5 Easy Ways to Collect Email Addresses from Your Blog

Email marketing is an excellent direct response tactic used by small and large companies around the world, as well as individuals, to boost sales and profits.  A challenge for an entrepreneur or small business that doesn't have a big budget to pay for targeted email marketing lists is collecting email addresses to send email marketing messages to.  Fortunately, you can use your blog to collect email addresses from people who opt-in to receive your marketing email messages.  It's easy and free.  Use the following tips to start colllecting email addresses from your blog today!

1. Ask for email addresses.

You can easily ask for people who read your blog posts to opt-in to receive email messages from you in the future.  Just be sure to create a marketing message that shows readers that your email messages will add value to their lives.  For example, instead of simply writing, "Submit your email address for important news," write a message that says, "Sign up to receive discounts, new product info, and other exclusive news and offers."  It's far more motivating for visitors to hear they can get special discounts via email than it is to simply hear they can get news.  Include a link in your marketing message to a submission form where they can easily input their email address and submit it to you with the click of the mouse.

2. Hold a blog contest.

Blog contests are a great way to drive a buzz about your blog and collect email addresses.  For example, offer a great prize, and then promote your blog contest to spread the word about it and boost entries.  Make sure the contest rules that you publish require that entrants include their email address so you can notify the winner using the provided email address.  Finally, be sure to include a disclaimer that notifies entrants that by supplying their email addresses, they're opting in to receive exclusive discounts, news, and new product information from you via email in the future.

3. Publish an ad.

You can create an ad graphic inviting people to submit their email addresses for exclusive discounts and information.  Place the ad in a prominent position in your blog's sidebar.  You can also create an ad and include it in your blog's feed, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and place ads on other blogs.

4. Tweet it.

Publish an update on your Twitter profile that invites people to sign up for exclusive discounts and offers.  Include a link to your email signup form, so it's easy for people to quickly submit their email addresses.

5. Use an email opt-in plugin.

If you use WordPress.org as your blogging application, then you can use an email opt-in plugin to easily automate the process of collecting email addresses.  Great plugin options for collecting email addresses include WP Opt-in and WP Email Capture.

5 Easy Ways to Collect Email Addresses from Your Blog

Free and Affordable Email Marketing Tools for Bloggers

Email marketing is an effective way to build your blog, and fortunately, there are a number of online tools that make it extremely easy to create and send professional email marketing messages to your email marketing list.  Some of these tools are free and others require a small fee.  As your blog grows, you might want to pay for additional features and functionallity, but you don't have to pay a cent if you don't want to or need to.  Some of the most popular and best email marketing tools for bloggers are listed below to get you started.

MailChimp

You can use MailChimp for free if you send email marketing messages fewer than six times per month and maintain a list of under 100 addresses.  As you grow, so do your choices.  For example, for $10 per month, you can send an unlimited number of emails per month as long as your list includes fewer than 500 addresses.  Additional packages are available for more money and offering more features.  Pay-as-you-go pricing is also available if you don't want to commit to an ongoing fee.  MailChimp offers a wide variety of customization options, templates, tracking, and list management as well as Google Analytics integration.  MailChimp's plug-ins make it easy for people to sign up for your email list or get automatically included on your email list for a variety of applications such as PayPal, FreshBooks, Wordpress, TypePad, MySpace and more.  MailChimp also uses email authentication to boost deliverability rates, and the online tutorials are excellent.

ConstantContact

ConstantContact typically offers a free trial, because even the base package requires that you pay a monthly fee.  The base option is $15 per month for a list 0-500 email addresses and enables you to send emails, manage your email list, upload up to five images, and track results.  ConstantContact provides easy to use templates for customizing your emails but branding requires an extra fee.  You can send email messages, surveys and forms using ConstantContact, and online tutorials are available.  Also, ConstantContact follows procedures to boost mail deliverability. 

VerticalResponse

The base price to use VerticalResponse is $10 per month for a list of up to 500 addresses, and you can mail to that list an unlimited number of times.  Pay-as-you-go pricing is also available.  VerticalResponse offers some customization, easy template modification, list management, tracking, and Google Analytics integration.  If you want to send surveys, you need to pay a separate fee.  VerticalResponse does use email authentication to increase deliverability rates. 

Emma

The base price for Emma is higher than the other email marketing tools included in this list, and what you get for that price is also a bit different from what the other tools in this list offer.  Emma pricing starts at $30 per month for up to 1,000 emails per month with a $99 one-time setup fee to create your custom, branded template.  You can send emails, surveys and forms with Emma.  Those fees also give you the ability to can create customized emails, manage lists, track responses, and get help via email and telephone. 

iContact

iContact usually offers a free trial that you can test before you agree to pay to use the tool.  Packages start at $9.95 per month for up to 250 contacts.  iContact enables you to send emails and surveys.  It offers less free customization than the other tools on this list but does include tracking and list management fuctionality.  More premium services are available at additional costs, including the ability to design a custom template, which starts at $395.
Source weblogs.about.com

Free and Affordable Email Marketing Tools for Bloggers

3 Steps to Make Better RSS Email Subscription Design with Feedburner

Making your blog's RSS feed available so people can subscribe to receive updates via email is an important part of increasing traffic to your blog. However, if the design of the emails that subscribers receive from your blog look terrible, they might not click on the included links to visit your blog. They might even unsubscribe. Either way, you lose traffic to your blog.

If you use Feedburner to create and manage your blog's feed and RSS email subscriptions, you can spend fewer than 5-10 minutes making some simple changes to your blog's RSS email design that turn poorly formatted or boring RSS email messages into sleek marketing pieces.

