This is great stuff. I don't know ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT MARKETING! So this is a huge help.

Please share and share and share.

I have a couple of questions I didn't understand what you meant here:

Add the names you collect to your list of past clients and load all your contacts into your autoresponder. Make sure you have double opt-in set up so your clients can choose whether to get emails from you and you stay in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act.

1. Can I just add the names myself to my Aweber?

2. what is double opt-in?

thanks!

I've been on the marketing boards for the better part of a year now, and I've spent hundreds of hours reading there and working on my sites, man you have no idea! And I've learned that if you're trying to create a business from your sites, that's the first step you need to take: building your list. Once you have it organized, you can send emails to everyone on it all at once – it doesn't have to be newsletters bc sometimes ppl get board with long formats like that, so it could negatively impact your open rate. You want to build a personal relationship with your list, so short, two or three sentence emails seem to be working best for many marketers – worded from "me" to "you," with offers, contests, and other things sprinkled in once in awhile, but not until you've built the relationship.

I have way too much to say about this seriously, I think I really have decided to write a blog post about this tomorrow. LOL. It's just ironic bc I've talked to a few other people about this very thing this week. If you have any other questions, though, I'll be happy to help. Man I don't have a CLUE about blogging stuff and I've been tearing up this board asking for help, lol, but marketing – marketing I know. Best of luck.

This is great and I'd love for you to go on for days - really. I have a newsletter from my main site, barely really work it for a couple of reasons:

1. barely have time to fully optimize my site

2. can't really think of new stuff for the newsletter

also, since I have a travel business, and clients that were happy with me, I literally have over 900 names and emails that I have never ever done anything with and not sure which direction to go with them.

I would love to have some direction and motivation on how to work it better. 

I haven't put one on my new blog yet, but I fully intend to do so in this coming week. Like mentioned above, giving out a freebie for opting in is a great way to get more subscribers. I could go on for days about this LOL. I think maybe I'll write a blog post on it.

Anyway, if you don't want to shell out for an autoresponder service until you see more traffic (most services charge monthly fees), I think you can search WP plugins or look for a simple script online for a form that will collect email addresses for you, then you can organize them into a spreadsheet and send out your newsletter manually until you get too many subscribers to handle.

Thanks Robert, 

 

Do you have 2 totally different newsletters? When do you have the time :)

One word: Autoresponders!  You can make two totally custom newsletters using them, and set the responses at odd intervals.  You can use custom features and custom send times as well. Check out Pay Flynn's starting a newsletter guide for more details.

Do you have 2 totally different newsletters? When do you have the time :)

I think if you're going to offer a newsletter, make sure that it is worthwhile.

I see that a ton of you have under your comments, to sign up for your newsletter check off. How good are they? Do you get a lot of sign ups with that method?