As a blogger, starting a mailing list is quite important, if you choose to go down the route of monetisation it will be the biggest tool for producing sales. Throughout my time blogging I’ve had three mailing lists, and dabbled in and out of them. So today I thought I’d share how to start a mailing list as a blogger, and share my new mailing list with you.
Where To Start
Before I tell you start a mailing list, it is a-lot of effort, it will take time to grow, and if you can’t commit to it alongside your content, then work on your content instead.
Why it is important, building your blog and brand is more important. I’d say this to anyone, if you’re using it as a way to monetise start building the list first and then when your blog starts bringing in traffic, you’ve created a brand for yourself then use it for marketing.
Pick A Service Provider
Picking a provider is the next thing you need to do. I chose ConvertKit this time round, whereas I had previously been with MailChimp. To be honest as long as you feel conformable with the platform you choose that’s all that matters. I felt most comfortable with ConvertKit’s layout and with its payment plans once you hit 1000+ signups.
ConvertKit also has an automation option for setting up your sequence or scheduling anything else. Which is a big help for me as I plan to use this to have a four days welcome sequence when I start sending emails out next month.
If you do pick Convertkit and signup, I do have an affiliate link for signing up. Also if you want to sign up to my new list please refer to big box underneath this.
Create Opt-In Freebies
Unless you have an incredibly large and active following, you’ll need to have some incentives for people to sign up. Keep your audience in mind when creating freebies, this might result in you needing multiple freebies. In my case my twitter audience follow me for blogging tips and lifestyle posts, where as my Pinterest audience comes more for wellness and food posts. So I’d need opt-ins for all of these when starting a mailing list.
You could create cheatsheets, mini ebooks, checklists or mini guides – it doesn’t need to be anything massive just a magnet to pull someone in. My friend Mariam has a great post on the Best Opt-in Freebie Ideas To Explode Your List.
Create Your Welcome Email
Make sure you have a welcome email ready to, one of the most important parts of email marketing is building a list of subscribers that you engage with and prove quality content to. When they sign up, your welcome email is the first interaction they have with you. Make it count. Building a solid relationship with your readership starts on day one.
It might sound silly that I’m even mentioning it, but you know it’s important when starting a mailing list.
Include A Subscribe Button On Every Post
I’d highly recommend doing this especially on high traffic posts. I would always recommend against having pop-ups. I know that they do have a good rate of signups but more often than not you’ll find your bounce rate will be higher and this isn’t something you want to negatively affect your blog. People do genuinely leave a webpage when they see a popup, I know I do.
I’ve read before that the best placement on the page for a mailing list subscription button is the top, but I personally have better luck with including links at the bottom of my posts.
Research Into Email Marketing
When you set up an email list, more often than not the aim is monetisation and that’s cool. I recommend building a relationship with your readership and including a few links here and there until you get the swing of it. Bonus points are that if you start today, you could be use email marketing efficiently before Christmas!
Finding email marketing tools can be really easy, you can google or search twitter. I personally invested in The Complete Email Marketing Bundle (AF) from Rahul. His mailing lists are incredible and this has so much knowledge including 70 pages of marketing help. I mentioned in my own Affiliate Sales Ebook (ad) the importance of understanding email marketing especially with the holidays coming up!
Email Marketing is something I really hope to master, I’ve gotten pretty good at it but I can’t wait to get better at it. I just wanted to pop a small reminder here that I published my first ebook last weekend, it’s A Beginner’s Guide To Affiliate Sales – and you can grab it for 50% off right now with the code ‘payday’.
If you’ve set up a mailing list let me know, and if you haven’t is it something you’d like to expand into?
Have you seen my latest post How I Got My Domain Authority From 21-29
Fab post Kayleigh! Great for anyone thinking about starting a mailing list and sending out newsletters to their followers 🙂
I wish I read this post before I started my mailing list. It can be so overwhelming and complicated to start that process. I’m using Mailchimp and for now I’m satisfied with it.
I’ve often thought about setting up an email list but it always seemed rather overwhelming.
Thank you for breaking it down, it feels much more achievable.
