SHOCKING: 56% of Bloggers Do No Email Marketing. Why Not?

Sometimes, people like me can’t help but wonder why others read our advice and don’t actually apply it.

Case in point…

A recent survey I ran over the weekend shows that 56.4% of bloggers (at least in my audience) don’t engage in any kind of email marketing.

ByDavid Risley Posted on
26 Comments

Sometimes, people like me can’t help but wonder why others read our advice and don’t actually apply it.

Case in point…

A recent survey I ran over the weekend shows that 56.4% of bloggers (at least in my audience) don’t engage in any kind of email marketing.

179 responses to that particular question – which isn’t bad since I did run this thing right over Easter weekend. 🙂

I was surprised by the result, though. (And, yes, the “shocking” pat of the headline was a bit of an exaggeration. 😉 )

I’ve talked a TON about the importance of building a list. Whenever somebody has asked me about the one thing I wished I knew to do when I was first starting out, my answer is almost always that I wish I started my email list sooner.

And I’m BY FAR not the only person saying that. Almost any successful blogger or online marketer out there will tell you the same thing. Having an email list is about the most important thing you can possibly do online. And I KNOW you guys are reading other blogs besides mine. 🙂

And yet…

56% aren’t doing any email marketing.

Why not?

What’s stopping you? Or, in other words, why are you deciding that this advice doesn’t apply to you?

Get this…

The same survey shows that 86.8% of respondents have the goal of making money with their blog.

Also, 47.5% of respondents get between 0-100 visitors per day to their blog. 21.8% get NO traffic (although 16% said they don’t even have a blog at all, interestingly).

But, the point is…

There’s a strong contingent of people who want to make money and have low traffic… yet they STILL don’t think they need an email list?!

Why You Need A List

Most people think they need a list only to pitch and sell things to them. And, because too many bloggers have this fear of selling, they just don’t build a list.

Or… people are unwilling to pay for anything to host an email list. And so they don’t start one.

Both reasons are stupid and let me tell you why…

First, selling things to your list is NOT the reason you build a list. Even if you never intend to promote anything to your email list, YOU STILL NEED TO BUILD ONE.

Your email list gives you the power to:

  • Mobilize your audience’s attention and point it at something.
  • Proactively bring your audience in rather than counting on their memory to come back.
  • Reach out and communicate with your audience in the medium where they already are… rather than forcing them to come back to your blog.

Your list is the ultimate LEVERAGE for building your TRAFFIC. Without it, people will come and go and the chances of them ever returning to your site are almost none. No leverage at all. However, if you get people to subscribe to your list, you have the ability to bring them back.

This is so much more important than any ability to promote stuff to them later.

If you have no control over when your audience pays attention to something, you’ve got NOTHING.

Your traffic will remain in the dumps. You’ll get no interaction. And, yes, you’ll remain broke.

Now, as for the thing about paying for the list…

If you’re going to sabotage yourself by not doing what is necessary at the beginning, you might as well give up and go home. Aweber starts with a $1 trial and then goes for $19/month. It is MORE than worth it. And – in all seriousness – if you’re not willing to pay $19/month for something so fundamentally important to a goal which 86% of you say you have…. then you’ve already lost. Give up and go home.

There’s also Mailchimp. I’m not as fond of them as I am Aweber, but they offer a free account (with limitations). And that is a LOT better than having or building nothing.

Recommended Stuff

  • Aweber. As far as I’m concerned, this is where you want to build your list. You get what you pay for. Plus, it isn’t as if Aweber is expensive unless you build a large list. But, by then, you’ll be making so much more than Aweber costs you, it’ll be a no-brainer.
  • Master Your List. This is a short training program of mine to show you all the in’s and out’s for building your list and then how to use it. If your list efforts are flat-lined or you want to get better results with the list you have, that is exactly why I created Master Your List.

Your Experiences

What have been YOUR experiences with list building or email marketing?

Have you gotten results with it?

And, if you’re part of that 56%, please post below and let me know what’s holding you back. I’m here to show people how to accomplish that goal that 86% of you say you have. So, I’d like to help.

 

26 Comments

  1.  

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  5. No business, if there is no list. the problem of many who start doing business online is that they don’t want to invest in tools like autoresponder, big mistake, unfortunately they realize after a while.

  7. Indeed, one of the reasons could be because not all of them want to spend money on an auto-responder. But email marketing is the key for the big bucks. 

  10. Hi,
    In my opinion bloggers avoid E-mail marketing because the amount of traffic that they get is too much which can be also achieved from Email marketing, so I don’t think the usage of Email marketing. The purpose is same for both.
    Thanks

  11. Our blog is to inform and attract interest – it works as a marketing platform not  selling tool.

    The websites to which our blogs link do the selling.

