Continuing our discussion of things you could be doing right now to boost your blog, today’s tip is:
2. Start an email newsletter
This is another tactic that I know many bloggers are convinced of. But for one reason or another it’s seen as something they’ll do “one day”—maybe when they have more traffic, maybe when they have more time. The reality is that by starting an email list early on (and using it smartly), you’ll accelerate both the driving of traffic to your blog and the monetization of it.
Do you have an active email newsletter for your blog?
Yeah, I’ve got one. And I love having it. I love knowing I’ve got hundreds of people that are reading my blog and are sucking up what I’ve got to say. It’s the first thing that I add to a blog when I launch a new one.
Darren, i feel you caught lot of bloggers including me red handed. This is so true, starting a email newsletter has been in my to-do list since the day1 of my blog but still not started and reason is i’m waiting for my list to grow. This is an important aspect and should be a habit of all bloggers who care for their readers i feel. Thanks again for reminding the importance of it.
I’m still in the list of “one day” bloggers, I guess!
I need a kick in the back to start it… :)
The thing that gets me on this one is what to put into the newsletter and what to leave out. Should I put a partial of the latest posts? New stuff coming up on the blog? I guess it seems like I have either too much or too little to put into a newsletter setting.
Actually just firing it up!
I’d like to get one going but I’m not sure what program to use. Any advice?
Yes, we have a monthly newsletter. In fact, we started it just this month, so only the first issue is out so far. Apart from some real numbers on CT, it contained an overview of the happenings and opinions expressed in the area of communication (business communication, social media, collaboration etc). In a way, it’s a digest of what we find (and tweet) during the month on this subject area. Some people got back and said that they loved getting this information in one shot.
We are now preparing for version 3.3 of CT and also September newsletter — slated to come out in the first week of September.
We are pretty new in the game and can use all the advise that experts can give us. Thanks in advance.
Hi Darren,
I have question about email lists. I chose a pen name to be wise about my family and keep good boundaries but noticed the email lists require an address. This defeats the whole boundary thing. Do you have suggestions? Does any list builder not require it and why is it required?
Hey Darren, I absolutely loved your previous post on how you set up different themed emails, and this one does remind me of the importance of newsletters, but I wonder at which point in a new blog’s life you’re to introduce this..
It seems rather pointless to write an email every week when your blog for instance hasn’t even been listed by google yet, or you’re still in the very early stages of setting it up and gaining visibility..so at which stage do you introduce it for best results, where you don’t end up wasting time writing for nobody nor miss out on the opportunity to give readers an easy way to follow you?
I have one, but it’s a FeedBurner one, I’m getting either MailChimp of Aweber on September 10th when my new site is released, anyone have advice on which I should choose?
I am also updating my website and have decided to go with Mailchimp. One of the blogs I subscribe to said they would chose it now if starting a new blog/website, so I figured I would give it a try. If I don’t like it, I can always change it. :)
I just started mine and sending out my first newsletter this weekend!
Thank you so much for sharing such a valuable information about Email newsletter. i use it for product sale and services and i just want to know about the top email services provider who use email newsletter.
Great short and to the point post. I have been using email newsletters for sometime now and have had some great results for some of my clients also.
I only use Aweber, and have had an account with them for the last 3 years and would recommend them 100%.
Some interesting questions above, may I offer what strategy we use?
We make sure that we load the auto responder with at least 6 months of content that is not time sensitive or season based, so it does not matter when someone joins or in what year, I suppose it was our first discovery of the importance of “evergreen” content – always relevant.
We never try to sell anything off this auto responder series as it is about top content relative to the audience, and we want to build great trust.
We will then use a broadcast email for seasonal (Christmas etc.) greetings/announcements or timely info that is relevant to now ie. Google Panda alert. And for any list only special offers or promotions.
Not saying it is right or wrong, it is just the way we do it
Cheers
Steve
Hi,
Thanks for this series! Can you suggest a guru on Email Marketing?
Regards,
Melvin Ramos