Why Set Up a Newsletter?

For the sake of this post, newsletters that I’m referring to are email newsletters that your website visitors or your online store customers can sign up for. An (opt-in) newsletter provides a channel for you to share what you want to say with people who actually want to hear from you. It’s an invaluable resource in building a long term audience, and monetizing it responsibly.

Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them. – Seth Godin

Seth Godin, a renowned marketer, and one that I personally respect (and subscribe to) sums it out perfectly. Personally, I’ve been a big fan of Seth’s ideas and have been reading his blog posts in my inbox every day for years. He shares valuable ideas on marketing effectively, and if he has new projects, his subscribers (including me) will be the first to know. He’s written a book on permission marketing if you’ll like to find out more.

An email newsletter fits right into permission marketing, and top bloggers around the world have found massive success with having an email newsletter – just check out their websites! A newsletter can be about information or about products.

The newsletter on Bootstrap Website is purely informational, while the below newsletter from Decathlon is about products (I was a customer of Decathlon.)

Why Can’t I Just Email Them Directly?

1. You need to collect their emails

You do first need to have their emails. In order to entice subscription, it’ll help if you give them either a free ebook or the promise of useful information to come in order for them to part with their emails. You need to gain their trust – hence the need for a professional opt in form (more on that later).

2. You want your emails to reach them

Chances are, if you email directly from your email, over time your email address may be marked as spam, and you may not be able to send them further emails. In addition, you need to provide them with a simple way to unsubscribe from your emails, in order to be legally compliant.

1. Signing Up for Mailchimp

There are several companies out there who offer these services, out of which Mailchimp and Aweber are 2 popular options.

As I’m just starting this website, and my readers similarly will, I’m using Mailchimp because of their free starter plan (free for 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month).

Click here to sign up for Mailchimp for free.

2. Creating a New List

After signing up for a free account with Mailchimp, you’ll need to create a list. This is basically a list whereby your subscribers can sign up for.

Several details will be asked when creating your list.

3. Setting Up Opt-In forms

Now that you have a Mailchimp account and an email list, you’ll need a way to provide your readers/customers to sign up for your list. You can place many different types of opt in forms in various places, including your Website, Online store, Facebook Page etc.

1. Website / Blog

On a website, there are many places where you can place opt in forms. These include:

1. Pop-up – appears to readers as they are reading the page
2. Below-content – appears below contents (e.g. blog post)
3. Sidebar – I’ve not used a sidebar opt in form as I’m not a fan of it, but you can see many websites/blogs doing this
4. Within-content – opt in forms can also be placed in line with content as the following example

To achieve these various opt in options, I’ve used Thrive Leads (paid plugin) as I wanted a good opt in experience for my readers, which allows me to place beautiful opt in forms throughout my website, all of which that I can customize to my liking without any programming needed. 

2. Launch Page

If you are preparing to launch a new product/idea/website, and you’ll like to gather interest, you can do so easily by setting up a Launch Page and collect emails to follow up with these early adopters.

See my launch page example.

Click here to learn how to build a launch page in just 15 mins.

3. Online Store

If you’re using Shopify to run your Online Store, you can also easily integrate Mailchimp to send newsletters to your customers.

Sending Emails to Your Subscribers

Now that we’ve set up an email list and opt-in forms for our subscribers, the next article will cover the 3 types of newsletters that you can send to your subscribers, using Mailchimp.

Next article: The 3 Types of Newsletters that You Can Send to Your Subscribers (and how to set them up)

Thank You!!

Well thanks for reading this post! I couldn’t end this post without mentioning to you that I’ve set up a Website Creation course that you can join in just by signing up below.

The course is entirely free and can get you started right away. Cheers!