Blog Powered Free Newsletter
A question was posted on twitter by follownathan:
Question: Am I wrong for thinking newsletters may be antiquated? Should I even bother?
Here’s my long-winded (more than 255 characters) answer…
I think print newsletters are dead and online newsletters are being replaced by RSS. More web savvy people will use an RSS reader. Others will want to subscribe by email which is the audience most likely to want to read a newsletter.
I would not use email vendors like FeedBlitz, Emma and Constant Contact because it is so much easier to automate with RSS, feedburner, and a separate blog. In fact I’m really glad you asked this question because I don’t think this solution would have ever occurred to me.
Set up a separate blog just for the newsletter and schedule a post (newsletter) to publish on a regular (weekly) schedule. Then add the feed to feedburner and post the ‘newsletter’ subscription form on your main site and blog. It’s not a substitute for your normal RSS feed but this kind of setup would give you a simple newsletter crafted in a blog interface with focused content that you carefully craft to link back to your website(s). The best part is that it would be free and only require you to write one summary post (newsletter) of all the things you want people to see or know. Keep the info in the newsletter simple. Let the main website(s) provide all the details.
