A lot of people talk about how to make money with email list building…
But not many people actually go into any detail. Today I’m going to show you how to make $10,000 a month by taking you behind the scenes of my email list building business that takes me around 20 minutes per day.
On top of that, I’m going to share my personal 110+ email autoresponder sequence with you so you can learn how to do the same.
At the end of this tutorial you will have learned how to create an email list building funnel that brings in new profit and leads every single day.
What You Will Learn
- My 2 step email list building formula
- How to create your own email list building business
- How to build an auto responder sales funnel
- How to buy traffic & make instant money
- How to build & maintain a relationship with your list automatically
- How to make $10,000 a month
Introducing Johan Shal
My name is Johan Shal, I run Johanshal.com and this is the story of how I work less than four hours per week…
But still managed to build 40K+ leads in less than a year on a shoestring budget. Having over 40,000 email subscribers at your fingertips means daily affiliate commissions and free traffic anywhere you want.
More importantly though, it’s easy, cheaper than you think and only takes about 20 mins per day to maintain.
Imagine:
- Waking up on YOUR terms
- No early commute in traffic
- No waiting in your car, behind a line of exhaust-filled vehicles
- No desperately needing a shot of espresso to keep yourself awake just long enough to endure 8 full hours of your employer’s BS.</li
That’s a scary story, that unfortunately, relates to wayyyyy too many of us.
Your life can be different. Mine is. I escaped.
Let me tell ya how…
==> PASSIVE INCOME <==
The secret sauce to building virtual assets with RESIDUAL income is creating a repeatable business model.
Why hustle for hours to make the same income, when you can almost as easily create something with recurring profits?
Once they’re up and running, it can rake in profits FOREVER.
Just set it and forget it!”– Ron Popeil, Founder of RONCO – Over $1 billion in revenue
Set what??
…What the F#$K is “it?”
In affiliate marketing terms, “it” could be a wide variety of things.
Some of which include: niche sites, Facebook Pages, T-shirt campaigns, YouTube channels, Kindle books, arbitrage and so on…
In this post, we’re building a virtual sales funnel.
Once set up, this funnel will:
- Provide value
- Collect leads
- Generate sales
And the best part, building an email list is creating a virtual property that can net you MUCH MORE than the J-O-B, for a LOT less work.
[Luke] I can’t believe it.[Yoda] That is why you fail.”– Star Wars
Ok okay… Last quote, I promise. How could I resist Star Wars?
Anywho, this blog post is not your typical, press these buttons and watch as your bank account explodes with affiliate commissions. NOPE… It ain’t that easy.
That being said, if you break down this formula into its separate parts, it won’t be that hard either.
My “Rocket Science” Two-Step Email List Building Strategy:
- Step 1: Build a List
- Step 2: Promote Stuff
You don’t need to create your own product. And you don’t need to worry about specific details, like when to send and how many affiliate products to promote, etc.
Sure, there are some email list building best practices to follow.
But as long as you’re focused on email list building and notifying them about “cool stuff” as it comes out, you will make money with this…
Email List Building 101
The reality is that when you started email list building, you’re not going to have subscriber numbers like these overnight:
I knew that building an email list was going to be a gradual process. What I didn’t realize is that you can actually make a lot of money while you build your list. But more on that later…
We’re starting at the beginning, which means building your landing page. For those of us unfamiliar to the term it literally just means a page on your site that is designed to collect email subscribers.
The way it works is simple, your task is to perform an ethical bribe.
An “ethical bribe” in marketing, is a promise of value in exchange for an email address.
- You get subscribers
- They get value
What Can You Give Away Of Value?
Chances are, especially if you’re an active reader of Matt’s blog, that you have internet marketing knowledge that would benefit other people.
Your freebie could be:
- A video
- An ebook
- A blog post
Just something that adds value.
A lot of people get freaked out about this step. That’s unnecessary. You don’t need to giveaway a secret marketing method that only you know about.
As long as some people don’t know (or have) your freebie and you’re helping them reach their goals, your freebie is just fine.
Don’t Want To Create Your Own Freebie?
You don’t even have to… If you’re determined to avoid this step, you can STILL be successful. Goes to show that there are MANY ways to make income with sales funnels.
