Welcome to Blogging 2012.
The first rule of Blogging 2012 is: you do not talk about Blogging 2012.
The second rule of Blogging 2012 is: you DO NOT talk about Blogging 2012!
All joking aside, let me welcome you to 2012 and wish you and yours a truly happy and prosperous year ahead!
Now, based on what I want to share with you today, a more appropriate title might have been Welcome to Blogging 1999. But seeing as I don’t have a time machine, I simply need to acknowledge my mistakes and move forward from the present day.
Mistakes? What mistakes?
What is one of the mantras that just about every blogger has heard 4,357,892 times yet probably at least 50% of them hasn’t followed through on to this day?
Building a list.
Build a list, build a list, build a list.
Every blogger has heard it.
Every blogger knows that they need to do it.
But…
How many of them do?
Hanging my head in shame
I started blogging back in 2006 and have a dozen or more blogs that I’ve created since that time. Up until recently, not a single one of them included a list. Not a single one.
Shame on me.
That doesn’t mean that I haven’t understood the importance of building a list. It is just that I’ve never actually followed through and built the damn list. Well, as part of rediscovering my focus with this blog and working on building relationships that is about to change.
If you take a look over at the top of the sidebar to the right, you will see the new signup form to join my list and connect with me.
Where’s the freebie?
Take a look around the Interweb and you’ll see that a lot of sites offer a cool freebie as a thank you for joining their list. To be honest, that is one of the things that has held me back from creating a list for so long.
I don’t know what to offer as a freebie.
Sure, I could slap some rubbish into a PDF and call it a free guide–which is what far too many people do from what I have seen. Or I could grab some free public domain content to regurgitate to you as my “super special bonus report”.
But that would go as well as a turd in the punch bowl.
At the end of the day, I want you to join my list because you’re interested in the content that I share here and you want to stay connected to the community.
Hopefully you enjoy the quality of the content here, and know that I will be sharing some of that content only with my list and not here on the blog. So I don’t have a freebie to send you right away for signing up to my list, but if you like what you see here I ask that you go ahead and sign up!
Have you started your list?
Don’t worry, I’m happy to help answer any questions as I’ve done a handful now. By the way, I use and highly recommend Aweber but there are other options too. The important thing is to get started, it’s never too late.
Remember, do not talk about Blogging 2012!
Photo credit: stockerre
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for sharing, good job!
Thanks for sharing Derek. I also have a hard time to come up with something that would persuade my audiences to sign up to my e-mail list. I hope that you will share your ideas if you’ll be able to come up with an effective tactic.
Jesse, let me flip it back to you for a moment…
Is there something that I could offer that would encourage you to sign up for my list?
Good point…I think additional incentive needs to be made before someone give their email address
Hi Derek,
Happy new year, building an email list is certainly one of the most important things that anyone who wants to have an online presense should have, I recently started building my own list and it certainly worth the money and the time you consume to maintain it…
Happy New Year to you as well!
How are things going with your list? Did you put that guide together yourself or did you pick that up somewhere else?
It has become harder to get subscribers, but that doesn’t mean you cant change their minds. Happy New year!
People are protective of their email address, and rightfully so. Plus there have been far too many marketers that flood your inbox with garbage once you’re on their list so people tend to hesitate to sign up.
Happy New Year to you too!
Happy New Year, Derek! I agree, lists are highly valuable assets that a blogger should not miss out on. Seth Godin’s book Permission Marketing helped me understand that!
Hmm, maybe I need to add his book to my reading list. I know he has a number of great books, some of which I actually own, yet I’ve not ready any of them cover to cover.
…not just a list it is better to have a plan and a goal
to be motivated
Good point!
Most of the people give some crap content & Want visitors to get into the list! hope you give us something help-full & not crappy
Agreed, that is why I’ve always hesitated to do the list because I want to give something of true value.
Mark, what in your opinion would be worthwhile, helpful content to receive as a gift for signing up?
2010 and 2011 were years that everyone tried to create lists and then try to foist on them a lot of things.
– My experience tells me that the only thing that is free in this world is the cheese in the mousetrap.
Did someone say cheese?
Oddly enough, when I searched for the link to that post I realized that there are quite a few results on the blog for the search term of cheese!
Good luck to you in the new year as well Derek. I agree that joining lists are a great way to find some quality freebees.
Too many freebies to on the net are of very low quality. One of the most effective strategies for marketing your site or encouraging visitors to join your list is to provide a useful freebie that targets the keywords visitors use to find your site in the first place.
All active Bloggers!! Join the protest agents the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate.
Allot of sites including mine is doing a 24 hour blackout today!
http://americancensorship.org/
Participants Include…
Google
WordPress
Wikipedia
TwitPic
and much more!
As much as I support the effort to stop SOPA, I’m not planning to do anything to blackout the blog today…okay I was feeling guilty and just blacked out the background. Heck, I think that is more than Google has done so I’m cool with it. 😉
lol yea Google didn’t do much out of their norm (messing with their logo as usual)
if Google completely turned off their search engine the whole world would go ape $h17 lmao
2012 is a leap year so leap forward. How do you plan to use google+ are you using facebook more these days or less.
I haven’t really done much with Google+ since the initial wave of activity when it launched. I have been using Facebook more and created a Fan Page for my book, as well as interacting more there.
I am a pretty avid blogger, and making lists are one of my favorite things to write about. Top 10, Best things to do in any give area, etc. Thanks for the post!
It has become harder to get subscribers, but that doesn’t mean you cant change their minds. Happy New year!
The gurus have focused a lot on the importance of building a list over the past two years. While I agree that it is important, I rarely see anyone (from large department stores to small bloggers) effectively market to me after I have signed up for their list. There should definitely be more people discussing that aspect of lists!
I delayed the list building process so much — I just didn’t want to manage a list of subscribers that I can market to (the thought was quite scary at first). However, over the years you learn that if you blog, you NEED to build a good email list… having a huge list of dedicated followers is a great way to ensure you keep making money for years to come.
I am going to be blogging soon as I am adding a blog to my website. I need all the help and information I can get. The blog will be about Auto Detailing in San Diego County.
Thanks for this information!
2012 got something new changing, Google panda, penguin updates, it’s not easy to blog now. BTW, thanks for share.