The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Newsletter
At the beginning of the year, I started a newsletter here on SPI and used an eBook I wrote, eBooks the $mart Way, as a free gift to help generate more leads. Three months later, I now have over 2,250 people signed up for the newsletter and it averages about 30 new subscribers a day.
I have no previous email list to compare these numbers with, so I can’t say for sure whether those are stellar numbers, or just average – but either way I’m very happy with the results and would love to share with you how it’s all done, especially for you beginners out there who have been emailing me non-stop about it. I apologize I’ve waited this long to write this post.
What is a Newsletter, and Why Would You Want to Offer One?
Before I get deep into the how-to of building a newsletter, I’d first like to address what a newsletter is, and why you might want to think about offering one for your blog or online business.
For the sake of this post, I’ll be talking only about email newsletters. Many websites, especially those doing hardcore business in a specific niche, offer a print newsletter, which is a fantastic way to keep in contact with customers and subscribers through “snail mail” (mail that is sent to your home address), but that’s a whole different ballgame that I have yet to experience, and it’s probably better suited for a more advanced type of post for the future.
When you setup an email newsletter, you’re offering your audience a way to subscribe to get emails from you that contain informal news or broadcasts that you send out. This is usually in addition to the content that you already have on your blog or online business website, and totally separate from an RSS feed subscription.
Now, you might be wondering: “What’s the point of offering a newsletter subscription to my audience, if they can already subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed?”
Good question.
The short answer is: the email list.
By offering a subscription to your newsletter, you’re giving yourself the ability to capture email addresses, which is something that you cannot do with an RSS feed. It’s important to capture email addresses because:
- It’s a great way to communicate with your audience on a more personal level. There’s just something about receiving an email from somebody that makes it extremely effective at getting a point across, or making people take some kind of action.
- An email list will never die. In other words, if you have an email list, you will always have a way to communicate with your audience. Blogs and websites can die. RSS readers and feed subscription services could vanish. But, those email addresses will never change and you can always keep your audience informed of what you’re up to, even if you go completely off the radar.
- It’s where the money is.
Regarding #3, you may or may not have heard this expression before: “The Money is in the List.”
It’s an expression that has been used in the internet marketing industry since the birth of email (or “snail mail” for that matter), because it’s true. However, you have to be careful if you’re going to try and use your email list to make money online.
Like with any platform that you use to communicate with people (blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), the moment that you start to become “all about the money” is the moment that you might will end up losing credibility (and the respect) of your followers. That’s why I make sure that in whatever I do online, helping and informing people come first. I’m speaking from experience when I sat that if you can make your primary goal helping others, the money will come your way.
Online karma does exist.
Does it Have to Be a Newsletter?
You can setup an opt-in form to capture email addresses on your website and only email your subscribers when you need to – but let me tell you why I think this is a bad idea.
Imagine signing up for my free eBook and never hearing from me again until months later, when you finally get an email from me promoting some kind of product. You will probably do one of the following:
- Forget who I was and think my email is spam.
- Unsubscribe from the list because you’d realize that there’s really no point of being on it.
- All of the above.
What you write in your emails doesn’t have to be “news”- it can be anything really. But, it’s important that you consistently contact your subscribers and provide them with some kind of useful information in order to keep them around. All it takes is one click to unsubscribe from your list.
What’s the Difference Between RSS Email Subscription and the Newsletter Subscription?
This is actually the most common question that I get about newsletters and email subscriptions, so I’m happy to finally address here on the blog publicly.
The RSS Email Subscription (through services such as FeedBlitz, which is something you can setup within your FeedBurner account) is a way for your readers to get your blog posts (and only your blog posts) emailed to them. This is convenient for many people, especially those who work 9 to 5 who like to catch up with their favorite websites at work, who are unable to use a standard RSS feed reader. Here on the SPI blog, I have this option in a link at the upper right hand corner of the page.
The newsletter subscription is totally separate from the content of your blog. With it, you have the ability to email your subscribers whatever you want, whenever you want. Again, it’s a more personal way to communicate with your readers and you can utilize that ability for marketing your own products, affiliate products, or just simply driving traffic. The possibilities are endless.
