Blogs are amazing creations. They come with their own subscription tool – the almighty RSS Feed! And savvy bloggers have taken the next step and run their RSS Feed through Feedburner which adds some interesting stat functions and provides a way for your readers to subscribe by email.
That RSS by Email function is not the same however as offering a real mailing list and that is what I want to encourage you to implement on your blog as soon as possible.
RSS Readers are great, and having some people receive automatic emails about your blog posts is fantastic – but these relationships are casual. Email list subscribers go a step further in giving you express permission to contact them by email outside of simply giving blog updates.
If you hope to profit from your blogging activity, this deeper relationship is a must!
I have several mailing lists. There’s the big Mom’s Talk Network list with over 6000 moms on it. There’s the list of over 600 customers. There’s the list of over 1200 affiliates. There’s several niche lists for groups like moms interested in ghostwriting, moms interested in affiliate marketing, moms interested in advertising deals, etc. These are all great lists… but none are as precious to me as my ‘Personal List’ of 1650 moms who are interested in me 
This mailing list is built day by day from my Work at Home Moms Talk Radio site and a few others. Whenever I want to provide a way to stay in touch but I don’t have a specific niche purpose for the optin, I invite visitors to subscribe to my personal list.
When I say that these subscribers are precious to me, I mean it. I take great care of this list. I’m careful not to overwhelm them with too many offers. When I don’t have anything to say, I leave them be. And for the last two years – I’ve given them a Christmas gift. (A full priced premium learning product from my library.)
When I post an offer of some kind to my blog, I usually get a response. When I mail an offer to my personal list I almost always get a much bigger response. (More sales!) Why? Because the relationship is deeper. The trust between the subscriber and I is more concrete so they are quicker to respond to my recommendations.
No more waiting, it’s time to start your own ‘personal list’
I have a four email management recommendations to offer you… I’ll start with the simplest and move to the most complex/expensive.
MadMimi – This is new. It is a mailing list management service that offers a sliding cost scale that starts with up to 100 list members for free. It goes up to $8 then $24 and beyond depending on the size of your list as it grows.
I’ve poked all around in the user interface and it appears that MadMimi is a broadcast/scheduled broadcast system only. You can set up a single autoresponse to a new subscriber but you can’t set up a multi-message autoresponder, like you would want for a seven day e-course.
I don’t think that’s a major turn off for your average mom blogger though. Most of you will just want to be able to send or schedule a message to your list when you want.
Aweber – This is the long time industry leader. I love Aweber! I have had an account for years and will never drop it, even though I have another mailing list manager that could absorb the lists I have built on Aweber – I just like having my lists spread out over two systems.
If you need to be able to use autoresponders, but don’t need any other ecommerce tools, go with Aweber.
WAHMCart – This is more than a mailing list manager, it’s a complete ecommerce system with a Shopping Cart and an Affiliate Manager. If you’re going to run a list and sell digital products, you’ll enjoy having an integrated system. Cost is $40/mo.
QuickSales – This is a brand of 1ShoppingCart and it’s what I use for Mom’s Talk Network lists and for my product Shopping Cart and Affiliate Manager. I love, love, love the customer support. When I have trouble I can actually call a real live person on the phone and get help. The cost is $99/mo.
I know the choices are intimidating but I hope my descriptions helped to clear things up for you. Take your time to really think things through – its a royal pain to move lists if you change your mind so be sure about your choice.
I’ll be back with another post soon and will share ideas for building your fresh new mailing list
Learn step by step how to Start a Mailing List in this October Free Webinar.
About Kelly
Great information! Thanks! I’m really enjoying your blog!
~Kim
Kim @ Forever Wherever´s last blog post..Tasty Tuesday Blog Party Invite
Great info Kelly! I will be signing up for Aweber soon … it is definitely “on the list”!
Christie´s last blog post..Are You Neglecting a Blog?
I have actually signed up for Madmimi. I know it’s a pain to switch but I figure if I get at least 50 subscribers then it will probably worth the switch. Now I guess I need away to get people to sign up for my mailing list.
Felicia – I Complete Me´s last blog post..My Postpartum Body: Series 1 Follow up
I’m looking at the Madmimi. You can’t beat free right! I’d love to do Aweber but I think for my purpose that Madmimi may be the way to go for me- plus who knows perhaps with enough blogging about the lack of the scheduled autoresponder feature they may add it!
Alaina Frederick´s last blog post..This Is Getting Annoying
Just wanted to share I signed up for Madmimi and was a little confused on where to go to set things up and the support tech was AWESOME – It was a live chat with a live person. Also, I asked about the scheduled autoresponders for those that have eCourses and such and it is on the to-do list for their programmers….
So it is in the future of Madmimi!!
Perhaps this will be a great option for those like me that need free to start out and then once the list gets there then can switch to affordable options later
Alaina Frederick´s last blog post..This Is Getting Annoying
I haven’t yet considered an email list service. Thanks for giving me some good things to think about and research!