We’ve all been in the blogging slump before, and perhaps you’re in the same unfortunate situation yourself. When your readership counts grows at a rate that barely gives drying paint a run for its money and your daily routine seems stale and ordinary. If you are in this dreadful position, you can take comfort in knowing that the blogging slump is not only your biggest challenge, but also your greatest opportunity for success. The motivational surge you can create by taking a blog out of the slump and into stardom will send you to the keyboard making posts for years to come. It will definitely open up some wallets for you as well. So let’s get out of the slump, turn your site around and start creating something meaningful for your audience. By any chance, have you considered promoting your blog using free content?
Free Content Will:
-Create the Right Atmosphere
Free content puts you out there as a person of integrity; a person who is willing to aid your audience without expectation of anything in return. If the very first thing you offer to a new reader is free, experienced content which can aid them in solving their problems, well then you just transformed a random internet surfer into a long term customer. Consider the opposite, if you were to immediately ask them to open their wallets before you built any sort of relationship with them, do you think that they would comply? Of course not, free content allows you to start building a strong, positive relationship from the beginning.
-Test Value
Without value your content is useless, and free content is a great way to test the value of your ideas in front of a larger audience. By spreading your free content to other websites, blogging authors could potentially send your free ebook virally to all their subscribers which in turn would pass it on to their friends. Does your content inspire viral sharing or immediately deletion? Either way, you have to get it out there and test it before you will know for sure, so free content is a great way to run this experiment.
-Impress Your Audience
Your audience will be impressed by your free content if you make it delectable to the ears. Does it sound like your free ebook which requires an email subscription is the answer to what your customer is looking for? Does it sound like they cannot live without your precious information which also happens to be free? If people crave it, and you provide it for free, then you will have a feeding frenzy on your hands.
Don’t Just Give the Content
Free content is great in any form, whether that’s an ebook, a newsletter, video tutorial or just an extensive series of articles on your own blog. However, free content is online gold if you promote it correctly and use it to increase your subscription count. If you find that any of your free content is exceptionally well accepted by your audience then you should look to ask them to subscribe (for free obviously) in order to view it. You can easily take your top 10 posts on a single subject area, package them into a series of ebooks and then finally mail them out one day at a time with an autoresponder. This autoresponder would require an email address to work, so there you have another subscription for your site.
Offering free content in the form of seven emails over the course of seven days was how I took a blog from 2,400 readers to 10,200 in just six months. What’s more, I could then use email marketing to provide solutions to an audience which had come to depend on me for my free content, thus making it much easier to sell them products (which also helped them to achieve their goals). I opened their hearts and then they opened their wallets.
Do you offer free content in order to increase subscription numbers? If not, what’s stopping you?
To read more articles by Chris head over to The Traffic Blogger.
Tagged with: Blogging • email list tips
Filed under: Blogging • Email List Tips • How to...
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
We are
Wanda & Paula - 2 friends who successfully operate a number of online internet businesses. In fact we have over 20 blogs and websites making money. We have learnt a lot over the years particularly in the area of natural search, SEO
and traffic generation. If you want to make a living online then we are here to
help. 
You are right about the free, quality content. The only way anyone is going to want to hear more from you is if your first impression gives them something of great value.
I have found that quality over quantity is the name of the game to get more subscribers. Thanks
paul@sitefurnace.com‘s last post…Using paid advertising to get your website a readership
That’s so right Paul. People need to trust you first before they sign up.
You’re very welcome Paul. You’ve hit on a very key point and that’s the first impression you give to someone who visits your site. You’re right on quality over quantity as well; it is better to say write great content twice a week than to put out poor quality content every day.
Chris “The Traffic Blogger”‘s last post…A Blog With No Comments
I like the idea of offering free content in order to grow your list but I’m wondering just how much content you can come up with when working with physical affiliate products. Maybe a buyer’s guide but what else to keep to keep the subscriber engaged?
That’s always a little more tricky when dealing with physical products. The problem is often that people are usually only interested in a specific product for a short time…in other words you might only be interested in a Canon camera up until the time you buy it. After that, you are not likely to scour the net looking for information and reviews about it.
So I guess to get them to sign up initially, you would go with your buyers guide idea and then maybe ongoing tips for using that product and then maybe reviews for related products.
Hi Cathy, I am not sure if I am answering your question perfectly, but my advice would be to give tutorials on how to use the physical products you are selling, or perhaps new uses for them which people might not think of initially or might not buy them for in the first place.
Chris “The Traffic Blogger”‘s last post…Email Marketing and List Attrition- Idiocy or Genius
Excellent post Chris! Having seen the growth on the author’s site first hand, I can definetly vouge for the legitimacy of his strategies. I am going to be utilizing similar strategies as I have been learning a lot by watching how he has been growing his site so well.
Thank you. If you ever have a question just ask
Chris “The Traffic Blogger”‘s last post…A Blog With No Comments
My site started out by me giving out my training guides and tips and then went into product reviews, niche news and other topics that the community suggested.
It was only after I had a hefty amount of traffic and a bought-in community that I started selling stuff – first a few books and dvds and then a full line of sports gear.
If I had to turn off the ecommerce store I could still probably make a decent amount just off of product recommendations and media sales.
It all started with the really good, freely given content.
Craig (Fencing.Net)’s last post…Mariel Zagunis wins Orleans Sabre World Cup
Thank you for sharing your story Craig! And I’m sure that the credibility you built with that group of people made them buy from you again and again for their sporting needs.
Chris “The Traffic Blogger”‘s last post…A Blog With No Comments
Offering quality, free materials to help others is a great way to get started in blogging. I have been working on developing some offers. How many should you start with? Is one enough, or do you need several different offers?
Linda’s last post…Is Internet Marketing Too Risky
One is definitely enough to start with and one is sometimes all you will ever need. It just depends on your blog, your audience and your topic.
Nice article! It’s basic relationship building, people need to trust us before actually converting. Personally I wouldn’t buy anything from someone without knowing them a little. That’s just how most people do it.