I want to add in a Newsletter.

A Short ( or long ) prelude

Funnily enough, Autoresponders are one of my bugbears in that, in the early days we used to have a script we could use and run it from the website and everyone was happy.
While it’s still possible, it’s nearly not worth it for the average person as there is quite a bit of setup and potential pitfalls.

If you are hosting on “Shared Hosting” ( See my post on Hosting ) as many sites are, then it’s a real bad idea to consider running your own Autoresponder due to the fact that you are basically one of many websites in the same barrel and if one website goes bad, then as far as the Spam Police go, If one goes bad – all are bad – as you are all sharing the same IP Address. It’s IP addresses that get black listed.

It’s a different story on a dedicated Server but still, it’s a pain if someone reports you and you end up on the ole blacklists… Effectively that means your emails end up in some place where all the missing socks go, never to be seen again.

So what you do is use a Autoresponder Service that alleviates all that pain as it’s their job to protect themselves and their customers… If you break the rules, expect some repercussions.

I guess by now you know we need an Autoresponder.

I have tried many over the last few weeks that are “incorporated” in membership sites as One of the Tools…and each of them falls on their face for various reasons.
I won’t mention names as there are obviously folks who are happy with them or they just move on like I am…

So one program that sticks out is GetResponse

This isn’t just an Autoresponder these days. It’s grown into a service that offers everything those “other” programs are offering. So apart from the List Building, you can create Landing Pages, Websites etc and its all A.I Driven (AI is everywhere these days, love it or hate it, it is useful)  to help assist you come up with something brilliant… but I digress. At this stage I just want to create a Newsletter folks can subscribe to.

So we’ve picked GetResponse

Now we are playing in WordPress so there should be a nice simple plugin we can use…

So trying to use the Official GetResponse Widget for this version of WordPress doesn’t want to play/

WordPress Version 6.5.3 and GetResponse for WordPress Official Version 1.3.6 wont play and does not show up in the Admin Menu so when it says its Activated, something goes wrong and I’ve not been able to see what’s happening via the Debug. So that’s a bit disappointing.

In the good ole days you got the form code and created your own Thankyou and error pages and submitted the links and never a bother… But we shall prevail.

Disabling ALL other plugins so it’s Robinson Crusoe has not changed anything. So its not bashing heads with another Plugin. You would think it wasn’t theme related as that’s a separate part of this beast… Tis a pity I am running out of time else I’d debug the little blighter.

I am kinda sorta very very close to firing up my editor – Creating a Clean local development site and writing my own custom blog…

Persistence Always Pays.

Well I stepped away for a day and came back and got it back up and running by NOT using any WordPress Plugins.

One option with GetResponse let’s you embed some code in your themes header and put an embed code in the sidebar widget and Bobs Your Auntie ( Yes I did have an A Great Auntie Bob and she was a great ole country lady ) It’s a little slow on the ole loading on the page but it will do.

So now I had best start writing some “stuff” in my newsletter 🙂

Sign up and stay tuned.