One option is to embed an informative YouTube video on your blog and then send them to your blog for your freebie. You could even add your own affiliate links into your blog post and collect a little extra BONUS income from this strategy.
Another option is to purchase PLR (private label rights) products. What this means, is that someone took the time to create an entire product or freebie and then is selling the rights to brand this product as your own.
The real advantage of option 2 is that you get to position yourself as an authority. By slapping your name on a high quality PLR product, you appear like an expert in your field.
Even though you literally spent only a few minutes to add your name and branding to the packaging.
Here’s a PLR catalog with a lot of top notch stuff: HQ Biz in a Box
Take a look at a couple examples…
Ex. 1 – Email List Building PLR Package
Ex. 2 – SEO Made Easy PLR Package
Pretty cool stuff, huh?
These PLR packages are completely DONE-FOR-YOU with sales pages, squeeze pages, free reports and follow up emails.
The point is, you have options:
- Create your own freebie
- Steal someone else’s (i.e. YouTube Video)
- Buy PLR and rebrand it
I have personally used all three options in separate funnels and they all get the job done.
Pick you own plan of attack and let’s move on to the bribing!!
Bribing Cold Traffic With Your Awesome Freebie?
Get your freebie and let’s create a landing page that makes it desirable.
Two Step Formula:
- Step 1: Build List
- Step 2: Promote
Now we need to take this (or your) freebie and design a page that promises it in exchange for email addresses.
In marketing, this is called a squeeze page.
Here’s the one I created for this freebie:
You’ll notice a few things about this squeeze page, but let’s break it down.
First thing…
It’s really simple. Has a headline. An image. An opt-in box.
This simplicity is intentional. Simple squeeze pages convert way better. The more you add to squeeze pages, the lower they convert.
Most visitors from cold traffic have an attention span of 5 seconds or less. They’re like goldfish. They visit your page, make a snap judgement and then move on.
Hey, I’m not being judgemental. I’m a goldfish visitor, too. Other than Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and a few others. I’ll only invest a few seconds on your page before I decide whether to stay.
You need to grab visitor’s attention and clearly give your proposition of value, but it all needs to be done in a matter of a few seconds. Tough task.
Less is more, but the less is still important. It needs to have curiosity.
Second thing…
A good squeeze page creates optimistic curiosity. It leaves a little to the imagination. Think of the squeeze page as the lingerie to the… well, you know…
In this squeeze page, I tell visitors about a mysterious “Two-Step Formula” that leads to near instant riches.
What 2-Step formula? Is it going to cost me anything?
… I don’t tell them anything. That is, I’m not telling until they give me their email address.
Get it?
Curiosity is a hell of a drug. It gets people in. They have to know, it’s just human nature.
So here’s what you need for a successful squeeze page:
- Simple (clear to visitors within seconds)
- Proposition of value (you will make money with this)
- Curiosity (secret ingredient that significantly boosts opt-ins)
Overall, that squeeze page is averaging a 58.62% Opt-in rate. The industry avg is around 30-40%…
I’m not saying this to brag (well maybe just a little), but the main take away is that a good squeeze page is simple… BUT makes sure that every word counts.
How to Create A Winning Headline
The headline is the most important element on your squeeze page. It will make and break your conversion rate and in general, should be tested and tweaked many times.
But as a starting point, let’s throw one together real quick.
When I was first learning how to create these, I was fortunate enough to stumble across an article from Eben Pagan that revealed a number of powerful headline formulas.
I’m going to share two of them with you now.
Headline Formula #1: The Quick n’ Easy
This one combines three elements into a single headline and it works like this.
How to [insert benefit here] in [a short amount of time] with [very little work]
Example: How to Easily Get 150+ Email Subscribers in the Next 24 Hours
You’ll notice that the example headline doesn’t exactly match the order of the template. But that’s really beside the point.
The key here is that your headline promises an exceptionally good result, in a quick amount of time with very little work.
It doesn’t matter how you order it, as long as it includes all three elements.
Headline Formula #2: Your Problem, my Fix
This one’s pretty simple. Explain what’s going wrong and then hint at a solution.
Why [this typical method] is [not working]… and what to do about it
Example: Why email list building no longer works like it used to… and what to do about it
This one is meant to position yourself as the person with THE solution.
