Are newsletters still an effective way to keep in touch with your audience?
I’ve been running the killersites.com newsletter (among a few others) for several years now. Though I’ve found it to effective, with regards to keeping in touch with people, it is clearly not what it used to be.
Stupid Spammers
Yea, the porn and pill spammers have really done a lot of harm to newsletters. These days, if you send out a newsletter, you will have to deal with a few things that just get in the way:
1. Email filters – gone wild.
2. Angry (crazy) recipients.
These days, email filters are really fined tuned to catch just about any type of spam. Unfortunately, they tend to trash real email from time to time. So when writing my newsletter, I have to be careful to avoid certain keywords that might get my newsletter blocked.
Angry People
Because spammers have bombarded people with spam email so much, some people’s nerves are just red hot – any possibility that an email is spam and they loose it.
… Even some (after signing up to my newsletter) go nuts on me, sending me nasty emails threatening to call my hosting company etc … for ‘spamming’ them. These days it seems, if you send an email to someone who even signed up to your newsletter, can be interpreted as spam! I even have an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email … and I still get barked at.
RSS – the easy alternative to newsletters
It clear to me that using RSS (real simple syndication) is the way to go because the user has to subscribe and pull the information down from you. With newsletters, you have to send the reader the newsletter … you push vs. RSS, where the reader pulls the information.
The downside of RSS feeds is that the user has to have an RSS reader. That means your audience has to be a touch more sophisticated.
How to set up an RSS feed for your website?
The easiest way is to set up a blog (like Worpress) since all blogging software include built in RSS feeds. You could set up an RSS manually, given that RSS is really just a text document formatted with XML, according to the RSS specification. But why bother to go through the hassle since blogs will do it automatically.
If you want to learn more about setting up and running Wordpress, I have a bunch of free Wordpress videos for you.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
April 15th, 2008 at 12:12 am
I know — it’s sad to see this state. I was speaking with a client recently about how we should add an opt-in form on his website.
Granted I should have worded it a little bit better but he mentioned “but Sam I don’t want to spam them..”
It was only after seeing a competitor’s email newsletter that he began to see that all email does not have to be spam. In fact a newsletter can be a great way to build relationship, warm up leads and so much more.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Killersites newsletters and articles are the best accompaniment for coffee and toast in my inbox !
Glad to see them back.
: )
April 15th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Thanks Bob.
I do what I can.
Stefan
April 15th, 2008 at 10:58 am
The keys to newsletters are relevancy and regularity. Stefan, your newsletters have useful and relevant content, but they don’t come out on a fixed cycle. When a lot of time elapses between newsletter issues, people can forget they’ve signed up for it.
I know work interferes with fun, but finding time to send newsletters out like clockwork every week or month will go a long way toward reducing subscribers’ complaints.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Hi Stefan, enjoyed your article. To add to what Arun pointed out, depending on your email system you could even schedule your posts ahead of time and release them on a set timed basis to keep them flowing.
Sorry to hear about your market down day. Ever try hedging your positions with put options? They can ease the pain of a market down day sometimes.
Take Care,
Chris
April 16th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Hi Stefan, I have been on your newsletter list since the release of your Creating Killer Websites book way back when. The arrival of your newsletter in my inbox is like a visit from a old dear friend, I find no issues or problems with receiving it, I have never found it in my spam box, which is only set to the basic/default settings. Keep up the good work.
I am having to change the way I word some of my clients newsletters though, I no longer publish any email addresses, which is kind of counter productive as most of them are Chamber of Commerce newsletters and email addresses are fundamentel to their business ethos.
Keep up the good work…friend
April 16th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Hi Pauline,
Thanks for the kind words.
I must mention though that I did not write Creating Killer Websites … it was David. But, that was a long time ago.
CIAO
Stefan
April 16th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
You know, I never really thought about spam filters. My friend and I were thinking about moving to newsletters in the next few months, but seems we’ll just stick with our RSS for phyrax.com’s blog.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
It’s funny how people go out of their way to prove you right:
I just got an email response to my newsletter from someone who subscribed to the newsletter:
“shut up and never email me again”
.. Nice.
What a jerk.
Stefan
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 am
I really think that newsletters/email messages are a great way to keep in touch with your clients. However, I have noticed a trend among Internet Marketers towards spamming their lists. Yes, I gave you permission to email me, but not to send me multiple email messages per day. I really think that that is overkill.
I know these marketers say that they don’t want me on their list anyway since I don’t want that many email messages (although this logic baffles me). I have had to opt out of these over zealous lists.
So, if you are going to use email to market and keep in touch with your customers, I would recommend not abusing the privilege.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Having to trawl through hundreds of spam emails, I think that unless something is done about it , the days of newsletters has past us. I used to send them out a few years back and they were always well received, but now its just not worth it
Scott
May 13th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Hi Stefan
I too aggree with the majority. Its a pleasure to read and learn from such an informative web tool. I am a self learner and if it wasn’t for people like you i would have never had a real opportunity to make what i have to date, so I thank you. Looking forward to the next newsletter.
p.s. I have even set up my own smart folder in my Mac Mail browser. so all i have to do is click one button and then I can see all your messages.