Yes – people will have to sign up twice if they want your blog content and newsletter both sent to their email. And even though many email list services have the ability to send out broadcasts that contain your blog’s RSS feed, I’d much rather keep those things separate so that people can have the freedom to choose how exactly they want to receive your content.
Now that I believe I’ve answered most of your questions, let’s get down to business…
How To Start Your Own Newsletter Subscription
Understanding the Process
First, it’s good to know exactly what happens once someone signs up through a form on your site. Here’s a diagram below that outlines everything that should happen:
As you can see, there’s quite a bit involved, but I’ll help you through the entire process below. Please note that rectangles represent webpages, and circles represent emails.
Step One: Signup For an Aweber Account
You have many options when it comes to signing up with an email marketing service, but Aweber is by far the best in my opinion. I use it and have been really impressed with the ease of use and quality of customer service. In fact, the other day I sent them an email about a small issue I was having, and they immediately solved the issue and 4 days letter I get a postcard in the mail thanking me for contacting them and being a customer.
Aweber is definitely the way to go.
Also, you have the ability to manage several lists from different websites under the same account, if you choose to do so.
Step 2: Setup Your First Email List
After you register for your account and sign in, you’ll be taken to your control panel. Now, we need to setup your list.
First, click on “create and manage” lists:
Second, fill in the settings for your list. The “From” Name:, and “Address” are all things that your newsletter subscribers will see when they get your emails. The “List Name” and the “List Description” are mainly for you for organizational purposes.
Lastly, the “Contact Address” is the address that is in your account settings. It will be shown at the bottom of each of your emails, as required by law (the CAN-SPAM Act). If you’re on my email list, you can see this address at the bottom of my emails, which is my business address. If you don’t have a business address, that’s okay – you can simply insert your home address, but just know that whenever you send an email to your subscribers, your address will show up – so you may want to use an address other than your home address if possible.
Step 3: Setup Your Confirmed Opt-In Email
A confirmed opt-in email is an email that gets sent to people immediately after they subscribe to your newsletter. This email contains a link that is used to confirm that the person is indeed a human and is someone who is interested in joining your list. Also, it helps you make sure that the email address that they entered is valid, and not a fake one that they used just to grab a hold of whatever freebie you might have to offer.
You are given the option to turn this feature off, but it is not recommended for the reasons mentioned above.
This email is usually already pre-written for you, but you can customize it a little if you wish, just to make it a little bit more personable. Here is a snapshot of mine below:
You may have noticed at the top of the email a piece of code that look like this:
{!name}
This is code that can be inserted into any of your emails (both in the subject line and in the body), which will automatically convert into the person’s name who you are sending an email to. In fact, there are several different types of codes that convert into various kinds of text. You can normally find a drop-down menu with all of your options next to the field where you are writing your emails, which look like this:
And here is a link that shows us all of the variables and what each piece of code converts to.
Moving on…
Step 4: Set Up Your Success Page
Below where you customize your confirmation message, you’ll see an area marked “Success Page”. This is where you insert a URL back to your website which is exactly where your subscribers will be taken after they click the confirmation link in the email (Thank You Page #2 in the Diagram):
On this page, which you’ll have to create on your own website/blog first, you can do a number of things:
- Thank the person for their confirmation.
- Welcome them to your newsletter, and announce that they will be shortly receiving an email from you.
- If you’re giving away something like an eBook, for example, you can let them know that links to their gift will be included in the next email.
- You can ask your new subscriber to “white list” your email address so it will not be blocked by spam filters.
- You can provide a way to easily contact you in case they have any issues regarding your newsletter.
- Advanced: This is also a great opportunity to add in an offer for either a product that you already have for sale, or an affiliate product related to your niche.
If you’re interested, here is my Success Page.
Note: The “pass subscriber info (for personalizing this page)” option you see is an advanced option that allows you to insert certain pieces of code on your own website that can convert into things like the subscriber’s name, for example.
Note #2: Thank You Page #1 as shown in the diagram is setup when you create a web form that you insert onto your webpage. I’ll talk more about this in a second.
Understanding “Follow Up” Messages
A followup message is a pre-written email that gets sent out to your subscribers. The first one is always a welcome email that is sent out immediately after they click the confirmation link in the first email that they receive. An unlimited amount of additional followup messages can be pre-written and setup to be sent out in certain time intervals that you can customize. This is where the term “autoresponder” comes from, because after new subscribers sign up for your list, they are automatically sent the series of followup emails that you create in the time interval that you set.
