Learn How this Blogger used Beacon to Grow his Mailing List

In the words of Jose Ramos:

"Much of the process of starting a blog and gaining traction is challenging and time-consuming. It’s an uphill climb to build a website that looks great, pitch blogs for guest posts, create exceptional content, and set up email marketing to grow an email list. Most things take much longer than I anticipated at the beginning."

Jose, who is an actuary at an insurance company by day started his blog Upgrowth Effect towards the end of 2015. He wanted to help people achieve goals that fuel them and take their life to a new level. His number 1 goal for the blog is for readers to be inspired to take action after they read his content.

Since he is a naturally analytical person, Jose is constantly setting up and tweaking systems to make incremental and consistent progress towards his own goals. With that in mind it is no surprise that when he first started his blog, Jose went about researching a system that would help him to grow his blog quickly.

"My main goal was to drive traffic to my website and grow my email list by offering lead magnets through pop-ups and landing pages on my site."

A lead magnet is a free piece of content that you can offer to website visitors that will encourage them to join your mailing list. eBooks, checklists and how-to-guides are all popular lead magnets. Since you are offering your visitors something valuable, they are more likely to opt-in to your forms than if you simply ask them to join your mailing list.

A False Start

"Soon after I started my site, I created an ebook by PDFing a word document. I included some pictures and added formatting to try to make it look good. It just looked like it was thrown together. It didn’t look professional. I spent a lot of time creating great content. But I didn’t know anything about design. I didn’t know of any tools that could help me put the content together in a visually appealing way."

This is a common experience for new bloggers. While they understand the theory of growing their audience and are enthusiastic about implementing strategies, the outcome is usually less impressive than that of the renowned bloggers whose success they hope to emulate. It’s easy to become disheartened.

"My original ebook had great content. But readers probably opened it up and didn’t read through it because it didn’t have a professional look. The readers decide in a split second whether they will use their valuable time to read through the ebook. If it doesn’t look great, they will never take action because they will not read the great content."

Up and Running

Things changed when Jose started using Beacon.

"Using Beacon was easier than I imagined. It was very easy to paste my copy into the software. Then, with a few clicks I was able to change colors and formatting. The eBook I created with Beacon looks professional. The design looks great. It has an awesome cover page, table of contents, 1 page cheat sheet that highlights the main concepts, and a call to action page at the end that encourages readers to check out my blog."

Jose can now use his eBook as a primary strategy for growing his email list.

"When people sign up for my newsletter, they get a welcome email that includes the ebook I created with Beacon, which is a 21 page guide to setting goals. Since readers will be impressed with the design, they’ll be much more likely to read through the content, print it out, and refer to it later. That’s my main goal!"

Focusing on the Future

While Jose is only a few months into his blogging journey, he is convinced that creating worthwhile content is the best way to help his audience.

"I will use Beacon regularly because it takes care of all the design work. That way, I can focus my attention on creating remarkable content."

By putting his readers first and focusing on what will help them most Jose is well on his way to establishing his blog amongst a growing fan base.