How to Set Up Your Auto-Responder & Sign Up Form On Your Blog

I recommend aweber or icontact for a number of reasons:

You don’t need a ‘double opt in’ but you can choose it if you prefer. Many subscribers are lost every day because they forget to go and double opt in (ie; click again) when they receive the first email. Mike Klingler and Mike Dillard both recommend icontact and I got started with it.

On the other hand the double opt-in option protects you against spam and once you get more experienced you’ll probably want to only use double opt in.

Since developing my online systems further I’ve since switched to Aweber because it has advanced features that icontact doesn’t have.

Both Aweber and icontact have great deliverability (your emails reach your subscribers)

There is a free trial with icontact (without a credit card!) and a low subscription rate ($9.95 per month) for those with a small list (up to 250) so it’s perfect for newbies. On top of that it’s easy to navigate around & has great tracking features which tick the boxes with me.

If you know you’re going to be building a big list and perhaps create your own products in the future I’d go with Aweber from the start because it’s a real pain to switch your list later!

So let’s get started:

If you didn’t yet set up your WordPress Blog and Add Your Plugins go here and do this FIRST! WordPress Blog Set Up

A) Create Your First List! (Whether you’re using Aweber or icontact the overview will be the same and there will be tutorials in your account to help you)

icontact instructions

1) Sign up for your free trial (add link) Click on ‘pricing’ and choose ‘Starter Plan.’ You upgrade as your list grows.
2) Log into your new account
3) Go to ‘My Contacts’ & ‘Create a List’
4) Give the list a relevant name
5) Tick ‘Send me email notifications.’ (So you receive your leads to your inbox!)
6) Add a welcome email. Welcome your new subscribers and here you can give them a link to any free bonus you are offering for the sign up to your blog.
7) SAVE!

B) Create Your Sign Up Form for Your Blog (so you can collect unique leads!)

1) Go to ‘Create a New Sign Up Form’
2) Leave the colours as they are and click ‘Next’
3) Give your form a relevant name, so you can identify it
4) Tick the box to attach your sign up form to the relevant list you just created
5) Tick options that will show on your sign up form ie;
First Name will be ’1′
Last Name will be ’2′
Phone ’3′ (optional – depending on what you are offering when they sign up)
Email (essential) ’4′
SAVE. (These numbers are the order in which the fields will show on your finished sign up form)

Then Icontact produces a code for you. Choose the ‘manual code’ (because you can go in and tweak it on your site later if you need to)

Paste the code on ‘notepad’ and save to desktop for now so you can easily locate it.

C) Add Sign Up Form to Your Blog (you are in business!)

1)In a new window log in to your wordpress blog admin area. Click on ‘appearance’ and ‘widgets.’

2)You will see a list of ‘available widgets’ in the middle. Choose a ‘Text’ box and drag it over to your sidebar (where your widgets will be displayed)

3)Copy and paste your Manual Sign Up Form Code into this Text Box widget and SAVE.

4)View Blog and you should see your sign up form displayed. (If not – try again until you get familiar with the back office and widgets)

5)If you want your sign up button customised just find the place in the code that says ‘submit’ and change it to what you want. (Cool hey?)

Congratulations! You have just set up your first list!

If you’re using Aweber there is are step by step instructions as soon as you sign up: Aweber Create List

Next step is to start ‘driving traffic’ or ‘attracting prospects’ to your wordpress blog. Start with Facebook and Twitter – you can find lots of free training on this blog for doing that or get my step by step system here: The Niche Expert