So for example, I have about 15 pre-written emails with killer content that are timed to be sent out every 7 days. It doesn’t matter when you sign up, you’ll be taken though the series of emails from the beginning. I add about 1 new followup message every week, just to keep content fresh and expand my “autoresponder series”.
To create your Welcome Email and any additional followup messages, you can simply hover over the “Messages” bar at the top, and click on “Follow Up”, and then click on “Add New Followup Message”:
Step 5: Writing Your Welcome Message (Follow Up #1)
Your first followup message is always sent out immediately after subscribing, so it’s always good to put some kind of welcome message within this email. In it, you might want to include:
- A formal welcome and thank you for signing up for your newsletter.
- Any links to any freebies that you might be giving away.
- What to expect in the newsletter (i.e, what your subscribers have to look forward to).
- Again asking your subscribers to “white list” your email address.
- A way to contact you.
You can add other things if you’d like, but as far as a welcome email followup message goes, those things are pretty standard.
Now, when you write your first followup message, you’ll notice that you have the option of writing an email in html format, or plain text format:
Aweber recommends writing your emails in plain text, because plain text emails can be read by those who cannot receive html messages. However, I’ve ran split tests before and the open rate (the percentage of emails that you send out that get opened) are virtually the same. This is why I choose to write HTML Messages instead, because I have a lot more options to dazzle up my emails.
When I say “dazzle” up, I simply mean having the ability to make words bold or italic and underlined, which you cannot do in plain text format. You also have the ability to add color and even some fancy looking templates with html, but I don’t want my emails to look like a newsletter you’d subscribe to from a retail store.
It’s really up to you though.
Step 6: Send Yourself a Test Message
After you finish writing any email, you should always send yourself a test message first so you can see exactly what your subscribers are receiving from you, and so you can re-read your emails and check for any errors too.
After you save your messages, you’ll be shown a screen that lists all of the messages you have in your autoresponder series. To the right of each message, you’ll see the following options:
The “Spam?” number you see there is a rating that is given to each of your emails that show you how “spammy” your email is. It’s based on a number of things, including some of the words you write in your email, as well as the number of links you include (and what they link to), but if you write an honest email, even if it includes a few links, you should no problems at all. A high score will be a good indicator that your email may be blocked by some your subscribers’ email programs.
When you click on “Test”, you’ll have the ability to send a test email to any email address that you want. If after you receive your email you want to update or change a few things, you can always go back and click on your message to edit it. Make sure you save it for any changes to actually take place.
Step 7: Setting Up Your Opt-In / Web Form
The web form is the form that you will place on your blog or website to collect email addresses. The one you see here on SPI was custom built for me by my web designers, but you can actually customize really well using the built in web form builder within Aweber.
Click on “Web Form” at the top, and then “Create Web Form”:
This will load a “web form generator”, which gives you the ability to choose from several options, fonts, colors, etc. to create your own form. You can play around with this until you finally come up with a design that you like. Remember where you will be placing this opt-in form on your website, as this will have an impact on the size of the form that you create.
Many people, including myself, choose to place an opt-in form in the sidebar, mainly because it gets shown on every single page. However, you can create multiple web forms for several different pages of your site, like the one I created on the page where I explain more about my eBook.
Typically, people collect just the name and email address of the subscribers, although depending on what you do and what niche you’re in, you can add different fields, including phone number, address, or any customized field that you’d like. Some people don’t even grab the names, and simply ask for an email address, although if you do this you won’t have the ability to use the {!name} code for personalizing your emails, which we talked about earlier.
Additional Tip: The default text within the submit button is simply “submit”. I recommend changing this text to something better that either tells your potential subscribers what they are getting, or is an actual call to action. For example, on my own buttons I have “Free Instant Access”, because it’s describing the free access you get to my eBook.
The Settings
After you’re happy with your web form design, you’ll need to customize your settings. Under the settings tab, you’ll see the following screen:
The Form Name is a unique name for the specific form you just created. This is mainly to help you keep track of each of the forms you create.