Following are three basic steps that you can do right now, which will have a significant effect on the user experience of your RSS subscription email messages. Begin by logging into your Feedburner account and navigating to the Email Subscriptions section within the Publicize tab of your account. Next, follow the steps below:

1. Customize Communication Preferences
Click on the Communications Preferences link in Feedburner's Email Subscriptions section, and make sure the Email "From" Address field uses the email address that you want recipients to see as the sender of your RSS email messages. It's important to use a real email address, preferably with your blog's URL as the extension. An email address for a real person is less likely to be flagged as spam than an anonymous address such as "contact@email.com" or another general mailbox description.

Next, enter a subject and body text into the Confirmation Email text boxes for the confirmation message that is sent to people when they initially subscribe to receive your RSS feed updates via email. The purpose of this email message is to confirm subscribers' email addresses, so be personable and explain that their subscriptions are not active until they click on the activation link in the message body.
Be sure to click the Save button to put all of your edits into effect.

2. Customize Email Branding
Click the Email Branding link within the Email Subscriptions section of your Feedburner account to customize the actual RSS feed email that your subscribers receive when you publish new content on your blog. First, enter an intriguing and relevant title that will appear in the subject line of subscribers' email inboxes. You can also choose to include the title of your most recent blog post and a count of how many new posts are included in the email.

Next, upload a logo image from your hard drive to your blog and copy the URL for the uploaded image to your clipboard. Return to the Email Branding section of your Feedburner account, and paste the URL into the Logo URL field. The logo will appear at the top of the email messages that subscribers receive when new content is available on your blog. It is recommended that the logo be no more than 200 pixels by 200 pixels, and it must be in JPEG, PNG, or GIF format. You can use one of the free or affordable tools to edit images if you need to change the size or format of your blog logo or other graphic to use in your RSS email messages.

Finally, use the font, size, and color options to format the content in your RSS email messages. Headline settings refer to blog post titles, and Body settings refer to the body text of each individual blog post. Scroll down to see how your chosen settings will look in the Preview area.
When you're satisfied with the email branding settings, click the Save button. All of your changes will be visible in the next scheduled RSS email message that is sent.

3. Customize Delivery Options
Finally, navigate to the Delivery Options section of your Feedburner account and choose the timezone and email delivery time from the drop-down menus provided. This is the time you want your RSS email messages to be sent to subscribers each day that new content is available. Consider the topic of your blog and when your target audience is most likely to be online, viewing email, and reading content. Choose a delivery time that is likely to put your RSS email message in their inboxes when they have the time to read it.

Once your delivery settings are configured, click the Save button and your design optimization is complete. Be sure to subscribe to your blog via email, so you can see your blog's subscription email messages just like your audience of subscribers sees them.
Source weblogs.about.com
3 Steps to Make Better RSS Email Subscription Design with Feedburner 

5 Tools to Build Your Email List from Your Blog or Website

Email marketing is extremely effective, and whether you're a blogger trying to build relationships with your audience, sell products or services, or build your business, you need a way to develop an opt-in email list. With a method in place to capture email addresses from people who opt-in to receive email messages from you, you can start your email marketing campaigns.

Fortunately, there are a variety of affordable tools that integrate seamlessly with popular email marketing tools like Aweber and MailChimp, which you can easily use on your blog or website. Following are five popular email list building tools. Be sure to visit each site for current pricing and features.

1. LeadPages

LeadPages is a lead capture tool that enables you to create a wide variety of landing pages that you can display as part of your blog or website or on your Facebook page. You can use LeadPages to create a custom landing page in minutes without touching any code at all. It integrates with all of the leading email marketing tools, and a 30-day money-back guarantee is offered. That means you can test LeadPages and make sure it's right for your blog or website before you have to commit to paying full price.
LeadPages is owned by LeadBrite, which also offers a LeadPlayer tool that makes it easy to create email opt-in forms within your online video content.

2. Hybrid Connect

Hybrid Connect is a premium WordPress plugin that enables bloggers and website owners to quickly build their opt-in email lists. You can use it to create custom opt-in forms and place them anywhere on your site. You can also split-test opt-in forms and display only the highest performing form.
Hybrid Connect integrates with a long list of popular email marketing tools and requires no technical knowledge to use. If you can use WordPress.org, you can use Hybrid Connect. It also integrates with GoToWebinar and offers customized tracking reports. Another useful feature is Facebook Connect. If a visitor to your site is logged into his or her Facebook account, you can display a "Sign up with Facebook" button in your opt-in form rather than a text box to enter an email address with a simple "Sign up" button.

3. MaxBlogPress Subscribers Magnet

MaxBlogPress Subscribers Magnet is a premium WordPress plugin that enables you to create a variety of opt-in forms on your blog or website to increase your blog subscribers and build your email list. MaxBlogPress Subscribers Magnet integrates with popular email marketing and autoresponder tools. A 14-day trial is offered for $1 at the time of this article's publication. Additionally, a money-back guarantee is provided if you don't double the number of subscribers within 60 days. Again, this money-back guarantee was offered at the time of this article's publication, so check the MaxBlogPress website for current offers.

4. OptinSkin

OptinSkin is a premium WordPress plugin that makes it easy to add an email opt-in form to your blog posts and pages using a customized skin. You can also split-test your forms, and add social sharing buttons to them. OptinSkin integrates directly with popular email marketing tools. A 60-day moneyback guarantee is offered.

5. Pippity

Pippity is a premium WordPress plugin that can be used to display a pop-up opt-in form on your blog or website so you can capture email addresses for your email list. It takes just a few minutes to create an opt-in form using Pippity, and you can customize and split test your forms, too. You can also customize when your pop-up form will appear as visitors travel through your blog or website. Pippity integrates with many popular email marketing tools.

Source weblogs.about.com

5 Tools to Build Your Email List from Your Blog or Website