Why do I need an Email Subscription List?

We need to consider the levels of engagement of our readers to answer the question.

Occasional Readers

These are people who stop by from time to time – when they think to do so, or if they see a Tweet about our blogs. They aren’t really engaged and they certainly aren’t part of our community.

RSS Readers

There is a level of engagement here – they have had to consciously decide to subscribe to our blogs, and they have had to physically press a button to do so!

Email Subscribers

These people have let us into their inboxes – this is the highest level of engagement we can achieve as bloggers. Not only have these readers gone through an opt in process, but they have let us use one of their most precious online assets – their email account. They are engaged readers and they are our real community.

If you ever plan to monetize your blog, and especially if you want to sell your own products, it’s the last group you should be targeting. Email subscribers will convert to customers much, much more easily than blog readers or even RSS readers. So whilst we need to continue to

This post is a three part post – tomorrow we’ll be covering how to move readers from one level of engagement to the next, and on Friday, we’ll talk about the best software to use to make the most of out your new email list. If you don’t want to miss the follow up posts, please subscribe to this blog, either via RSS or email, using the buttons on the top right.

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