Everyone else is doing the same old thing and it’s no longer working. Let me show you what does.
This headline can be really powerful and it’s obvious why it works so well.
Most subscribers are looking for that one secret or tool that will take them over the edge and finally make money online.
You’re telling them that you have the answer. Perfect!! We’ve covered headlines. Thanks Pagan.
Designing Your Squeeze Page
I’m going to be 100% transparent here…
I’ve never designed a squeeze page from scratch, ever. Notta single one. Nada. Zilch.
And honestly, unless you are exceptionally skilled at graphic design and/or do-it-yourself projects, then you’re way better off doing it the easy way.
Outsource it or get an awesome head start My shortcut to creating outrageously high converting landing pages is Elementor.
It’s a tool that does 95% of the design process for you.
The ONLY thing you need to do is adjust the text. That’s it.
The way Profit Builder works is simple. It’s a WordPress Plugin that loads dozens of squeeze templates into your blog.
These templates are already top notch quality pages. So pretty much, everything is done-for-you.
Here’s some examples:
Ex. 1 – High Converter
Ex. 2 – Bloom
Ex. 3 – Exotic
You’ll notice that I did very little to change the template. Just clicked a couple buttons, uploaded a replacement photo and edited the text.
All in – it took me about 5-6 minutes of work. … And my current squeeze page regularly gets over 55% opt-in rates. As a point of reference, the industry average is around 30%.
Not too shabby for a few minutes of my time.
The good news is that you can do this, too. It may take you a bit longer than 5 minutes. But I’d bet within half an hour you could create a real good looking page.
You could also use LeadPages or something like OptimizePress if you already have them to create something similar.
Getting Traffic To Your Landing Page
Other than cold hard cash, traffic is your main asset. You need it. Buy it.
There are many places to buy traffic, but the EASIEST way is to buy solo ads.
Here’s how it works:
- You find a solo seller with a solid reputation
- You buy an agreed upon # of clicks
- You pay (around .40) for each click
That’s it. Easy right?
Where To Find Solo Ads
There are two main places to get solo ads.
- Skype
My preference is FaceBook. Solo sellers on FaceBook have their reputations on the line with every sale. So if you pick someone with an established rep, you’re virtually guaranteed to get a decent solo.
Finding FaceBook groups that cater to solo ads is pretty darn easy. Just search for “solo ads” and you’ll get a good-sized list of viable solo groups to join.
All of them are 100% free to join. Find a provider with a good reputation and order your solo.
Here’s a few tips, though.
- All solo traffic is pretty much the same, other than tier 1% (getting to that in a second). Don’t fall for someone telling you that his traffic is way better. As someone who’s purchased over 100 solos, I can say with certainty that traffic quality is comparable. The difference is how related your offer is to the traffic’s interests. Ask your vendor what their list is interested in. They should be able to tell you.
- Tier 1% is an important feature. It means how much of the traffic is coming from wealthy countries. Feels weird to discriminate based on global location, but the reality is that US, UK and Canadian traffic is way more likely to actually buy things. Which at the end of the day, is your main goal.
- Prices are almost always negotiable. I’ve purchased dozens of solo ads and got a discount on the vast majority of them. All you gotta do is ask. Most vendors will drop their prices to close a sale. Solo vendors will be even more likely to offer a discount if you promise to write a testimonial afterwards.
Traffic & Front End Sales… Now What?
Up till now, we’ve covered:
- Squeeze page creation
- A traffic strategy that’s self-replinishing
If you keep reinvesting your front end sales into more traffic, you’ll be building your list rapidly.
Getting that big ol’ email list is now a reality.
How Much Money Can You Earn With Your List?
The vast majority of the money we make should come on the back end. In marketing terms, the “back end” means all emails and promotions that occur after the initial offer.
I’ve heard the claim that email lists should make around $1/month per subscriber.
So let’s do some quick math.
- I have 40,000+ subscribers
- I make about $10,000 a month (from my list)
Okay, so clearly not $1 a month for me. The reality is that there are loads of variables that affect your income per subscriber.
Just because I show you how to make $10,000 a month in this tutorial, doesn’t mean you will make that – you might end up earning more per subscriber than I do.
