MAKE MONEY FROM BLOGGING FOR BEGINNERS – PART 2

In Make Money From Blogging for Beginners Part 1, we looked at two of the most common ways to make money blogging, and in Part 2 we look at the final piece of the puzzle that makes bloggers money.

The Email List.

Now you’ll hear the phrase  ‘The money is in the list’ and although 5 years ago this might have been true, with the ridiculous high open rates on offer. Now it’s not so much about the money being in the list but rather the trust is in the list.

And money comes from trust.

And with so many things to distract us in this Internet Age, trying to get people back to your blog or website on a regular basis can be a never ending task.

Is your content perfect for everyone? No

Are some parts of your content relevant to everyone? Yes

So how do you keep them coming back, week after week? You get them to subscribe, so they receive timely email reminders direct to their Inbox.
They did trust you with their Inbox email address didn’t they?

Of course, you could try to achieve the same thing with an RSS Feed, but these are almost dead.

Or perhaps you’ve setup a Facebook Fan Page, but then realize only 16% of Facebook Status updates reach your Fans.

Then maybe you think you’ll get great open rates on Twitter, but then realize Twitter is a point in time marketing tool, rather than ‘read this when you’re ready’ tool.

So you see the power of email may no longer be in the open rates, but rather the ability to leave your readers a message, that they’ll open when they’re ready.

So what are your best options for setting up an email list.

Best Email Marketing Platform

WordPress Jetpack

This is by the far easiest solution you can use to build your email marketing list as you might already find the WordPress Jetpack automatically installed when you first installed your WordPress software.

If it’s installed you just need to, create a WordPress.com account and then activate the ‘Subscriptions Plugin’ and configure it to suit your needs.

You have a few options for configuration including:-

• Placing under your Comments
• Create a Widget and place in your Sidebar
• Or by using the shortcode [jetpack_subscription_form]
  and placing within your post

The forms are fairly generic, but once subscribed to your list, your readers will receive an email notifying them of any new posts.

It’s not the best form of email communication, but will at the very least ensure you are building your email list.

NB: If you want a video tutorial on how to implement this on your website, let me know in the comments and I’ll put a ‘How To’ video together for you.

Mail Chimp

Now when you get a little more serious about email marketing, you’ll probably want to customize the message that is being sent to your subscribers. Or maybe you have a free giveaway or lead magnet as they are known in the industry, and want to write some a special message and provide a link to your product.

Then you’ll need to at least consider a product like MailChimp.

MailChimp integrates nicely with WordPress and is FREE for your first 2000 subscribers, which is plenty enough to get you started.

However, the one drawback with this FREE version is it doesn’t offer any automation. So you can’t offer an ongoing marketing funnel to your subscribers. Which makes it only slightly better than the WordPress Jetpack.

Of course, you can add email automation for a price but then you should be looking at other email marketing platforms out there.

I use and recommend Aweber.

Aweber

Aweber is a low-cost Email Marketing Platform that includes an AutoResponder in its base product and will essentially cover most of your email marketing needs when you are just starting out.

An Autoresponder lets you set up email campaigns that automatically get delivered, to your subscribers when and how you want them too. I use Aweber’s AutoResponder to deliver my FREE 7-day Training Series.

But it can be used for so much more.

It is fully integrated with WordPress and the sign-up forms can be easily customized.

And at $19/month it’s a good all-around email marketing platform, and it will grow with your business.

But don’t take my word for it. Take it for a FREE 30 day test drive and see if Aweber works for you.

So these are the 3 email marketing solutions I’ve used on a variety of blogs and my advice is to save yourself the time and just choose one that will handle your current and future needs as it’ll save you a huge learning curve each time.

And I like many others tried to get away with using the free email marketing platforms but was hampered by the lack of available features.

If you’re planning to do email marketing in the future, you’ll need to allocate some funds to get a reasonable solution, from the get, go.

In my opinion, Aweber is the best email marketing platform on the market, today. But I’ll keep my eyes open for any other product that might be a better fit for a blogger wanting to earn money online.

Again this is only an introduction to email marketing, and if you want me to write more on this topic, please leave a comment below.