Using a listserv for blog promotion is much easier than it sounds. And with Bravenet, it is free! Their easy to use tools help you create an account to manage consumer contact information, add sign up forms and generate newsletters. It is a great way to explore the effectiveness of this type of outreach, with very little investment on your part.

After signing up for an account, generate code for your sign up form. I suggest creating a separate page for this, then adding a link to it on your home page.

Next, go to the general settings category and customize the automated email responses that are sent to people who sign up for the newsletter. This is an easy way to personalize your message and keep it from sounding too canned.

Now, click on one of three options, build plain text email, build/send html email or custom html email. The plain text email is fairly self explanatory. The html builder allows you to create a newsletter that has live links directing readers to other locations for more information…but has the least creative options. Uploading your own custom html file offers the most flexibility, but also the greatest amount of work.

Then click send. Your email is sent out to your list and you are finished!

There are a couple of additional things that Bravenet does that are of great importance. First, there is a confirmation of sign up through a second opt in email. Second, they include opt out information in every email. And third, the information in this list is yours…you can back it up to an outside location as often as you like.

Try using Bravenet to send newsletters and other information to your community. It is a great and easy way to promote your blog and your business.

Tags: Blog Marketing, Blog Promotion, bravenet, rss marketing strategies

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 6:46 am and is filed under Blog Promotion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.