I recently decided to get serious about building my own email mailing list. Here are the three steps I used to get my first 100 subscribers.
The first thing I did was write and publish a blog post.
I’m pretty sure anyone could accomplish this with one good blog post, even if you’ve never done it before. But, I’ve been blogging for a long time. My blog posts get visitors but they don’t get much repeat traffic.
If you’re using this as a guide, you will need a bit of luck. Not every post I write is popular. You can probably increase the likelihood of success by repeating the process with a few different posts.
My blog post was about a technical topic, so I posted a link to it on Hacker News (HN). The post got a few upvotes but not a lot, I think it ranked well for a while on the “new” page, but it never got anywhere near the front page. Still, that was enough to generate decent attention.
I’ve also noticed that posting a comment on HN can sometimes generate more traffic than a regular submission. I worry, if I submit my own articles, people will feel like I’m abusing the platform.
At the bottom of the blog post I added a heading to pitch my course. Then I added a button that said, “Email Me the Crash Course”. You’ll see a similar section at the bottom of this post and you can sign up to get that same course.
I delayed sharing the post for 24 hours while I wrote the sign-up form.
The next morning I set up a page for a free mini-course. It included my pitch, an outline of the course, a box for your email address, and a subscribe button. I created the form using my mailing list provider and embedded it on the sign-up page.
Even though I was pitching it, I didn’t actually have a free course to give away. Instead, I made a 5-point outline for one I thought I could create, if there was enough interest.
At the bottom, to help set expectations, I put the note, “First lesson drops when I reach 50 sign-ups (ETA ~2 weeks)”. Although I said “50”, my personal goal was just “25”.
As soon as I thought I would hit 25 subscribers, I started to write the email messages to send for the mini-course. My note about 50 sign-ups bought me a couple weeks to write these.
I started with an introduction message that I sent the day the user signed up. I asked:
What would make this course a total win for you?
Not a lot of people responded to the email, but a few did. Their answers helped me confirm that the course I was building was doing what they expected. Some of them provided good ideas for additional content I could add to improve the course.
Next, I wrote the lessons. They were short, around 250 words each. Some even shorter.
I organized them a lot like this blog post. Each lesson was distilled down to three steps.
Once I got all the messages written I enabled the automation and it started sending the messages.
The campaign was a success. Within two weeks I had 128 subscribers.
Now that I’ve built the list to over 100, I’ve set a goal of 500 active subscribers. “Active subscribers” is the main stat my mailing list displays on the dashboard. It shows how many subscribers have opened or clicked an email in the last 90 days.
Want to quickly build your own blog or email form in pure HTML and CSS? Join the free Five-Day Neat Starter Email Course and build a lean, production-ready page before Friday.
Written by Joel Dare on July 30, 2025.
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