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I was thrilled to get responses to my survey from three friends. I treasure those friendships!
But only three? I shudder at the thought that the rest might not be really reading the RoseBouquet. Another move is likely to lose some of those subscribers. But maybe a good cleanse will be healthy, and then I can put on some serious campaigns to find new subscribers.
Let's look at the survey news first.
Three - like my cheerful chatter about my current life.
(One added, "especially about your garden and flowers")
Two - like my Spiritual lessons & answers to Prayer
One - likes the bits about my online businesses.
One - likes the Tips and simple life hacks.
This is a small sampling, but it helps me to press on with my writing ideas for the RoseBouquet.
Yes, I do plan to move the RoseBouquet once more - within this week. But you will have to do something to STAY a subscriber.
Let me explain.
More than 14 years ago, I discovered a young university student named Justin, whose girlfriend had a child and he was feeling the urgency of being a Dada and needing to support the little one, and his girlfriend. So he used what he learned about computer coding and wrote up a cgi script that would allow anyone with a website to upload some files and be able to run mailing lists from it. He offered a free version, and if you felt you needed technical support you could pay him for that favour.
Well, I tried it out and found it worked for me, with no need to pay for support. In fact, I had about three-to-four more lists besides the RoseBouquet that I published that way. (They were more sporadic though, like once every two or three months to connect with cousins, etc.)
About 2007/2008 I began to have some problems, and rather than pay Justin I decided to hunt for a more professional mailing list service. A certain friend recommended one, and it seemed quite good - it offered unlimited lists with unlimited subscribers for one flat fee a month. Each list could be set up as a series of autoresponders too. Unfortunately the support there has been zero the last two years, so I decided to see what else is out there.
Well, I found about 8-10 but they all have all kinds of whiz-bang features that I don't need, and all offer a free trial period - a few make that package small, but you can use it indefinitely, like forever - if you want.
Then I remembered Justin; 14-15 years have past - how much might he have matured and improved his program? IF he was still at it? Sure enough! His current system is version 11-20-1 as of Jan/18th. His website has all kinds of training videos, and plenty of info.
His free account offering allows for up to three mailing lists, with a max of 100 subscribers in each. Well, that works for me, especially since he still offers the plain text version as well as an HTML editor that is included.
What impressed me most was that he is a strong believer in running a CLEAN mailing list, with no way anyone can accuse the owner of spamming people. That means every subscriber has to CONFIRM they want to be on the list before they can be added. (Lots of businesses add anyone who responds to an ad without even asking if they want to subscribe.)
That makes it harder to move this list over there. A few weeks ago I just copied the current subscribers from the previous list location, and pasted them in at MailerLite; this will NOT work at DADAMail. However, Justin has included an option whereby I can send out invitation emails to my current subscribers (or others) and if they click the link in that email they are confirmed. So that is what I plan to do.
In this RoseBouquet I'm explaining what is going to happen, but then I will go to DADAmail and send each one of you an invitation email. If you click that link, you will be still subscribed to the RoseBouquet at it's new home. If not... well, Good bye! It has been nice knowing you! I wish you well.
Mind you, it has occurred to me for those who don't check their emails very often and might not see this - or the invitation email for some time - that Invitation email will not have a deadline date in it. So when you see it, click that link and presto, you are subscribed again!
I will also have to plan a subscription campaign - probably offering a free ebook to sweeten the offer, so that I can build up my RoseBouquet mailing list again.
Incidentally, in case you are interested in starting up a mailing list, DADAmail offers a paid account, for $130/year. There you can have unlimited lists and subscribers. And technical support is included. I did the math this morning, that would cost just over $10/month. That is half of what I have been paying! So as soon as I've tried this out long enough to know it is safe to stay with DADAmail, and when I can spring for that annual payment, I believe I will snap it up.
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