31 CommentsMake Money Online, ,

In my most recent blog post, How To Make Money From Your Blog In 2011 & 7 Great Ways To Do It , point number 6 was about making money via your mailing list, because this is a very effective way of making money blogging.

Email marketing is a form of getting people to subscribe to you so that you can email them updates about your site, send out news letters, etc. This is also a great way to create relationships between you and your genuine blog readers, because they are the ones that will want to subscribe to your for these information.

In this post I will be discussing why it is of great importance of having a news letter on your blog.

How Effective Is Email Marketing/Mailing List

Answers From The Bloggers Who Use It

Before I started writing this post I knew exactly what I was going to write about and how I was going to write it. So in advanced I asked this question to some of the bloggers who use news letters on their blog: “How Important Is Having A News Letter On Your Blog?”

These are their replies:

Rob Rammuny from RobsWebTips.com  said: “That’s the same thing as asking – do you want to make a lot of money? Your answer is the answer to the question. VERY important”

Ryan Biddulph from RBs Keys to Home Based Success  said: “It’s crucial to include a newsletter on your blog for its the perfect tool to build long-term relationships with.”

Kikolani from Kikolani.com  said: “Not necessarily a newsletter, but a mailing list is essential to really be able to reach your subscribers.”

She also referred to an article on her blog: Why Your Blog Needs A Mailing List

Daniel Sharkov from Reviewz n Tips  said: “A Newsletter is especially important for monetization, as it can significantly benefit one’s product promotion efforts.”

Hesham from FamousBloggers.net  said: “”Not” Having a news letter on your blog is like starting a blog without hosting  service! We can not do that!”

Sushant Risodkar from SmartBloggerz  said: “You are missing lots of things by not having it! Things like subscribers love, their need for you, affiliate benefits etc. So start a newsletter, build subscribers and enjoy benefits! Don’t do the mistake of waiting like I DID!”

Devesh Sharma from Tech n Share  said: “Newsletter is something that no blogger should miss. I’m regret of not using newsletter from the beginning. Newsletter has the power to drive traffic to anywhere you like.
How newsletter can help you to grow your blog/business… -Connect with the reader -Build trust and offer value -Easier – Make your sales process easier and more productive. -Start conversations with people you are targeting. -This gives you a chance to build a good relationship with them and to show them that you will only provide them with quality products that can really help them.”

Benjamin Lang from EpicLaunch  said: “In my case it took a really long time to set up a newsletter on my blog. I didn’t understand the importance of it and I truly regret not doing it from the start.
After setting up a newsletter on Mailchimp I understand how crucial it was to my blog. It’s certainly proved to be a great way for me to communicate with my readers.”

Dele Onibalusi from YoungPrePro  said: “Having a newsletter is very important because your subscribers are the blood of your blog and email subscribers are the most responsive form of online subscribers. My mailing list is one of my top traffic sources this year with over 1000+ visitors to my blog…traffic like that can’t be replaced.”

Tom Sinfield from StandOutBlogger.com  said: “I have seen successful blogs both with and without newsletters. Personally I have both, with my main blog currently having a hiatus from list building as I focus on my content and other projects.

I think that having a quality news letter/email list is always going to be a massive asset to your blog, the problem that I find is that 90% of the email lists that I subscribe to are definitely not quality. There are a heap of benefits of having a news letter on your blog – but I think that instead of just starting to build one because it seems to be the ‘in’ thing, do it because you have quality information that you believe other people will benefit from.”

Justin Germino from DragonBlogger.com  said: “A newsletter is an important tool to reach an audience in a completely different way, it provides a great way to showcase content, host contests and can provide excellent value. It is essential if you want to do any sort of marketing with your blog.”

Brian Bell from BlogEngage.com  said:”A newsletter e-mail allows you to grow your community by delivering a message to the user inviting them to engage and participate within the community itself. Sending a newsletter is the best way to get members involved either it’s with contests, guest blogging or simply getting the word out regarding new features and functionally.

The only thing you have to do is respect your users and when requested remove them from this list. Honor the request as they are important members within your community. Don’t abuse it and I’m sure it will work out just fine.”

My Point:
All these bloggers are using a form of news letter to reach out to their subscribers, make money while doing it and also to build up the community of their blogs.

Benjamin Lang, Devesh Sharma and Sushant Risodkar were sorry that they didn’t start their mailing list as soon as they launched their blog. I can also say they same, I should have started my mailing list the very first day that I started posting.

So for you not to make this mistake like we did, if you are a new blogger, I urge you to start build your mailing list right now. Even if you already have a blog, well now is the time to start your mailing list.

How To Start A Mailing List & Get Subscribers

  • Start A Mailing List

MailChimp  is a great and free site to start your mailing list. All you have to so is follow the simple instructions on the sign up page and that’s it.

  • Get Subscribers

The best way to get subscribers after your install the mailing list code to your blog is to offer something to your visitors so that you can get them to subscribe. It is very hard to build a successful mailing list and this process takes time. If you just place the code on your blog and wait for your visitors to just automatically subscribe then this will get you nowhere. The best thing to so offer a free eBook to them in which they have to sign up and then they can download the book. Make sure this book is appealing to their eyes, tell them how the book will benefit them and give them a reason to download the book.

Opt-In Plugins To Grow Mailing List

I am using the plugin which is working out really great for me. This plugin made my subscribers list grew by more than 100% in the first week of using it.

Pop Up Domination cost $77 and I think it a reasonable price for this plugin.
But yesterday (January, 17th 2010) Michael Dunlop emailed me saying that they dropped the price of the plugin for 7 days only. Pop Up Domination went from $77 to $47, this is like almost half the price.

