Related read: The Truth About Driving Blog Traffic
The main reason I didn’t start a subscriber list was I didn’t know how beneficial it would be for my site. The ultimate benefit of a subscriber list is you have a group of people who have raised their hands to say they want to be contacted by you. They are open to receiving offers for products and services from you. Additionally, a subscriber list allows you to
- Directly communicate with your audience
- Drive more engaged traffic to your site
- Have control over what messages and content you share and to whom
- Keep subscribers up-to-date
To capture, manage, and use a subscriber list you need to have an email marketing tool. Finding an email marketing tool can be overwhelming as there are many options out there. So knowing how you want to use your subscriber list and what you need an email marketing tool to do is helpful in choosing one.
When looking at the different options for an email marketing tool here are some things to consider
What types of emails do you want to send?
RSS feeds of your latest posts or newsletters?
How much can you afford at the moment?
Can you afford to pay a monthly fee or do you need to start out with a free service?
Do you want to use your subscriber list to make sales?
Are you planning to use affiliate links in your emails or sell your own products or services?
How much effort can or do you want to put into creating emails?
Some email providers have drag-and-drop options for building your emails. Others may require more HTML coding which may be something you want to truly customize your emails.
RSS feeds of your latest posts or newsletters?
How much can you afford at the moment?
Can you afford to pay a monthly fee or do you need to start out with a free service?
Do you want to use your subscriber list to make sales?
Are you planning to use affiliate links in your emails or sell your own products or services?
How much effort can or do you want to put into creating emails?
Some email providers have drag-and-drop options for building your emails. Others may require more HTML coding which may be something you want to truly customize your emails.
How much flexibility do you need for growth?
If you plan to grow your subscriber list, it's helpful to use an Email Service Provider who can grow with you.
Do you want to track email performance?
Some Email Service Providers have analytic capabilities built-in and/or will connect to your Google Analytics.
Do you want to segment your subscribers?
If you have a blog with more than one topic you may want to segment your subscribers and send those segments different content and offers.
After determining how you want to use your subscriber list and what you need an email marketing tool to do the next step is to select one.
From blogging Facebook groups and other blog posts I’ve read, the top Email Service Providers for small businesses and bloggers are Kit, MailChimp, and MailerLite.
Related read: 7 Things I Did to Grow My Blog Traffic and Readers
Kit
Claims to be an email marketing tool specifically for bloggers.Cost
Kit has a free plan for creators with up to 10,000 subscribers. When paying monthly paid plans start at $29/mo for creators with up to 1,000 subscribers. When paying annually you can get a small discount.Features
Opt-in forms and landing pagesYou get multiple ways to capture subscribers with Kit. Responsive opt-in forms, and landing pages. A bonus for people using WordPress is there’s a plugin that allows you to select a form you’d like to use and easily add it to your blog post. So you can different opt-ins depending on the topic of your blog post.
You can create customized landing pages that can be used for digital product offerings or sign up for email courses.
Email series or sequences
You can set up an email series that Kit calls sequences.
Automation
With Kit, you can send automated emails that are triggered based on actions that your subscribers take.
Subscriber segmentation
Subscribers can be segmented using tags. This is helpful so you can communicate with certain subscribers when needed.
Analytics
You can see stats on how different opt-ins are doing and where your subscribers are coming from.
MailChimp
Overall it seems to be geared more for eCommerce businesses.Cost
With the free plan, you can have up to 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. The downside to the free plan is that you get very limited features with the free plan. After that, pricing for plans varies depending on the number of subscribers and features you want access to.Features (with paid plans)
Opt-in forms and landing pagesCustom forms that can be embedded or pop-up can be created. But there is no free landing page feature.
Automation
You can send automated emails based on different actions subscribers take. Such as signing up for your subscriber list, when they make a purchase or have been inactive for a while.
Subscriber segmentation
From what I hear and read there isn’t any. Additionally, you are paying for every subscriber on your lists. So if someone is subscribed to multiple lists you are paying for that subscriber multiple times.
Analytics
MailChimp provides pretty robust analytics. You can monitor and track overall performance and subscriber activity using interactive graphs.
MailerLite
Seems like it’s built with the email marketer in mind.Cost
MailerLite has a free plan which is like having an unlimited free trial. With the free plan, you can have up to 1,000 unique subscribers and send 12,000 emails each month.When billed monthly, paid plans start at $10 for up to 500 unique subscribers and increase based on the number of subscribers. You can pay annually or monthly. Annual plans are a little cheaper than monthly plans.
The great thing about the free plan is you get a lot of great features.
Features
Opt-in forms and landing pagesYou can choose from an embeddable form, a button, or a landing page for your opt-in form.
Email series or sequences
This is one of my favorite MailerLite features. Email series/sequences, called Automation Workflows in MailerLite, are easy to set up with the drag-and-drop interface. When creating an Automation Workflow you don’t have to create the emails from scratch. Instead, you can use the existing free email MailerLite templates or you can pull in emails you’ve created for other Automation Workflows.
Automation
Automated emails are now created using the Automation Workflow feature. With this, you can set up multiple email series or workflows based on actions or inaction from your subscribers.
Subscriber segmentation
Subscriber lists can be segmented based on several factors so you have choices depending on what your goals are.
Analytics
The MailerLite dashboard contains a snapshot of your analytics. There you can see
- How many unique subscribers you’ve gained during the current and previous months
- Your current MailerLite plan including how many emails you’ve sent during the month
- The opens, clicks, unsubscribed, and spam complaints about the campaigns you’ve sent out
If you’d like to dig deeper you can see full analytics for each email campaign or automation workflow. As well as your different subscriber segments and activity for each subscriber.
Other features include
- Easy and multiple ways to create emails: With the paid plan you can leverage pre-existing email templates and customize them for your brand. Or you can create emails from scratch using the drag-and-drop editor or coding your own email
- Auto resends: This is a paid plan feature to resend emails that weren’t open or had any links clicked
- A/B testing: Test headlines and emails to learn what works for your subscribers and what doesn’t
Which service do I use and recommend
I've used MailerLite. I can’t even remember how I found MailerLite. It could have been from another blogger or an online search. Whichever way I’m glad I did. Once I admitted to myself I needed to start a subscriber list I started to see what my options were.I've since switched over to the free Kit plan and love it! You read why in 7 Reasons I Switched My Email Marketing To Kit
I’d used MailChimp before for something else and hated it. The interface was clunky and I couldn’t figure out how to create and send emails without jumping through hoops.
My recommendation would be either MailerLite or Kit
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