As you know I have recently moved jobs. Himself was slagging me when I told him that I would be writing and managing the IIA’s newsletter as this was something I did in An Chomhdháil as well. In fact I worked on An Chomhdháil’s two newsletters and digest service from inception, during that time moving one of them from one platform to another. I love writing newsletters, I love to get them and I still think a well written and presented newsletter is the digital communication most likely to see results. I’ve seen the results. To many the cost of setting them up may seem prohibitive, but the return on investment, once you have a good writer/ editor is immeasurable. If you are thinking about starting a newsletter, a good place for advice that I go back to again and again is E-mail Universe. Now while there was some virtual guffawing among the Irish Twitterati last week in relation to email marketing, I still try to have time for ezines that matter.
However sometimes I don’t have enough time. I love RSS for this reason* and my Google Reader in particular which, although it’s currently groaning from overzealous subscribing, allows me to zip through lots of content especially on my phone. This I love because no matter where I am (in Ireland) I always have something to read.
But what I would really love and maybe it already exists is a similar thang for managing all my ezine subscriptions. I hate unsubbing because having been at the receiving end I know a little bit of one dies inside when a subscriber is lost. I used to email them and ask them every so nicely why they were choosing to unsub and thankfully it was never because of something I did. They were moving jobs, going on ma leave or had changed accounts. What conscientious people! Unlike those reams of Hotmailers (I am also guilty although I retain mine for IM purposes) whose newsletters are probably still bouncing around the ether. So dear Lazyweb, as Conor O’Neill of LouderVoice would say, is there a web service out there that will help me manage all my newsletters to all my various accounts? Wouldn’t that be great? I might even be able to go back and correct my past transgressions and unsub all those I used my hotmail account for. The other thing I would love to be able to do and, I would, as a newsletter producer, love people to be able to do, is to suspend newsletters while on leave by entering the exact dates of that leave. Or just a better way of recognising newsletters from real people. But sure therein lies the holy grail of email.
* Yes I am painfully aware of the fact that my own RSS is not working. I’ve tried to fix it. I’m too dim obviously. This is what happens when you are a self-hosted blog pioneer. I’ve been at this lark since 2003 folks when you all thought RSS was a snake with a lisp.