Welcome to day 9 of Start Your Own Blogging Business! Today we’re going to work on our newsletter. Yesterday you set up the email capture form on your site with Mailchimp, Constant Contact of Convert Kit. Today we’re going to put together a simple newsletter.

As always, if you have any questions please leave them in the comments or post your questions in the Facebook group. If you haven’t already joined the Facebook group, please do so you can participate in the community.

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**Disclaimer**

There may be links in this blog post, some of them might be affiliate links for which I earn a small amount if you click on them, a really small amount it turns out. Still, full disclosure and all that…

What is a Newsletter?

When I refer to a newsletter I’m talking about an email that you send to people to update them on what’s happening on your blog and within your niche. It can be a simple recap of the last several blog posts, or it can have a broader scope and include info from other sources outside of your blog. The newsletter is a means to entice your readers back to your blog, and as a way to introduce them to products, books, services etc, that you recommend (using an affiliate link of course).

A newsletter can be a great way to make money online. An example of an incredibly successful one is Tim Ferris’s newsletter. Now, he’s written several best sellers and has a large audience. He also has a fair amount of clout amongst his followers, so when he puts an affiliate link in his newsletter, he can be sure many of his followers will click on it.

Trusted Resource

The reason his readers will click on the recommendations in his newsletters (the links), is because he’s established himself as a trusted resource. His opinion matters to his readers, they trust his opinion and by extension his recommendations.

That’s the goal of the blog and the newsletter, to provide content that is reliable and trustworthy. At least in my opinion it is. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who will recommend any product as long as they make a few cents when someone clicks on the link. I don’t agree with that and will only recommend products I have tried and believe offer value to my readers.

Short and Sweet

Your newsletter can be as long or as short as you like. Keep in mind, most people don’t have time to read long missives. I like to keep my newsletter short and sweet – inviting them back to the blog to get more details. That’s how it used to be done, but today the click through rate back to the blog or original article isn’t as great as it used to be. People are busy, they don’t have time to read or they’re overwhelmed with all the emails coming at them.

Now, it’s customary to put everything in the newsletter and bypass the blog post.

What that means is that you make your recommendations in the newsletter with affiliate link. You can still link back to the blog with a much more detailed post about the recommendation (and I highly recommend this), but most people will click on the link without going to the more detailed post if you sell it properly.

You Still Have to Ask for the Sale

It goes without saying that you can’t just throw a bunch of affiliate links into your newsletter and expect people to click on them, you have to make the pitch. If you’ve used the product, read the book, tried the service you’ll need to tell your readers why you liked it so much that you want them to know about it. If you’re new to sales I highly recommend picking up a few books about the subject. Some that are noteworthy include; To Sell is Human by Daniel H Pink, Influence The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini and Tools of the Titans by Tim Ferris.

Formatting

Formatting your newsletter is easy, Mailchimp, Constant Contact and Convert Kit all have templates that can be customized to your personal style or to match the look and feel of your blog. All are pretty much drag and drop so you don’t need any html knowledge. Be sure to include a header, your logo, and a signature. Save it as a template.

Homework

Create a newsletter and send it out to those who subscribed yesterday.

If you have any questions about today’s lesson, please feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below, on the Facebook page or you can email me directly at jen { at } redheadranting.com (use the @ sign and no parentheses or spaces).