I’ve signed up as well so looking forward to your emails x
This is so helpful article about creating a mailing list. I agree that email list is important for your blog for producing sales etc. Thank you for sharing these tips 🙂
This is a great post for those wanting to monetize their blog. So helpful!
This is such an insightful post Kayleigh! I’ve never started a mailing list as I literally don’t have the time to add this to my ever growing list in terms of creating content for my blog! Maybe I will in the future, and if I do, I’ll look back on this post for advice on how to start one! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
I’ve been a casual blogger for ages now but am finally getting my act together when it comes to blogging seriously! I just started sending emails to my (minuscule) mailing list about two months ago, and I really want to build it up this year! I’ve never tried ConvertKit, but started off with Mailchimp and moved to Flodesk about two months ago! My experience with Flodesk has been superb so far!
Such a helpful post, thanks for sharing your tips they’ll definitely help me in the future!
I love these tips. I’ve created some really fun freebies, but have a hard time getting people to sign up for them, so I need to learn the tricks to that! I gotta do some e-courses on email marketing, for sure.
I have been wanting to start a mailing list for some time now, so this post came at the right time for me! I personally like Mailchimp from my previous experience with them, but I am always ready to do my research and look into something new.
Freebies are so important and I think I will have fun brainstorming unique ideas for them. 🙂
A mailing list is something I’ve been recently looking into setting up! This post is super helpful and I’m sure I’ll be referring back to it time and time again.
Fab tips! I’m working on my email list at the moment and I’m hoping to build it up a bit more moving forward. I removed my pop-up a little while back because I started to realise that if I hated getting pop-ups on websites then I’m pretty sure everyone else hates them too haha. X
https://www.femaleoriginal.com
This is great, I love the emphasis on building a relationship with your audience and making a real effort to get a conversation going with them, not just over-optimizing how to sell to them.
Great tips here. I do always forget to add a subscribe box to my posts. I should go back and fix that!
Thank you so much for this blog post! Super informative and has me thinking to revamp my own mailing list!
Great tips!
Great post! I’m making it a goal to work on my freebies and will be checking out Mariam’s guide soon. Thanks for the helpful guide! x
This is so so helpful! I really want to spend some time investing in a mailing list but didn’t really know where to start – thank you for this 🙂 xx
mia // https://beautiful-inspiring-creative-life.com/
Thanks for this post, I found it super helpful! I’ve been recently trying to build my mailing list to incorporate a monthly newsletter ready for August, but I definitely need any tips I can get as I introduce this new aspect to my blog. Great post 🙂
This is something I need to look into. To be honest I’m still struggling with this. Though I already subscribe to mailchimp. I need to work on how to add on my blog.
This is so helpful! The hardest thing for me is understanding how to develop my mailing list. I’m using your tips starting today and hopefully my list will grow!
I agree that building a brand is the goal for almost ANYTHING you want to do—monetization, speaking, influencer marketing—so building a list of people who agree that you’re their person is an important first step. That’s why, even though we backed up off of traditional monetization routes, we do spend a few weeks every year actively building our list. It’s been about 3 years of building a list and of sending out a monthly newsletter. Our goal is now to try to email more often and to start including more opportunities for them to purchase from us and through us. Thanks for some awesome suggestions. 🙌🏾
This is the one thing I actually struggle understanding when it comes to blogging. I don’t get the difference between subscribers and emailing list or what exactly I should be doing. The struggle is real haha!! x
This is a fab post babe and so useful. I am currently building my email list right now and it’s, ummmm, fun haha! X
Thanks for this! Some really great tips and definitely some I’ll remember when I decide to start my own mailing list.
Kathryn // http://www.theglutenfreecheerleader.com
Thank you for breaking this all down. I have started building my email list but haven’t been putting nearly enough time into working on it. I know that it’s something I should prioritize in the near future. I am hoping to start making this a priority as we move into November (I’ve got my hands full in October thanks to Blogtober lol)
I don’t currently have a mailing list for my blog but I know that it is something that could work with my audience so this is a really helpful post!
Rosie
Thanks for these tips! One thing I really want to do in 2021 is build my email marketing list!
Katie | katieemmabeauty.com
We have been trying to work on our mailing list and this will surely help! We are working on a freebie and hopefully that will be a first good step in the right direction!