There are marketers with higher earnings per subscriber and marketers with much lower. It’s going to depend completely on how you market to them.
The reality though, is that this is about as easy as it gets to make money online. But more on that later.
The Money Is In The Email Sequence
The front end offer enables us to keep reinvesting in more traffic. Which gives us our email list.
The autoresponder sequence is where we make the big bucks. An autoresponder sequence is a series of emails that are sent to your list after they initially opt-in.
Most autoresponder services, like Aweber, allow you to build it as big and robust as you want. It’s a good idea to have a full sequence ready to go.
Here’s the first 5 emails in my sequence:
The sequence MUST have promotions but it ALSO must add value to your subscribers. If you only send promotions, it won’t take long for you to burn through your leads.
Burning a list means that subscribers no longer open your emails or click on your links. It’s a very bad thing. And it’s easily avoidable by adding some value in between your promotions.
How Much Can I Make Per Hour?
Here’s an email list building MYTH that never gets old. I see questions like…
“How much can I make [in ‘x’ amount of time] from now?”
This myth makes sense, I mean, people are used to working in 9-5 jobs and expect their income to match the time and effort put in.
It doesn’t work like that. For better or for worse.
There are only three metrics that matter!!
- How much do you EARN per visitor
- How much are you paying per visitor
- How much traffic did you buy
Here’s a thought provoking question for ya…
If I told you that for every $1 you gave me, I’d give you $2 back.
How many dollars would you give me?
If you were smart, you’d give me near every dollar you have. Because you’d know that for every $1, you’d get $2 back.
The key is to build a funnel that makes more per visitor than you spend on traffic.
If you can do that, you’ve won!!
Here’s a time breakdown for you:
- buying traffic takes 10 minutes
- writing an email to send takes 10 minutes
And BOOM… That’s it.
20 minutes total.
Once you have a funnel in place, you can literally spend 20 minutes per day on this and easily make a full time income. No joke!!
One Last Thing…
So far, I’ve advised buying traffic through solo ads. There is a FREE method, though.
Once you get 800-1000+ subscribers, you can start trading clicks.
This works very similarly to buying solo ads. Instead of paying for traffic, you just deliver traffic to a partners page and in turn, get the same amount of clicks back.
It’s easy.
How Click Banking Works
1) Go to a clickbanking FaceBook group.
– “Clickbanking” is a fancy word for trading clicks. That’s all you need to know.
2) Find 5 FaceBook members with several testimonials
– There are TONS to choose from
3) Ask them if they would like to bank clicks with you.
– Make sure to be willing to send first. If you’re the newbie on the block and you’re contacting established banking partners, its good banking etiquette to send first.
Okay, got some banking partners. Now what?
Your banking partners will give you a tracking link. This is how they’ll know how many clicks you’ve sent to their offer.
You also need to create a “trackable link,” so that you can send the appropriate amount of clicks to their page.
A free service for link tracking is called Bit.Ly. It’s not the best and I’d recommend investing in a better one later. But for just starting out – it’ll do the job just fine!!
Then it’s easy. Write up a broadcast email in your Aweber account and include the link to your partner’s offer.
Once you’ve hit the agreed upon # of clicks. Contact your partner and give them a link to YOUR offer.
For Example
You could arrange to bank 100 clicks with 5 partners. Every time you finish sending 100 clicks to a partner, you move on to the next one.
After all is said and done. You’ll have sent out around 500 clicks to your partners.
In turn, they’ll owe you 500 clicks back.
That’s 500 FREE visitors that you don’t have to buy. If you were purchasing a solo ad, that much traffic would cost you about $200.
Trading clicks with banking partners is a great way to get FREE traffic.
Wrapping It Up
As I’m writing this post I can see that I’m approaching the 5,000 word mark. Holy smokes!
I’ve tried to make this email list building blueprint as thorough as possible.
I honestly believe that anybody reading through this entry, could easily get a funnel started in the next few days.
I have shared all of my email list building best practices with you and you now know precisely how to make $10,000 a month online.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my simple two-step formula.
My last piece of advice is this:
Don’t let small minds convince you that your dreams are TOO BIG. You can do this!!
Don’t know where to start? Want to get started with email list building? Need free traffic?
Leave a comment and below and let’s talk about it!