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. So what do you do? Well, you bite the bullet and sign-up for a service and start collecting emails. or you get...
Free Email Newsletter
You can go for the FREE option with Google Friend Connect and use that to deliver email newsletters to your readers. No, it's not an autoresponder system, like AWeber, but it IS a mailing list - FREE mailing list.
And as a bonus, the Google Friend Connect has other features like creating interest polls for your readers, something you might want to do anyway. There are several gadgets available, like ratings and reviews, recommendations, targeted content for your readers, and others which you can use to get your readers involved with the blog. It even connects to the comment systems in WordPress, Drupal and phpBB.
However, because the Friend Connect is not an autoresponder system, so you do have to send out the newsletters manually as an broadcast to current subscribers, and the new subscribers won't get the same sequence of emails as those who joined earlier, so it's not suitable for setting up a eCourse delivered via mail for example. For something even better, you will also want a...
Free Email Marketing and Email List Manager
In the end, you should get a "real" mailing list, if you're looking to make money online. And even if you don't, an proper email newsletter service or autoresponder can be a great addition to any website or blog.
If you're ready to pay for a service like AWeber, go ahead, but I recommend that you sign-up for MailChimp which is free up to 500 subscribers (and 3000 mails a month ~ 6 mails to a list of 500 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.
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, 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 autoresponder system. Seriously, no monkey business.
If bananas is not your thing, you can go set up the friend connect and start building your community right out of the gates, also for free. Or you can get both! And even if you already have a mailing list and autoresponder system up and running, you should still check Google Friend Connect out if you could use some of the features.
How to Add the Google Friend Connect
- Go to Google Friend Connect
- If you have or start a free blog at Blogger, your site is automatically included in the Friend Connect, so you can go in there right now and check your settings.
- Sign in with your Google account
- Look for a green plus icon and text:
Add new site - Hit it
- Fill in the "Tell us about your website"
- Website name
- Website URL
- Language for the Widgets
- Hit Continue
- Your site has been added.
You can then create a Members -widget for your blog if you want (you can find mine here, on my connect-page, because unfortunately the full widget is bit of a slow loader for my taste).
For the newsletter, check the Newsletters -link and enable the newsletter sign-up when someone joins your site and generate a newsletter sign-up like the one you see on my sidebar on the right.
Was This Useful to You?
How did you like them apples (or bananas even)? If you liked this tip, go ahead and join my site via Google Friend Connect. Go to my "Connect with Antti" -page, and click the Friend Connect widget with the big blue "join this site" -button. While at it make sure you select the checkbox to "sign up for our newsletter".
Why? Because I might throw in some exclusive content & latest mon(k)ey making secret in there one day and you don't get it because you didn't signed-up for the newsletter. It's definitely not as exclusive as Jordan Cooper's super awesome mega exclusive E-Mail Blog newsletter as just anyone CAN sign-up, but it sure is cool.
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38 comments.
Agree with you, I use MailChimp which is absolutely adequate for a new blog!
Tbh, adequate feels like an understatement when MailChimp customer list has the likes of Firefox, Intel, Make a Wish Foundation and Business Week, just to name a few :)
Mail Chimp looks interesting, although I'm very happy with Aweber. I would say to anyone planning to earn money through their blogs, now or in the future, a properly set up system with autoresponders is essential. Don't fall into the “I'll do a free system for now” because you will lose subscribers when you upgrade.
Bottom line: If you want to make money blogging, invest in something like Mail Chimp or Aweber. Once you get over 500 subscribers, the cost is the same. And if you're serious you'll get there very quickly!
Mike, thank you for a great comment. Good point about the cost once you get over the 500 subscribers. With the pricing plans these two have on their sites, AWeber is actually a bit cheaper on the once you get over that.
And true about the “I'll do free for now” too. Although it is possible to migrate existing subscribers from other services, even from Feedburner. At least in theory migration to a new service can be done without new opt-in, if the original list has similar subscription process (e.g. double opt-in), but the different services might have different policy with this.
Start as you mean to go on. If you start with a free host and then need to upgrade you will lose the first subscribers. Excellent blog apart from that. I use Aweber and am very happy with it. Mailchimp is good too from what I have heard
Great info. Thanks! Never knew about Google Friend Connect. I use MailChimp and I absolutely love it. The best part is the funny comments the system makes as you move through the process of using it. It's great to chuckle as I do my work.
Hi Graham. If you meant RSS subscribers, starting with free blogging host and upgrading to a self-hosted one without losing any subscribers is entirely possible, if you use service like Feedburner for the RSS you can change the base feed there.
And a mailing list is not tied to the website/host, so no loss there. Changing mailing list provider is a different matter, and in case a new opt-in is needed, some subscribers will be lost.
As you said, it's better to choose a service with the end goal in mind, but the fact is that many beginners don't set any mailing list running until many months, even years into blogging, because of the costs.
Trying to learn MailChimp, but it's so different from AWeber that it's taking me some time. Looks very cool though.
Very well-written post, Antti, that can help a lot of bloggers who have yet to start a mailing list. I'm working with MailChimp myself, and with their free trial offer being fully functional and valuable to newbies, there's no reason why anyone *shouldn't* check it out.
