How to add a mailing list, types of mailing lists

Hello,

Adding the option of a mailing list ( or an opt-in list to your blog or your website, is a great way of collecting data of your (future) customers and also allows you to communicate with your followers.

So how to go about adding "follow by Email" on http://www.blogger.com

If you want people to give the option to follow your blog by email via  http://www.blogger.com 

as shown below( you'll see in the right column of this blog )

You can do this by selecting layout and then add a gadget. The gadget you want to add is the Follow by Email Gadget, and you can decide where you want to add it.

If you place it in the right panel, and quite high up, you have a higher chance that people will enter their Email address.

Once they enter their email address, they'll come to a screen where they need to enter a verification code to check that you are human being. Once you have passed that test, you'll receive an email that contains a confirmation code.

Once you click on that link, your subscription is confirmed and every time I publish an article, you'll get an email with the content of my article.

I'd recommend you subscribe to a few different blogs with different subjects, to get an idea what people are writing about.

So now that you have added your follow by email to your blog, it's time to set up the same for your website and your facebook page, this time collecting people's email addresses for the purpose of sending them updates by means of a newsletter, special offers, discount codes etc.

There are a couple of different providers, most of them offering a free plan.
I have found http://mailchimp.com/ to be the most active in educating its users, however there are other ones, such as http://www.constantcontact.com  ( USA), http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com ( Belgium) , and one  called www.newsletter.ie ( Ireland).

The integration with facebook is quite easy, I found these explanations to be pretty straightforward
These explanations give you instructions on how to add a sign up form to your website.
There is an option in Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns, and you can find the instructions here.

Relevant to my own project, I have set up a facebook page, www.facebook.com/www.littlebabysteps.eu , so please feel free to befriend me.
I added the mailchimp newsletter sign up..
( I 'll need to come up with a plan of action, but that's not for today)

I have submitted the boy's designs and I am hopefull I'll be submitting the girls designs during the week.

Somehow I received an email out of the blue of a lady who was enquiring where she can buy my litttebabysteps, so I was very chuffed! I was quite amazed, as I haven't done any kind of press release yet( as I don 't have the shoes yet), I have only been writing this blog, set up the website and set up the facebook page.

I have also been looking at packaging of the littlebabysteps, but haven't quite finalized that either.. I think I'll go with Organzabags for now, but realize that if I am selling them to shops, an Organza bag may not be ideal, so I am awating different samples.

I have also been digging deeper in the financial part of splitting the payment, and I think I have found a suitable solution.

More about that in my next post.

Hope you enjoyed reading this, and look forward to your comments/ questions or feedback.

All the best.
Katleen

Free Logos /banners for your website/blog

Hello,

If you have just stumbled upon this blog, I'll give you a quick synopsis what this blog is about.
It's about raising funds for Irish charities, how to go about it and in the meantime, also working out my own fundraising ideas.

My main plan is to raise funds by selling little leather soft leather babyshoes, whereby a part of each sale goes to the buyers favourite charity. The buyer can be a retailer who would buy from me, or just a consumer who buys online on my website.
My website ? http://www.littlebabysteps.eu

I am not quite ready yet, as I need to work out a few things, both on a design level of the shoes  and packaging & marketing, but, and that's probably the most important part - the payment method that I will use , as I would like to find a way that me as the seller, only really functions as facilitator between the consumer/shop and the charity, but I don't actually want to handle the charity funds. More about this in another post.

Raising funds is hard, so I believe it's very important to have a good webpresence and use the web as a tool to  promote the  fundraising idea and engage with charities, and other business who are on line, to make this effort as for carrying as possible.

So this week I wanted to talk about creating a logo for my website.
I have been looking at various "Free" websites, but often you'll find that it is free to create the logo, but then when you want the actual logo, you need to pay for it. Other ones are free, but you'll find a watermark on the logo, so it doesn't look very professional, or maybe not as professional as I would like it  to be. I'd recommend you Google Free Logo, create a free logo, logos for free and every other variotion of that, and you'll find plenty of choice.

One site that's definately free is http://www.cooltext.com
I have created the below banner/logo there:

 

Logo created via www.cooltext.com

There are quite a few websites that will let you create a logo for free, and give you a low resolution jpeg of your logo. In my case, that's fine for now, so I created the following logo via
http://www.tweak.com

 

Logo created by www.tweak.com

I found this link that gives you 33 Logo design services of creating a  business logo, you'll see some are entirely free, others aren't.

My next blogpost will be about adding a mailing list to your website, blog, Facebook page.
Thanks for passing by!

Katleen

Step 2 : How to set up a Gmail account & Google Analytics,Google Webmaster and Go

Hi all,

As promised, it's now time to set up an email account.
There are lot's of different free services you can use, but the one that has a lot more to offer than just email, is a gmail account.
Check out this Youtube Clip that explains how to set up a Gmail account.



Once you have done that, you are ready to open up a Google Analytics account,
watch the below video  that explains how to set up Google Analytics.


Once you have done that, you can enter your Google Analytics code on your website, that is hosted by Blacknight, through the control panel.
Just login via cp.blacknight.com and select the Google tab and fill in the code

The above are just the bare essentials, but I would recommend you also learn about Google Webmaster tools.


Once you have created your Google Webmaster account, you can enter your code in your account.
See attached image

In the Google tab on Blacknight, you'll also find a FREE 100 Euros voucher for Google Adwords.

I found the below Video very explanatory but only covers the very basics.
Google Adwords is a very powerfull online advertising system.


However, one word of advice!!! 100 Euros is a great amount of money that is given to you for free by Google, but if you don't study the ins and outs of Google Adwords,  your 100 Euros will be gone before you know, so I would recommend you focus on your website, and once the website is finished, can you start contemplating starting a Google Adword campaign.
The 100 Euros is a one off freebie, and as you want to make sure you get the most benefit of it, please make sure you spend some time reading on how it all works.
I'll cover Google Adwords at another stage.

So so far we have covered
Step 1. Choosing a domain name and setting up a website
Step 2. Set up a Gmail account, set up Google Analytics, set up Google Webmaster, set up Google Adwords.

During the week I'll give some tips on creating/finding a logo, and how to set up a mailing list.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and please feel free to comment on it!
Oh yes, so far, money spent = o!

Regards from cloudy Galway..
Katleen