The Thank You Page is the “Thank You Page #1″ that is in the diagram that I showed you earlier. This is the page that people arrive at immediately after clicking on the “submit button” while the confirmation email is being sent to them at the same time.
You have 5 options of what you want to happen to your subscribers at this point:
The first three options are pages on Aweber that they’ve created for our convenience. They each let the subscriber know that an email will be sent to them that contains a confirmation link that they must click in order to subscribe to the newsletter. The Audio and “Smart” Video Versions are cool because they tell the user exactly what to expect and what links to click, so there is no confusion. However, understand that many people may not be able to listen to audio, or may not have the ability to watch a video (i.e., people subscribing while at work who have restrictions on internet access).
I choose to use a Custom Page because it keeps the subscriber on my site. Here is what you should include on this page:
- A short note that a confirmation email has been sent to them that contains a link that they must click.
- You can include pictures of what the link will look like, just to avoid any confusion.
- What to expect after they click the confirmation link in the email.
- A notice to “white list” your email address so their spam filters will not block your emails.
- Advanced: This is again a great opportunity to add in an offer for either a product that you already have for sale, or an affiliate product related to your niche.
What you decide to happen to your subscribers at this point is really up to you.
The Code
After you design your web form and finish with the settings, you’ll need to grab the piece of code that you insert onto your website that will show the form to your visitors. It’s not as hard as you probably think.
Under the Publish tab, in “I Will Install My Form”, you can either grab the Javascript Snippet, or the Raw HTML Version of the code. It’s much easier to copy the javascript snippet because if you go back into Aweber and change your form, it will automatically update on your website. Also, you can keep track of statistics like impressions and signups easier too.
Here is a screenshot of what this screen looks like:
You can see the code above which starts with “<script type” and ends with </script>. Copy and paste this code into your website where ever you want the webform to show up.
If You Have a WordPress Blog, you can use these two easy options:
1. Copy and Paste the Code into the HTML Editor for a Post or Page: If you want your form to show up within a blog post, or within a page that you create, you’ll have to copy and paste the code into the html editor, which can be found next to the “Visual Tab” in the upper right hand of where you write your posts/pages:
2. Copy and Paste the Code Into a “Text Widget” for Your Sidebar: If you want your form to show up in the sidebar, probably the easiest thing to do is go into your WordPress account, and under Appearance > Widgets, create a new “Text Widget” for your sidebar and copy the snippet into there, as shown below:
And that’s it! After you place the web form onto your website, you’ll then have the ability to begin growing your email list!
Broadcasts
Before I finish up, I need to talk about broadcasts. A broadcast is a message that you send out to your subscribers that is not involved in the autoresponder series, meaning it’s not a pre-written email that gets sent out after a certain amount of time after people subscribe. It’s a one time email (although you can save it to broadcast again later) that gets sent to your list.
What you include in it is up to you, but note that your list will get this email in addition to whatever emails they may be getting from you from your followups. Many people use broadcasts to talk about “one-time” events, such as recent news, launches for products, etc.
You can write a broadcast email at any time, with the ability to schedule it’s delivery – just make sure you use broadcasts wisely.
Thank You!
I know this post is lengthy, but I wanted to create a one-stop resource for any beginners out there who may be interested in starting their own newsletter and building an email list. Now, you should have no excuse not to get started, because everything you need is right here.
Thanks again for your support, and if you’re interested in seeing what my own newsletter is like, please feel free to subscribe using the form below, and you’ll also get free instant access to my popular eBook, eBooks the $mart Way, as a free gift! Cheers!
Posted on : March 22nd, 2010
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72 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
Pat,
I’d have to say those numbers are pretty stellar….to some, 2,000 subscribers may be only a small fraction of their email lists, HOWEVER, it’s the quality of relationship established behind those subscribers that means the most….
…..there are some very influential bloggers, that I’ve subscribed to in the past, however, even though I may still be on their email list, I’d still buy from you, or take a recommendation you made, long before doing the same for them….
It’s all about the relationships.
