Newsletters
Hi everyone,
I'm thinking of starting a newsletter for A Slice of Cherry Pie and was wondering if I could tap into the UK bloggers' collective knowledge on the subject?
So a few questions:
1) What are the advantages of a newsletter? Why would I start one? Is there demand for one?
2) Do you have one? How do you find it? Do you have many subscribers?
3) What software do I use? How do I get started? Can I create a funky image-rich one? How?
Please help a newsletter virgin!
This Post was written by Julia from A Slice of Cherry Pie
4 comments:
Hi Julia
Answering this with my professional hat on rather than my blogging one... (I'm an online marketer, not that you'd guess that from my site!)
If you want to send one with images, you need to find software that sends HTML email - but will also send a text-only version to people who can't receive HTML (and there are plenty of them).
One fairly cheap tool I used to use was called Dynamic Mail Communicator available here. It seemed to work OK.
It allows you to send unique (ie personalised) email in both HTML and text format (it automatically sends the right version to the right people), rather than doing a 'BCC' list.
One of the real benefits of this kind of mail is that - if you can build a big enough list - you could even sell advertising on the emails. This won't make you a millionaire overnight, but it might cover the cost of the software...
Happy to chat more about it sometime!
Hi Julia! Like Richard, I can answer on a professional note as I work as a PM in New Media. Newsletters are great for generating a community feel around your blog and pulling your user back in every time you send it. You can add "added value", snippets of info that weren't in your blog, etc.
I couldn't advise on tools though as we generate ours using bespoke tools and I haven't gotten around to doing one for my blog yet.
Hope this helps!
I can't advise in any way, but think it is a brilliant idea to produce a newsletter. I've thought about it myself, but havent got any further than thinking about it!
:)
Thanks so much guys.
I've been away on holiday so apologies for the late reply to your comments. I'm definately going to look into this some more, I think, and Richard I'll take a look at that software - thanks again.
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