My good friend JudyO asked me if an autoresponder like aweber is really necessary to have for building a list.

If you want to build a list from your blog(s) the answer is no, you can use FeedBlitz. Feedblitz is a free service that has several features, I will only cover the newsletter and autoresponder ones.

The newsletter function is what most of us will call update emails. It is an email sent to your subscribers when you have posted a new article on your blog.

The newsletter function does not allow you to personalize your emails, then again this is year 2008 and almost everybody knows you are not sending each email personally to them.

I said this service is free but as we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Feedbliz will add a text line ad at the bottom of the email. I don’t think many of your subscribers will notice that add at all. You can of course get rid of it by paying a fee depending on the amount of your subscribers. It starts at USD 1,49.

Here is the price plan http://www.feedblitz.com/newsletter/pricing.asp

It works a bit complicated so here is an explanation on how to set it up for JudyO, if you are not Judy you are welcome to read along too

1. sign up for accounts at both Feedburner and Feedblitz (Feedblitz does not work without a Feedburner account).

2. login to your Feedburner account, click on the tab Publicize and then the text Email Subscriptions

3. Assign your Feedburner Feed to your Feedblitz account:

After you have clicked “Enter your email address and password” a new box will open below the Email address box – namely the password box. Fill out theses 2 boxes with your Feedburner account into and click the “Activate” button.

You will see that Email Subscriptions text is now ticket (right sidebar). You are now done at Feedburner.

4. Log in to your Feedblitz account, find the beige button:

and click Set up a New newsletter.

If you choose “Automatically, from an RSS feed or blog.” Then every time you have posted a blog a newsletter will be sent to the subscriber, you can later set a time frame, as an example every 3rd day. That’s the option I choose.

Next page, enter your blog URL and which time zone you want your newsletter use.

You probably don’t want to password protect your newsletter, so just leave the boxes empty.

Next page, you can configure your newsletter or do it later (do it later unless you have lots of time)

You are now done setting up an automated newsletter for your blog readers.
You can at any time send out a “Newsflash” which is equal to “Broadcast” in Autoresponders…

5. You get the HTML codes at your Newsletter Center – Get Sign up form, widget etc.

If you like you can add an autoresponder but I don’t see the use for it unless you want to add an ecourse or a series of emails

The autoresponder will be a part of the newsletter, so your subscribers to your newsletter will also be subscribers to your autoresponder but not the other way around. If you add subscribers to your autoresponder only, they will not get the messages, they must be added to your newsletter.

To set up an autoresponder:

Then go back to your Newsletter Center – Orange button on top My Account and choose My Newsletter Center in the drop down menu.

1. Pick the Newsletter you want to attach this autoresponder to;
2. Click the Newsletter’s settings link;
3. Hit “Next >>” until the Autoresponder screen appears;
4. Click on Setup Autoresponders here
5. Fill out the boxes.
6. Click “Done” or “Next >>” to save your changes.

To assign the autoresponder to the news letter repeat step 1,2 and 3, step 4 choose the autoresponder and click done.

Feedblitz has a Knowledge base at http://kb.feedblitz.com/kb/

The price plan again http://www.feedblitz.com/newsletter/pricing.asp

Pew – when sat up, it runs automatically.

You can also add your own logo to the newsletters