Blog Newsletters
I’ve noticed a few blogs out there who publish email newsletters to accompany their blogs. Slashdot does it. Darren over at Problogger.net does it. Others use email alert services like (I’ll fill in the url as soon as I find it).
So tell me, how are the newsletters doing for your sites?
Some people would probably scoff at adding an email newsletter in this day and age of spam filters, web 2.0 and RSS, but considering the massive amount of people who still rely on email as their communication and content reading vehicle of choice, I’m seriously considering adding newsletters to some of my sites.
+ Del.icio.us | + Furl | + Reddit | + Digg | Email this
March 9th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
I think newsletters are still a great way to reach a whole lot of people, sincle let’s face it – most people have no idea what RSS is.
I was using a newsletter for a while at Cancer NewsWatch, and it did quite well, and kept a number of my readers coming back for more, but I ultimately got rid of it because of the time it took to write it.
After quite a few months I still wasn’t very quick at putting it together, and I found myself dreading it, so I stopped. I did, however, write a long piece on how to use RSS to subscribe to my site, and sent that out as my last newsletter…gained me quite a few readers, too
Now I’m considering something more automated, like a plugin or something that would e-mail my feed. Not sure how that would work out, but it’s in the back of my mind.
Good luck if you decide to do it…it can definitely pay off.
March 9th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
You guys know that if you use Aweber to host your lists, no aff link attached, you can use their ‘RSS to email’ service, build you lists and profit like wild dogs in Africa, right ?
Keeps you from having to always write a newsletter.
Seriously, a product driven blog needs a list to market one-time-offers to.
Doing a free ebook or viral product to jumpstart that list building is easy, I’m writing one right now for Travelling Golfer.
Once they join to get that free ebook, I’ll get to send them notice of other free offers and/or notify them of a special post that happens to be a .html page with info and contextual ads.
Been working nicely. Kinda like printing $$$.
March 9th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
I have set-up an e-mail subscription thing on my blog using FeedBlitz, which takes all the content from the site and sends it out to people who subscribe. I think that it works fairly well, but the only person subscibed to it is me, so the success of it is pretty low for me anyways…
That said my blog currently only has about 50-visitors a day, so that probably doesn’t help…
March 9th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Cary, yeah I forgot about Aweber offering the RSS to email service like Mike mentions. That’s something similar to the service I was going to post about, but STILL can’t find the freakin url for.
Mike, post your Aweber aff. link. Other readers may be interested in their service too.
I have an idea for an email newsletter that’s a bit different from what most people are used to and you bring up some good points Mike. I gotta think more about bringing IM tactics into this blogging thing. There are so many possibilities.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Hi Bill,
That’s it. Feedblitz is the one I was trying to remember. Thanks for posting about it!
March 9th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
I implemented FeedBlitz for a friends blog - very non-technical audience. He has about 500 FeedBlitz subscribers, but only about 50 people visiting a day. His RSS readers is pretty low too.
So for some sites, an email subscription interface is a bis deal! I have one at TheTedRap.com, but not too many subscribers. The ones that use it though, love it.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Hi Ted,
The way I envision a newsletter for a blog would be to use it like Mike mentions above, to feature new stuff, some advertising and as a traffic generator for the site.
I signed up for feedblitz but haven’t dug deep into the site yet, so I don’t know how flexible it would be in terms of customizing the newsletter content to drive traffic.
I’ll probably use it on some sites, but will use a full blown email newsletter/magazine on others.
March 9th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Here’s the aff link you asked for Paul.
http://www.aweber.com/?210518
I wouldn’t ordinarily post it, but since you asked, I can say they have hosted our lists for a LONG time and have been nothing but great for us.
Even their free training is top-notch.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:40 am
[...] If you’ve been following along here lately, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been grappling with how to effectively merge or add new features and benefits to blog networks. I’ve mentioned and gotten feedback on network branded RSS readers, newsletters, etc. as spinoffs to blogs and I thank all here who offered their insights. Very enlightening indeed. [...]
March 14th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Hey Paul,
Here’s another possibility :
http://radiantmarketinggroup.com/2006/03/14/zookoda-a-blog-email-marketing-app-done-right/
March 17th, 2006 at 1:57 am
FeedBlitz is pretty flexible, the paid version at least. Lots of people are using it to manage newletters and simply using a (dedicated) blog as the publishing platform.
I’m also doing a newsletter for the blogging for business book blog so I can go more in depth on some topics than blog posts easily allow, let subscribers in on special deals/events (free teleseminars, maybe beta copies of products in exchange for feedback, etc), and of course build a list of people interested in business blogging.
Will publish first version in once this next book is further along.
I also have a newsletter on computer security. Writing a newsletter is MUCH harder than blogging in my opinion!
March 18th, 2006 at 4:59 am
I’ve had email newsletters generated daily based on my blog’s rss feed for quite a while. I started with Bloglet and switched to FeedBlitz as so many have done. ProHipHop has over 400 subscribers and I recently shifted it to the paid version of FeedBlitz with a Your Ad Here notice above the posts.
Within a week I was contacted by 5 people involved with hip hop websites or publications interested in advertising who were receiving the newsletter but never expressed interest in advertising on the site. 3 of them were offline publications that are either trying to strengthen awareness of their website or get advertisers for their pubs.
Although most of this wave of interest is heading towards ad exchanges, that’s actually a really good thing for me right now. But what really tripped me out was that offering ad space on these newsletters suddenly caught the attention of my subscribers in a different way.
March 18th, 2006 at 5:04 am
My bad, some of the 5 were actually receiving a different hip hop press release newsletter that has 500+ subscribers. I switched both of them over around the same time. So it’s the scenario I described except it involved 2 blog/newsletters and close to 1000 subscribers.
But it’s gotten me thinking about using blogs to create weekly newsletters on niche topics. Obviously, the cool thing is that you can get your writing out and create ad channels on the blog, the feed and the newsletter, though feed options are pretty unsatisfying at the moment.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:04 am
I am using Aweber’s Feed Broadcaster as well, and LOVING it! It allows me to set certain options, such as how many posts it will group together. Right now I have it set to go out by email every two posts. That means my subscribers are getting the email update 1-3 times a week.
There is a noticable increase in traffic & commenting when the updates go out by email, so it’s working out great for me!
With Aweber, it’s simple to set up, you can also email the list directly, and the HTML templates are pretty cool.
In mine I have my photo at the top right, which is in a little sidebar to the posts listed there and contains links & info about my other sites (specifically interactive links, such as my related discussion forum).
I am not familiar with the other email-notification services, but questions I would ask myself are this:
- Do I own the list?
- If I move my blog, can I transfer the notification feature without disrupting my subscribers?
- Can I email the list directly (not just via blog posts)?
- Can I add things to the outgoing emails? (customizable template)
- Do I control frequency, and number of posts included?
- Is it double-optin, and can I edit those confirmation messages?
With Aweber the answer to all of those questions is YES. Besides, you can create unlimited autoresponders and mailing lists in your one account… so if you have multiple sites, it’s well worth the $19.95/month!!
Email Marketing still rules!
Best,
Lynn Terry