Want to start a mailing list for free? See how you can easily get a a high-quality mailing list service, forever free up to 2000 subscribers.
Start a Mailing List Today
You have probably seen the people talking about setting up a mailing list or an autoresponder system for your blog, right? In fact, the I've seen every established Internet marketer and blogger say they wish they had started collecting emails immediately when they started out. I mean, every. single. one.
So there must be something to that, right? If you're offering an email subscription option to your blog via FeedBurner's RSS to email option, your blog posts will be automatically send to your readers. This is great (I use it too). But what if you want to send special newsletters for your readers and not just the latest posts you put on your blog? Nope, sending the mails manually is not good, so you need a system for it.
They say you should sign-up for Aweber, which costs $1 for the first month and then $19 a month (or little less if you pay for the full year) and the price will go up as your list gets larger.
You're just starting out, you don't have a large following on your blog yet, and paying 19 bucks a month doesn't sound so tempting (even with just $1 for the start). So what do you do? Well, you bite the bullet and sign-up for a service and start collecting emails. Or you start with the other option, that offers free trial, and for under 500 2000 subscribers it's totally free.
Update: When I wrote this post, MailChimp was free up to 500 subscribers and 3000 mails. NOW, MailChimp is forever free up to 2000 (!) subscribers and 12000 mails. If you happen to get to a "full" list with the free account, you can upgrade at any point, but you are never forced to.
Starting a Mailing List with MailChimp
You should get a "real" mailing list, if you're looking to make money online. Sooner you start, the better. Day 1 is the best, but it's never too late, so start today if you haven't already. And even if you're not looking to make money, an proper email newsletter service or autoresponder can be a great addition to any website or blog.
AWeber, which is the choice of many bloggers and marketers, but I recommend that you sign-up for MailChimp which is free up to 2000 subscribers (and 3000 12000 mails a month =~ 6 mails to a list of 500 2000 subscribers a month, which is plenty). They don't ask for credit card details and force you to upgrade from their forever free plan if you don't want to, so it's 0% risk free.
As a comparison, 2000 subscribers cost $19 + $10 = $29 per month with Aweber. The $19 a month covers up to 500 subscribers. MailChimp is cheaper even if you need more space for subscribers or need to send more mails, in addition to being free up to the 2000 subscribers. The price differences even out for larger lists, and Aweber starts to get cheaper than MailChimp on the 10000+ subscriber range.
Account creation couldn't be simpler.
- Go to MailChimp
- Hit "Sign up for free"
- Enter your email address, desired username and password
- Go to your email
- Open the confirmation mail from MailChimp
- Hit "Activate my account"
- Done
If you sign-up to MailChimp through my affiliate link AND decide to upgrade to paying option along the line (which you don't have to do, if you don't want to), I will get 30 monkey credits or something like that, which I can use to send bananas to my list. I won't get any money and buy myself a fancy tree house in the jungle, but you'll get a great mailing list service and an autoresponder system. Seriously, no monkey business.
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How did you like them apples (or bananas even)?
Here's the link to start a mailing list, up to 2000 subscribers for $0, with MailChimp once more. Try it out - it's free and completely risk-free, so there's really no reason not to.
Update history:
- Mar 18, 2011: Updated the post, as MailChimp is now free up to 2000 subscribers, making it even more awesome service.
- Mar 18, 2011: Moved Google Friend Connect stuff to a separate post.
