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You know what is better than analyzing blog stats? Learning how to add 1004 blog subscribers in 26 days with almost no cost, but with a rewarding payoff.

Is a Slow Start Really Necessary?

When I first started my blog (2 1/2 years ago), I looked at several newsletter providers or rather I should say email delivery providers. My top four choices at the time were Mad Mimi, Mail Chimp, Feedblitz and Mail Poet.

I chose feedblitz because sending out blog posts with a rss feed “newsletter type” format was not time consuming.

What do I mean by that? I need to explain first about what it means to be clear about your goal when you begin to blog.

The absolute number one goal is awesome content. Time is needed to find your voice and sharpen your focus. Did I mention that takes time?

Mommyhood alone makes finding the time to prepare a well written newsletter that bubbles with your personality and tips that you are burning to share seem like a super human feat.

Add homeschooling to the mix, and you almost feel defeated. I say almost because attitude is everything and a huge dose of  patience is key.

What I am saying is that when I first started, Feedblitz allowed me to send a newsletter type of post where I could share all my blog posts without having to take time to add them to my newsletter.

Check a few boxes of what I wanted to send in the feedblitz set up, add my header, and click send was the extent of what I wanted to do at the time. I didn’t have to recreate the blog posts like you do in a newsletter format with Mad Mimi.

In Mam Mimi, you add images and some text or all the text and prepare like a newsletter. Feedblitz used the images you already have on your blog and there is very little to no writing that I had to do.

This is important to understand when choosing how to communicate with your followers in the beginning days of blogging.

I needed time to focus on my blog (and homeschool first) and not prepare a newsletter right away. Getting my content to my followers and growing my list were my goals for the first two years. First things first.

See, I don’t believe that delivering a newsletter (content yes) to your followers is the first goal when you are a beginner blogging. You can’t do that and blog stunning content daily.

Oh, you could, but would it be as snazzy? Probably not.

Feedblitz (and yes it has a huge techie learning curve) had more bells and whistles than the other providers and I started off with their free trial period.

Their price scale for paying for subscribers was nice and slow in the beginning. The best part was that  I could pay for a year and get a discount and it locks in the present number of subscribers.

This means that if my subscribers increase and fall into another price bracket before the year is up, I am still paid up and not paying for those extra subscribers.

I could also send newsletters on demand. This means I could communicate with my followers about anything without or without having blogging content.

This allowed me to communicate with my followers in a more personal way when I needed to.

Also, by using feedblitz initially, I could focus on creating products in my shop.

Lesson 1 Learned: When you’re a beginner blogger, use the best email service with the most bells and whistles you can get and not the best newsletter service. You have to focus first on content, your blog goals and product.

However, the time came to move on to the second part of my blogging business goals, which are to increase followers rapidly, make money beyond just paying for blog expenses and sharing tips in my newsletters too.

I don’t want to wait for five years to do that.

Up Your Game

However, being a budget savvy blogger is also important.  I noticed how Feedblitz moves up significantly to a huge price bracket when you reach between 500o to 9,999 followers ,which is where I am right now. And having 5K followers is not near like having 10K followers. That is just too wide of a gap to pay one price.

Enter Mad Mimi.

I went back to the newsletter providers I had researched earlier to compare prices now that my subscribers are knocking on 9K.

Knowing now that I had successfully accomplished a huge techie learning curve with Feedblitz, I was ready for Mad Mimi.

My focus now is on sharing creative homeschooling tips in a newsletter while I add my blogging content that is now overflowing.

Did I mention that Mad Mimi is cheaper as well?

Mad Mimi costs $27.00 for 5,000 subscribers and $42.0o dollars for 10,000 subscribers. Feedblitz cost $75.00 for 5,000 to 9,999. See what I had noticed?

Mad Mimi has a price increase that goes up slowly, as it should, as you build your list instead of such a huge range in followers, which costs more with Feedblitz.

Not only that but Mad Mimi is super easy to use, beautiful and very user friendly for both blogger and follower. It makes sending my blog posts and a time worthy newsletter super simple too.

However, the other significant part of using Mad Mimi is that when I started using Mad Mimi, my subscribers have doubled for the day. I have gone from 20+ subscribers each day to 40+ and I  am working on tripling them now.

The other thing I am using is the free icegram which I brag about a lot. You can use one of their premade popups or create your own graphic, which I did. Mad Mimi and icegram have made for a great partnership with minimal cost.

Feedblitz just recently got web forms that you can create, but before that the web forms were poor quality. Though it didn’t affect my growing significantly, it did not contribute to it either.

Icegram allows me to show my personality and create a warm invitation to follow me.

Lesson 2 Learned: I trusted my gut instead of going with Mad Mimi, Mail Chip or even Mail Poet (which I like too) in the beginning. It’s important to change when you need to and more importantly your newsletter provider should help you grow rapidly. Too, it doesn’t have to cost a lot to grow your followers if you’re willing to stay flexible. And web forms are important and should be inviting and easy to use for both blogger and subscriber.

Now that I have added 1004 subscribers for the last 26 days and growing substantially each day by now using Mad Mimi, I hope these steps will help you to grow just as fast.

Do you have any questions?

Also, be sure to grab the beginner blog tips at my 5 Days of Homeschool Blogging Basics: Purpose, Plan, Performance, Persistence and Payoff.

I know you will love my Forever Blog Planner that I created much like my 7 Step Homeschool Planner. I know you would love it too because I help you step by step to choose the pages you want in your blog planner and and the best part is that you receive forever updates. Be sure to download the free printable from the planner set.

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Also, check out the must-have book, iBlog Pro, by homeschool bloggers, I am proud to be a co-author.

Hugs and love ya,

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.