Niche Site Lady - I'm a chronic fence-sitter!

Is your personality type is analytical or intuitive?

By that I mean, before making a decision, do you think hard, analyse the data and weigh up the pros and cons?

Or, do you just trust your gut, focus on the big picture and dive right in?

Each of these approaches can be great, but they can also cause problems for you.

That might be 'analysis paralysis' that leads to failing to start anything.

Or it might be 'impulsiveness' that leads to starting new projects and not finishing them.

I think I suffer from both of these at times! My personality falls somewhere between the two types.

I'm also a very sociable introvert.

So you could say I'm a chronic fence-sitter!

Every day, in our businesses, we're faced with new paths that we can choose to go down.

Given the information presented to us, we must decide whether to venture down that path, or not.

For example - "Should you start a Pinterest account for your niche site?"

If your site is about the thermodynamics of combustion engines that's an easy decision. It's a hard pass.

But, if you have a recipe site, your Google traffic is falling and you have a few hours to spare, then you have options...

You can either dive in and do it, 

OR, you can spend a day analysing the data, working out how much time/money you'd need to invest, what return you would expect to get each month, when you will break even, and what the profit will be.

Here's where I'm gonna save you some time...

I haven't done the calculations for Pinterest, but I have done it based on starting an email newsletter for my new site.

These will obviously vary a bit depending on the niche, but I've used my own data and this formula to work it out, so it should give you an idea... 

(This model is based on spending $1,000 total on Facebook ads to bring in email subscribers at 60 cents each, and a display ad RPM of $25.)

• Ad spend: $1,000
• Subscribers: 1,667
• Daily pageviews from email: 250
• Monthly revenue: $150

Now that's not bad for month 1,

But where it gets interesting is when I reinvest that $150 back into Facebook ads to get another 330 subscribers.

So in month two, I'll have 1,967 subscribers and will make $177.

I'll keep reinvesting for two years, with the power of compounding, I'll have 63k subscribers and will be making $5,700 per month.

Of course, paying for ads to attract subscribers is optional. 

On my travel site, I attracted 80k subscribers organically and they make $7k per month, but it took a very long time.

We're talking 3 years.

That's on me though, I never got any help with my signup forms and some of them were SOO BAD!

Like this one...

That conversion rate is disgusting.

They're not all that bad though.

I also have this form which is bringing in more subs...

Still not great, but now I have finally gotten some help I can make forms that convert WAYYY better.

If I'd have done better from the start, I could have 10x the email subs I have now.

I could be making $70k per month from email.

Yikes.

I just switched from MailerLite to ConvertKit. 

This NSL list is still with MailerlIte, but given that it deleted half of the email when I clicked save, I can't fricking wait to move that over too.

Yes, I'm typing this all out for the second time :(

I digress...

The TL;DR is that I have a SOLID email plan now...

1. Grow an email list for my new site with Facebook ads.

2. Grow the email list for my established site with better-converting forms.

3. Get rich. LOL.

If you want the full details of how to plan out your ROI, then the calculation spreadsheets covering different scenarios are here for you.

Just a heads up though - 

There's currently a 50% discount on the Million Dollar Newsletter Playbook. That ends today.

Just letting you know because there's always someone who ends up paying double and I don't want that to be you.

NSL

P.S. One final thought...

Your search and social traffic can drop 90% overnight based on someone else's whim. Your email list is yours forever and nobody can turn that traffic off.

When you finally come to sell your site one day, the email traffic will be FAR more valuable to buyers than traffic from more risky sources.

Do you need a course?

No. I got so far without one.

Do I regret winging it rather than copying the strategy of someone way ahead of me?

Abso-bloody-lutely!

Affiliate disclaimer: To cover the cost of my email software and the time I spend writing these emails, I do sometimes link to products. Please assume these links are affiliate links. If you choose to buy through my links then THANK YOU - it will make it possible for me to keep doing this.