MailChimp and Podcasting Might Not Mix
I was just on Twitter with Ray Ortega from The Podcaster’s Studio and he brought up something very interesting for people who want to use MailChimp.
MailChimp is a newletter service that allows it’s users to send emails to anyone who subscribes to them. They have a service that allows anyone to get up to 2000 people on a mailing list and not have to pay a cent.
Unfortunately there is a drawback to this service.
With the launch of my podcasting network, Say It Productions, I was going to sign up for the service, but for anyone out there who is doing podcasting out of their home might not want to use this service.
The reason is because MailChimp has to follow The CAN-SPAM Act. With all legitimate online mailings there are a few things that must be posted in the email. One of these things is to list where your business is located. If you’re doing a podcast out of your home, you have to give you home address. (There is no way around this, because if any false information is provided your mailing list, and possibly account, can be pulled.)
So, how can you get around this?
Besides providing false information the only legitimate way would be to go to your local post office and rent a PO Box. It might not be cost worthy to do this, but if you really want to send out regular mailings this would be the way you can do it.
But there is another way to do it.
Your website is the safest place to do this. The reason I say it’s safe is because this is the place where you own your own stuff. If you put stuff on Twitter, Facebook, or any other site that isn’t yours there is no guarantee that you will always have access to it. By using Feedburner you can create an email subscription feed that will send an email of any new postings to the user. This is the closest you can get to a mailing list without supplying your home address.
Feedburner allows you to post a small piece of HTML on your site so people can sign up and be emailed the new posting from the website. For more information on this check out the FAQ.
So, if you want to send mailings to your users but now want to give out your home address these two options are the best way to go.
3 Comments
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Corey Charette, AverageJoeShow. AverageJoeShow said: MailChimp and Podcasting Might Not Mix http://www.coreycharette.com/mailchimp-and-podcasting-might-not-mix/ [...]
Corey,
TinyLetter.com is another option. Its a free newsletter service. It may not have all of the bells and whistles of mail chimp but if you need a simple newsletter, its one option.
Thanks Bryan. Just did a test run and it looks pretty good. Easy enough to use too. There isn’t much information on the page, so I don’t know if there are any limitations with the program, but compared to using MailChimp it’s really easy to get it setup and running within seconds. I do like the option of having a paid subscription too. (Even though I don’t know why anyone would want it.)
Once again, thanks for the suggestion.)