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
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