Plus, DUDE, your eBook was $ick…..I mean, in a good way….if you can create content like that, and give it away for FREE, that REALLY goes a long way with subscribers….
keep up the good work man…
Thanks Howie, those are very kind words – it means a lot buddy! Speaking of sick content, where’s your eBook at!
lol…looks like I’m completely violating that quote “the longer you go without something on the market….the more opportunity lost for profit” (I think I just paraphrased)
anyway….we are going to push it out after our honeymoon (we leave for Jamaica on Monday)…..
The Press Release is all drafted….speaking of….
I threw you in there, with a link of SPI….and, we are going to promote the heck out of it…
Let me know if you’re cool with that!
Here’s EXACTLY What we wrote:
“We are excited that our 6 Book Course is being held in such high esteem that it has already gained the attention of prominent bloggers such as Pat Flynn (of smartpassiveincome.com), who recently made a guest appearance on problogger.net. Testimonials, from bloggers like Pat Flynn, can be found on our website located at (Not live yet).”
Thanks so much for this post, Pat. As you know, I’ve contacted you through email with similar questions, and you’ve done an excellent job summarizing all the details about email newsletters in this post. It’s sure to become a long-time popular post here at SPI.
I have one question for you that I am kicking around as I get ready to launch my own newsletter. I know you use Aweber and really enjoy their service. I am trying to decide between Aweber and MailChimp right now as I’ve heard great things about both. Do you have any experience with MailChimp or words of advice on deciding between the two?
Thanks again! By the way, I love your newsletter and would welcome it even without the (killer) free e-book.
Thanks Dustin!
As far as MailChimp vs. Aweber, I have not experienced MailChimp so I can’t really say, although I’ve heard some great things about them as well. As far as deciding between the two, I would just keep asking around to get as many opinions as possible. However, since both seem to be reputable, I’d say it would be more beneficial to just go with one and start building your list now!
Hehe! Thanks again Dustin!
I have good experience using MailChimp. Considering it is free for 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails per month, I think MailChimp is fantastic to try out your first email list building and newsletter.
Most features mentioned above are available even in the free MailChimp account. I don’t have to pay for subscription now until I build more than 500 subscribers. Personally I would recommend this if you are not sure about paying for monthly subscription yet until you have a larger list.
The interface is also quite pretty with easy to follow instructions.
The only downside I have experienced so far (and it could be just me), the response time once you are logged in to your account is sometimes quite slow ie. when you are creating your email draft and click on preview, etc.
I am using MailChimp too. I know Aweber too.
Afiliates management is much better for Aweber, for all other aspects, Mailchimp is worth a try.
I just created a free MailChimp account because I didn’t feel like paying for the Aweber account just yet. So far MailChimp is working great and is doing everything I need it to!
Fantastic Post! Very in depth. Thank you very much Pat.
I see I need to make some changes to my email opt in. I didn’t realise there were that many options and will have to go back and make sure I get the biggest bang for my buck.
What would you say is a decent email opt in rate per visits for an average website? 1 opt in for every 20 visits? (I know this is a tough question to answer but I’m just trying to gage my site).
All the best
Marty
Hey Marty, thanks for the comment1
5% is actually fairly high, I believe, so 1 out of 20 would be awesome if you’re pulling that rate. However, that being said, it really depends on what specific form you’re looking at.
For example, I have a form on my page that specifically addresses my eBook and newsletter, which gets a 30% opt-in rate. The form in my sidebar gets about a 3% opt-in rate.
Hope that helps!
Nice work Pat – I use several of these points as well. I would only add that if your list is high quality, you can begin making money immediately – even with a small list. Don’t wait! Start building your list NOW.
Absolutely, Tim! Anyone who does not have a list should start building one now!
I wish I had started earlier myself. I feel like I’m playing “catch-up” now to where I could have been if I started a few months back.
Great post – you are such a great source of info that I wake up every morning excited about finding enough hours in the day to start implementing just a portion of what you share with all of us. I’ve just started truly aiming my website and business toward SMART passive income and you’re my guru here, so keep up the outstanding work!
Just one thing….from your Did You Know blurb “Pat can play the trumpet, trombone, french horn, baritone and tuba?” What? No piano? Thank goodness you’re such a slacker or I absolutely would be overwhelmed at the prospect of even attempting to keep up with you!
Thanks a million!
Thanks Deb, I appreciate that!
