How to Start a Blog From Scratch Course Day Four

Okay, guys. Day Four. We are almost there. At this point, you have started your blog, figured out your theme, written down some blog posts you can write, and learned a few ways to make money. Now we’re going to move on to Email. Consider your email list as a group of people, who like what you write and are ready to buy your product(s). Instant clients. You know the drill, grab some coffee, tea, or cocoa and get ready to learn everything you need for starting an email list.

This task takes 20-30 minutes to set. But plan for more time if you want to dive in deeper.  Here’s the outline.

1. Using Email as a Blogger
2. Setting up your Blog to Send Emails
3. Building your Email List

Starting a Blog | Using Email as a Blogger

In the beginning, it will take a little time for people to start finding your blog. But you can start building an email list at any time. This will help you get followers. And if you have an email address, that means you can send them your great blog post, without them having o come find it. It also means you can send them new products, affiliate links to your favorite stuff, and pretty much anything else you want them to see. We also love email, because no matter what anyone says- you don’t own your followers! If you have just spent the last 4 years building a following on some social account and that company folds, you lose everyone.

Where do you get email followers? Well, hopefully, they are coming to your blog and seeing a signup form, which we’ll go over in the next section. But, you can also create a link to your email form to use on Facebook, Pinterest, IG and anywhere else you have follower potential.

Do I need to give them something in exchange for an email? You don’t need to, but it sure helps. If you have products you can offer a 10% off coupon code, or if you share the info you can create a 10-page downloadable guide they get for “free” when they sign up for your email list.

Starting a Blog | Setting up your Blog to Send Emails

In order to get started you will need an email marketing account. The companies we’ve used are Mailchimp and Mailerlite. Both offer free plans and can grow with you as you grow your list. Frankly, we love the email templates, automated options, and ways to organize contacts in both. But you could also go with Constant Contact, Aweber, or ConvertKit. For the purpose of this course, we’ll highlight both Mailchimp just so you can see how it works.  You can also start free trials with other email marketing accounts to get a feel for if you will like them or not. It does take a few days to get familiar with any email platform and hook everything up. So be sure to make this a priority.

Starting a Blog | Sign up for an Account

Here’s how you get started.

1. Click here to go to Mailchimp, Constant Contact or Mailerlite, or any e-mail marketing platform that you choose. 
2. Once you’ve chosen your platform, put in your email address.
3. Confirm your email
4. Fill out all the registration information
5. That’s it! You’re signed up.

Starting a Blog | Email Marketing

Again, each platform is different depending on what you choose. But here are some things to know no matter what platform you use. 

• Email Contact List: This is your audience o contacts and where everyone will be added when they sign up.
• Forms: The form you add to your blog can be accessed through a plugin on WordPress, or added as a widget on the blog with code.
• Landing Pages: If you’ve chosen Mailchimp, you can find landing page options in the Mailchimp forms by the Mailmunch plugin. Landing pages are made so that you can create somewhere to put a form, that has a URL you can share. MailMunch is one of our favorite places to make forms and landing pages because they integrate with loads of email providers. So if you end up switching later, you can still keep your forms! 
• Template Email: You can create a template for your emails that will always have your logo, header, footer, social links etc. And then just copy that template each time you need to create a new email.
• Campaigns: After you create your email you will simply “create a campaign,” to send it to your subscribers.

How to Create Your List of Contacts

First, we’ll create a list. This is where all your emails will go. You can add your own email first. As this should be something you receive along with your subscribers so you can test it. To understand groups, segments, etc. you can peruse the articles below. 

• Mailchimp: Create an Audience List. Here are the MailChimp instructions to get you started.: https://mailchimp.com/help/create-audience/
• Constant Contact: Create a Contact List: https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/5679-create-a-new-contact-list

Starting a Blog | Create a Form to Put on Your Blog

Second, you’re going to build your first form. Thankfully WordPress has plugin integrations with both Mailchimp and Constant Contact, so you can get your forms ready for subscribers right away.

• Mailchimp: https://wordpress.org/plugins/mailchimp-forms-by-mailmunch/
• Constant Contact: https://wordpress.org/plugins/constant-contact-forms/

Starting a Blog | Create an Email

Things you will want to put into your email, so have this ready before you begin.

• Make sure you have your blog logo/ pic/ blog title at the top of your email, so they look professional. When you’re asking people to buy stuff from you or others, this is important.
• Add information in the footer of your email, like your company name/ your name, the current year, and your blog web address.

Pro Tip: It’s best to Build an Email Template you can reuse over and over whenever you send an email to your list. That way you don’t have to re-add your logo, footer, parts, etc. every time you send an email. 

On Mailchimp

• Email Template: https://mailchimp.com/help/create-a-template-with-the-template-builder/
• Set up a Campaign: https://mailchimp.com/help/design-an-email-campaign-in-mailchimp/

On Constant Contact

• Email Template:  https://blogs.constantcontact.com/create-email-template/

Follow the instructions for whichever email marketing platform you choose. Your goal here is to build your first template, create an email and send yourself a test email to test it. 

Start a Blog | Email Marketing Review

Lets recap. Today’s Coursework included all these tasks. 

1. Choose which Email Marketing Account to Use
2. Sign up for an Email Marketing Account
3. Register and Confirm your Account 
4. Find your Contact or Audience List in your account
5. Add your name as a new subscriber
6. Build a Form to put on your Blog
7. Follow the Instructions to Build an Email Template
8. Create your first email and send yourself a test

And you’re all set!

Starting a Blog | Building your Email List

Okay! So now that you did all that sign-up stuff, form building, and played around with your options, we’ll get into a few tips to help you build your list!

Writing blog posts on your blog and building content that people are looking for is the easiest way to get subscribers. But, at the beginning, we all need a few subscribers to help us feel progress. This is where you get them.

Make sure that for each option you create a post that highlights what your freebie is (10% off, a free book of recipes, sticker printable, etc.) to entice them to visit the link.

1. After creating the email form and putting it on your blog you can share a link to that page on your Facebook account as a post
2. You can create a Pin that links to (a) the page on your blog with the form or (b) a landing page. This will drive people directly to your form to sign up.
3. You can share your link to your form in your Instagram feed as a post, or add it as the website link in your IG bio.

You can also use platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube to share your link on a wider scale. But again, your first priority should be to create some blog posts, so that when people visit to sign up, they know what kind of content they can expect to get from you.

Starting with Email Marketing 

Phew! That was a lot. Hopefully, you have gotten a handle on the whole email thing and how you can use it to get subscribers so that you have people to visit your blog, buy your products and click your affiliate links.

Tomorrow we dive into Day Five: How to Get Traffic. Stay tuned to see why it’s just all about strategy. It’s not difficult or scary. We’ll be sharing our BEST Get Traffic strategies tomorrow.  

Return to How to Start a Blog Course Day Three

Move Forward to How to Start a Blog Course Day Five