If you use Google’s Feedburner service for managing the RSS feeds for your blogs and podcasts, you may, or may not, know that Feedburner also provides email subscriptions to your RSS feeds. Some people prefer email to RSS, so they might be more comfortable receiving your blog updates in their inbox.
You can turn on the Email subscription feature for your Feedburner feed by logging into your account and then clicking on the Publicize tab. In the left-hand column, you will then see the Email Subscriptions link. Click that link and 4 sub-topics will appear.
The Subscription Management link allows you to grab the code for an HTML form that you can embed in your blog to allow users to subscribe with one click. You will also find a listing of those people currently subscribed to your RSS feed via email. The Save button at the bottom will activate the service, if it isn’t already and save any settings you might change.
The Communication Preferences link allows you to see and edit the messages sent to those people who subscribe via email. You can change the text of the welcome message, including whatever information you would like them to have.
The Email Branding link provides access to the standard subject line, blog artwork and styling of the email sent to your subscribers.
This review of the email subscription features was driven by an email I received from a subscriber noting the small font size of the messages they were receiving. I hadn’t realized it, but the font size of the message in this section had been set to 9 point, much too small for the average reader. A quick change here solved the problem for everyone receiving these emails.
The final link, Delivery Options, allows you to set your time zone and the time of day when you would like your email updates to be delivered to your subscribers. Mine are scheduled to be sent between 7am-9am Pacific Time.
Readers will consume your web content in any number of ways, so providing alternative methods, like email subscriptions can help you add to your subscribers as well as capturing email information about your users — something that is nearly impossible using RSS feeds alone. If you haven’t checked your Feedburner Email Subscription settings recently, check it out. You might be pleasantly surprised at their usefulness.
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14 responses so far ↓
1 Think & Speak // Feb 22, 2010 at 11:46 am
I’ve been searching how to add subscribe by email tag from a long time… thank you very much for this post you’ve really helped…….
Thanks
2 Douglas E. Welch // Feb 22, 2010 at 11:59 am
Glad it was helpful. My readers don’t use it much, but some people really prefer Email subscriptions so I figured why not provide it.
3 Nikos // Jun 23, 2010 at 10:41 am
Please… please…
could you please inform me how did you change the font size of the email text that feedburner delivers in your subscribers inbox??
Please…
4 Nikos // Jun 23, 2010 at 11:03 am
OK man, finally i read again and again your post and i discovered that setting in feedburner to fix my issue.
Thanks again!
5 Dan Earle // Aug 26, 2010 at 5:54 am
We have subscribers but they do not seem to be getting notification of posts. Is there a way I can test to see if all is in order? All buttons indicate Active.
6 Bendell Yamo // Oct 1, 2010 at 2:33 am
I have the same problem as Dan Earle. Feedburner says the Email Subscription is active but subscribers are not getting update. I myself subscribed to my feed using another email and updates are not showing. Do you have any idea what is the error? Many thanks for your help.
7 Douglas E. Welch // Oct 1, 2010 at 9:35 am
I have moved away from using Feedburner for my feeds now that I can host them locally using the Powerpress plugin. This doesn’t give me email delivery, though. Thinking back, I don’t think I have received an email update from one of my feeds recently, so it could be the system is down. Despite its benefits, Google has not been veryh good at providing any sort of support for its products when there are problems.
8 krispina // Nov 30, 2010 at 9:35 am
I would like to know if there is any way to send email update at the same time that i publish a post in my site ?
9 Zino // Mar 24, 2011 at 1:10 am
Daily on my website 1000-1500 people visit and manually type in there Feedburner Email Subscriptions and also I have to type capcther. and to type 1500 email id is a pain is there any automatic way that I can import the email list and automatic Email Subscriptions all the user ..
10 Douglas E. Welch // Mar 24, 2011 at 11:56 am
I don’t believe there is a way to import mailing list into the Feedburner Feature.
11 TREW Marketing Spotlight » Blog Archive » Blogging: How to Create Quality Content that Reaches Your Target Audience // May 17, 2011 at 11:29 am
[...] Readers who subscribe will now receive each new blog post that you publish via email, allowing them to engage with your company via their inbox, and giving them the opportunity with each new post/email to click through to your site. If you’re interested in Feedburner, you can read more about how to use the service. [...]
12 Blogging: How to Create Quality Content that Reaches Your Target Audience | Texas Entrepreneur Networks // May 24, 2011 at 4:20 am
[...] Readers who subscribe will now receive each new blog post that you publish via email, allowing them to engage with your company via their inbox, and giving them the opportunity with each new post/email to click through to your site. If you’re interested in Feedburner, you can read more about how to use the service. [...]
13 Nancy // Feb 6, 2012 at 7:37 pm
I am e-mail subscribed to many blogs via Feed Burner but am not getting the updates. I cannot seem to find a list anywhere on the FeedBurner of the blogs to which I subscribe via email
14 Douglas E. Welch // Feb 6, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Feedburner seems to have regular trouble with the email delivery feature. I am subscribed to my own blogs and seem to get things regularly, but I do see comments from others that things are not working perfectly.
You are also right in that I don’t know of any one place to see which Feeburner feeds you might be subscribed to via email. I stopped using Feedburner for my main podcasting feeds a while ago as the service just didn’t seem to be getting any attention. It seems to be ignore now that Google purchased them.
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