Hello and welcome to our first discussion post about Newsletter Ninja. Your assignment was to read the first five chapters.
To reiterate the philosophy put forth in Chapter 4—the primary purpose of our newsletters should be to build superfans: “people who don’t just love a book you wrote, but also love you, and subsequently love all the books you wrote.” Keeping in mind that we aren’t selling, we’re building, it’s time to choose an email marketing service that offers flexibility at a price we can each afford.
I was lured to Sendfox with promises of a one time fee, and no monthly billing. I’ve had a few months to get used to how it operates, and at a price of $99 for 10,000 subscribers (check appsumo for a deal), it does what I need it to, which is allow me to create basic automations.
The downside to Sendfox is that is doesn’t easily integrate with other apps like Mailchimp did, which was who I had before I acquired Sendfox. It also doesn’t allow me to become detailed on my automation sequences. This isn’t a big deal right now, but I have something super cool coming up that is going to need a more complicated automation.
For that, I’m looking at MailerLite. The free program will hopefully satisfy my needs and shuffle subscribers through the paces (segmenting), determining which Sendfox list I should park them on in the end: Hot, Warm, Cold & the Walking Dead (people who never ever open a thing.)
So that’s me, and what I need my email providers to do for me. What about you? Think about what sort of newsletter you want to have, and what kind of flexibility you need. How often will you send emails? All of these affect price, so you should consider what kind of budget you’ll have for this.
Your mission is to investigate various email providers and choose one. Get it set up and send yourself a test email. In that test email you should click all the things and make sure it’s all working properly. Make sure you like how the sign up process goes, the double opt-in, the regular email, and finally, the unsubscribe.
Your next mission is to read Chapter Six by April 8, 2022 and report back here for the discussion post. I’m giving you an entire week to complete this mission because filtering through providers, reading terms, and setting yourself up can take awhile. From here on out, these missions will be easier (I hope!) and a shorter turn around time.
For now, though, lets talk. Have you already chosen an email service? What do you like/dislike about it? Do you have questions that another member could help with?