You have an awesome website with interesting content. People are returning to see the latest updates. The number of shares and comments across social media is constantly increasing. All of these are good signs that you should move forward to the next level: create a newsletter.
Have people to subscribe
The easiest way how to start building a list of subscribers is to simply ask them to subscribe on your website. You can place a simple signup form at the top of each page, or you can ask your visitors to subscribe at the end of your articles. Usually it is a good idea to offer them something in return. It can be a premium content available only for subscribers, a free eBook, or any other benefit other readers won't have access to. It is necessary to make it absolutely clear with your subscribers that you won't share their personal data with anyone else.
You should confirm each new subscriber's email address by a process called double opt-in. It basically involves a confirmation email, where the new subscriber has to click a confirmation link or reply back to your message so that you know for sure that the email address subscribed is correct and that you are not adding to your mailing list an incorrect one. Not all of the webmasters do the double opt-ins. But those who do usually see much less unsubscribes in the long run.
How to store the data
If you are using WordPress there are a few useful plugins you can install and set up instantly. The plugins will do all the work: they will generate a signup form on your website, they will create a database to store all the data and some of them will even include functionalities for sending the newsletters or for providing a page where people can unsubscribe.
For the non-WordPress sites there are also similar plugins and services available but their integration might require some basic programming skills.
Finally for those who want to have an absolute control of everything and don't want to rely on external service providers there is an option of creating a simple signup form and a database table by themselves. This approach will require a programmer to do it but there is nothing to be worry about. Such project needs only the basic technologies to be used and an average programmer will have it ready in just a few hours.
Time to send your emails
So you have your list ready and your first email written. Now all you need to do is to send out that email to all your subscribers. That sounds really easy, doesn't it? Well, the truth is that it is actually the most critical step and it must be done correctly.
For a small email list with up to 100 subscribers, you can basically send it right away either through a custom script running on your web server, or through the same SMTP server that you use for your other emails. Such SMTP might be the one provided to you by your web hosting company, your ISP, or you can even use a free mail account like Gmail or Yahoo. For such a small number of subscribers anything will work.
Unfortunately the same approach will not work anymore for larger lists. When you want to send your newsletter to 500 or more subscribers, you can't use any of the SMTP servers mentioned above. ISP, free mail accounts and your web hosting provider most likely do have daily or hourly sending limits. You should make sure you know what the limits are but in general all such servers will have a daily limit anywhere from 100 to 500 sent emails per day. In other words - you could probably send your newsletter to all your subscribers but only if you split the mailing into more days. The larger your list would be the more days you would need to email everyone. Even splitting into two days is already not very practical but splitting into 3 or more days is already a nightmare.
You will need a new SMTP server that has no daily limits. You can get such server together with a VPS hosting or a dedicated web hosting server. It will cost you more than a shared hosting but you will enjoy faster page loads and of course you will be able to send newsletters to larger lists.
Eventually after some time you will end up with a really long mailing list of thousands of subscribers. To send an email to everyone on such list already requires a well maintained virtual or dedicated server. You must make sure you are sending only solicited emails and that you are not sending emails to anyone who has already unsubscribed. Following those practices will help you not to get caught by spam filters and maintain a good reputation of your SMTP server. The last thing you would want is to get blacklisted by big email providers like Gmail or Yahoo if they confused your emails with spam.
Another option to consider with such a number of active subscribers are commercial mailing services like AWeber or GetResponse. They might cost you about the same amount of money as a dedicated web server but they are easy to use and they require no technical experience.
What software should I use?
For a small list your default email client you use for your personal emails should work just fine. The larger your list gets the more you will need a specialized software solution for sending out your newsletter.
3rd party mailing services usually come with their own web-based email clients. Basically you buy an access to a web interface that acts as an email client with build-in SMTP server. Such services are convenient and easy to use, but will cost you a monthly fee based on your mail list size.
If you are mailing through your own VPS or dedicated server you will need a software that will maintain your list and that will replace completely your default email client. Atomic Mail Sender can do the job. It is probably the most popular bulk mailer out there. The good news is that you don't have to pay any monthly fee. You buy the software once and that will be the only expense you will ever have. The software can send emails to unlimited number of recipients and has a lot of useful features including personalized emails or monitoring sending results.
The bottom line
Whatever approach you choose always make sure you have a healthy maintained list. Never ever send anything to unsubscribers. Always know your technical mailing limits if there are some. Start small, grow big. These rules are simple, but very important.
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