#127 | Drive traffic forever

Heyyy

I’m a huge fan of the ‘build once, drive traffic forever‘ model.

I mean, who wouldn’t be, right?

But that doesn’t mean that you can just build out a niche website and then go sit on the beach while it drives passive income.

Although plenty of people were sold that dream, unfortunately!

While it may not work with SEO, the ‘build once, drive traffic forever’ model works perfectly with email newsletters.

I’m building out evergreen email sequences.

When a person joins the email list for one of my niche websites, they’ll get one email per week forever.

Each email drives clicks to the site, while I do absolutely nothing.

How this works…

When someone joins an email list, they start at the beginning and follow the sequence of 100 emails.

Then, they go back to the start and repeat in a loop.

By then, it’s two years later. So unless they’re elephants, they have no idea that it’s a loop.

When your list is small, like under 5,000 people, there’s no ROI in writing emails that only a few people read.

But with this method, no email is wasted.

Because every single new subscriber starts the sequence at Email One.

When the list is bigger, you can also combine this strategy with sending fresh email broadcasts about current topics, of course.

There are 3 ways to create a sequence of 100 emails.

I know that 100 emails sounds like a mammoth task but don’t worry, it’s really not. I promise!

I can’t say which of these methods is right for you, but here are the 3 methods I use.

Method One: Write the emails

Okay, simplest first.

Just write the goddam emails.

Don’t try to write 100 in one go though, because it will take months and you will surely go insane or give up (or probably both).

Instead, just write 1 email per week, or 2 if you’re feeling fancy.

Just be sure to stay ahead of your first subscribers, so that they never run out.

If you have a couple of hours per week to spare, you like writing and you don’t want to spend any money, this method is for you.

You need to be good at copywriting though.

If you’re not, then Miles Beckler has a great copywriting course.

Here’s how you can get it for only $5.

Method Two: Get someone else to do it

If you know the value of your time or don’t have the inclination to become a great copywriter, just pay someone else to do it as a one-off task.

You can get a freelancer or an agency to write the emails and upload everything to your email software so you don’t have to lift a finger.

Choose the right person, and they’ll do a better job than you could do yourself too.

I had ContentPit write the email sequence for my website.

Disclaimer: I helped train the email team at ContentPit by giving them guidance on how to create the perfect email, based on what I learned from several online courses such as this.

Their talented team did a fantastic job of crafting an email sequence, with each email driving a ton of traffic back to articles on the blog.

If you’d like someone else to take everything off your hands and build out an email sequence that drives traffic on auto-pilot forever, then check out ContentPit’s Newsletter Management service.

You can use code NICHESITELADY for 10% off.

Method Three: Get AI to do it

This could be a good middle option, since it’s cheaper than having an agency or freelancer create your emails, and it’s also faster than writing everything from scratch yourself.

This week, I’ve been testing a brand-new tool called AutoMailer.

You just enter the url of the articles that you want to promote, and the tool writes the email and sends the draft to Kit for you.

(Or you can paste it into whatever email service you use.)

Disclaimer: This tool is very new. It’s a bit clunky still, but it’s improving every day and new features are being added.

AutoMailer does more than just sequences too. I’m also using it to write my news emails.

My team create news posts with GhostCraft, but we don’t have time to cover everything.

So I use AutoMailer to find other relevant news articles and put those in my email too. This ensures that we offer the best experience for the reader. They appreciate that.

You can try AutoMailer for free.

Only you will know which of these methods is best for you and your email list.

Right now I’m growing multiple email lists, and I’m using a hybrid of all three methods.

But what you should never do…

Is ignore email completely.

Because if you want to drive traffic forever, it really is your best bet.

– NSL


P.S. If you’re wondering what to put in these emails, I would suggest links to your evergreen articles.

Links to news-style posts and affiliate offers are best done as timely broadcasts rather than part of this evergreen sequence.

I usually link to one or two articles in each email.

But I’ve found that people often stay on the site to read more than that.

That’s because I have really good internal links that inspire FOMO so people want to read more.

If your internal linking could possibly do with improving, then now is a great time to get that done.

If you can do that manually, then great.

But if you have a lot of articles, or maybe you didn’t write them all yourself so you don’t know exactly what you have…

Then a tool can be helpful.

If you want to build internal links as fast as possible then Link Whisper is the tool to do it with.

Right now, readers of this email can get $25 off Link Whisper if you use code NSL25 before Saturday.

Click here to get started.

P.P.S. If you found this email to be a little affiliate-heavy, I apologise.

That wasn’t my intention when I started writing it.

I just like the knowledge I share to be as actionable as possible and as part of that, I share the tools and services I’m using myself to get the job.

Since I started outsourcing a lot more, I use more stuff.

But next week, I have something very different planned for you.