What happens when people start following you? You will find yourself needing an email platform. I use AWeber however; there are a others to choose from.
In other segments we talked about “How do I… Blog?” I also walked you through “What happens after you write a Blog? Part One and Part Two”. To pick up where we left off, I want to mention you will start gathering a following. This is a group of people who are interested in what you have to say. Once you start getting these followers you need to organize them. How do you organize these people? Well, one way is to use an email platform.
What is an email platform?
In a nutshell it is a way to store email addresses you get from those interested in following you. Once you have emails you can now communicate with these people over and over again.
Lets say you are writing a blog each day and sharing your knowledge. You are doing everything mentioned in the previous articles and now people are following you. You now need somewhere to put these interested people so you may continue to connect with them. You may want to share special information with just them that you don’t want to share with everyone on the internet. How are you going to do this? With a mailing platform.
There are different companies offering mailing platforms however; the one I use is AWeber. They offer a $1 to try them out. If you like them, continue to use them. If you have another platform and want to try something else, try AWeber, and remember it is $1 for a trial. They make it easy to switch with migrate software. They also provide step by step instructions for this. Find out more here.
If you are new to email platforms there are a few things you need to know. They help you to set up newsletters, collect subscribers and track your progress. They also integrate with your Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds, and your blog to allow you easier ways to get your messages out.
Starting with the newsletters. Maybe you want to write something special (an offer, training technique, or just a warm welcome) to the people following you. You write a newsletter in your email platform and it will be mailed out to those you choose. You can even schedule your message for a certain day if you choose. An example would be for Valentines or something – you might not want to send it out in January- so you simple put it in a schedule.
I don’t know about other platforms so I will tell you about the one I use, AWeber. The AWeber platform offers me really cool templates that make my newsletters and blog posts newsletters pop; they become unique to me. I love having this ability.
There is also a feature where I can tell AWeber my blog information and each time I write a new blog they grab it and put it in my mailing list for me. No more remembering to do it on my own or spending time doing steps over and over again. This saves me probably 10 minutes of time for each post I write. I know 10 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time but it can be if you forget to copy your posts into the mailing platform, as I have, and you have a bunch to catch up on. AWeber simplifies my life.
Email platforms allow image hosting. The images will be stored in a gallery for use whenever you choose. The images are added to your masterpiece newsletters by just dragging and dropping them into the messages. The images you upload can be moved, resized, and replaced just by clicking.
One more great feature email platforms offer is Facebook and Twitter help. They send your followers a link to your newest information. This helps you grow a list (people who follow you) by adding a sign-up to your message.
I could go on and on about how having an email platform will help you but really you need to try it for yourself. I found a few helpful videos that explain how email platforms are a valuable tool for you.