If you are a blogger it means you wish to write, tell your story, or share your expertise with the world. There are so many reasons why people become bloggers, we have mommy bloggers, review bloggers, giveaway bloggers and the list goes on and on.

Having a newsletter is very different than a feed for your blog, many people enjoy reading what you have to say, but are not interested in a daily email digest or some don’t even know what an RSS feed is. Having a newsletter means that it’s one more thing to keep up with, so if you are already booked on time, maybe a newsletter is not for you, but if you are looking at the BIG picture of building up your brand, your blog, who YOU are, then a newsletter is something to think about.

I have a weekly newsletter, some create a monthly newsletter and others occasionally will send out a newsletter – for instance when they have ‘news’ to share.

After you have made the decision to include a newsletter for your blog readers, you must decide on a program to maintain your newsletter list and create your newsletter. I have only used MailChimp and can personally recommend them because FIRST they are FREE and second they are super easy to use. I have yet to use another service because I have had no reason to switch. Feel free to research for other newsletter programs, because it’s all about what program you are comfortable with.

Next, will you be creating a weekly or monthly newsletter? This is a very important part of your decision and is mostly based on how much content you feel you will have for your subscribers.  Weekly newsletters work great for me, because I usually have new events, exciting news and other tidbits every week, but if you will not have enough new content for a weekly newsletter then you should choose to issue your newsletter once a month.

Now you have your newsletter and email list program, chosen weekly or monthly newsletter release dates, and so you are ready to move on in creating your very first newsletter.

If you are ready for this next step, I highly recommend you read Jessica Knows recent blog post titled, Bloggers: Use An Email Newsletter to Drive Traffic & Tell a Story.