Over the last near twenty years (perhaps a little more), my tarot newsletter, and more recently my Sage newsletter, have been coded directly using html. This has allowed me to be rather simple with my format – though with, especially over the last few years, the increased use of mobile devices t (read; ‘phones’) used to read them has proved somewhat of an issue: the writing and look seems so small when designed for laptop or desktop.
In addition, the software I have used to subscribe and distribute the newsletters is no longer being supported or updated, so I had to bite the bullet and seek an alternative. Of the two alternatives that I shortlisted (Mailchimp and Beehiv), each presented with what is for me a problem… having to re-learn afresh how to use these, rather than just preparing and sending.
I chose Beehiv over MailChimp based on what I sensed was probably a better choice mid-range term. They are going to initially be more open to the needs of what will inevitably be newer and smaller (larger as well, of course) clients.
The transition has not been easy (for me – remember that both presented similar problems in terms of my learning). In the migrating of subscribers, I lost over 300 subscribers (not a huge issue, as I am confident that that minority will re-subscribe during the course of the year, and I had mentioned in my last sending out on the old system that I would be making a transition that may have teething problems).
And so now, I am also going to have to include the weekly ‘snippets’ that I include somewhere on this blog in case the default savings on the Newsletter site is not permanent and someone asks me what it was I had said about xyz in a past news…