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3 Reasons To Publish An E-Newsletter AND A Blog
With spam filters on high alert, delivering a newsletter by
email is not as easy as it was even one year ago. Should it reach
your subscriber's inbox (without getting siphoned into a junk
folder), it still has to vie for attention amongst dozens - or
even hundreds - of new messages.
1. A blog is not "email"
A Weblog or blog, on the other hand, is a page on your site
that can be updated several times a week with fresh content. If a
reader has "subscribed" to your blog, he or she gets an alert
(consisting of the headline and brief summary) every time you
post new information.
I.e., much the same way you can include a teaser paragraph in
your e-newsletter with a link back to the full article on your
site.
If you're thinking that subscribers have to proactively
"visit" your blog (a "pull" tactic) vs. having an ezine or
e-newsletter delivered to them (a "push" approach) there's good
news.
You can subscribe to a blog using downloadable software called
a newsreader. NewsGator www.newsgator.com is a popular one
as it integrates seamlessly with Outlook. There are lots of
newsreaders to choose from, many of them free. Once installed on
your desktop, the newsreader (also called a news aggregator)
grabs the latest updates to your blog via an RSS feed.
No need to worry what RSS is (it stands for Really Simple
Syndication). Just have faith that RSS is a new way to publish
and distribute content on the Web without using email. And that's
the point. No email. So, no worries about spam filters or
delivery problems.
2. A blog is an instant publishing tool
A blog is an easy-to-use content management tool. When you
"blog," you are instantly adding new content to your site via a
Web interface. No technical or programming skills are necessary.
Anyone can update the copy and content on your site. In fact,
think of a blog as just another page on your Web site.
Key point: a blog doesn't have to be "cool." A steady stream
of short tips with links to other sites or articles can be
extremely useful. (See my article 5 tips for a useful resource
blog.) In fact, this is the same kind of useful information you
may be cramming into each issue of your newsletter. With a blog,
you can parcel it out in digestible bits - with more impact.
3. A blog makes your site search engine friendly
Search engines love blogs and will index individual entries
(no matter how short) if you've got your blogging software
configured to create a separate page for each new post. In other
words, think of each blog post or entry as a Web page with its
own title.
By incorporating a blog into your site you are creating
multiple new mini pages. Search engines crawl sites which are
updated regularly with fresh content. So "blogging" raises your
site's rankings in search results.
OK, but are blogs a fad or a trend?
I love this question. Here's my answer:
Newsletters or ezines are still the e-vehicle of choice for
most marketers. Two things are slowing the adoption of blogs as a
channel for business communication:
1. The term blogging is associated with online journals;
personal, unedited writing; and, er, needless bloviating.
2. Most folks don't know what a news reader is and why you
need one to subscribe to a blog or any other RSS feed. (Again,
don't fret over RSS. Visit www.newsgator.com for a good
explanation and to see how easy it is to download a
newsreader.)
Use a blog to extend the reach of your e-newsletter
My advice for now is to continue publishing an e-newsletter.
If you're sending it in HTML, trim your design down to the bare
minimum and make the file size as small as possible. This will
give you a better chance of getting past the spam filters and
other blocking tools being used by major ISPs like AOL.
Of course, don't forget to link back to your blog through each
issue of your e-newsletter. You'll probably need to explain to
your newsletter readers what your blog is, where to find it and
how to subscribe to it.
If you think your email subscribers are not ready to embrace
"newsreaders," then don't mention this downloadable software - or
RSS for that matter. Simply include a prominent link to your blog
in the layout of your newsletter and remind readers to "visit"
often for updates between issues.
Bottom line, consider adding a blog to your site for two
reasons: as an instant publishing tool and as an adjunct to your
email marketing efforts. You may find you can use a blog to trim
down the extraneous information that's clogging the regular
issues of your newsletter and making it less effective.
Useful Resources
Good
explanation of RSS
Using RSS Feeds to
Promote Your Website by Ralph Wilson
Quick
explanation of RSS (from my article "5 key questions about
business blogs")
Popular Blogging Tools
Blogger
(free tool; now owned by Google)
Movable
Type (software you install; it powers many
professional-looking blogs)
TypePad
(hosted version of Movable Type; easier to set up)
Debbie Weil is the publisher of award-winning WordBiz
Report, read by close to 15,000 subscribers in over 80
countries. She is also an Internet marketing & communications
consultant. She sells special reports &
award-winning starter kits,
and produces audio
conferences on topics related to marketing with
e-newsletters or ezines... as well as blogs. Download your free
copy of her mini guide to online copywriting (value $10)
instantly when you subscribe to WordBiz
Report.
MORE RESOURCES updated Sat. September / 14 / 2024
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RSS gets 100% of your content delivered, but it's no good
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Bloggers blog. That's what they do.
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