Don’t have an email list? Get one, right now! I’m not talking about that silly FeedBurner opt in that comes standard with every word press blog. Go ahead and take that off, and add in a real email capture. Head over to Aweber and sign up for an account. It may feel like it’s a lot of money, especially since you aren’t making any yet. Don’t worry, this simple tool will pay for itself many times over.

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Your mailing list has the potential to become your most important asset as a blogger. You know that throughout our instruction, we really focus on using free products here (and this one is not expensive, it’s around $20 a month for the basic package) but this one is really worth it. They will keep everything organized and easy to use. If you try to switch to Aweber once you are making more money, you will lose a great deal of your email list because they require double opt in, even if you are adding existing contacts. It will save you so much time and energy just to get started with them off the bat!

Once you are a member, put the email capture in the “Sweet Spot” of your blog, in the upper right hand corner, under your header. (They have great videos on their site that show you exactly how to do this.) Your goal with this opt in form will be to get as many of your website visitors to become members as you can. You may want to split test where you put the opt in form of what colors you use until you find out what helps you get the most members. Make sure you clarify on the opt in form that you adhere to a strict privacy policy and you will never give away or sell their email address!

One great way to get more people to sign up is to essentially bribe them. Give them something that they want in exchange for giving you their email address. Give them a relevant free report, or a video that you’ve made. Make sure it is relevant. If you are blogging about working from home don’t offer a report on how to get your baby to sleep through the night. Make sure it’s something that the customers who reached your blog are looking for.

This free report does not have to be something that would stop the presses. While you are preparing it, just think of it as another blog post, with a little extra added in. It will be longer than a typical blog post, but it doesn’t have to be a novel. If you can accomplish what you need to say in five pages, then it can just be five pages long. Take a look at This Post to find some vocabulary that you can use to promote your free report or video and get more attention. Never, I repeat, NEVER say “sign up here to receive our newsletter.” People are tired of newsletters and will not sign up. If you absolutely cannot think of a thing to write a free report about, you can offer them a valuable coupon to something that they need. Your main goal here is to get as many email addresses as you can.

Once you have this report written, you can set it up in Aweber as an autoresponse to people who sign up for it. Go ahead and set up a few other autoreponses to these individuals so that they are receiving emails from you every once in a while. You might want to do a welcome email, or email them information from your most popular or valuable blog posts. You can set up a blog broadcast through Aweber so they are receiving each one of your blog posts.

Ideally, you want to develop a relationship with your members, so you want to consistently provide them with valuable content that is useful to them. Don’t just send them your blog posts, send them information that you’ve come across that you feel like would add value to their reason for subscribing to your updates. Maybe it’s blog posts from other important writers in your niche, or a free report you came across, or a coupon that you think they would enjoy. Make sure that you are not trying to sell them on things every time you email them, build the relationship as well.

Once you’ve developed this relationship, you will have built the trust necessary to start marketing to your email list. This is where a huge amount of your blogging income will eventually come from. You can do this as an affiliate (talk about a product you’ve used and include your affiliate link in the email), or by selling them a product (information product, a set of videos, set of podcasts) that you’ve created. If you find or create a product that has a recurring income, like a membership site that your subscribers can sign up for, you will have created a recurring income stream for yourself when you email them about the product.

Get started right away, start building that list!

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