Growing Your Mailing List – OptinComments Overview
Posted November 1, 2007 in Marketing 10 Comments »
Some time ago Ian Fernando, a good blogging friend of mine, contacted me to have my opinion on a new product he was working on called OptinComments. Which is basically a WordPress plugin that one can use to grow his/her mailing list.
First let’s see why a freelancer would actually want to have a mailing list, or grow an existing one. What are the benefits of having a mailing list?
Most companies like Aweber or GetResponse will charge you a monthly fee. So unless you’re making money with that list or it benefits you or your clients in some ways (i.e.: newsletter), it may not be useful for freelancers.
On the other hand, you will go through slower months at some point, where you don’t have a lot of contracts, and you’re having a hard time finding new clients. This is where your mailing list comes in handy, and where OptinComments can help (provided you have a blog and you run WordPress).
Why Would This Be Useful?
Obviously, OptinComments was built with internet marketing and blogging in mind. But it could also be used by freelancers to create passive income streams.
There’s no point in paying for an auto-responder/mailing-list service if you get nothing in return. Whether it’s money for a product you developed, traffic to your site, or business from previous clients.
Every single day people read and visit blogs, often company blogs, and leave comments. Some will never return, but others will bookmark or subscribe to the rss feed. And others will want to stay up to date and agree to receive e-mails from time to time.
Requirements
It’s quite simple, here’s what you need in order to use OptinComments:
- A blog that runs WordPress (comments enabled)
- Posts/articles
- Either a service like Aweber or your own script
- $47 for OptinComments
- Voila! you’re good to go!
No Spam
Of course, this is called OptinComments for a reason, leaving comments on blogs won’t get you spam in your mailbox. A lot of blogs already use the “subscribe to comments” plugin and/or the “comment relish” plugin to thank first time commenters, OptinComments simply asks them if they’d like to join the mailing list. It would be a good idea to put a little note next to your comment form mentionning you use OptinComments on your blog. Just a thought.
What About You?
Any freelancers using mailing lists and auto-responders reading this? I personally don’t have a mailing list, and rely on my own contact list, referrals and networking efforts to get gigs. But I think OptinComments looks promising, and if used correctly it could help you get through those slow months, or just make you a little more money.
Jon
******
About the author: Jon Phillips is a full-time freelancer, designer and blogger, he loves WordPress and plays guitar in a heavy act. He's also the founder of Freelance Folder. Oh and he'd be pleased if you would follow him on Twitter. :)
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10 Comments
Iantrepreneur
November 1st, 2007 at 4:09 pmJP thanks for the overview!
Jon
November 1st, 2007 at 4:14 pmYou’re very welcome Ian. I have a quick question though, does optincomments work with all version of WP, or only 2.3? (just wondering)
Iantrepreneur
November 1st, 2007 at 5:49 pmit works with all versions with WP – since the code is very basic, and usues the original tables of WP – I have it working on my 2.1.3 blog and the 2.3 one as well :)
Goal Setting College
November 1st, 2007 at 8:59 pmInteresting product, Ian. So is this product, something like this : Say, once I click the “Submit Comment’ button on Jon’s blog for example, another screen will prompt me to sign up for the mailing list?
Just curious!
Cheers,
Ellesse
Jon
November 1st, 2007 at 11:10 pmHi Ian, thanks for the quick reply!
Ellesse, good question, I’ll get Ian to come back here and reply :)
Iantrepreneur
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:07 am> Ellesse
what happens is there is another form behind ‘this’ comment form.
when you leave a comment on Jon’s Blog, the main comments stores your comment on the DB end while another form is being created for an email campaign (aweber, prosender, etc), which it auto submits, as if you have already entered your name and email for that specific email form.
BUT on the users end they will setup a double optin, where you will have to confirm your email address, if you have ever seen a double optin usually it will say “please click the link below to confirm your email”
this is the best part, since usually you can adjust your double optin email. for example when someone leaves a comments on my blog, it will say thank you for leaving a comment and if you wish to be part of my network and receive these 2 gifts, click the link below. very similar to comment relish, except we are using our email campaign to say thank you.
The link then confirms the email address and adds them to my list. simple.
I hope that answered your question :)
Joohliah
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:08 pmThat seems great ! I think I’ll try it as soon as my blog is launched :)
As far as I’m concered, (I’m a junior Graphic Design freelancer) my mailing list was built from scratch. I first added people from my personnal contact list, and now, everytime I bump into someone who may be interested in my work, I ask them if they’d like me to add them on my list. Nobody has ever said no for the moment…
I haven’t had the opportunity to do a mailing yet though, so I can’t tell you if it will bring me any work or new contacts… but I hope it will ! :)
Jon
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:59 amThanks for the answer Ian, really appreciate it ;)
Hi Joohliah, we’re on the same boat I think, I rely heavily on my own contact list, I think I’ll start asking people to join my mailing list (manually or through my site), that would definitely speed up the process of sending some news to previous clients, or trying to reach some people via IM.
Mailing List Seller
January 11th, 2008 at 7:16 pmhi i just found you here can you please provide a screens from your plugin ?
Mohamed
Iantrepreneur
January 11th, 2008 at 9:50 pmmohamed,
you can view a video of the backend and the plugin in action by simply going to optincomments.com
if you have any other questions please feel free to contact me
thanks