FeedBurner and Newsletter, Are They the Same Thing?
29. Jan, 2010 
2 Comments
I’m not talking about my Newsletter Plugin. I’m talking about newsletter in general. The question is simple: can I use the free FeedBurner service as a newsletter or they are pretty different.
No one believe me an expert, so I cite Six Figure Blogger Blueprint:
I advise against Feedburner for a mailing list. They do have an RSS-to email option and it is better than nothing. But, you have very little control ofyour list. Plus, you cannot email them separately from your blog posts andthat really inhibits you from using the list for marketing purposes.
Read carefully: it is not smart to use FeedBurner to build a mailing list, but FeedBurner is a great service to have your posts notified to subscribers.
What’s matter here is the difference between sending automated notifications and a newsletter. Take a look to all major bloggers, the ones are making money from their online activity. Anyone of them has a newsletter subscription AND, some time, offer a feed-by-mail subscription.
Newsletter or feed-by-mail can be right or wrong, it depends on context. Take for example my blog: most of the posts are two or three lines of text announcing a new plugin release. No one has interest in receiving such kind of messages, when I update a plugin WordPress kindly gives the information on administration panel.
So, for me, a feed-by-mail is a wrong option. This is why I offer a newsletter subscription: this way I can send relevant messages only when something worth to be notified.
When to use a feed-by-mail subscription? On niche blogs which gives fresh news every day or almost every day. In this situation your blog is a like a magazine.
When to use both? It’s complicated. Having two subscription box on your blog is a bad idea, users will be confused, so you have to “study” a way to address users to the right service or find a way to make them subscribe both.
You may need both service when you configure your blog as a magazine but want to send out some special issues directly to subscribers with content not related to your posts.
I'm Stefano Lissa. Ten years ago I was building web sites for pleasure. Blogs didn't exist, web content systems were ugly, hosting was really expensive... and my student pocket was empty.
I’ve subscribed to your newsletter, and have the free newsletter plugin – thanks
I have a customer with a “mailman” implementation of a newsletter, where a user responded to the newsletter with spam and caused some issues because all members of the list received the spam. Is there a feature in your paid version that would prevent this?
Spam problem is not a metter of the plugin sending email, but of email contents and smtp sending them. If you provider is in a vlack list, my plugin cannot resolve the problem…