I’ve got a question for you. Actually, more than one. I’m going to start a newsletter at some point soon. The first thing I need to decide is what service to use. I’ve heard bad and good things about MailChimp. I know there are alternatives, and I have a vague memory of hearing negative things about them.
Do any of you have any suggestions?
Second question(s): What would you like to see in a newsletter you subscribed to? What would you not like to see? What make you not read a newsletter?
What are your ideas on frequency? Length? Content, meaning what should be included that wouldn’t be posted here on the blog?
I used Mail Chimp for a while, never had enough subscribers I had to go to the paid options. I use SubStack now, which is free but will ask your fans to upgrade to your paid version (or promise they will if you don’t have one), as they get their money as a cut of subscriptions. The interface for SubStack works fine for me but I don’t try to do much fancy. You can check mine out at the name link.
Thanks, Karl.
I utilize MailerLite, its easy and simple and the email builder functions are pretty standard.
I’m still in the low numbers that allow me to be in a free tier, so unsure if that stays the same when I need to pay for it.
Personally, I like the newsletters that tell me a little bit about the author. But are also short and sweet. Thorn Coyle’s is the right size and content for me. Koontz is too long, for me (I read maybe every 3rd one cause they are so long.)
I prefer weekly or monthly. The more frequent the smaller they better be.
Honestly, I just like reading your blog (for content) 🙂
But if I get a daily newsletter I’d unsubscribe.
Thanks, Isaac. The most frequent would probably be biweekly, but monthly is what I’m thinking. I don’t have enough things going on that I could write something interesting weekly much less daily. And daily would be a deal breaker for me not matter whose newsletter.
I’ve only ever used Mailchimp but I am not fond of them. I jumped on Ai and it gave me these. I specifically asked for WordPress to make things smoother:
MailPoet: Allows you to design emails, manage lists, and send campaigns right from your WordPress dashboard. It includes a free tier for up to 1,000 subscribers.
The Newsletter Plugin: A popular standalone plugin featuring a drag-and-drop composer and subscriber management without strict initial limits.
Newsletter Glue: Connects your WordPress site to external email service providers like Mailchimp, MailerLite, or ActiveCampaign so you can build emails inside the block editor.
Thanks, Woelf. I’ll look into some of those. I’ve got some reserach to do.
On second thought, I started “From the Observatory” under my legal name for my business and as a way to slowly get back into writing, and honestly, I think this works better than a newsletter. You don’t have to make people pay to read your stuff, you get notifications when you get a new follower and when you write a post it not only gets published as a blog post but also goes out as an email along with your branded imagery and the full article. People don’t have to visit Substack to read your “newsletter” which is why I think this might just serve you far better than a newsletter, in my opinion of course. You might have a host of other reasons for wanting a newsletter that I don’t know about that would negate my advice. Hope this helps. Oh, and here is the link to Substack if you want to see an example: https://meltstrydom.substack.com/p/the-third-maker?r=8ap12h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Thank you. I’ll definitely check out your substack. I’ve mostly lurked on that platform, but I’m going to become more active on it. Still trying to research newsletters, and you’ve given me something to think about.