As I have been leaving comments on lots of others websites, I usually see a pop up for a newsletter, free download or special offer sign up. This type of email marketing is very typical and can be a very powerful tool. But the big question is, at what point to implement it?

As someone who is new to the blogging world, I definitely want to increase my readership and my regular returning readers. However, as I started to explore the email marketing world, I was confronted with questions and roadblocks.

1. Which email marketing platform to choose?

Through my research it seemed like there are three big players out there: MailChimp, GetResponse, and AWeber.

I was confused between a lot of the differences in the systems and all of their offerings. What did I really need? What's worth the money? Am I in over my head?

The answer to that last question is YES, I was definitely in over my head. Which lead me back to the wonderful people at WA for guidance.

2. Are any of the systems better for affiliate marketing?

When I put this questions out there, I got some responses that MailChimp is not as great for some affiliate marketing, especially when you want to devise specific types of advanced marketing emails.

Getresponse is good, but a much more complex system and once you get a lot of subscribers, the price gets quite expensive per month.

AWeber, generally a good system and lots of people here use it.

3. How do I implement it?

So I thought I would start with MailChimp. While it may not be good for advanced affiliate marketing, I'm not there yet. And frankly it is a free system that I could use to start collecting email addresses. Win-win, right?

Nope! As I started to implement and integrate it, I ran into one technical issue after another. I couldn't open my editor, I had no clue where to place the code, etc.

I'm not a code writer or programmer by any means, but I hit my head, metaphorically, against a brick wall with this for the better part of a day, all the while thinking "it shouldn't be this complicated" and "I have content I should be writing rather than this!".

4. Is it really necessary for a newbie to have an email marketing system?

In total frustration, I reached out to my referrer who gave me some excellent advice. If I don't have a lot of unique page visits per day, why collect emails? I should be focused on writing content and driving traffic (SEO and social media presence).

Secondly, what I think I need as far a system requirements as a newbie may completely change as I grow my site. So while now, MailChimp sounds great because it's free, later on if I want to change to a more robust system, the transfer of my contacts can be a nightmare.

5. Final decision

I'm holding off on setting up an email marketing system for now. Content is King in terms of driving traffic and as much as I want to have all the "bells and whistles" on my site now, I first need to get people there.

So here's my deciding metric: 100 unique visitors daily. When I have consistently done that for a month, I'll flip the switch and get an email marketing system that meets my needs at that point.

In the mean time, you will find me writing content, building a social media following, and being present here on WA.

I hope this helps anyone else who is at this place and trying to make a decision. If you have any questions, by all means reach out or comment below!

Christina