In 2010 I am becoming more organized and have always wanted to try out a newsletter. Today, I did just that and I am excited to show you what I have found and created! I first was inspired by TimothyAdamDesigns and his newsletter. He always has so many great tips and links. His e-mail I get is just text and links, so I wanted a little more color and pizzaz to mine since I am artsy and funky anyways.
I went to the Etsy forums and looked up a thread started by etsian, thecyclingartist, about newsletters and mailing lists. I hate using the word mailing list because it sounds like spam and ads. This is not want I want to see or read all the time if I am being picky about which newsletters I am signing up for.
In this thread, I founds two great sites to create a newsletter. Mad Mimi was the first mentioned. While it looks very cool and there were good reviews about it, I wanted something free to start off with to make sure I would stick with a newsletter and learn how to reach my audience. Their site starts off at $8 a month for the same amount of contacts I could have at Mail Chimp, which is the site I am using.
I have found Mail Chimp to be pretty easy to use once I poked around for an hour or two and sent myself a test newsletter. I am able to link my twitter and allow readers to share the newsletter via Facebook and other social networking sites! Now I am ready to send out my first newsletter, which will be bi-monthly and focus on featured artists, Etsy news, tips, and deals!
If you are choosing to create a newsletter or mailing list, there are a few rules and laws you must follow and can be found at the FTC site for the CanSpam Act Laws. Please take a look at these and make sure your newsletters follow the few, but simple laws.
I will be updating this post as I learn more about newsletters and read comments and suggestions from you!
Please take a moment to sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter. Check out my first issue and see what you think? Let me know if it is good, bad, or what could be improved. What do you want to see?? You can always opt out later. Sign up below or to the left side of my blog!
2 comments:
I use Bravenet, which is also free and very easy to use.
Thanks for the plug.... Nichole.
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