contentious.com

(UPDATED, see corrections below…)

On Oct. 17, I wrote that I was putting the Contentious e-mail newsletter on hiatus because it was simply too labor-intensive for me to produce each issue. Well, this morning I tested an alternate approach, and it seems to work well enough.

Here’s the good news and bad news about this change…

• The good news is: I can retain the relationship-building value of my e-mail subscription list (which contains a few thousand addresses), and continue to serve people who prefer e-mail alerts to feeds.
• The bad news is: To make this process sufficiently efficient to ensure that I’ll actually do it, I’ll now be publishing by e-mail daily (well, at least most days). I asked my existing e-mail readers this morning, in a test of my new system, whether that would be too much. Most of them said they were fine with increased frequency, but some people find daily e-mails overwhelming. So I expect a wave of complaints and unsubscriptions following this switch. (Actually, I wrote that before I learned that I might actually be able to do a weekly digest via Feedblitz. So we’ll see if that works.)

MY NEW E-MAIL PUBLISHING STRATEGY

In a comment to my first article on this topic, my colleague Paul Chaney suggested that I use FeedBlitz to automatically produce an e-mail newsletter from my feed.

FeedBlitz basically converts the content of your feed to a daily e-mail digest, manages a list of e-mail subscriptions, compiles a daily digest of new postings, and distributes that to your list of subscribers.

I tried FeedBlitz (via FeedBurner, which has partnered with FeedBlitz). The basic service is free, and it worked well enough.

BUT… there was one dealbreaker for me. The FeedBlitz e-mail subscription process is not double opt-in – and as far as I can tell they don’t appear to offer that option at any level of service. (I’ve made an inquiry in to FeedBlitz on that point, and will update that information if I’m mistaken.)

CORRECTION: I was wrong about this. FeedBlitz DOES offer double opt-in e-mail subscription (which requires confirmation). They just don’t use that term, and the information about their subscription confirmation feature is buried in their privacy policy, so I missed it. Sorry about that.

I don’t ever want to be accused of spamming, so for me double opt-in is crucial for any e-mail list I maintain. In a nutshell, when a double opt-in system receives a subscription request, it sends a confirmation request to that address. Only when then subscription is confirmed does that address get added to the distribution list. Double opt-in prevents unscrupulous people from adding other people’s addresses without their knowledge or consent.

For years I’ve been a happy paying customer of Mail-List.com, a mailing list management service. It’s simple, flexible, reasonably priced, and reliable. Of course, it’s a double opt-in service, and it’s easy for people to unsubscribe (by clicking an automatically generated custom link at the bottom of each message). Best of all, their customer service is timely and first-rate. They’ve earned my business, and I’m sticking with them unless I find a VERY good reason to switch.

UPDATE: When I reviewed FeedBlitz’s offerings, it looked to me like they did not offer a weekly (rather than daily) digest option. However, after direct discussion with Feedblitz, I learned that their premium “turbo level” service would allow digests on an other-than-daily basis for the cost of $9.95/month.

Here’s their explanation: “If you want to post at will but only want to send messages when you’re good and ready, the ‘Turbo’ upgrade has an ‘on demand’ capability. It sends everything since the prior ‘On demand’ cycle, regardless of the actual date posted. You have to press an icon to start the process. You can post weekly, every 3 days, once a month, it’s completely up to you as long as the information you want to send is in the underlying feed. If this is what you want and the other options don’t cut it for how you want to work then that’s $9.95 / per feed / month, 2 week trial period.”

…So I’ll see whether I can try Feedblitz’s turbo-level service – and whether I think it’s worth it to spend $9.95/month to accommodate the frequency preference of an increasingly small portion of my target audience. Right now, I’ve signed up for Feedblitz via Feedburner, and I don’t see the turbo option there. If I can try Feedblitz turbo, I’ll try doing a weekly e-mail digest like this:

1. I’ll use Feedblitz to generate the body content, for a weekly digest of Contentious postings. I’ve already tested that the links generated by FeedBlitz work for my subscribers.
2. Once a week, I’ll copy and paste that body content into a message for my Mail-List.com list, and distribute it through that original system.

I’ve already started taking new e-mail subscriptions directly through FeedBlitz. (I’ve modified the e-mail subscription form in my right-hand sidebar to allow this.) However, I would have to work with Feedblitz for awhile, to really see how well it works over time, before I would even consider switching from Mail-List.com. Switching an existing e-mail list to a new provider should never be done lightly – especially if you’re happy with your current service.

However, using Feedblitz to at least create the body content for my e-mail alerts, even if I don’t use it for most of the distribution, would pale in comparison to the labor I used to have to put in to create each e-mail newsletter. True, the FeedBlitz formatting isn’t everything I’d desire, but I’ll work on that when I have time. Right now, I think it’s good enough. It’s certainly better than nothing, that’s for sure.

I’ll try this approach for a while to see how well it works. I’m not sure whether I’ll eventually move my existing list from Mail-List.com to FeedBlitz. Like I said, Mail-List.com has been very good to me, so I’m very reluctant to switch. But in the meantime, this approach will make e-mail publishing more feasible for me. And if FeedBlitz ever disappoints me, I know it’s easy to move Feedblitz subscriptions over to my Mail-List.com account.

The important point is that at least now my e-mail subscribers will be getting content. For a long time, I couldn’t give them anything. I hate to leave people hanging like that.

DAILY IS TOO MUCH FOR SOME PEOPLE

Yes, that’s true. Several Contentious readers wrote me today to request a weekly digest, not a daily one. I can appreciate that – I’m not a big fan of daily e-mails myself.

Reality Check: If you really hate daily e-mails but you still want access to fresh online content, start using feeds! Seriously, it’s time. Feeds don’t clutter your in-box, and you can check them at your convenience in an organized way.

As you can see, if a publisher is posting content daily (or nearly so), it takes special planning, effort, and even expense to provide a weekly digest. I’d venture that few online publishers would be willing to consider that, especially if it costs money for little or no direct return. In other words, fewer online publishers will accommodate an increasingly rare audience preference for alert channel and frequency. If you want to keep getting alerts of great new online content, it’s time to adapt.

Don’t keep procrastinating just because feeds are unfamiliar to you. Good feed readers are free and they’ve gotten pretty easy to use. So bite the bullet, put in 10-20 minutes to learn how feeds work and to set yourself up with a feed reader, and then switch as many e-mail newsletter subscriptions as possible over to feeds. You’ll be happier in the long run. Trust me on that.

…So I’m sure this transition will be a bit bumpy, and I’m ready for the inevitable glitches and complaints. If the weekly thing doesn’t work out, or if it isn’t worth the money, then I’ll revert to the free daily option and people will just have to live with that. After all, you can’t please everyone, and change is never comfortable.

On the bright side, several Contentious readers told me today that this change was just the nudge they needed to finally start using feeds.

The bottom line is that continuing my e-mail alerts in whatever way I can is the right strategy. In conversational media (including weblogs) the greatest sin is to waste relationships.

If anyone has suggestions to how I could improve the e-mail alert process without creating any extra work for myself, please comment below. Thanks!