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Let’s have an honest chat, friend to friend. If you’ve been pouring your energy into growing your Instagram followers or chasing the Pinterest algorithm, I want you to pause for a second and ask yourself something. What happens to your business if that platform changes its rules tomorrow, or worse, if your account just disappears?
I’ve watched this happen to bloggers over and over again during my years in this space. One day you have 50,000 followers, and the next day the algorithm shifts and your reach drops to almost nothing. It’s happened with Facebook, it’s happened with Instagram, and it will happen again with whatever platform is trendy next. There’s one thing that doesn’t disappear when a platform changes its mind about you, and that’s your email list.
You don’t own your followers, but you own your list
Here’s the blunt truth. Every single social media platform is basically renting you space. You’re building a following on land you don’t own, and the landlord can change the rules whenever they want. Your email list is different. Those are real contact addresses that belong to you, stored in a system you control, and no algorithm update can take them away.
This isn’t just an old-school opinion from someone who remembers dial-up internet (though I do). It’s still true today. Even with all the newer ways to reach an audience, email remains one of the few channels where you talk directly to a person’s inbox instead of hoping a platform decides to show them your content.
This same idea of ownership is exactly why I’ve always been such a fan of having your own blog instead of building your whole audience on a platform someone else controls. I got into this a lot more in my post comparing Substack to having your own WordPress blog, but the short version is that your blog and your email list are the two things in your business that nobody can take away from you or change the rules on overnight.
Starting a list is easier than it used to be
I know the idea of starting an email list can feel technical and overwhelming, especially if you’re not a tech person. The good news is that today’s email tools are built for regular bloggers, not just marketing professionals with a degree in code.
Take Kit, which used to be called ConvertKit. I actually walked through this one in detail in last week’s post about getting started with Kit, so check that out if you want the fuller picture. The short version is that their free plan currently lets you have up to 10,000 subscribers before you pay a dime, and it includes landing pages, sign-up forms, and email broadcasts right out of the box. That’s an enormous amount of room to grow before you ever need to pull out your credit card, and you can sign up for Kit here to get started.
If design is more your thing, Flodesk is another popular option among bloggers because of its pretty, drag-and-drop email templates. Flodesk offers a free trial with full access to its paid features and no credit card required to start, and once you do pay, their plans are based on how many subscribers you have rather than charging extra per email you send. I’d encourage you to compare a couple of these tools yourself before picking one, since pricing and features can shift over time.
What to actually send once you have a list
Getting sign-ups is only half the job. You also need something worth sending, or people will unsubscribe faster than you can say “newsletter.” Here’s the simplest way to think about it. Every email should either teach your reader something, help them, or make them smile, and ideally all three.
You don’t need to write a novel every week. A short weekly or biweekly email that says “hey, here’s what I posted this week and why you should care” can work wonderfully. Include a personal note about your life or your process, because that personal connection is exactly what people can’t get from a random blog post they found through a search engine.
This is also where your affiliate income can really grow. When you recommend a product directly to someone’s inbox, you’re talking to a person who already trusts you enough to give you their email address. That’s a much warmer audience than a stranger scrolling past your post for three seconds.
The subscriber isn’t the goal, the relationship is
I want to gently push back on a mindset a lot of newer bloggers have, which is chasing subscriber count like it’s a scoreboard. A list of 500 people who actually open your emails and trust your recommendations will make you more money than a list of 5,000 people who never read a single word you send.
Focus on writing emails that feel like they’re coming from a real person, because they are. Answer questions your readers ask you. Share the messy parts of your blogging journey, not just the wins. That honesty is what turns a subscriber into someone who clicks your affiliate links because they actually believe you when you say a product helped you.
Your one task this week
Here’s your assignment, and I promise it’s doable even if you’ve never touched an email tool before. Sign up for a free plan on Kit or start a free trial with Flodesk, and create one simple sign-up form. You don’t need fancy graphics or a perfect welcome sequence yet. Just get the form live somewhere on your blog, even if it’s a plain box that says “get my latest posts in your inbox.”
That’s it. One form, live on your site, by the end of this week. Every single subscriber who signs up between now and our next chat is someone who found you, and someone an algorithm can never take away from you.