Email list building from scratch - a beginner’s guide

No blog can survive without traffic and most common sources of traffic for any blog are search engines and social media.

But do you know that these sources can cut off at any time and you can be left with no visitors?

Yes, you heard me right, no visitors, all efforts on SEO, and social media followers gone within seconds.

This happed to several bloggers who were blogging for many years and suddenly their only source of blog traffic was shut.

Later on, bloggers around the world thought about this and realized the need for an email list.

So are you ready to understand why you need to have an email list?

An email list is always yours to keep

We all know that Google keeps on changing its algorithm.

And due to this, in the past, many blogs were penalized and deindexed from Google for no reason.

All those bloggers, who were blogging for many years and were getting a huge amount of traffic were left with no visitor.

The same thing happened to many bloggers who got their Facebook or Pinterest accounts blocked and lost all followers and traffic along with it.

But if you consider the email list, the list is always yours to keep.

Even if your site is gone from Google or your account is blocked from Pinterest, you will have an email list, a way to connect with all those loyal readers.

This is the prime motive behind starting your email list from day 1.

So that you can start building relationships with your readers slowly, even if they don’t visit your blog regularly, they will read your email and connect with you.

Your email list is always yours to keep.

A better understanding of your audience

When you build an email list, you have a way to reach your audience personally.

This is a great opportunity for you to understand your audience much better.

You can directly ask them or send them a survey to figure out what major issues they are struggling with right now and need urgent help on.

These issues will then drive your blog and you will understand which topics you should post on.

And moving forward if you decide to create your digital product, you will have a clear picture of which part of your audience does your product helps, an important factor that can make your product and your blog a success.

Evergreen sales funnel

Email marketing can be done on automation.

Meaning that when a blog reader signs up for your email list, you can set the system to send emails automatically to them.

This allows you to keep on working on other parts of the blog, and the system keeps sending emails to your new subscribers automatically.

Now suppose you want to promote an affiliated product or even your product.

You can create a series of emails beforehand to show the benefits of your product, making a sales pitch to your readers to purchase your product.

Now we all know that in email, you have the undivided attention of your reader.

When promoting any product, this attention is utmost required to make a sale.

So, combining this attention with email automation gives you an evergreen sales funnel in which readers will subscribe to your list, the system will automatically send series of emails you created beforehand and your readers will purchase your products by reading awesome benefits about it, everything was done without any manual work!

You will be making sales while you are sleeping in your bed!

I know it seems so easy to understand, but it does take a lot of time and effort.

But that does not mean that it is not possible.

Many established bloggers are doing all this stuff right now and making money while sleeping. (Of course, they work on other blog stuff after getting up to make this work!)

So, reading all these, by this time, I can surely say that you are convinced about having an email list is very much necessary for you.

Now let’s get started with building your email list from scratch.

What is your goal

Just like each blog post you create for your blog has to have a purpose behind it, so does each email too.

Before starting a list you should have a goal.

What do you want out of creating an email list?

Do you want to create a list to share exclusive content with your audience or to drive blog traffic or to make money out of it?

Having a clear purpose will drive your email marketing strategy.

Knowing this will decide how many times per week you will send emails.

What kind of emails you will send and what kind of action do you want them to take.

Having a clear plan of what you will do with your email list will make things much easier for you.

An email service provider(ESP)

There are plenty of email service providers that offer their service either free or paid.

My recommendation for you is to go for the free one first.

Because most of them will allow you to have free 1000 subscribers, and getting to an email list of 1000 subscribers takes a lot of time.

Start with free service, get to know the platform, learn how to create forms, landing pages, and email sequences.

By the time you have 1000 subscribers, you will all be set with how to make email marketing work for you.

Once you have more than that you can always convert to paid service.

But going for paid service right in the start can add to your blogging expenses and seeing no results might make you demotivated to blog. (Which I think you shouldn’t at any time in your blogging journey!)

Opt-in freebie

Once you signup with an email service provider and have email subscription forms on your blog, you will start seeing a few counts in your list.

But the growth of the email list will be at a snail pace.

To make it go fast you need to have an opt-in freebie.

Opt-in freebie or lead magnet is anything which your reader can apply right away.

For example a list of a high paying affiliate program, or checklist for blog post SEO.

You need to make sure that it contains an immense value and something that they can apply right away.

Also, you need to make sure that it is something that your readers are looking for.

If your freebie is not something that your audience wants then obviously they won't sign up for it and you won't be able to see any growth in your email list.

To get the idea of what should be your opt-in freebie, check the most popular posts on your blog, check comments and Facebook discussion groups, or check what type of freebies does your competitors have.

Once you have the idea, the format for it can be anything like a checklist, cheat sheet, e-book, video, or an email course.

Promote your freebie

Once you have your freebie ready, its time to promote it.

First, you should connect it with your forms such that once your reader sign-up for it, your ESP will send an automated email containing your freebie to that subscriber.

Then add this form to your blog posts which are most relevant to it.

Add it in the middle of your post as well as at the bottom.

Having it in the middle and at the bottom seems to increase list growth for me.

But make sure that post is relevant to it like your post is about getting started with affiliate marketing then your freebie “List of high paying affiliate program” aligns with it and will surely give you awesome growth in your list.

Now, suppose you want to promote only your freebie on Pinterest, and not your post since you are doing that already.

The answer is landing pages.

Landing pages are a single page having nothing other than info about what is your freebie, what benefits it has and a box for the readers to submit their email address.

If you create landing pages for your freebie then you can promote it separately from the blog post.

But do include the freebie in your post too, for awesome results keep it on both places.

Now, just like promoting a blog post, you can promote your freebie also. Great, right?

You can now create multiple images and create pins on Pinterest to promote it.

Welcome email

Now you are promoting your freebie and readers are getting on your list and grabbing those freebies.

Will you just stop at that?

You need to create a welcome email in which you introduce yourself, what your blog is all about, and add your personal touch and uniqueness to it.

For example, if you are doing good in terms of making money or blog traffic and this is what your readers are looking for then you can surely show your results and tell them that being on your list is worthy for them.

Keep showing up in their inboxes, share valuable content with them, and keep building strong relations with them.

The best of email marketing is that you can do all the repeating stuff on automation such that you just create one and the system sends it to your readers on auto.

You just focus on providing value to them and the system does its part.

So now you should be able to get ready for building email list from scratch.