Now, you can never get as great of a list as my super awesome exclusive one… :-)
I'm a MailChimp user and think it's great – I have two mailing lists with them and they work perfectly. Plus when I do need autoresponders, the facility is there.
Oh, this post is so so helpful, Antti. This is a very great resource, Antti. Great work! :) Thanks for sharing, I really appreciate it :).
I've been using Feedmail Pro for the six months. It's free for up to the first 1000 subscribers. You can send out manual emails and set emails at regular interviews, but it doesn't have an auto responder function like Aweber.
You're welcome Shirley :)
As RSS to email & manual broadcast system that kind of system works nicely. And at least you do have a way to send something out through the system, so it's better than just Feedburner.
Personally I think an autoresponder is essential, at the minimum to ensure all new signups gets attention, in addition to everything else it enables (most importantly, work even when you're on vacation, etc.).
Thanks Chris, that's good to hear.
I like the visuals of the chimp too and tutorials are great. Would be interesting to hear some more thoughts vs. AWeber, maybe when you have more exp with MailChimp, as it seems that these two are the most popular choices
Thanks Jordan. I'm setting my list up at MailChimp too, which I probably should've done a long time ago, but better late than never. And this was the reason I wrote this post, as I wish I had seen a post like this when I started.
All I saw was AWeber this and some-even-cooler-system that. But when I wasn't sure what a mailing list is, let alone how to use it, I didn't feel $19 a month is a good idea. With free, you're not paying when learning.
I didn't know about Google Friend Feed, thanks for that.
For anyone serious about a long term play in email marketing (and if you're in it for anything more than hobby you should be), spend the small amount of money to get started with a service such as AWeber or Mail Chimp which will grow with your business. It's worth doing this right from the beginning.
Thanks for your input Dave. I totally agree, every blogger or Internet marketer should have an email list right from the start. Google Friend Connect is great for its additional community features and good for sending announcements, the kind you wouldn't necessary send to your email list.
I've been using Feedmail Pro for the six months. It's free for up to the first 1000 subscribers. You can send out manual emails and set emails at regular interviews, but it doesn't have an auto responder function like Aweber.
You're welcome Shirley :)
As RSS to email & manual broadcast system that kind of system works nicely. And at least you do have a way to send something out through the system, so it's better than just Feedburner.
Personally I think an autoresponder is essential, at the minimum to ensure all new signups gets attention, in addition to everything else it enables (most importantly, work even when you're on vacation, etc.).
Thanks Chris, that's good to hear.
I like the visuals of the chimp too and tutorials are great. Would be interesting to hear some more thoughts vs. AWeber, maybe when you have more exp with MailChimp, as it seems that these two are the most popular choices
Thanks Jordan. I'm setting my list up at MailChimp too, which I probably should've done a long time ago, but better late than never. And this was the reason I wrote this post, as I wish I had seen a post like this when I started.
All I saw was AWeber this and some-even-cooler-system that. But when I wasn't sure what a mailing list is, let alone how to use it, I didn't feel $19 a month is a good idea. With free, you're not paying when learning.
I didn't know about Google Friend Feed, thanks for that.
For anyone serious about a long term play in email marketing (and if you're in it for anything more than hobby you should be), spend the small amount of money to get started with a service such as AWeber or Mail Chimp which will grow with your business. It's worth doing this right from the beginning.
Thanks for your input Dave. I totally agree, every blogger or Internet marketer should have an email list right from the start. Google Friend Connect is great for its additional community features and good for sending announcements, the kind you wouldn't necessary send to your email list.
Thanks a lot for writing about this. I always thought that there is not alternative to Aweber, we need to pay for it. Gave you a Blog Engage!
You are welcome Rohit, I'm happy this was useful info for you. As I mentioned in one of the other comments, I wrote this exactly for that reason, let people know that there is alternatives to AWeber, which is great system as many have said, but I postponed starting an email list myself because I couldn't convince myself to put money in it, even after reading everyone saying I should, so I know how it feels.
Of course there are many other email list services than these two, even free ones, but these 2 are the ones mentioned most. And based on user experiences I've read, MailChimp popped up as clear winner on the ones offering a free version.
never knew Google had this services..will check it out
Yeah Antti! Thanks once again!..
Now this is the most useful piece of info I have read all week, will sign up now under your affiliate link, thank you very much! Also tweeted and Facebooked and Blog Engaged…and all the other goodies as well.
JR, I'm happy you found the post useful :) And humble thanks for the re-tweets and such, much appreciated!
Now this is the most useful piece of info I have read all week, will sign up now under your affiliate link, thank you very much! Also tweeted and Facebooked and Blog Engaged…and all the other goodies as well.
JR, I'm happy you found the post useful :) And humble thanks for the re-tweets and such, much appreciated!
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it free?
if i use 6000 sender / month. next month i can send again and not coz?
Yeah, MailChimp is free up to 500 subscribers and 3000 messages a month (= 6 mailings a month to full free list of 500). So year, with less than 500 subscribers, and less than 6 mailings a month, it'll be free.