Today I took a leap of faith and decided to hook this site up to Feedburner. You’ll see the results of my 5 minutes of hard work just to the right of this post – it’s that nifty little subscribe box.
Going this route instead of putting together an e-newsletter via Constant Contact, AWeber, Vertical Response or any number of other email messaging services represents a shift in how I’ve communicated online these past couple of years. I’m used to the email blast, to carefully crafting a newsletter with a few different articles, and to putting calls to action in all of it.
With Feedburner, I’m simplifying things – a lot. And that is good, because frankly putting together my own email newsletter was beginning to feel like a huge task that I really didn’t want to take on. Now, if a reader likes my work and wants to stay up-to-date with what I’m doing, he or she can subscribe to the blog via email. I can post articles, let my readers know where I’ll be and what’s coming up, and I can even blog cool deals… and it only has to be done once – not repurposed and put into a newsletter format.
And as much as I’ve had tons of training and experience in marketing, I am taking a laid-back approach – I know I’m tired of all those call-to-action formulas, so I imagine you are, too. I hope that this way, you’ll get good content and nothing but the content.
This move also recognizes that, while many people are adopting tools like Google Reader or Flock to stay on top of their favourite blogs and news sources, many more still depend on email to stay in touch. These are the folks who don’t blog themselves, don’t read blogs, and really would rather not learn that skill right now. I get that. Feedburner lets me stay in touch with them their way.
Feedburner works best if, like me, you are not a daily poster, but are more likely to put out something of significance once a week or so. (Lately, I’ve been specializing in the “or so” – next habit to improve: consistency!)
So, do you care to join me in this experiment? If so, just put your email in the box. I look forward to keeping in touch this way!
Interesting move… I’ve just re-activated my newsletter efforts after a long time of being really lax with them. I fine-tuned my list (I believe you’re on it!) and have made an attempt to provide content that’s NOT on my blog, but points to various other places in my web kingdom. We’ll see how that goes. So far the click-through rates are good! Let me know how your Feedburner experiment turns out!
I wouldn’t be surprised if ultimately I end up using both tools, particularly since I can’t just *add* my current list to Feedburner, but have to wait for people to subscribe themselves. But the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, right?
C
Hey Catherine – great post! The only thing I wanted to mention was that I’d recommend using “MailChimp” for your email and newsletters marketing (instead of just feedburner). This is only opinion of course, based on my (amazing) experiences with their service so far.
They have excellent tools for creating newsletters, managing lists (you can definitely import your existing list) and opt-in process, plus possibilities for A/B Split Campaigns and RSS-to-Email newsletters (sent out daily, weekly or monthly). It’s an amazing service, well worth the price grades they charge for it (and free up to a list of 500 people). I recommend you at least check it out! http://www.mailchimp.com (If nothing else, they have some great informational resources about putting together effective email campaigns.
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