This page explains how to move newsletter(s) you have hosted elsewhere to your Ezine-Engine account.
Do you already have a mailing list at another service, and want to move your newsletter to Ezine-Engine?
As a place to start, please read this page carefully before you make any decisions or changes to your existing service. Moving mailing lists requires extra care on an Internet flooded with spam, and I want to help you make the move correctly.
The Challenge
First, we have to understand the environment we're all working in. This
New York Times article reports that:
"Unsolicited junk mail now accounts for more than 9 of every 10 e-mail messages sent over the Internet."
9 out of 10 email messages on the Net are spam, wow!
This avalanche of spam has caused ISP's, activists, big corporations, and individual users to develop an enthusiastic passion for email filtering. Delivering legitimate bulk email in an environment that is now designed to reject 90% of all emails is... not easy.
As the owner of Ezine-Engine my job is to make sure our service has the best possible reputation, so that email administrators around the Net will agree to receive mailings sent through our service. I have to establish policies that will ensure that none of our users are spamming,
ever, because just one bad apple can ruin everything for everybody else.
This is accomplished by requiring that all subscriptions be confirmed opt-in only, no exceptions.
And this means that I can't allow account owners to manually add subscribers, or import lists, in any circumstance.
What I can do, and am most happy to do, is help you understand how to move your list from one host to another in this challenging environment.
It IS possible to move lists from one host to another, it just requires a bit more effort than it used to back in the Net's younger, kinder and gentler days.
So, let's learn how to move a list from one mailing service to another.
Mental Preparation
There are two key points to understanding how to move your list in today's spam soaked Internet environment.
- Moving your list requires a bit of time, patience and preparation.
- There is no chance in any circumstance that all subscribers will follow you to the new host. The majority of those actually reading your newsletter will move with you, but not all subscribers.
Once you've made peace with these facts of Internet life, you're ready to begin the process of moving your list.
Moving Your List
Here's a realistic 10 step plan you can use to move your list from any host to any other host.
1) First, open an account at the host you wish to move to. Take a little time and become familiar with the policies and procedures at the new host.
2) Put a subscribe form to your new host on your site. Keep this page as simple as possible, ideally it should contain just the subscribe form and nothing else.
3) For now, keep mailing your newsletter using the old host.
4) In your next newsletter mention that you are moving, and ask your reader's help in completing the move. Give your readers the URL to the new subscribe form.
5) In the following newsletter, thank your readers for helping with the move, and give the URL of the new subscribe form again.
6) In the following newsletter, thank your subscribers again, and announce that every subscriber who makes the move will receive a free bonus of some kind. Make the bonus as good as you can.
7) In the following newsletter, thank your subscribers again, apologize for bugging them about the move, and whine a bit about all the trouble spammers are causing for everybody. This might be a good place to post links to informative articles about spam, or to anti-spam sites.
8) In the following newsletter, get down on your knees and beg your readers :-) to help you finish the moving process. Thank everybody who has already moved, remind them of the bonus, and tell everybody this moving business is almost over.
9) Ok, you have given your readers five reminders of the move, offered an incentive, and begged for their loyalty and assistance. Now, check your subscriber list at the new host. How many readers have moved? If you can live with this number, it's time to finish the process.
10) Send out a final newsletter through the old host, and tell your readers that they won't be hearing from you again unless they take a moment to signup again.
Phew, You're Done!
Ok, moving sounds like a lot of work when you type it all out like I have above.
But really, all it involves is adding a few extra sentences to each newsletter before you make the move.
That's it, a few extra sentences, in a few issues.
Not so bad, eh?
Arggh, I Lost Subscribers!!
Yes, your list will undoubtably be smaller after the move.
But let's be clear, you lost subscribers, not real readers.
Read that sentence again.
Almost anybody who was actually reading your newsletter with interest will complete the move, after all it takes only a few seconds for them to sign up again.
The people who don't invest a few seconds to keep reading you will overwhelmingly be people who weren't reading your newsletter anyway, and thus won't be buying anything from you.
Are You Ready To Move?
If you've read this article, you now understand why moving a list is different today than it was 10 years ago.
And you understand that, while it's a bit more trouble to move these days, it's really not all that hard, and not much of real value is lost in the move.
