What I want to talk with you about today is a service that was launched in 2014 and is now getting over 3 million visitors a month. It’s an email group service called:
groups(dot)io
This place is pretty sweet and is surprisingly still flying under the radar. Like I said, more than 3 million visitors a month use this service and…
…over 68% of that traffic is coming from the United States with another 11% coming from the United Kingdom and Canada. People are definitely trafficking this site.
Communities are here, and wherever people gather, opportunities for traffic and sales exist.
When you think about groups(dot)io, think about it like Facebook groups only with email, which in my mind makes it even more powerful.
It’s a place where you can create and join groups that build and bring together communities of people who care about specific subjects.
With this platform, it is completely free to find and join as many groups as you like.
To start your own group, you can use the “Basic” plan which is free, and you can have up to 100 members in the group. Here’s how I recommend using this platform:
Step 1) Sign up for your free account. Use an email that you check but don’t consider your MAIN email address.
Step 2) Join several niche-related groups (think 5 or 6)
Step 3) Observe the kind of messages people are posting in the email group. What kind of content are they posting? Is it informative with pitches? Is it strictly informative? Is it mostly hard promo? What is the feel of that email group?
Step 4) Model your content after what appears to be working well in the group.
Step 5) Start firing off messages to the group consistently (once a week?)
Generally, when you join a new group on groups(dot)io, you will get a welcome message. For an example, here is part of the message you get when joining the podpublishing group on the platform:
“ Hello,
Welcome to the podpublishing@groups(dot)io group at Groups(dot)io, a free, easy-to-use email group service. Please take a moment to review this message. Many of you are probably transitioning from our longstanding pod_publishers group on Yahoo – welcome. We’ll soon be shutting the Yahoo group down since Yahoo will do so pretty soon anyway.
You can visit your group, start reading messages and posting them here: groups(dot)io/g/podpublishing
The email address for this group is: podpublishing@groups(dot)io. Because our system allows for participants to post via web or email, you can use this email to post new topics.
But most importantly, please add this email address to your safe sender list in your email client’s contacts.
This group is a business and marketing-oriented group for print-on-demand and electronic publishers. It is a longstanding group, formerly on Yahoo, in support of publishers who are publishing/selling multiple titles in digital form (print on demand, ebook, audio books, etc).”
The message goes on to talk about subscriber settings and how to unsubscribe from the group, and then it tells you:
“If you simply wish to receive and post messages to the group by email then you’re all set – no further action on your part is needed.”
The message again goes on, but you get the point.
Essentially, it’s basically like getting access to a large email list of people who all care about a particular subject. In this case it’s Print on Demand Publishing and Digital marketing.
I think that the potential of a site like groups(dot)io is fantastic. I do not care what your business is, you should be exploring this site to see if you can make it work.
Email is one of the most powerful weapons you can have in your arsenal for online business, and to be able to get access to a group of like-minded people interested in a targeted subject? Awesome.
Add the fact that when you post to the group, your message will go to these people individually? Stellar. It’s just one of those amazing hidden gems that not a lot of people know about, but the ones that do are really reaping the benefits.
And now…that’s you.
Okay, that’s all I have for today. Over the last several posts, we have talked about a lot of different traffic sources, many of them are flying under the radar of the mainstream, and yet get tons of traffic.
I have one more message for you, and a question as well. It’s an important message. I even have a bonus traffic source for you, so be sure to check back in a few days for my final message on the subject of traffic-driving!
For now, though, you already know what I’m going to say! Get over to groups(dot)io and get signed up!
Before you go, click here to check out an opportunity I’ve been using to make some pretty easy extra affiliate income. It’s a great program.
I’ll see you soon.
Just take action.
