Why an Email List is a Must

One of the first things I noticed when I was creating my blog is that all of the other blogs I was following said the exact same thing:

“I wish I had started my email list sooner!”

I gotta be honest…I too waited too long. I had one really huge traffic day early on when I was kicking myself because I didn’t have email marketing set up. All that potential floating away right before my eyes…

This post contains affiliate links, which means I will make a commission at no extra cost to you should you click through and make a purchase.

Why do we all make the same mistake??

For me it was the erroneous idea that I didn’t have an incentive offer ready. What would I give in return for that coveted email address?

I agonized for weeks while all my visitors were leaving empty handed and I was losing out on getting their email address.

I brainstormed and kept brainstorming. I finally decided I would create a private page on my blog visible only to the readers who signed up to the email list. Yay!

Ok now what would I put on that page? Uhhhh…I dunno….

How about if I do a page full of crochet stitches? Like a tutorial of stitches. Sounds good right? But it would likely take many photos per each stitch. Way too much work on my end and way too clunky for readers.

What about videos of crochet stitch tutorial? Bingo! So I order some basic equipment and kept losing potential sign ups while I waited. And of course it would take forever to make up videos for each stitch. Uhg. Again.

I decided I was overthinking this WAY TOO MUCH and losing so much valuable time.

I finally just bit the bullet and signed up with Aweber. I’ve tried other email campaign companies with horrible results. Aweber is by far the best priced and better program overall! And of course they have a great affiliate program. Remember, affiliate income is part of the crochet income streams we want to build.

As for incentives? Fuhgetabotit! The fastest, easiest way to set up the initial email marketing campaign (that sounds so professional) is to simply include a button to click in the emails I send out that send the reader to my latest free pattern on my blog. Done and done! Can’t get any easier!

Why do We Need an Email List?

Ah yes. Good question. Thank you for asking.

When you are first setting up your blog you will be crazy busy with writing content and taking photos and handling the back end stuff like plugins and menus and categories and…ok…you know what I mean if you’ve started the process. You might tell yourself (like I did) that you’ll get around to the email list later.

Wrong way to look at it! You want to start collecting email addresses right away.

* As your blog grows and you are ready to monetize further with some offerings (like ebooks or tutorials or classes or giveaways, etc) you will already have a good list to reach out to..

* Your current readers are your best buyers. They already know you through your blog. They obviously like your style and your products. They should be the first group you reach out to when you have something new to show.

* Keeping in touch with your base viewers keeps them interested. They might need a little nudge or reminder now and then that you’re still here and have a great new post they might like to see.

* Traffic is the number one objective (ok, the number one objective of your blog is to provide relevant, useful information!). But you need traffic to ensure your market base is seeing all of your useful information! When you write a new post it’s pretty much up to the SEO (search engine optimization…more on that later) gods if your post gets seen by anybody. With an email list, you have a built-in audience. You have built-in traffic.

* Traffic is a must if you intend to generate an income from your love of all things crochet. If you want sponsorships (paid posts, higher paying ads, free yarn (!!)) you need to have high traffic counts. At least high page views.

* The higher the traffic the more potential sales of products.

* The higher the traffic the more opportunity to send readers to your Etsy shop.

Rather than leave money on the table by allowing viewers to get away without collecting their email addresses, it’s a good idea to set up your email marketing now. Why make the same mistake everybody else made? You don’t need to lose out at all! Do yourself a favor and head over to Aweber (click on the graphic below) and sign up for the free trial.

Where to Start

This post contains affiliate links, which means I will make a commission at no extra cost to you should you click through and make a purchase.

If you have signed up with Bluehost for your blog hosting (go here if you still need to do that: Bluehost), you will have a dedicated email account through their partners. It is important to set up your own email address that ties to your blog/website. For example rather than use Jane@gmail.com you want to use Jane@myblog.com or Admin@myblog.com . So much more professional. Your readers will have more confidence that you are a business and not some scammer.

To get started with Aweber free trial click here:

DISCLOSURE: I may earn a commission from affiliate products on this website. All such products are pre-tested or previously or currently used and approved by CrazyCoolCrochet.com. I only recommend products/services that I know and trust.

How to use Aweber

The free trial with Aweber allows you to use all the awesome features for 30 days. You can create the sign up forms and an initial Welcome email for your sign ups.  You are able to send yourself test emails and go back and tweak and re-tweak. I LOVE that!

When you are ready to sign up for the paid plan, even if you choose the least expensive monthly plan you are able to create the most popular pop up sign up form (ha! say that 3 times fast!). That’s the one that pops up about 5 seconds after someone goes to your blog. You can customize it to fit in with your design/style preferences. Nice!

And you can also create additional sign up forms, like the static ones you often see on the sidebar of blogs (see my static sign up forms in my sidebar).

You’ll create custom sign up forms at Aweber, grab the free Aweber plugin from your WordPress dashboard, and copy and paste the code in a Widget that populates from the plugin. Ta da!

Don’t forget to create an email campaign in Aweber. You can write and schedule emails to send out to your contacts.

What I do is set up an email to go out 1 day after the initial Welcome email. Then I schedule subsequent emails 5 days after the last one. If you have something special to announce you can always do that at any time with a “broadcast” email.

FREE 30 Day Email Marketing Course

If email marketing and email campaigns sound a bit complicated, don’t worry…Aweber makes it super easy to understand with their FREE 30-day Marketing Course. It’s a FREE email course that strips out all the jargon and confusing nonsense of email marketing — and makes it actionable, simple and fun!

Yep, it takes some work to be a successful blogger. But it’s great fun! Enjoy!

If you have questions please use the Comment section below!