  12. No Dave, the title of the post is no exaggeration. I’m equally shocked as you to know that 56% (more than 50 is ridiculous) of bloggers are not into email marketing. If you ask me what I would set straight in the past of my blogging career, my instantaneous answer is start building a list from day 1.

    Sure, whether to sell or not, a list is a must. The connections in social media are ineffective, but the list is much more than that. I don’t think hesitating to pay for an email marketing solution is a good thing, given that a blogger has already made the decision to do blogging as a serious business.

  13. “Your list is the ultimate LEVERAGE for building your TRAFFIC. Without it, people will come and go and the chances of them ever returning to your site are almost none. No leverage at all. However, if you get people to subscribe to your list, you have the ability to bring them back.
    This is so much more important than any ability to promote stuff to them later”
    I didn’t think about it this way, but now I do and I just moved setting up a mailing list to #1 priority 🙂 Time to put the Master your list course in action…

  14. I have to be honest, payed for OptimizePress and am only 3 months into blogging, get anywhere from 80-200 visitors per day and am overwhelmed with how much their is to creating a business from a blog. I have over 20 years experience as a distance runner and my aim is to create a coaching business for athletes…glad a resource like yours is on the net david, just wish I could grasp it all in a shorter amount of time haha:) Thanks

  15. So true David. I started my list one month after I started my blog. Just 2 things about sending out newsletters to people who have never had a list before. Do not send your list an email every time a new post is created and don’ t have the first email to your list be something that you are selling.

    I unsubscribe immediately if either of these occur after signing up for someone’s newsletter. Just my 2 cents…

    1. Yeah. I create a separate list people can subscribe to if they want updates on every post. That way they know what they’re getting into.

  17. Totally agree – no matter what anyone says, email is still the most effective way of building and keeping an audience as long as its done properly and not used as an ‘offer tool’

    For those who don’t want to/cant afford to invest in an autoresponder why not use the email subscription function in Feedburner, that way every time you post an article it gets emailed to peoples inboxes – its totally free so theres no need to invest, just copy their java code into a widget box on your site – SIMPLE!

    Another option is imnica mail which is free up to 1000 subs though I have to agree with David that Aweber is probably the best out there from an ease of use and delivery perspective.

    1. The problem with Feedburner is that you’re limiting your options because the only way you can trigger an email to the list is to publish a blog post. You have no ability to do anything with the list independently from your blog. So, it truly is just a glorified RSS feed, not a real email list.

  18. To be honest i am also one of those bloggers don’t using email marketing method to increase traffic because i don’t know how to do it. After read your post i realize its importance and will work on it to increase my blog’s traffic.

  19. I’m on email marketing hiatus at the moment as other responsibilities are trumping and I cannot give it the attention it deserves. And I do believe people can tell when you’re paying attention, even with something as seemingly impersonal as an email list.

    Maybe others feel the same?

    1. Dunno. But, consistent promotion is important regardless of what one is doing. To me, saying you don’t email because you can’t pay attention to it would be like a business saying they’re too busy to deal with those pesky customers. 😉

  20. Dave – I took part in this survey and surprised to see the results. 85.3% with No Blog to 1000 visitors per day with 85% wanting to make money online.

    Here is my perspective on this Making Money Online survey. To run any sucessfull business, there has to be customers. If the results were  like 85% people making sufficient online income and 15% are Zero to less than 1000 visitors, then Make Money Online Blogs will will have hard time finding customers.

    Aweber is Awesome. I was like one among 56% during first year of blogging. But, right after I started using Aweber, things are Amazing. Constant Flow of Traffic and ability to sell products is great. I have used few other leading emial providers, but nothing beats Aweber with its service and quality.

  21. Hi Dave:

    Thanks for this blog. I have Aweber, but I’m interested in GetResponse. I like GetResponse because I can add videos to my emails which I need for one of businesses. What can you tell me about GetResponse from your valued experience? Also, how do build a blog site like yours? What are your best strategies for advertising squeeze pages?

    Thank you Dave. I’m just starting and I need good pointing hands.

    1. Well, you asked several unrelated questions. 🙂 I’ll answer the first one, and I’ll let you search my archives for the other two.

      I haven’t used GetResponse personally. But, I’ve talked to people who have and, based on what they’ve told me, I maintain that Aweber is better.

      As for video emails, I believe that’s misleading. It seems all their offering is to provide hosting space to your videos. Considering I can host a video on Amazon S3 for far cheaper, the feature is useless. Also, email simply doesn’t support embedded videos – so no matter what they tell you, there’s no video IN the email. For one, it’d be way too big. Secondly, most (if not all) email programs out there simply can’t deal with it. At best, it would be an attachment (but, again, way too big). So, what many do is put a screenshot of a video in the email, then when the person tries to play it, they’re taking to the web to watch it. But, you can do that easily with Aweber.So, GetResponse is just saying they’ll host your video. Who cares about that.

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