Can You Increase Sales With a Blog? Absolutely!

When building relationships of any sort, a key element for building a solid foundation is trust.

So, when it comes to creating and maintaining a long-lasting relationship with your prospects, long before they become a customer, they need to know they can trust you and the information you provide.

Once they trust you – they may decide to purchase from you.

One of the best ways to build that trust is by creating engaging, useful, and informative content for your blog. By doing this on a consistent basis, your readers and prospects grow to view you not just as a valuable resource, but as an expert in your field.

And guess what?

As they move from prospect to customer, they also become valuable advocates for you and your business. They’ll tell other people they know, and that works wonders for increasing your sales and revenue!

When you start creating your content, remember to think about who you are targeting. The goal is to cater to your niched lists rather than a single, giant list.

The Evolution of the Email List

About 20 years ago, when email lists first started, you would generally have one newsletter and get everyone you could to sign up to it. Not long after that, a trend that still carries on today came into play – the “freemium.”

Freemiums (also called lead magnets) were, and still are, used to entice people to subscribe to your list and can be a case study, ebook, video, or tool. With this ethical bribe, subscribers trade their email address for your valuable content.

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was typical to have one freemium that catered to everyone on your list. Today, however, you should have multiple, segmented lists based on people’s interests in the different topic areas of your niche.

So now, rather than having one freemium for everyone, you might have two, three, four, or even more unique freemuims to entice people to subscribe to a corresponding list.

How to Use a Freemium

So how does this play out in real life?

Here’s an example:

A nutritionist has two product funnels, one for reducing obesity and another about boosting the immune system.

While both conditions are well within the nutritionist’s realm of expertise, they apply to two different groups of people. Granted, there will be some overlap (i.e. obese people with immune system problems), but it is likely that most people will fit into just one of those groups.

In this case, the nutritionist needs to create two lists in their email autoresponder and a corresponding freemium to go with each — like an “Obesity Reduction” ebook and a “Boost Your Immune System” ebook which lead subscribers into the different product funnels.

Then the nutritionist can write blog and social media posts about the different subjects and direct readers to the appropriate freemium that best suits their interest.

Each list will then receive emails about new blog posts, new products, recommendations, or other useful information relevant to their interests.

So How Does My Blog Make Me Money?

Your prospects are now getting valuable information from you. In addition to the occasional email promoting your product (and even affiliate products), announcing new blog posts that lead people back to your site again and again. Then you can start showing the products you have for sale — or affiliate offers — on your site in the sidebar of your posts, making it “non-salesy” and more appealing to potential buyers.

If you are just starting out and don’t have a lot of products to offer quite yet, product referrals work well. A really easy affiliate program that many businesses use is Amazon.com. Amazon allows you to create stores on their site that provide/show related content to your audience.

Take a few minutes to think about your audience. How many lists can you create and what areas in your field would they be?

Let us know in the comments below!

Need to learn more about effective affiliate marketing strategies and techniques?

Click HERE to check out the MyNAMS Insiders Club for only $1!