Regarding the piano, I can play a tune or two, but I don’t consider myself “performance quality” with the piano like I do with the other instruments, although it has been a while since I played any one of those, so maybe I’m not even performance quality now.
I miss band. LOL!
Cheers!
Pat,
You do a great job of not only explaining the benefits of taking various steps in creating an online business; but your step by step instructions and screen shots make it super simple for someone to implement the strategies discussed.
Keep up the good work!
Looking forward to a follow up post on “18 (or insert other number) things to write about to delight and interest your newsletter readers”
Thanks David! I think a followup post about what to write in your newsletter would be fantastic. I’ll see what’s in the queue for the next post…
Cheers David!
Hi Pat,
– since you seem to be a fantastic and disciplined tester, I think some readers might be interested in some of your findings…
Just got my “newsletter” in my in-box
i.e. – Click-through rates on Newsletters, increases in comments, etc.
Also, as your experience with the NL & list grow, do “special” or “exclusive” email newsletters work better for traffic generation than emails which are sort of “re-posts” of blog postings, or, would an email listing “the best of the week” generate more traffic back to your site.
Final note: I found your blog (and e-book, Thanks!) via Glen over at ViperChill. Although I started blogging in Oct 05, I look to you for inspiration and some new ideas, as I’ve sort of “fallen off the wagon” of blogging regularly due to changes in my personal interests. Your disciplined approach to (smart) passive income is very valued to me, and I thank you for pouring your heart into this business and sharing your thoughts.
Best,
David
Thanks Pat! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. As of today I have 220 people who have signed up for free practice questions that I have on my site, but I’ve been manually sending out the email. I’m also hoping that these 220 people will want to by my ebook when it comes out, but because I haven’t had an automated solution I haven’t been sending out a news letter or even just a follow up email. So I hope to implement this soon.
Do you think it is a good idea to send out a news letter once a week helping people study for their exam until I get my ebook out, or should I just focus on finishing my ebook and nothing else?
Wow, you’ve been doing it all manually? That’s crazy! Props for that though.
I think the autoresponder would help you out tremendously!
To answer your question, I think a newsletter that goes out once a week for 2 months (8 newsletters), and then maybe a few more spaced out further apart to keep people informed would be good for people studying for an exam. You hit them with good info up front when they are most likely to study hard and be involved. If you have the autoresponder, you can do those emails all in one day and work on your eBook too. It’s hard, because you want to keep in contact with your subscribers so when you do come out with your eBook it’s not a total surprise.
Excellent. I’ve been wondering about building an email list and setting up a newsletter. I can’t believe you went through all these steps with images to clarify things. I’m excited about it and loving it. I just don’t know what I would put in the newsletter. If the tips I give out in the email are so good, why not just write a blog about them? This is what I get stuck on.
Hey Richard! I just wanted to provide the best information possible, and I think visual images would definitely help the beginners who aren’t sure what to look forward to.
Great question you ask, but again it’s because of the importance of the list. I have about 15 emails that could be used as blog posts, but I’ve reserved them especially for newsletter subscribers.
You can definitely tell you put a lot of work into this. Great way of explaining this with lots of great details and pictures, really helpful. I am in the process of putting a newsletter together so this is just what I need.
Awesome, thanks Alex! I’m glad I got the timing right for you!
Very helpful guide for those who haven’t done this before. I’ve been thinking about creating custom thank you pages for a while. Maybe this is a sign for me to get started. Great work Pat, I’m sure you’ve taken quite some hours to put together all these. I’ll spread this around to those who are interested. Thanks!
Thanks Ken! I appreciate it! Custom thank you pages are a great way to keep people on your site, and even hit them with an offer if you want to while they are in “transaction mode”.
Hi Pat,
You can also sync WordPress blog posts with Aweber.
Instead of cutting and pasting into Aweber, it takes the RSS feed and delivers the emaiils, either partial or full feed, whichever you want.
Ivan
You would have to do this on a separate email list than the newsletter one, if you wanted to keep the blog posts and newsletter emails separate, correct?
By the way Pat, what tools do you use to crop the screenshots? They look cool!
Thanks Ken! I’m actually just taking normal screenshots with my mac (using cmd + shift + 4), and then dropping those screenshots from my desktop into Pages for Mac, and then using a picture frame that makes it look like a torn page.
