Helpful Steps to Get a New Blogger to Start Building Their Email List

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Why You Should Start an Email List?

There are many reasons you need to start an email list. As people always say you do not control social media, but you own your email list and therefore can control it. We all have heard this a million times.

Let’s talk about other reasons to start an email list.

Your list is a way to keep in touch with readers. When I click a pin on Pinterest or read a random article via Google I am not all of the sudden a follower of their content. I don’t remember them the next day and definitely don’t remember their URL. People will never find your blog again.

If you get them on your email list you can send them emails to check-in and grow that relationship. They will start to remember you.

An email list is a great way to build a relationship with your audience. You can send them links to other articles they may not have read. This can be a way to give them helpful information. You are ideally giving them value, while at the same time getting more pageviews and having more potential for affiliate sales.

The other huge reason to start building an email list now is to have a list to sell to later when you create a product. This product could take any form such as physical or digital. It could be a small PDF or a huge course. It doesn’t matter what you plan to sell in the future. You want to start building a list to sell to.

How to Start Creating an Email List?

The first step to creating an email list is getting signed up with an email marketing software. You are not going to want to simply use your Gmail account for this.

I went with Convertkit, but there are plenty of options available on the market. Because I am not earning much with my blog I wanted a program that would be free for a while. Convertkit is free until you hit 1000 subscribers or decide to upgrade before then.

With a free plan, you are going to be limited on your capabilities though. I cannot set up complex sales funnels and automations at this point. That is ok though because I barely have any subscribers and currently have nothing to sell.

Ok, so now you created your account.

You could simply create a form that you place in all articles that tells readers to sign up for your newsletter, but likely won’t see much success.

What you need to do is create freebies that people can get by subscribing to your email list.

I currently create my freebies in Canva, which is also free to use on the basic plan.

You can create any type of freebie you could imagine. It could be a printable checklist, a 5-week plan, or even step-by-step instructions for how to complete a task. You can offer anything that you can create.

I will touch a bit more on what types of freebies I recommend later in the article.

For now, though you created the freebie. You probably save it as a PDF.

Then you go to Convertkit and create a form. This form connects them to the freebie if they subscribe to your email list. You can place this form in a single article on your blog or multiple articles where it is appropriate.

You need to make your freebie something the reader will want. You also need to make it sound enticing and definitely include the word FREE.

Ideally, people like your freebies and become email subscribers.

This is the beginning of your list building.

What to do when you get Email Subscribers?

First off you need to pay attention to which freebies are performing the best. This will tell you what your audience is most interested in. It may also give you a guide on how you should create or format your other freebies.

Once I have a subscriber I make note of the freebie they subscribed to get. I then create a welcome-type email where I include links to three articles they may find helpful based on what they were interested in.

If it was a freebie related to breastfeeding tips I will send them links to three articles relating to breastfeeding or newborn life.

My first thought here is they are getting something that is ideally helpful and they are getting more exposure to my content. They can start to get my vibe and see if they like it. This also gets me a couple more pageviews and potential affiliate sales.

It is important to me that emails are not sent to bother someone or waste time. I truly want to give helpful and useful information.

I previously mentioned I am on the free plan with Convertkit. This means I cannot automate these emails.

My workaround for this is keeping track of my emails based on the freebie and the date subscribed.

I can use filters to make sure I am not sending the same email to subscribers multiple times. It is not easy and I am still in the process of figuring it out each day.

Keeping Your List Warm

I’ve heard so many times that you want to keep your list warm or hot. You want to keep in contact with your readers and continue providing them with helpful information. I have heard it phrased as give-give-give-take. This is where you are offering free stuff and then eventually try to sell to them.

I am not yet to the point of selling. I am just trying to manage my list and send them helpful articles in the meantime.

Freebie Recommendations

While spending time creating freebies I have learned a few different things. First of all creating 15 different freebies doesn’t make all that much sense. You are going to have people in 15 different categories potentially.

It is easier to gather like-minded people. Then create a product that makes sense for all of these like-minded people. It is more difficult to sell a single product to 15 different groups of people.

Create only a few freebies that can be placed in the majority of your articles. It should make sense with your overall brand and information. This freebie is the first step in creating a product. You see how much interest is out there. You work on gathering those potential future buyers.

Do not spread yourself thin with email marketing. Keep it focused on your core message or idea. Before creating tons of freebies take time to think about what future product you will create and start with a related freebie.

My Journey with Email Marketing

I don’t want to bore you with my story, but also want to provide an early example of email marketing.

I signed up for Convertkit ages ago. I got overwhelmed and put it on the back burner. Months later I came back to it and decided it was time to figure this out and start growing my list.

On January 1^st, I decided it was time to start creating PDFs and figure out this whole connection with Convertkit and WordPress.

On February 6^th, I got my first email subscriber (other than my personal Gmail for testing).

On February 11th I had PDFs in 9 articles across my website.

This first subscriber got me excited to continue creating and placing freebies in articles.

I took some time playing around with creating emails and sending them to myself. After a while, I finally gained the confidence to email my subscriber.

On March 16^th, I sent my first email to my first subscriber.

I realize I should have sent it sooner, but I just wasn’t ready.

On the evening of March 16^th they opened the email! And they didn’t unsubscribe! Whoop Whoop!

I gained another 2 subscribers in April from two different freebies.

Of those 2 subscribers, one opened the email and one did not as of the time I am writing this post.

So at this point in early May, I have 3 email subscribers that all signed up through unique freebie offers. It has taken me about 4 full months to get PDFs placed into articles and gain 3 subscribers.

No one has unsubscribed yet, so that’s a good thing. I don’t want to lose the few subscribers I have.

I want to tell you that this can take time and that’s ok. Everything with blogging is a process. Once you learn it though it can snowball. Keep making irresistible freebie offers! You will get subscribers with time.