One nice option that FeedBurner offers is the ability to send out blog updates via email. This is a vital option as there are many more people that understand email but don’t understand feeds.

Just turning on email subscriptions is a good start. Customizing the email that goes out is even better. FeedBurner allows you to edit the subject, fonts, sizes, colors, message and add your own logo. There are really only a few options, but you can better brand your emails with the options available.

To customize your FeedBurner emails, log into your FeedBurner account and click on your feed. Then click on the Publicize tab and then Email Subscriptions in the left column. If this option is not activated, do so now.

Then, click on the Email Branding link. On the branding screen, you’ll have the option to change the following:

1. Email Subject/Title - Work on the wording to encourage your visitors to open the email.
2. Logo URL - This is where you get to put in a visual que to re-enforce your site’s identity. I’d highly suggest this for all.

I’ve recently acquired some email campaign tasks and one item I’m always hearing is to get something ‘above the fold’.

Now, I know what above the fold is. It’s the space that the visitors sees on the screen without having to scroll down. Really it’s a term from the newspaper industry where the fold of the newspaper cuts off stories. Those on top get more exposure and those on the bottom of the page.

But now that we are in the web world, it’s not the same. There are many different screen sizes, internet browsers, toolbars and the term ‘above the fold’ just doesn’t seem to fit.

So my question to you is, where is ‘above the fold’ on a computer screen and has it been standardized? Should I assume that 1024×768 is a good size? But then again, how does that work when it comes to emails?

That’s what is on my mind today. What are your thoughts?

[tags]email,email-marketing,email-campaign,above-the-fold[/tags]

I just got done posting a comment on David Naylor’s blog and I’d like to stay involved with the conversation, however there is no ability to say connected via email or feed. This then disconnects the commenter’s from the discussion unless they remember to come back.

A quick fix would be to enable comment notifications. Wordpress has a great plugin called Subscribe to Comments which will allow all readers to subscribe to any post. If you subscribe to a post’s comments, you’ll get notified via email when a new response has been added. This is great if you asked a question or made a comment that someone else responds to. It also brings the visitor back to your blog to where they might participate in more discussions.

Lets not forget that post comments can help a posts rankings/visibility. All comment text is indexable and will work for the post. A good comment discussion can possibly help increase the rankings and visibility.

Did you also know that in Wordpress, each post has it’s own feed for comments? Bringing this out into the open gives users the ability to subscribe in their favorite feed reader and not their email box. Simply add /feed/ after most Wordpress URLs and you should end up with the posts comment feed. This is how I’m staying connected to the post on David’s site.

Feedblitz, one of the most popular feed to email services got quite a make over today as Feedblitz 2 launched.

Along with the new look and feel comes a wealth of new features including an upgraded API, monetization, publishing, tags, stats, subscribe to comments, diagnostics, speed and more.

I haven’t had much time to play with the new Feedblitz, but it’s looking quite nice. If you’ve dug around, share your thoughts on the upgraded service.

[tags]feedblitz, email, feed, rss[/tags]

I’ve just added Feedblitz’ subscribe via email as an option on this blog. (under categories on the right)

If you think about it, subscribe via email is something every blog should have as not everyone knows what a feed is or how it all works. For every one person that knows about feeds, there are probably 10 that have no idea. However, almost everyone knows what emails is. So having a subscribe via email is an option all blogs should have.

There are quite a few services out there and one seems to be just as good as the other. I like Feedblitz as it allows me to see who’s subscribed to my blog and I can export the emails too. For an additional cost, I can also design the email templates. Other feed to email services include R|Mail, RSSFwd & Yahoo Alerts.

I’m sure there are may more, what do you like & why?

[tags]feedblitz,rmail,yahoo,email,rssfwd[/tags]