Why You Don’t Need a Big List to Start Making Money Online

Welcome to the second post in the Passive Pinterest series. If you haven’t read the first post in this series you can find it right here. Go here to read the third post in this series.

So in the last post, I showed you how you could start generating a passive stream of income for yourself by creating a funnel fueled by the power of Pinterest. 

In this post, I’m going to dispell the myth that you need to have a big list before you can start making any money online.

When I first started my business in January of 2016, I thought I needed to build my list, my audience, and my credibility before I could even think of creating something to sell to my audience. 

This was definitely the wrong way to go but I just didn’t know any better at the time.

As a result, I wasted a better part of a year trying to build my list and more than likely missed out on a lot of money. I really don’t want you to make that same mistake.

You see, the greatest thing about creating passive income (that people don’t even realize) is you can start selling right away, even with NO LIST.

If you have the right funnel in place, you’re actually creating everything you need to build your list while building your income at the same time, it’s brilliant!

So let’s dive into funnels a little bit more so you can understand exactly how this concept works.

The first thing you need to figure out is how you’re going to get people signing up to your list so you can move them through your funnel and get them to buy.  

Step 1 // Create a valuable freebie

So many people can get stumped on this step. But, there are plenty of creative ways to get people to sign up for your list. Let me show you how you can easily get started by creating the perfect freebie, also known as an opt-in or lead magnet.

When you’re trying to figure out what type of freebie to create for your audience, you should always consider these two things: 

1.  The value of your opt-in. Your freebie should solve a problem or pain point your audience struggles with and should be as good as something you would charge money for.
2. The relate-ability to what your business sells and who you serve.

The value and relateability of your opt-in are super important. It doesn’t have to be hard or time-consuming for you to create. Just make sure it’s something that is valuable to your audience and easy for them to consume. 

Here is a list of content upgrades or opt-ins that you could create in under an hour:

• Checklist
• Worksheet
• Cheat sheet
• Tools/ Resources guide (great way to add your affiliate links)
• Swipe file
• Tutorial (if you already have one)
• Quiz
• Workshop (previously recorded)
• Resource Library

Step 2 // Collect Email Subscribers

Once you have your freebie figured out, you’ll have to figure out how to collect all those email addresses.

You can do this in many ways… with a welcome mat, pop-ups, slide-ins, top bars, landing pages, and much more. You’ll probably have to test each one of these until you find which one works best for you.

On this site, I use a combination of these tactics to help me collect emails and deliver my freebies.

I have a Welcome mat set up with Sumo, an exit intent pop-up from ConvertKit, and I use Leadpages for all my content upgrades. 

There are a ton of different options available, let’s take a look at some of the ones I recommend…

The Best Lead generation software:

• Pop-Up Ally (free and paid)
• Convert Plug (one-time fee)
• Thrive Leads (one-time fee)
• Convert Kit (monthly subscription)
• Welcome Mat from Sumo (free and paid plans)
• Opt-In Monster (monthly subscription)
• Leadpages (monthly subscription)

Step 3 // Promote Your Freebie with Pinterest

Now that you’ve created your freebie and have the software in place to collect people’s email addresses it’s time to start promoting it!

As you know Pinterest is one of the best ways to drive a ton of targeted traffic to your site… but what good is all that traffic if you’re not getting people into your funnel?

When used strategically, Pinterest can be your biggest source of free leads this year.

So how do you go about promoting your freebies on Pinterest?

1. Create new pins for your blog posts announcing your freebie (include a mockup with a call to action)
2. Create a pin specifically for your freebie or opt-in that leads traffic directly to your landing page. 

You’ll want to consider setting up a dedicated landing page for your amazing new freebie. That way you can send traffic directly from Pinterest. 

A landing page is a distraction-free page (no sidebar, header, or any other clickable link) where people can go to learn more about your freebie and sign up.

Once you have your landing page all set up you’ll want to create a pin and promote it on Pinterest.

1. Design a beautiful pin (with a strong headline describing the benefits or results from your opt-in) that goes straight to your landing page.

2. Upload the pin from your file manager (computer) to Pinterest. (No need to place this image on your site)

3. Enter the URL destination (to your landing page)

4. Create a keyword-rich description (so it will show up in Pinterest and Google search results) 

You will also want to create many different pins (with different headlines) that will send traffic to this landing page. In fact, I would recommend having at least 10 if you can.

This will allow you to promote these pins daily and help send targeted traffic to your landing page where you can expect at least a 20-30% conversion rate.

So… if you can get 100 people a day from Pinterest to click on your pins, and visit your landing page then you’ll have 20-30 new subscribers every single day.

Pretty sweet. 

Now we just mapped out the first half of your funnel. The next half is all about setting up your emails that nurture your subscriber and leads them to your paid offer. 

Next week I’ll be back with the third and final installment in the #passivepinterest series where will show you exactly how I make money every single day with my free e-course.