I urge you to get the if you want to gain lots of subscribers before the price goes back up (on January 24th, 2010).

  • Subscribers Magnet

This is also a great plugin which I recently started using and already I have seen my list growing like crazy. The Subscribers Magnet plugin  allows me to place opt-in forms all over my blog so that I can pull in more subscribers to my list. With this plugin I am able to add an opt-in box below every post, in the sidebar, in the footer and the one which I love is the check box when making a comment.

For any blogger who ever struggled with low subscription rates, there’s a brand-new WordPress plugin proven to increase your sign-up rate by 3x times faster and easier than before. So this is a great plugin to have.

Group Discussion

I remember long ago this blogger told me, “When you have a mailing list on your blog, a one time visitor might come along and if you can capture their email address then it’s a great way of getting back that visitor to your blog.”

  • Have you started your mailing list as yet? If not, then what are you waiting for?

31 comments

  1. Ganeshan Nadarajan

    Reply

    Email marketing is a form of getting people to subscribe to you so that you can email them updates about your site, send out news letters, etc.

  2. Kelli

    Reply

    But with the Spam folder in email being so prevalent, how do you keep from being sent to spam before anyone even reads your newsletter?

  3. web design company

    Reply

    Great blog….This will be very helpful to make money and get traffic to our blog….Thanks for sharing this good tip with us…. keep on sharing

  4. Kimi

    Reply

    I have just tried mailchimp! It is awesome, just thought to buy popup domination, but i am afraid it would be annoying people, as i don’t like the pop up in many websites..

    However i heard many people have succesfully build their list with this popup..

    Thanks

    • Kharim Tomlinson

      Reply

      Hey Kimi the pop up domination is great. I like to use it and if the user close it then you can set it to turn off for that user for a number of days as to not annoy them. I like mailchimp as well.

      In 1 week I managed to double my mailing list the first time I started using it.

  5. Paul Eveleigh

    Reply

    Hi Kharim,

    Pleased I came across your site, lots of great info and advice. Never used mailchimp so going to check it out now.

    Regards

    Paul

  6. Daniel

    Reply

    I always try to avoid this topic of email marketing because I do not like it. I like to receive updates of useful information such world news, knowledge among other topics. I can’t really say it does not work because I have not tried it, but I believe somehow it is annoying. I tend to ignore all emails sent from sites I often subscribe, specially from those who have nothing to offer but products and more products. Either way you are exposing the subject pretty well here. Thumbs up for that! These are just my thoughts.

    • Kharim Tomlinson

      Reply

      Thanks for your thoughts Daniel. I subscribe to mailing list as well because it sometimes helps with my blogging and keep up today with certain products to help my blogging.

  8. Nikmaya J

    Reply

    Building mailing list is a good way to get traffic and to make money from affiliate, but We should do that correctly, don’t push our reader to immeditely buy our products. Give a valuable informations and encouragement is the best way to start making money from mailing list.

  9. ratih

    Reply

    amazing, I’m so glad find this site, I’m looking for about strategy in 2011, but no one write about it. And the fact I found yours, so thankful for you.

  10. Devesh

    Reply

    Awesome Post Kharim. Thanks for including me.

    I’m regret of not building my mailing list from the day one of blogging.
    I think everyone should build their mailing list from the beginning of the Blogging. Mailing list is awesome asset for a blogger.

    The best way to start building the mailing list by using a free autoresponder service like MailChimp.

    I like Subscribers magnet more then Popup Domination. As it can be added anywhere in your blog and has so many options.

    Thanks for sharing this great Post Kharim. Retweeted

    Btw. I like the new design. Looks super awesome man.

    • Kharim Tomlinson

      Reply

      I just got my Subscribers Magnet yesterday and I really like the way you can place it where you want. So easy to customize and no programming language required.

      Thanks for the comment Dev 🙂

  14. Ryan Biddulph

    Reply

    Hi Kharim,

    Thanks for including me in your post 🙂

    The offer you mention can be anything from top-shelf content to a valuable Freebie. People can’t resist Freebies, especially if the offering is a powerful product.

    If I’d add anything to my quote it would definitely be to start list building from your first day as a blogger. I had a similar experience to yourself, Ben, Dev and Sushant. I read posts saying how important list building was but I resisted the advice.

    Now I know better. By investing in a good auto responder and offering usable content on a consistent basis I’ve been able to grow my list.

    The key is to be persistent. When you begin to grow a list some days you might have 5 subscribers. Other days, zero. Never judge the day by your harvest. Remember the seeds you’re planting and eventually you will have a steady list of subscribers each day.

    Thanks for sharing your insight Kharim.

    RB

  15. Justin Germino

    Reply

    Excellent synopsis and you can see that nearly all bloggers recognize the value of a mailing list, I was surprised to see so many others make the same mistake I did and wait too long to start one. I also endorse MailChimp as my favorite mailing list program as well.

    • Kharim Tomlinson

      Reply

      Well I guest that mistake is very common for new bloggers, not starting a mailing list as soon as they start to blog. Well I hope the new bloggers can see that this post will help them to understand why it is important.

      Thanks for the comment Justin 🙂

    • ella

      Reply

      I’m one of those who already made this mistake. I didn’t pay a big attention to create a mailing list or maybe I didn’t find at that time the right information about this aspect. However I fixed it and now my blog it’s ok.
      BTW this is very informative article. I’ll recommend it with a bog pleasure.

      • Kharim Tomlinson

        Reply

        Thanks for the comment Ella. Well lots of us make mistakes but its good when we can find those mistakes out and correcting them, such as our mailing list. 🙂

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