Brand New Blogger List Building Tips
When you first join the blogging world it can be really exciting. You have so many ideas and dreams for your blog. Your thoughts are completely consumed with amazing blog topics and you feel like you're a walking content machine.
While you're submersed in blog posts, you may be forgetting something SUPER important. Your list. So many new bloggers put this off until they feel like they're more established and I'm here to tell you that that's a huge mistake!
List building gets pushed to the side much too often because brand new bloggers may not be aware that email marketing isn't just for selling. So, when you're just starting out, it can be pretty intimidating to enter this field. But, let me tell you, this thought process could be doing your blog a lot of damage.
So, before you sign up for your ESP (email service provider) let's talk about 4 things you need to be amazingly clear on first.
Know exactly who you are serving
Know their pains and struggles
Feel confident in your solution(s)
Adjust as you go (blogger growing pains)
Know exactly who you are serving. As you've been traveling along on your blog journey, you may have heard this phrase (or variations of it) quite a bit. You know it's important, but you may not feel like you have this down yet. On a scale from 1-10, how well do you feel you know your ideal client? Write that number down.
let's do a fun little exercise.
I want you to seriously get a notebook out or bring up your notebook app. on your phone and answer these questions. Close your eyes and write down everything you feel and know about this person you serve. Pretend you're sitting at a park bench with your ideal reader/client/customer and answer the following questions:
Male or female?
How old?
Pets?
Family?
What does he/she do for a living?
Are they happy?
What keeps them up at night?
What excites them in the morning?
What are their goals?
What kinds of questions do they ask you?
What could you two talk about for hours?
After you've written down your answers to each of these questions (extra credit if you can elaborate and add extra details!) I want you to rate yourself again, from 1-10.
Did your number increase or decrease? Take a step back and ask yourself why? Were you overly confident and your answers didn't come easy to you? Or did you surprise yourself?
Know their pains and struggles. We touched a bit on this topic when you went through the exercise above (what keeps them up at night). Now, I want you to dig even deeper. Think about their biggest pain. What keeps them up at night and what kind of answers are they looking for. I want you to write down their biggest pain. Then ask yourself , "why?" 5 times! This process will get you so crystal clear on their problems you will be amazed! So, here's an example:
Clients biggest pain: She wants to lose 20 pounds.
WHY? Because she gained a lot of baby weight.
WHY? Because she ate too much ice cream when she was pregnant.
WHY? Because she had huge cravings!
WHY? Because she wasn't eating the right/healthier foods.
WHY? Because she had no guidance when it came to diet during pregnancy.
Wow, do you see how I narrowed that down? Originally you thought you knew your clients biggest problem, lose 20 pounds. But, how generic is that? Pretty much everybody wants to lose 20 pounds, so that doesn't help you create your own market, much less show people that you are the expert. You can't be the expert in helping everyone lose 20 pounds. That's too generic and way too broad. What you can do, is specialize in helping women stay at a healthy weight during pregnancy by providing guidance, education, etc.
Feel confident in your solution(s). Now, let's talk about your solution. You identified with your client's biggest pain, now think about how you can help them. If your client came to you and asked you to help them with their 5th WHY, would you be able to? Think about what kinds of solutions you would have for this problem, topics you could cover, programs you could offer, etc. What kind of transformation are they looking for? Asking yourself the WHY's and brainstorming each of them is an excellent way to create content your readers and clients will adore!
Adjust as you go (blogger growing pains). If you do your job well, your blog will grow and evolve. You may find that a different group of customers/readers are totally into your blog while the original group you had set it up for went to a different party! And you know what? That's totally ok! The important thing is that you are always in the right mindset to serve and help others and accept the people who show up at your blog door because they're the ones who feel a connection with you and need your help.
When you have all four of these things down, you can then start focusing on building and nurturing your list. Content will come so much easier to you now!