WordPress makes it very easy for visitors to follow your rss feeds and keep up to date with your latest blog posts, however, as an internet marketer (yes that’s you!) and online business owner, you want to be able to mail things to your list that you may not want to necessarily post on your blog.  Exclusive offers, promotional materials, product recommendations are just a few of the examples.

Having visitors sign up to your rss feeds is great but you should always have an alternative, one that you have more control over and that’s where the mailing list opt-in box comes in.  There are several email marketing software companies that you can use to start your mailing list.

There are 3 main autoresponder companies to choose from, each offer either a free trial of their service or a free version, which comes with advertising on each email you send out as well as a limited service (usually just 1 autoresponder per account). This is fine if you are just starting out, however if you are already established, you should have your autoresponder already and this delivery system won’t cost you any extra!

I use GetResponse as my autoresponder, which I’m very happy with and it works out cheaper than Aweber which quite a few of my clients use and Aweber also offer a $1 first month trial. To compare the 2, GetResponse is the cheaper option although the less well known brand (although it’s catching up!) and most of the emails you will receive from internet marketers will be from Aweber, apart from mine!

Another option is Constant Contact which offers a 60 day free trial. This is another great way to get started, without the initial expense.

Have a look at all 3 and choose which one best suits your needs for now and for the immediate future.  Once you’ve signed up and set  up your mailing list, you will be given a code to use to capture email addresses.  This is the code you need to use for the next step.

It is very simple to add an opt-in box to your WordPress blog within the sidebar as a widget.  Go to Appearance – Widgets – and you will see your widget options.  You want to place the code into a TEXT widget, and in the main sidebar, which is usually the right one.  Press save and then you should see your opt-in box appear on your website.