Your blog is as relevant as the engagement you offer to your audience. In order to ensure active participation from the users, bloggers have to keep themselves abreast with the latest SEO tools and add-ons on their host, make use of the comment section, invite reactions, and countless other things.
It is important to understand that creating quality content is not the only things that help you hack as a blogger, semblance matters.
Of course, one needs to create exemplary content, that engages the audience in their niche, one needs to stay ahead of the competition, but it is equally important to project a facade that is engrossing from the get-go.
Email marketing flooded the markets in the early 2000s and while it is not as relevant as it was in its heydays, it is still a great return on your money.
Email marketing is more than just bombarding emails to prospective clients, it is also about keeping your customers in the loop, luring them again to try something new, to help you keep a bustling business.
The email newsletter is invariably used by all bloggers to keep their part of skin in the game.
There are a number of services to choose from like MailChimp, Aweber, and so on. One of the best options that offer you free email newsletter is that of Feedburner, but the lack of updates has put the old goat in the doldrums.
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What Makes It So Special?
FeedBurner is quite special, simply because of its simplicity. There is no subscriber login page and no dashboard to log in.
Here are some of the features that make it so special:
- It makes use of plain HTML, it is easy to use and user-friendly.
- The is no promotion for the brand in the messages, there is no header with the terms “Feedburner. Also, the mark at the bottom is very light.
- Switching to other services is also is pretty easy, that is, the email addresses can be exported and used elsewhere without much hassle.
Specific Features:
Subscription Management
You can view your email list, delete specific users, export your list in Excel or CSV format, and receive a confirmation email in case some unsubscribes.
Email Branding
It helps you customize the subject line and the body text. you can also customize the title to fit your needs.
The best thing about Feedburner is that it allows you to use your custom logo which appears at the top of the HTML page.
There are a number of ways it can improve:
Reminder Email For Unconfirmed Subscription:
The Feedburner interface does not provide an easy way to handle confirmed subscriptions, something that makes using it a frustrating experience.
Other services like Aweber, on the other hand, have a feature for a periodic reminder, unlike Feedburner.
User Management
The user management offered by Feedburner is pretty shoddy, it has no option to select multiple users to perform actions. Although Aweber is a paid service, it gets the interface just right for optimal management.
Cumbersome For Users
There isn’t a common interface for the admin, users, and readers. This makes it especially difficult for readers to activate/deactivate the service.
Broadcasting Quagmire
It is imperative that there should be an option for broadcasting. In spite of the fact that Feedburner offers free service, broadcasting cuts down on the need for a paid marketing tool.
They should consider using a free service for limited broadcasting and also a paid version that scales it limitless.
Email List Option
There are many blogs that cater to different audiences and thus, they need to have different categories to make exploring easier.
This requires an Email list that is based on interest and it should not be common.
WordPress condition “Tab” offers this features, but the requirement is that you need to burn different feeds.
Email Autoresponder
If you happen to be a popular blogger, chances are that your newsletter is going to be flooded with emails and since it is important to respond to all of these emails, most websites make use of automatic responses, that is, responses that are computer generated.
Feedburner lacks this important feature and it shouldn’t be long before it fixes that to keep enough skin in the game.
File Storage
There is no option to allow downloadable files, that is, there is no option to store your files online.
Advanced Features Like A/B Testing
A/B testing is used worldwide to find out the best copy of newsletter template that helps in conversion.
The email title that helps you make the most of your newsletter can be recognized by the means of analytics, which is a valuable insight for the subscribers.
Online Sign up Form Builders
It is unlikely that people who are not that vested in technology would look for widgets for Feedburner to customize their forms.
Although many such tools are easily available on the internet, Feedburner will profit from the functionality of it all and not from the ubiquity.
More Integration Services
It is also important to include more integration services.
One such example can be that of google analytics, which helps the user understand the preferences of its fan base and he/she can accordingly customize their content to fit their needs better.
It would also make it easier to track everything from your google analytics account.
Custom Designed Email Template
Nowadays anything that you use on your webpage needs to be crafty enough to involve some engagement from the average user.
It is important to have custom error 404 pages to keep the bounce rate in check. Similarly, if you do not have a custom designed template for your newsletter, that can hark you back.
The amount of customization that you can achieve with Feedburner isn’t going to impress your user base, and it is time that Feedburner realizes that there needs to be a major overhaul in this feature.
Currently, the markets are flooded with countless email newsletters, many of which are free.
Feedburner needs to keep itself abreast of the latest changes in the game and acclimatize to it to keep itself relevant. While there still are any features that Feedburner offers that you wouldn’t find elsewhere for free; if there are no major changes in the interface, people might look for services elsewhere.
