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!
I said in my last post that the Twestival deserves a post of its own – here’s why:
