This is one of the most important things you need for your blog…

This is one of the most important things you need for your blog… an email subscription list!

Here’s the thing.  While a lot of your blog traffic will come from Google and social media, you honestly have no control over those platforms.  But an email list is yours!

If Google changes it’s algorithm, you could suddenly lose a ton of traffic by no fault of your own.  If Facebook changes their terms  (which they do often) or Pinterest suddenly tanks (I really hope that never happens), then you might suddenly lose contact with followers you have there.

But if you have the privilege of having your readers/followers’ email addresses, then you always have a way to contact them that’s not dependent on another platform.  It’s your direct access to your clients or customers that is not dependent on any third party.

With your customers’ email addresses, then you can send them your sale information straight to their inbox and not have to wonder if your announcement on Facebook showed up in their feed.  Do you see what I mean?

So if you don’t already have an email subscription service, you may not know where to start.  There are dozens of options out there and the variations of service are broad.

There are huge differences in prices, difficulty to use, and features available.  I started out with a free service many years ago, then temporarily switched to Feedblitz, and finally landed at Madmimi where I’ve been for the last years.

I can’t give you the breakdown on the other services, except to say that I know Madmimi is significantly less expensive than several other options.

But even without knowledge of the other services, I can recommend Madmimi wholeheartedly.  With Madmimi, you can choose to set up RSS feed (so new posts are automatically sent to your subscribers every time you post) or you can create your own emails to send any time you want!  Or you can do both!

Madmimi also has user-friendly formatting and setting up a newsletter that is beautiful and matches your blog design is really simple.

Best of all – their customer service is amazing.  They have live chat available during a lot of “regular” business hours, but even when chat is not on, they usually reply to emails within minutes – night or day!

If you want to try out Madmimi, you can sign up here and your first 100 subscribers are free (you don’t even have to give them a credit card)!   And if you have any questions about using their service, leave me a comment or reach out to them!

Happy Blogging!

Rose