How to get cheap traffic (if you're not established)

Last week I talked about how everyone should own an email list... even if it's just to practice writing emails at first or to learn more about a topic you're interested in. And if you set it up right and grow to 500 subscribers, you could have a pay-all-your-bills type of business on your hands. Then importantly, I talked about the subtle shift to "starting a newsletter" instead of "building a list" because it removes a lot internal and external friction. The next natural question then is... who the heck will read my newsletter? Or, "How do I get traffic & subscribers to my newsletter if I'm not [Derek Johanson] [Insert your guru here]?" Most established marketers will conveniently leave this out but your suspicions are valid... the best form of traffic is Word of Mouth. It's clearly better to have an established audience in place to promote new ventures like your newsletter to. And people sharing your content with others grows your base of quality subscribers the fastest. Obviously. But most of us don't have an audience to lean on. So what's the next best traffic source? Actually... you do kinda have an audience... you have friends & peers (maybe a few?). You should think more in phases. There's the zero to 100 phase of subscriber growth. And then the 100 to 500 phase of subscriber growth. To go from zero to 100 subscribers you can use free growth methods. This just comes down to getting the initial setup and your topic right. You should start a newsletter that you feel comfortable asking your friends and peers to join. I built the first 100 CopyHour email subscribers by asking friends and peers inside of a forum to join. A newsletter is mainly about sharing quality information you're finding... it's not about giving advice and being a guru. Then there's the 100 to 500+ phase. The nice part is, if you hit 100 subscribers using free methods, you'll feel a lot more comfortable laying down some money for traffic. But you'll still probably have a tiny budget... so you gotta find traffic sources (channels) that are 1) new or early in their development or 2) have recently fallen out of favor with advertisers. I'll give you 2 examples below. But before I do that, I used to work with an actor that had a business of acting course & membership - "how to become a working actor". We were extremely early to Facebook ads. I was able to get pretty targeted clicks for a couple cents. We'd get new subscribers for .20 - .50 cents a lead, run a webinar and make about $1000 (lifetime) for every $100 spent. Ludacris numbers that simply aren't doable anymore. Those same clicks cost $2 a couple years later and I'm sure they're just as expensive today. But by the time things got expensive, he'd already built a good-sized list to market to. Now, here are 2 traffic sources that could fit the criteria from above: - X ads - Beehiiv Boosts 1. X ads are cheaper than normal right now with lots of big advertisers abandoning the platform. Which is why you'll find a lot of smart newsletter owners pumping out simple creatives there at the moment. It wont last so I don't want you to get too hung up on X... it's more the thought process of looking to X. Where can I find audiences that have had big-to-the-niche advertisers drop out recently? What does everyone think is "dead" but it's not actually? 2. Beehiiv Boosts. Beehiiv is a newsletter platform. With "Boosts" you can essentially pay other newsletter publishers for each verified subscriber they get your newsletter. Current reports have Beehiiv Boosts costing under $2.50 for a subscriber. Based on how Boosts work, these aren't the most high quality subscribers but it's a heck of a start. For $1250 you could buy your way into 500 subs. Again, the point isn't Beehiiv Boosts themselves. It's something that's new. When they first came out, it was cheaper to get a subscriber and they were higher quality. Where's the next (even if it's temporary) opportunity? Again, we can think like this because it's just one phase of growth to get momentum if needed. You might not even need or want to pay for traffic. With so many things to consider about starting a newsletter (aka "building a list") I decided to create a simple video course showing you my entire process. Tomorrow I'm going to open up registrations for what I call the Weekend Launch Party: How To Start & Grow A Newsletter From Scratch. My goal is that once you learn the Weekend Launch Party process, you can repeat it quickly and easily in various niche markets until you hit on your perfect idea/list/newsletter. I'm calling it the Weekend Launch Party because the focus will be launching fast (but growing slow). - Since we're starting from scratch I'll show you how to come up with profitable ideas for your newsletter/list using my Reverse Market process. - We'll discuss how to get traffic (starting from zero with no previous connections & on a highly restricted budget). - I'll show you how to immediately monetize the list with the help of something unique I call the 30-Second Survey. - Then we'll talk about growing (probably somewhat slowly) to your first 100 and then 500+ subscribers and beyond. - And we'll talk tools and tech to publish & make it all happen. This is an extremely focused & specific step-by-step process -- one that I've used several times in industries like fan fiction, body language, foreign careers, acting career advice, & copywriting. What this means is I'll ask you to follow along with the exact process using the exact tools and frameworks I'll be using. There are a million different ways to start and grow a list or newsletter. This will be just one way... my way... the Weekend Launch Party way. I want very little guess work on your end. Sound good? I'll have more details and a link to buy the Weekend Launch Party tomorrow. Cheers! - Derek Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( CopyHour.com, 340 S LEMON AVE, 5007, WALNUT, CA 91789