Stop Making Excuses for not Building a List! 4 Ideas for Great Emails

Building your list yet? If you are reading my posts on Fridays, you probably noticed I mention it a lot. Because I firmly believe you need to start building the list from the first day of your blog’s existence!

I recently realized that one of the common reasons people don’t do it is because they don’t know what to send out to the subscribers.

You believe there is nothing new to add to what you potential subscribers are already reading on your blog and you decide not to build a list.

Bull…

Here are some ideas you can put to use today (and please do) and start building and maintaining your list!

Blog Updates

This is a no-brainer. Most email marketing services have automatic settings where you can send new blog posts as they get published on your blog.

Yes, this isn’t a real newsletter, however, adding people to your list gives you the right to send them emails, and once you are ready to go forward from blog updates to something more, you will be allowed to do it, without getting in trouble with legal limitations set in email marketing.

Weekly tip

You don’t have to send full blown newsletters that will change the world, just set an autoresponder with a weekly tip that will automatically be sent to your subscribers.

You don’t have to even send anything new, there are many amazing autoresponders I subscribe to, sending out some basics but they are targeted at what I need so I stay subscribed.

An example is one of the fitness blogs I subscribe to, they send a weekly tip in one sentence, for example: “Don’t put dressing on your salads to avoid additional calories from fat”. Trust me, people appreciate these simple actionable tips in any niche.

Weekly recommendation

Another idea that will not require you to create anything new, or be super-special but still allows you to be super-helpful. That is all that matters.

As a blogger, you are bound to read a lot, related blogs, tutorial sites, watch Youtube videos, etc. There is always going to be some posts that will blow your mind  and teach you something you really needed to know. Chances are, so do your subscribers.

Send them a link to one such post every week. They will appreciate you pointing them to great content and you will help them filter information by focusing on great content already vetted by someone they trust – yourself!

Monthly newsletter

Again, you do not need to create any unique content for this one to work. You can send out a monthly newsletter that will pretty much be a combo of all of the above and still make people stick around (I do subscribe to a few of these and love them).

You can start with an important tip in your niche, list all your new posts from the previous month and then send them to one or two posts from other blogs you think they will find useful.

Conclusion

There is no excuse for not building a list and then keeping in contact with your subscribers. Pick one of these 4 ideas or combine some of them into one, try it for a few weeks, see if it works for you. If not, change it around and try another one. When you find your sweet spot and learn what your subscribers like to read, all you have to do is get more of them to subscribe to the list and keep rocking

So what are you going to use as an excuse now?