Great article Pat. I have an email list of over 1000 people in one of my ecommerce stores, yet I’ve never sent a post out. I know there’s a ton of money to make there, and this reminded me of it.
I think this weekend I’ll go make some money.
Nice TJ! Do it! Let me know how it goes
Great article! And your ebook and newsletter are what prompted me to write my ebook (just released today) and offer it to my newsletter subscribers for free. It is not as long as yours, but as so many real estate agents are not aware of the benefits of working with a real estate virtual assistant, that is what my topic was for the ebook. Thanks for the inspiration!
Thanks Serita! And congrats on launching your eBook. Length doesn’t really matter, it’s the content inside that counts, and I’m sure your real estate audience will benefit from what you’ve done for them! Good luck!
Fantastic article Pat. 2250 opt-in in 3 months that’s great! The guide is a perfect step-by-step manual.
Email is from far, the most profitable channel. Have you ever been able to compute your sales conversion rate & average basket in a period (one month for example) in your blog and in your email list?
I am personaly using for years in various sites a RSS strategy (drive trafic to the blog) + Broadcasts emails (Sales/Events) + Exclusive content, all in one single list. I have no issue at all with regular blog/RSS readers (they don’t opt-out more than average for annoyance). Much easier to manage and higher value of segmentation.
My 2 cents
Another thing of interest is how to segment the list to improve the overall results (content, last activity, last inactivity)
Hey Franck! To tell you the truth, I have not once promoted anything in my newsletter. It’s been strictly content so far, and I’m really enjoying it and the responses I get from people as well.
I’ll think about your last thing of interest – I still have a young newsletter, so I’m learning things as I go along too!
Thanks Franck!
Once again you overdeliver! I have definitely seen the necessity for a targeted e-mail list following. The free service from mailchimp is appealing as my list would start out small, but this thorough guide to using Aweber may have just made my decision a little easier. Not to mention just about every blog I read uses Aweber and I trust most of them… Thanks again Pat!
Thanks DJ – and it’s really up to you. I like the free trial things too, but then what happens if you get big and the service doesn’t do what you want it to do (maybe it does at that point, I don’t know – no experience with Mail Chimp). I know that Aweber is great though.
Again, it’s up to you! If you do end up using MailChimp, let me know how it works out. Thanks!
great post. I love the images used. It will help many who want to use aweber.
Hi Christopher! Thanks! I try to make things the way I wish I saw them before I knew anything, and I’m definitely a visual person.
Cheers!
Hi Pat,
I’m glad you mentioned the CAN-SPAM Act because you can get fined for every email sent out that does not contain your business/home address. I just finished my ebook and was going to sign up with Aweber before getting my business license but I’m holding off because didn’t want to risk it. I’ll have my license soon and then I’ll be ready to start building my list.
It’s also a good idea to start with an email service you’ll want to stick with for a long time because if you decide start with one service to ‘try out’, then later decide to change services, all your subscribers will have to double opt-in again with the new service and you risk losing subscribers.
By the way, excellent website! Your articles are very enlightening!
Yes – I totally agree with you Harlan. You want to get your followers on a list and keep them on without having to move them around. You’ll always lose people doing that, no matter how well you keep up with your previous newsletter.
Thanks!
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Hey pat, I think those numbers are great! I’m starting to get into email marketing now and am capturing email Addys by offering a free mini couse to subscribers. Just curious, to get 30 new subscribers per day how many ppl visit your site daily? Cheers, Aidan
I’m averaging a little over 1000 users a day, half of them being absolutely unique.
Sorry, weird terminology after I looked at it. I meant 1000 visitors a day, half being unique.
I actually have a real estate E-newsletter service to help agents keep in touch but ironically my own newsletter that I use to keep in touch with the agents has been pretty much ignored — my last one was done in November. Your blog has served as an inspiration to get things going again and keep it regular. Thanks Pat!
No problem Russ! It’s tough to keep up with a newsletter, but I’m glad I could inspire you to get back on it. Wishing you all the best! Cheers!
Ah, excellent “how to’ with screen shots; I like that. I think your results are great because you actually make high quality and original content and you mix things up. I believe you will be able to develop stronger relationships with your newsletter readers. So, yes I can definitely see a value in that. Take Care, Mike
Great informative post, Pat. I use MailChimp myself but I can see the pros of using Aweber.
