7 Ways to Build Your Mailing List for Free

​Be Active in Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are a great place to connect with like-minded people. You would be hard-pressed NOT to find a group that is similar to your interest. Below is a sample search for groups related to the term Crochet.

The first 6 results from that keyword have a collective strength of almost 40,000 users. By joining these groups you can gain access to a wealth of information, that, as a course creator can you be used to your advantage.

Not only will you be able to set yourself up as a subject matter expert by responding to questions posted by other group members, but you can also quickly find out what are some of the pain points that you need to address.

Then you can create your Course Sales Page and your marketing emails based on these pain points. There is nothing better than to carry on the conversation your prospects are already having in their minds.

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​Posting Your Answers on Reddit.com

I have mentioned reddit.com in my previous post as well. Reddit continues to be my #01 pick for promoting content. But you cannot be spammy on Reddit. Well, you shouldn't be spammy anyways!

It's all about contributing in a meaningful way, all the while establishing yourself as a true Subject Matter Expert in your niche. When people see that you are providing great value for free, they're more inclined to buy from you in the future.

It works pretty similarly to real-life sales. Would you rather buy from someone who knocks on your door and tries to sell you something, OR, from someone you have already built a relationship with?

So take advantage of this amazing free platform to promote yourself. A good way to go about it would be to answer a question and maybe even write a longer, more comprehensive blog post about it.

So in our example screenshot above, you can mention something to the effect of "YES, you can write the digits in PI backward. Not only can you write it backward, but I also have a neat trick on how to memorize anything backward. It has got a lot to do with the frontal cortex of the brain blah blah blah. I wrote an article about this exact thing on my blog. You can read that article here {insert your blog link}".

Boom! You just did 3 things here:
1. Established yourself as an SME
2. Provided a valuable answer
3. Provided a Call-To-Action (CTA) to the readers

​Answer Questions on Quora.com

Quora.com continues to dominate the Search Engine Results Page i.e. SERPs. Quora has created so much User Generated Content (UGC) that Google has started awarding it with page one rankings. It has become the go-to place for people to ask questions. 

And you can benefit from this by answering all these questions. One big difference between answering questions in a Facebook Group VS. answering on Quora is that your answer becomes publicly searchable. This is so much better than a closed FB Group where your answer will never become part of a google search.

Just like any other social network, you would want to make sure that your Quora Bio is up to date. This will help in anchoring your dominance and your SME. It is also your chance to showcase your blog/website/E-commerce store.

Once you start following topics and also let Quora know in your bio section what are you knowledgeable about, you will start seeing questions being posted about that particular topic. Now you can start answering these questions and work towards building your social clout.

​Post Frequently On Industry Blogs

In my day job, I work as a CRM Consultant. The product I help companies implement is called Salesforce.com. And they have done a great job in gamifying the user community. 

Within the Salesforce ecosystem, users can collect points for answering correctly to questions posted by other users. It's a self-sustaining user community with little to zero governance required.

As you can see above, Steve Mo has answered a shit ton of questions! This makes him one of the top answerers. He doesn't get anything special apart from bragging rights for being one of the top responders.

However, he has built an amazing reputation within the Salesforce user community. Almost everyone knows his name because of the way he responds to users with detailed answers.

Now imagine you doing this for your user community? And also imagine how would the users react if you ended up creating an online course that'll solve their pain point?

I can tell you this, If Steve Mo releases ANY course related to Salesforce, I will be the 1st person in line to buy it! Why? Because the guy has proven through his answers within the community, that he knows what he is talking about.

So I encourage you to be active within your niche and hit up all the blogs within that niche. Become the goto person who answers every question, every objection, every problem. This will help you in building a following of raving fans who will want to buy from you. As Kevin Kelly had mentioned in his book 1000 True Fans, if you can get 1000 people to know, like, trust you and you sell them a $100 product then you can make $100K year. 

​Become a Guest Blogger

There is no shortage of blogs today. If you search on google "How many blogs are there" the results are pretty astonishing. There are more than 500 million sites classified as blogs. 

In the above example, I have highlighted a blog that looks relevant to my search of "how to create an online course". I found this blog on page 3 of google searches and it looks like it was published recently. 

You can use this to your advantage by writing for other blogs. If there is one thing a blogger struggles with (trust me, I know) is the struggle to write quality content for their readers. You can help other bloggers out by pitching them on a guest post. Maybe you have an article in mind that you want to write, but you're just starting and you don't have any authority on google.

One thing to keep in mind when pitching blogs for your guest post is to make sure you look for blogs that are on page 2 and beyond on the SERP's. The reason is simple, if I'm already on page one of google, I most likely don't need your services. 

Also, when approaching a blog to do a guest posting on, remember to check it's freshness. Recently published articles are an indication of a blog that is well maintained and in good standing with google.

Guest posting is a quick way to build authority and get backlinks to your site. Coschedule has a really good article on how to pitch someone for guest posting.

Even though this is a tedious task, it is a great way to build relationships with other industry bloggers and shortcut your authority in your SME.

​Create Your Blog 

There are SO MANY platforms out there to create a blog of your own. This truly comes down to personal choice. My recommendation would be either you start with Medium.com or WordPress.com (or both). 

Medium is probably the quickest way for you to get to market. Medium.com is a platform where you can create a blog and start writing within minutes. Your blog URL would look something like medium.com/sfdcmastery. 

The benefit of going with medium.com is that it's a no-frills blog with minimal effort required in learning. If you're passionate about your topic and just want to get the word out there then medium.com is my #01 recommendation for you. 

On the other spectrum is WordPress.org (NOT TO BE CONFUSED with WordPress.com).

WordPress.org is an open-source platform that allows you to create a blog with minimal investment. However, it comes with a few tradeoff's i.e. 

• Bigger learning curve
• Longer wait time to show up on Google Search results

See, there is this term called Domain authority coined by moz.com. Domain authority is a representation of the authority your domain name has. The higher your domain authority (closer to 100) the more power your domain holds. 

So if I buy a brand new domain name today it is going to have a domain authority of ZERO. But if I buy a used domain that has been around the market for a while, it is highly likely to have higher domain authority. Similarly, you can piggyback off medium.com's domain authority to get your blog to rank higher. 

One of my blog on medium.com is currently ranking on page 1 of google for a search term that has approx 6600 unique monthly searches. And from my medium blog, I drive traffic to my WordPress site where I give away a "Lead Magnet" in exchange for an email address.

This is how most people enter my funnel and go down the path of becoming a paying customer. 

Here is my dashboard showing the number of people that have ended up viewing my checkout cart. All of this is from one single blog post on medium.com 

And that is why I'm recommending using medium.com if you're just starting out and then juxtapositing it with a site on WordPress.org so you can start collecting leads and market to your prospects. 

​Start or Join a Meetup

Meetup.com is a great place to find like-minded people to connect with. The difference between Meetup and other groups is that meetup is in person. If you're feeling like connecting with your tribe and exchange some good ideas then I would encourage you to join a meetup. 

It is free to join and most times these events are free to attend as well. If you cannot find a meetup on the topic you're passionate about, there is always the option to create your meetup. 

Meetup.com will show you some stats on how many people are interested in that particular topic. This is a good gauge before you create a group. 

Keep in mind that if you create a meetup then you will get charged for it monthly. So be careful before taking that step, as you don't want to get stuck with paying for a meetup that no one might be interested in!

Pricing varies based on your location and also on your device type i.e. Android Vs. Apple.