If you consider yourself to be something of a paid traffic expert, or you want to be seen as such, I’ve got a lead gen/business idea for you.
I’m giving away this idea. You’re free to use it. In fact, I hope you do.
Here goes:
1. Start a newsletter. Call it “Classified Growth” or something sexy like that.
2. Go around, finding other newsletters that sell classified ads. There are hundreds or thousands of such newsletters, but they are not organized, and they often do not make it known they sell ads. You might have to email them and ask or suggest it.
By the way, I’m not talking about big featured ads like you can find inside Morning Brew, which have a big photo and hundreds of words of copy, and which are really intended for rich brand advertisers. Databases of newsletters offering those kinds of ads already exist.
I’m talking about small, classified-like ads, 100 words max, no picture, which can be integrated into the content of a newsletter, which are likely to cost a few hundred to maybe a thousand or so dollars, and which are perfect for advertising to get dedicated newsletter readers. As far as I know, there’s no source to tell you where to find those.
3. Each week, send out a new issue of your newsletter. Publish the latest classified ad opportunities you’ve found, and link to a page where you keep a running list of all the previous classified ad opportunities you’ve found.
4. Add in a little intro paragraph to each issue with your own voice so people know who you are. Casually mention any status-building things that happened to you or to your newsletter over the past week.
5. To grow your newsletter, do a good job implementing 1-4 above for four weeks, then email me and I will promote your newsletter to my list for free. I’ll also give you the contacts of 10 other people with sizable email lists who are likely to promote your new newsletter for free.
6. After you start getting people onto your newsletter, to monetize, sell your own consulting services or products or community, or sell ads, or sell affiliate offers.
The cons of this:
You’re likely to attract people who are at the early stage of newsletter growth. This means they are unproven and uncommitted — they might fail or quit.
And if they do succeed, they are likely to outgrow your newsletter and focus on other newsletter growth strategies that are easier to scale. That’s why I say this makes sense if you want to offer services or products around paid traffic and can use this as a lead-gen method.
The pros:
There is clearly demand. I would subscribe and read this newsletter each week, and others would too.
There are literally thousands of people with newsletters hoping to grow, and hundreds more joining every day. And since we’re talking about paid traffic, you’re likely to attract a serious segment of that audience, who might even have some money to spend.
So that’s my business idea for you. Again, I hope you run with it, because I would love to see it happen.
I’m currently working on growing two newsletters — the one you’re reading, and a second one that’s still in a bit of stealth mode, about a health topic.
In the past, to grow various newsletters I’ve had or have, I’ve run Facebook ads, solo ads, Twitter ads, paid “recommendations” like they have on Substack, banner ads, and classified ads in other newsletters.
The classified ads in other newsletters win in terms of quality of traffic.
The problem is, classified ads take time and are not scalable, but a resource like the one I describe above could help.
At the same time, it could help you build your own list, quickly, with highly qualified and valuable leads, that you could then monetize into submission.
Speaking of which, if you do launch the above newsletter, you’re likely to have more success selling your services or products if you drive your readers to a second, daily email newsletter like the one I write each day.
If you’d like to see how I do that each day, so you can model what I’m doing to make money, you can sign up to my newsletter here.