Why You Need an Email List to Grow Your Blog

If you haven’t started an email list, and you are serious about growing your blog, stop what you are doing right now and get it done. Your email list is the one sole list that is owned by you and you alone. Social media sites will not be around forever, hello Myspace? You cannot rely on them for your traffic forever, however, those readers that allow you into their inbox, they are your true fans.

Email subscribers will see all of your posts

With the Facebook algorithms that only show 2% of your fans your posts or Pinterest smart feed that decides what pins you see in your feed, you never know when they’ll roll out a big update that will impact your traffic. You cannot have all of your traffic eggs in one basket. Diversify it.

I know that when I send an email to my subscribers, I can count on a rise in real-time traffic straight to my blog if I was directing them to a post. You can’t do that with any other platform.

You have control of your email list

You get to decide if you want to send out a daily RSS feed email or if you want to write a weekly newsletter. How many times do you want to be seen in their inbox? It’s up to you.

Make it a routine to go in and be sure to export your email list to back up that data just in case you need it. You never know if you’ll need to move to a new email service in case your unhappy with their service.

Turn your readers into raving fans

Don’t send them an email each and every time you’re selling a new product, provide value – information that helps your readers. Don’t just sell to them. They want to learn, they want your help solving their problems.

Make your newsletter something to look forward to for you and your readers. Think of the newsletters that you’re subscribed to, the ones that you always open, what makes them great, what do you look forward to about them and see if you can do this with your own email list.

If you think of it as a chore, your readers are going to see that you haven’t provided enough value and will unsubscribe.

Free Email Service Provider

Bloggers who are starting out with their email list, I recommend Mailerlite, it’s simple and easy to use and is free up to 1000 subscribers and even comes with automations for free. Mailchimp is also free up to 2000 email subscribers, however, if you have more than one list, you do have to pay for the subscriber twice if they are on both lists.

My go-to email service provider is Convertkit, I’ve been through four other ones and this is the one I’m currently in love with and hope to stick with as I grow. They make it super easy to customize my emails and sequences and it’s the only ESP that allows you to deliver a PDF to your subscribers without a 3rd party service. My open rates went up when I moved and I believe you do get what you pay for in terms of service.

If your email list has been growing at a snail’s pace and you’re not sure how to grow it, creating email opt-ins is the perfect way to provide value to your readers. The 5 Weeks to Drool-worthy Email Opt-ins for Bloggers will take you to the next level. It will take you from design to tech and from creating the opt-in to getting it up on your site.