Easy Blog Notifications With FeedBurner Email

For years, we’ve been using email auto responder services like Aweber to communicate to readers and potential customers. One of the more popular techniques used is the blog announcement - an automated email that goes out every time you create a post. This technique keeps your readers engaged and encourages them to come back to your blog often.

Aweber has a feature that monitors the feed from your blog and when it sees a post - it triggers a pre-formatted email to your list. It’s not hard to configure and is very reliable. But if you are using your auto responder service primarily to send out blog announcements, you are paying for a service that you can get for free - using FeedBurner.

FeedBurner is a free blogger service that takes your rss feed and packages it into many innovative delivery options. If you are new to FeedBurner, it takes a bit to get the hang of what they are really offering. The best way to learn is to simply create an account and start playing with it. It’s free - and the service has been recently acquired by Google.

Burn a feed and sign up for the email service - you’ll get simple code to put on your site that allows readers to opt-in to an email version of your blog - complete with attractive layouts, links, etc. It’s totally double opt-in, and works flawlessly.

Here is what the opt-in form looks like:

Or, include a simple opt-in link: Subscribe to Data SystemsPlus by Email. Feel free to opt in to my blog list!

FeedBurner email is the way to go for blog announcement lists - it’s free, professional - looking and readers know they are not giving their email to be spammed with the one-click unsubscribe.