Your blog is a fantastic channel for building your email mailing lists and one that’s often overlooked. Readers of your blog are already interested and engaged with you, so offering them the option to opt-in to regular updates by email can help build your mailing list quickly.

The first step is to make sure you include an email sign up form within your blog template. There are 2 ways to do this, depending on the type of blog you are running:

If you run your blog using WordPress:

Simply download and install our free WordPress email marketing subscription form plugin here: http://www.signup-onlinemarketing.co.uk/assets/others/sut_wp_capture.zip (or click on the ‘Share’ link in your Sign-Up.to account). Full instructions on installing our free WordPress plugin.

This will automatically add a subscription form to your blog pages.

If you run your blog on another platform:

Use the form building tools in your Sign-Up.to account to create your form, and add a link to your form the sidebar of your blog theme. Alternatively, if you’re handy with PHP you could try modifying our WordPress plugin.

Click here for a tutorial on creating a mailing list subscription form in Sign-Up.to

The next step is to make sure you promote your newsletter properly. Adjust your blog’s theme template to ensure the subscription form is prominent – then blog about the option to subscribe to your newsletter, making sure you explain the benefits of subscribing and how often people can expect to be contacted by you.

Finally, don’t overlook the benefit that promotions like free downloads, vouchers and competitions can bring to enhancing your subscription rates.