Posted in Autoresponder, email list, money | 6 Comments
How To Get Great Tips
I have been preaching the importance of having an autoresponder and building an email list. But I have not been practicing what I have been preaching. 
Until now, that is.
I did have an autoresponder, and I was collecting email addresses, but I was only sending out announcements of blog posts. I was not sending out tips and news as I had promised. I did in the beginning, but it kind of fell by the wayside.
Now I’ve seen the error of my ways, so I am sending out tips to the email list again. I sent one out yesterday.
The only way to get these special tips is to be signed up for my email list. But some people unsubscribed from that list – they didn’t want to get the emails every time I posted a new post to the blog, because they were already getting the new posts by RSS.
So, to make things easier, you can now subscribe to get the news and tips without getting the announcements of every new post.
There are two signup boxes in the sidebar. If you sign up in the first box, you will get news and tips, and you will get an email every time I post a new post to the blog.
If you sign up in the second box, you will only get the news and tips, not the blog post announcements.
I hope that makes everyone happy. 
Please sign up now, so you don’t miss any more of my great tips!
- Pat Doyle
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Pat,
Is this going to work though, or is it going to confuse people and they just don’t actually sign up at all?
I think RSS by email should be with or around the RSS button, but I’ve always thought of not doing this as I’d be causing ’subscriber blindness’, confusing readers and thus not converting them?
You do have some are on the right hand side of your header, not sure if you would be better using this as it is a more prominent area and first on the page to the left. Just a thought as this is where I’m thinking of placing mine – when I get myself into gear and get a re-design
Good point, Nick. I may have to change the layout to make it less confusing. I am still thinking about it…
Don’t you think your blog announcement list is more important than the couple of people who only read your posts by RSS?
I would let those people know that they’re missing out on the ’special tips’ and perhaps occasional password-protected blog posts (see James Brausch’s blog!) by not subscribing.
Splitting your list in two seems unnecessarily confusing for your readers, and more work for you!
Hi Michael,
It won’t be more work for me, since I’ll just send the same tips to both lists. It does seem a little confusing to have two signups. I will have to test how things go and maybe change if something is not working. I don’t think it hurts to test new ideas.
I don’t like the password protected blog posts since I find them annoying on other people’s blogs.
A good thought from Michael but really recieving blog posting announcements would be too much, that’s what RSS is for, it was only invented to keep people from drowning in routine announcements.
I do fell, though, that the two sign-ups are confusing as the dickens. It almost seems as if there should be a two-level single list. A. Join List, thanks, now B, would you like to receive notifications of new blog posts? Not sure how easy this would be with most mailing list software, but seems to be a useful approach. It;s hard to get some people to sign up for anything, multiple boxes are going to scare them off.
Hi Dave, yes, I may have to re-think the two signup boxes. I’ll leave them for a few days anyway. I did have quite a few signups to both lists today.