How to build an audience before you launch your blog

Want to build a blog audience before actually launching your blog?

Wait! Can you actually do that?

Of course, you can! But, how?

The answer is really simple – By building an email list
Most new bloggers think that they can’t do anything with their blog until they have enough content, or they must upload at least X number of blog posts before they start building their email list.
Well, the good news is, you can actually start communicating with your targeted audience before your blog even goes live.
Imagine, connecting with your subscribers and sending them useful tips and resources regularly while, during this time, you’re also working on adding lots of quality content to your blog. This may sound impossible. But, trust me, many have done it. So, the question is, can you?

Well, maybe you can – it depends on a bunch of factors, and that’s exactly what I’m going to discuss here. Later, I’ll also share some tips and tricks which you can implement easily, in order to do it yourself.

So, let’s dive right in!

Building an audience before launching your blog

Start with crafting a landing page

The sole purpose of the landing page is to encourage visitors to take a specific action. Here, we’re talking about capturing email, so your prime focus while creating a landing page should be on how you can tempt the visitors to enter an email address.

Think about it as a transaction. Your landing page should showcase a particular offer, something that your targeted audience considers valuable, and which they can get for free in exchange for an email address.

An offer can be anything, a guide, a mini-course, free printable, tools, research report, subscription, coupons, etc.

For instance, if you’re building a membership site, you can offer discount coupons to early email subscribers by building a landing page before launching your actual website.

Here are some useful tips for creating a perfect landing page,

•       Understand your audience’s needs and create your freebies/offers according to that.
•       Make it as brief as you can and request only what you need.
•       Write a clear Call To Action (CTA) that presents a promise. Make your button prominent, clearly visible, and easy to find.
•       Write it in a compelling way and highlight the benefits of responding.
•       Design a cohesive look, eliminate extra distractions.
•       Create and add an image that helps the visitors to have an idea of what they’ll get, this will produce higher conversion.

Promote your landing page

The key to successfully promoting your landing page is making sure that the right individuals see what you’re offering. So, for this, you need to define your target audience as precisely as possible. The more you know your target audience, the easier it will be for you to use tools and platforms available on the internet to find them.

However, if you’re just starting off and don’t know where to start then, here are the most common ways to promote a landing page.

•       Share it on Pinterest

For your campaign to become successful, it’s important that you use Pinterest in the right way.

First, create at least 5 relevant group boards according to your opt-in freebie/offer.

Secondly, name them properly so that it’s clear to visitors what a board is about, and write clear descriptions of your board.

Lastly, fill out these boards with relevant content, each board should have at least 50 pins in them. Now, create unique, simple, and fresh pins every day with captivating titles for your landing page and upload them on relevant boards. Also, ensure that you write a thorough description of what pin is about and use relevant hashtags as well.

•       Share your landing page URL in your social media Bio/About section

You can share URLs in your bio on various social media platforms like Instagram, Medium, Quora, etc. according to your preference.

•       Paid advertising on social media or PPC ads on Google.

You can run Ad campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Pay per click (PPC) ads on Google is also a great option but, since you’ll be paying per click here make sure that you’re very specific.

•       Share it with other bloggers/influencers and ask for help or collaboration

The online world is full of successful bloggers and influencers with thousands of followers. Collaborate with a few of them according to your niche and ask them to promote your landing page.