I couldn’t agree more with you on how fast someone can unsubscribe to a person’s mailing list due to them just selling their wares or other people’s stuff. I recently did this with two very popular bloggers who seemed to use their mailing list just to promote other blogger’s eBooks, courses, and such for that affiliate kickback.
Thanks for taking the time to put together this very thorough tutorial. Cheers!
Wesley Craig Green
WOW! the detail of this post is incredible! I ran a newsletter once upon a long time ago and it was sooo frustrating to figure things out. Thanks for the step by step walk through.
A few of the best things about your newsletter are it is sent only monthly and you aren’t selling anything. Very friendly and not intrusive.
Thanks so much for this article. I am a new subscriber/fan of yours. My question is- I have a site by SBI which has a built in e mail list / news letter option. But what do you do if you do not get any e mail addresses. I am kind of new to all these. Thanks.
Dita, if I may suggest, you should have a good stream of traffic through SEO/social media/other blogs etc and also a ‘reason’ for them to subscribe. Common ‘bribes’ are like ebooks (see Pat’s ebook the smart way), e-courses (7-part how to make passive income online), newsletter with discounts/bonuses. Lots of way to do it depending on your niche/goal.
Here’s a question for you. At what rate do you find that people unsubscribe to you list? I’ve grown my list to almost 500 subscribers now within the past month – and I’m finding quite a few of the people are subscribing, and then unsubscribing right away.. Not sure if that’s because they only wanted to get the free bonus i was offering, or something else? Have you heard of what an expected rate of unsubscribes is?
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hey pat, i just stumbled across your blog after researching the best way to get this darn emai list sorted for my blog, i have to say it’s the most in-depth post i found, ive just downloaded aweber so its a priority this week, my blog is mainly about art and design and i was thinking about maybe offering my subscribers the chance to be in a monthly draw where an email address is randomly picked to receive a physical personalised product i offer, writing a fresh new ebook is not an option at the moment because of time constraints. i know there’s free ebooks out there i can offer, but i just don’t feel like its a viable option, i suppose bing original and different is what will make people subscribe. what do u think?
[...] (This is Pat stepping in really quick. I just have to reiterate what Kim just said, because the list is hugely important! For those of you who do not yet have your own lists setup, you can check out my Beginner’s Guide to Starting a List Here.) [...]
Hey Pat, thanks so much for the detailed walkthrough.
I’ve been considering a list for a while, but it always seemed a chicken-and-egg dilemma trying to figure out which thing to do first. I have the makings of a good eBook that I could publish, but I don’t have the newsletter content ready to send to folks who’d sign up. As you said, you really need to have newsletters pre-written so you can launch the complete program at once before you even bother with any of the pieces. Thanks for clearing this up for me.
I’m on several lists right now, which has been a great way to see the range of content that people send. Most of the emails I get are pretty breezy, like, “Hey, I just discovered this great technique, check out this video about it.” I don’t get the feeling that authors are slaving over original articles just for the newsletter. It seems more like a periodic touch-base with some teaser information to get you back to the blog or site. What are your thoughts on what the email content should be?
Personally, I like to provide over-the-top content in my newsletters, wtihout any salesy type stuff. I may be different than most, but I want to use the newsletter to further develop the relationship I have with my followers and subscribers, so when the time does come to recommend a product or launch my own whatever, people will know it’s legit and real, and not just me trying to make a buck.
It is a great way to keep in contact with people though, and also to drive traffic if need be, but I think it’s really important to at least once and a while provide something unique that’s just for the newsletter, so people will want to stay subscribed and wanting more.
Me again. One more question. I was confused about what you meant by adding a new followup message every week. Does that mean your series started with 15 emails, but the people who signed up after you added the first new email got 16 emails in their series, and the new sign-ups the week after got 17 in theirs? Or are the original subscribers somehow getting the new emails you’ve added to the series? Thanks.
The series is on-going, so no matter if you’re an old subscriber or a new one, they will be able to read all of the emails eventually. The people who are older on the list will get them sooner than someone who is new who still may be on email 4 or 5, for example.
Let me know if you still have any questions. Cheers!
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