Why You Should Start Your List Now?

It’s amazing how e-mail is considered overrated by some marketers these days. Sure, we have Twitter, FaceBook, Myspace, and RSS to reach out to users and keep them coming back to you. It is true that Twitter is quickly becoming a dominant communication platform for marketers, but e-mail still matters and will for a few years at least.

When I started blogging, I was aware of the power of e-mail communications with my readers. Slowly but surely I developed a list of 1,000 subscribers who signed up to get the latest tech tips from my tech blog. But I was a novice then and didn’t know how to take advantage of my list. To cut the story short, I managed to lose half of the subscribers by overselling offers to them. Once I realized that the list was dying, I decided to cut my losses and discontinue my newsletter. Looking back at it, I could have done many things differently. I could have tried to sell less and provide more value to my users. Maybe setting up autoresponders in advance could have helped me reduce the load. But I guess the biggest mistake that I made was not having planned properly before starting my newsletter.

You should definitely plan for running a newsletter for your blog. RSS, Twitter, and all other channels are great, but if you have a list of 10,000 subscribers, you can instantly reach with your news, and if you have done things properly, there is a good chance that you will receive higher conversions with your list than you would on Twitter or FaceBook. Your e-mail list is targeted, and that is a big asset. Best of all, if you do plan properly, you can grow your newsletter and increase your asset’s value exponentially.

It’s never too late to start a newsletter really. You can always jump in with services such as AWeber. Creating and managing a list with 10,000 or more subscribers could look daunting at first, but if you provide good solid content on your blog and a little subscription incentive (a report or a free e-book), things can snowball. Before you know it, you have a large subscription list that can bring you considerable income. Now here is the thing. You need to keep providing good value to your subscribers and be conservative with selling to your subscribers. I use the 4-1 Foruma for my lists (for every 4 emails, I send 1 sale type e-mail). If you provide value on a consistent basis, you can build an amazing traffic and monetization asset for your business that can have you quitting that day job in no time.

I will cover Aweber and other newsletter services in details soon. Stay tuned!