Having an opt-in newsletter..

[3Motions]

Hey guys,

I've seen numerous places that people have opt-in newsletters and I've read here a couple times that it's generally a good idea to have an opt-in newsletter to help make you money.

My question is -- why? Why not just have them signup through the blogs built-in user sign-up function, etc? What's the purpose of having that opt-in feature, and more importantly, what's the purpose of even having a newsletter?

Thanks to anyone who feels like answering..
Ricky

 

[Xrproto]

Well you can email them new offers = more cash!

 

[trigatch4]

I've asked this before but... a newsletter wordpress plugin/widget would be killer. Place to input e-mail, subscribe, opt out and holding it in the database with option to send an html e-mail from the backend.

Whose gonna make it? Whooooose gonna make it? Jan - Thank Youuuu Jan!

 

[Rascagua]

Newsletter Manager

 

[trigatch4]

Niiiice. Who can review or vouch for this jam?

 

[parushing]

:error::error::error::error:I've asked this before but... a newsletter wordpress plugin/widget would be killer. Place to input e-mail, subscribe, opt out and holding it in the database with option to send an html e-mail from the backend. :error::error::error::error:

Probably one of the worst ideas I have seen on this board. If you are going to do an opt-in newsletter you are WAY ahead of the game using an autoresponder service. If you don't know the reason why you don't need to be mailing out newsletters.

Just think DELIVERABILITY. Do it right the first time and never have issues because once they develop the list is useless.

Paul

 

[Sidewindr]

Hey guys,

I've seen numerous places that people have opt-in newsletters and I've read here a couple times that it's generally a good idea to have an opt-in newsletter to help make you money.

My question is -- why? Why not just have them signup through the blogs built-in user sign-up function, etc? What's the purpose of having that opt-in feature, and more importantly, what's the purpose of even having a newsletter?

Thanks to anyone who feels like answering..
Ricky

opt-in newsletters are primarily for building a list for email marketing purposes. The opt in feature is to comply with anti spam laws. The user is giving you permission to solicit when he or she opts in to your offer. If you get the email list big enough, you can not only offer your own affiliate and other related offers, but you can also attract joint venture partners by getting access to their lists and vice versa. Due to the cultural lag in the US with newer technology, email will still remain a very viable marketing method, the trouble however is related to spam filters so your conversion rate on an email campaign can be minimal but still more effective than direct mail and less expensive if I am not mistaken. With RSS no such problems. I think the ideal situation would be using both an opt in email marketing component coupled with an RSS feed for users to subscribe to.

 

[trigatch4]

I'd still love to here about some simple, effective solutions that are easy to implement. Even a simple, "sign up here to recieve yada yada yada" with a text box and "join" button that stores the names in a DB? Anyone?

 

[Anon7]

I'd still love to here about some simple, effective solutions that are easy to implement. Even a simple, "sign up here to recieve yada yada yada" with a text box and "join" button that stores the names in a DB? Anyone?

I think technically this wouldn't be too hard to do, I've made similar scripts like this in the past. The major flaw is that you'll realize at some point that you will need some type of reliable auto-responder service such as Aweber or GetResponse. Even with your own reliable auto-responder script, it's almost certain that the day will come when you will find yourself needing to migrate to one of these services.

Things to consider include, if you have a shared hosting account, sometimes the cron-jobs can be taxing on the server and you may get that process shut off after your list becomes large. Your delivery rate will also be much higher through these services. That's a big factor. Also you need be sure to double-opt in your visitors to be can-spam compliant. Then you have the administrative overhead which can eat into your valuable time.

When you have a large list from your own autoresponder and end up having to go with a service like aweber, then you need to you migrate your list. You are required to have your entire list re-opt in. You will easily lose 80% of your list via the migration. It makes more sense to me to just start with aweber or GetResonse right from the start and avoid all that trouble later down the line.