creating a podcast episode all around one theme inside List Builder’s Lab. That theme is basically content creation and using it to build your email list. Then, to expand on that, I have a free giveaway for this episode. It is one that takes what I am teaching here and helps you make it actionable. Do you see how those three pieces of content fit together?
Will you learn this exact concept in List Builder’s Lab? Actually you won’t. This is kind of a little twist of some stuff I have taught before and I wanted to give you a mini campaign to try out because once you start doing this you will likely want to get into list building more and more. Eventually you might want to become a member of List Builder’s Lab.
If you’re not there yet, this is a perfect thing to try on for size to see if you feel comfortable with starting to focus more on list building. See how that works?
For those of you who really want to do this and you really like step-by-step specifics, I’m going to break down how to get started. Before you even go for those checklists, let’s just make sure you have the fundamentals in place.
The first thing you want to do is decide on your lead magnet. Many of you already have a lead magnet. If not, I want you to check out a two-part list-building podcast episode series I did (Episode #83: Cultivating a List-Building Mindset and Episode #84: Growing a Lucrative Email List). I want you to check out those episodes because they are all about getting a list-building foundation in place.
The first thing you need to do a list-building blitz campaign is a lead magnet. Those episodes will help you do just that.
From there you want to create an opt-in page to collect names and emails. I use Lead Pages for that. If you go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/LeadPages you can learn about the tool I use to create all my sign-up pages, my registration pages to collect names and emails. That is going to be important because from Periscope you will want to send people directly to a registration page.
Inside your blog I use Lead Boxes for my content upgrades. If you click on any of those yellow bars inside my blog a pop-up box usually appears. That’s Lead Boxes. That’s my registration form as well.
From there you will make sure you set up an instant email that delivers on whatever you’re promising. Inside your email service provider when someone opts in you want to make sure you send out the initial email that says, “Here you go, here’s what I promised.” If you want to get some extra credit for this I would love to see you set up two more emails. One email delivers what you promised. The second email reminds them to download whatever it is you have given them.
Maybe give them a little extra nugget or extra tip. Tell them a story. Give them a little value. Maybe tell them a little bit about yourself and why you teach what you teach. That would be in email #2. Then you can get creative in email #3. You can add a little more value. You can use images to teach something new. You can walk them through a process. But you are still staying within the theme of that epic blog post or epic podcast episode. That would be the third email.
Why do I tell you that? If you do that you’ve just built a little mini autoresponder. When someone joins your list from the freebie you are going to use for your blitz campaign they will get three emails all related to the original topic all getting to know you and your personality a little bit more before you put them into your rotation of weekly emails that you typically do.
It is just a little way to warm them up before you pull them into your weekly email series. Is this very simplified? Yes. I’m just trying to get you really excited about starting to build a list-building foundation. This is one way you can do it.
Before you dive into my checklist you want to decide if you are going to start with the epic blog post or if you are going to start with a podcast episode. Or, are you crazy and love to do videos? You are going to start there. I’m just joking, you’re not crazy. I’m the one who’s crazy and should be doing more video but it’s nothing I’m really extra comfortable with. It’s just my thing.
For you, podcast episode, blog post, or video. Decide where you want to start and then just dive into the checklists and do all of the different activities on there. I would love to see you actually do all of those in a very concentrated period of time.
Here’s what’s important, I would love to see you actually do that blitz and within three or four days have all of the content delivered. That concentrated time is when people start sharing and talking about it and really seeing the theme unravel with your content. That is a really good thing.
Don’t take three weeks to do the checklist. I would like to see you do it, remember the word is “blitz,” so in a really concentrated short period of time. Heck, you could do it all in one day. You could do it in two or three days, but really make sure you pay attention to the word “blitz.”
We are going to wrap up here. I feel this has been a heavy, heavy episode so I hope you found it valuable. There are a few things I want you to pay attention to.
First, when thinking about a lead magnet for the list-building blitz campaign you can go simple. You can do just a PDF like I’ve done for this episode. Don’t always think that simple means less valuable. That’s not the case at all. Give yourself a little bit of a break if you’re thinking you need to go really elaborate. You likely don’t.
However, if you’re a member of Webinars That Convert, I would love for you to use a webinar as your content upgrade/free giveaway. You are already working on it so why not do a whole list-building blitz around your webinar as the freebie. But, if you’ve never done a webinar, don’t even go there. That’s not what I want you to do. I’m just speaking directly to those that are part of my Webinars That Convert program. I think that’s the best way to go for you.
The next tip I have for you is to make sure you respect the platform. If you are going to deliver content on Instagram make sure you format your content in a way that makes sense for Instagram or for Twitter or for whatever you are doing. Just make sure you are not trying to fit your content into the platform but let the platform dictate how you are going to deliver your content. Just be really aware of that so that it makes sense for whatever platform you are using.
I really love Edgar. If you go to http://meetedgar.com it’s my tool of choice for social media scheduling. Some of this can be put into Edgar. I love that it creates a content library. It will actually use the content over and over again over the next year. If you do all of the work you can put it into Edgar and it will actually surface a month from now or two months, however your program it.
I love the idea of the library of my content inside Edgar getting out on social media. Not all of it can be programmed in Edgar but a lot of it can. It is just something to think about.
To wrap all of this up, the list-building blitz campaign is really all about mindset. It’s about being deliberate and aligning your content creation to your list-building efforts. It’s about creating content that truly matters. In all truth, I want to slow you down a little bit and say, “Let’s create a piece of content that’s incredibly valuable, more valuable than anything you’ve put out over the last few months.”
We are then going to be really deliberate about it and put it out everywhere it matters. But, we will always tie it back to your list-building efforts. I hope I’ve done a good job today to really explain that really is the premise of what makes this so very valuable.
My challenge for you is to download the PDF checklist, grab the one that best suits your situation, and commit to making it happen in the next 14 days. I’m not being overly aggressive here. I’m saying in the next two weeks do your list-building blitz campaign. Then make sure to find me on social media and tell me all about it.
What did you love? Where did you struggle? I would love some feedback so I can maybe elaborate on this and refine the content as we all get going. That’s the cool thing about this whole list-building blitz campaign. This is a new concept I have. I‘ve been doing it for a while now but I’ve never really shared it.
I think it is content I can get better and better at with your feedback as we all start experimenting. I know it works well because I’ve done it but I would love to refine it and make it better. I’m going to be paying attention to all the feedback you give me about it as well.
Again, to get the check list all you need to do is go to http:// amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/99download or text the phrase 99download to 33444.
Thank you so very much for being here with me. I cannot wait to connect with you again in Episode #100 with my extra special contest I cannot wait to tell you about next week. I can’t wait to see you there. Bye for now.
