I have a newsletter associated with my blog and can't stand the provider. I would love to dump Bravenet. They are expensive and their service is lousy.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a service or application for managing newsletters and mailing lists that they like? My list is not very large, about 400 people and so far anyway, I am only sending text-based, not html newsletters.
Thanks!
This post was written by Amy from Cooking with Amy
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13 comments:
I use Yahoo Groups for my tea newsletter. Only about 90 subscribers at the moment, but no problems so far. And the price is right.
do you think that the newsletters are still important in the age of rss?
I susbscribed to a few a couple of years ago but i just dump them straight in my trash these days. Maybe I should save those bloggers some money by unsubscribing?
The only reason I do a newsletter is that several of my readers pleaded with me to do one. It's really just more work for me, but I recognize not everyone wants to visit my site that often. Sniff. Now that I have so many subscribers I would feel weird about discontinuing it.
I'm not sure about Yahoo Groups, I'd rather have something without ads.
The ads on Yahoogroups newsletters are just a row of sponsored links at the very bottom. I get a newsletter from our co-op grocery and never even notice the ads.
you go amy,
i havent ever had one single reader ask me for such a thing, let alone several pleading.
why does nobody want a Becks & Posh newsletter????
;)
I use MailerMailer (www.mailermailer.com) for my newsletter, with about 2700 subscribers. I also have RSS feeds for my blog but get a totally different reader from the newsletters. RSS is still bleeding edge. They have nice templates (or you can build your own), track the opens and clickthroughs, etc.
I have two mailing lists through Feedburner and Feedblitz, both free. Basically it is an emailing of your RSS feed which is also free to set up wth them. Seems pretty good.
Wow! Mailermailer looks really good.
I think Ellen hit the nail on the head, RSS readers are a different breed than newsletter types.
Sam--Don't be jealous of my newsletter enthusiasts, one keeps bugging me to add "aol links" whatever they are. And I've only got 400 subscribers, not 2700(!) Besides, all your readers visit you daily I'm sure as opposed to my readers who probably are suffering from memory loss or never learned how to add a bookmark.
Amy, I've been really happy with ymlp.com. Affordable, you can do text or html, super easy to use. Constant Contact is another one I'm familiar with.
Amy, as an FYI, my subscribers come mostly from my cooking site, not my blog. Blog readers (and writers) are a different "persona," as they say in marketing. In fact, after writing this I went and added a newsletter link to my blog. I'm curious as to whether that will have much of an impact though. I've polled people before and rarely do blog readers go to the main site or site readers go to the blog.
I'm using FeedBurner with a Typepad blog, and I'm not at all happy with the mailing list reliability. For some reason, I often get duplicate mailings going out even when there's been no update on the site, and the sign-up process is difficult. My newsletter, which is separate from the blog and a feature on my web site, gets a totally different readership (also around 400 subscribers), and I actually generate that and use my email mailing list. Takes two seconds, costs nothing, and I can send it when I want to. As the list grows, I'll have to consider alternatives, but for now it's just as easy to use email, and I have total control over when it mails out.
Amy,
1. I ALWAYS look forward to your newsletter!
2. Yes, I definitely suffer from memory loss.
3. What's a bookmark? : )
Sam,
I'm waiting for you to start publishing a newsletter devoted solely to all things Marmite. Now that would be a valuable use of your time. ;)
UPDATE: After looking at several options (thanks everyone!) I made the switch to Your MailingList Provider or www.ylmp.com and I couldn't be happier. It is cheaper than Bravenet and has tons of features yet is a breeze to use, nothing confusing or techy at all.
On the "to newsletter or not to newsletter" quesiton I have no answers, but I will say that I love the newsletters I get from bloggers like David Lebovitz and Chocolate & Zucchini, they are infrequent but always have some tasty tidbits not found in their blogs. I try to do the same with my newsletter.
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