Email Marketing Platform: Yes or No for New Websites
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
Recent Comments
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Thanks Elaine! I really hopes this helps people as they are making the same decisions I was! Building a good site can be a complex thing and sometimes we just have to remind ourselves that we only need to take one step at a time :)
Excellent Blog Christiana. You received some excellent advice and made a great decision. Once you have your content reaches the quantity and quality that produces clicks you'll be able to make decisions on which platform to use. Jim
Thanks Jim, I'm so thankful for that advise, and also thankful that I don't have to continue to worry about integrating everything right now...it was quite frustrating :)
A very good and very timely blog. I once started getting to far ahead of myself also trying to email market while being a newbie. I'm so glad I listened to my first mind and avoided that bullet. Keep up the great work.
Yes, I have a habit to want to get ahead of myself. It's so important to go through each step, one at a time and not bite off more than appropriate!
Hi Christina. This is great advice that I was just wondering about. I'm not there yet either. Thanks for the info.
All the best,
Wendi :)
I'm so glad it was helpful Wendi! If I can save someone the time and frustration I went through with the research, technical, question asking and decision making, than I'm happy!
Great article. I agree that all this is confusing. I look at these and shake my head on where and how to use them. I also will just do what WA says and build my sites. Thanks
That has been my take for a while, but I'm curious and an overachiever by nature, so I thought I would share this others having the same question :)
Thanks for the informative post. Iam also building a new site and wondered when to start the email marketing.
Mary
Hi Mary, I thought it was probably a common question out there so I'm glad to share my experience and decision. I will do email marketing in the future, just not until I have the traffic to support it! Best wishes!
I don't recommend it when starting out. The problem with jumping into email marketing and the time and expense of setting up a list right away, is that you will have nobody to promote to.
Also, you won't understand your audience and what makes them tick, what makes them convert, and you won't have any established brand/authority in your niche (why would someone trust you and want to join your list).
I recommend that folks have at least 100 unique visitors coming to their website before they jump into email marketing.
This way they not only have people they can build an actual list with, then have an understanding of their niche, they will convert higher, and they will be much more efficient with the build out of their follow-up sequence (and the relationship building that is involved in successful email marketing campaigns).
Thanks for the input! I'm glad I'm not putting effort into it now when I can be focused on creating content instead! There's so much still to learn before I can effectively email market!
For me, I decided it was more worth it to wait until I had enough traffic to make it worth my time. Perhaps you are in a different situation?
Good decision. When you are ready, there are training series by Jay on email and funnel marketing. These are definitely advanced strategies so good job on taking Kyle's advice. The research and knowing your audience part is super key. I am re-learning the importance of this. And I know I have made a good solid decision that will support me better down the road.
Learn one strategy at a time. There is plenty of time to learn more strategies as you go. For advanced audience research techniques, I enjoyed this training: Advanced Audience & Customer Research Techniques
Thanks so much Kim for the insight and the training link! I will definitely be using this!
Sometimes it's hard to slow down and just pursue one strategy at a time, but I know it will lead to more success in the long run!
Best wishes to you!
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You've demonstrated perfectly how this business is a learning curve and we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. Thanks for sharing your process.
Debbie
Thanks Debbie! I (and I think many others here) are so excited and anxious to get everything going at once, we have to actively remind ourselves it's not a race, and we have to build a solid foundation first. I hope that this resonates with others and saves them the headaches I went through learning this! :)