Blogging 101: How to Utilise Mailing Lists

If you’re up for creating even more content then maybe a mailing list is for you. Mailing lists are often used to remind readers of what you’ve recently posted, but it can also be a great tool to engage them with your brand, and the promise of exclusive content on a weekly or monthly basis can help build your subscribers.

Why use a mailing list?

Being able to email out when you have new blog posts up can help increase your day 1 traffic. Just make sure you’re only sending a sneak peek of the content rather than the whole post so you’re gaining those click throughs.

Direct contact is a great way to engage readers. When you’re posting on social media you’re shouting out and hoping that you’ll get impressions. Whereas when you’re emailing, it can be personalised messaging and it will be directly in their inbox.

This availability of direct contact means you can better understand your audience. Whether you’re sending out a form to fill in, looking at previous data or requesting long-form feedback from you’re readers you can work on increasing your contents value to them.

Extra value is a key word when it comes to mailing lists. You can create more content to share via your email lists, maybe a series of information based emails will be the ticket to gaining more subscribers. Or a giveaway? Or some kind of continuous content like a book club? Either way, giving your readers something unique can improve their engagement.

How to use a mailing list?

There’s plenty of different services you can use, but some of the most popular ones are MailChimp or Convertkit. When you’ve signed up for these you can create an opt in form that you can place onto your site in the form of a widget. I recommend placing this in your sidebar so it will show on all of your pages and blog posts.

There’s some legal requirements for newsletters that often differ from country to country. Plus the inclusion of GDPR has changed some of the requirements even more.

One of the main ones is ensure you have permission from the people on your mailing list. You cannot sign people up to your list who haven’t given permission to you. This also includes telling them exactly what they’re signing up for. You can’t ask for someones email for a competition and then start sending them daily emails about new posts.

As with your blog posts and social media, if you’re including advertisements or affiliate links in your emails then you must disclose this.

Most country’s marketing laws state you must use a valid postal address for your email campaigns. Of course, a lot of people like to keep their address private, so a PO box address can be used instead. I’ve seen a few blogger suggest making up a fake address, but you cannot do this and still abide by the laws.

Include opt outs/unsubscribe buttons in all your communications. This must be easy for the reader to use, and not cause any confusion. These must then be honoured and most services will automatically remove them from your list.

Building up readership

As I mentioned above. Make sure your opt in form on site is visible across all pages. So that no matter which page a reader lands on, they have the chance and visibility to sign up.

Create content that people want to read. If your emails are looking bland, boring and just reiterate what you’ve posted on site then why would people want to read it? Create unique content especially for your readers to retain them. And advertise the exclusive content to build up your mailing list.

Similar to creating unique content, you can create incentives to sign up. You can run giveaways and competitions which are exclusive to your email list. Letting your blog readers know this beforehand can also increase readership as they await the competition email.

Reach on social media to shout about your mailing list. People can’t sign up unless they know about your list, and this way you can talk more about what content you’ll share and if you’ll be creating competitions on it. On Facebook you can even create a CTA button on your page.