I have spent some time setting up an account with a marketing automation service so my blog readers can sign up to be notified when I write a new post. This process involves a number of steps. First, set up a feed from the blog. Second, sign up to a service. Third, construct a subscriber list that is linked to a campaign. Fourth, build a subscription form on the website for users to fill in their details and submit. Fifth, create an email campaign that sends a well-designed email to the subscribers to alert them of my new blog posts at certain times of the week.
I had a lot of trouble getting this process operational, and I think that was partly due to the website builder I am using, Elementor. I tried Brevo and Mailchimp using the Elementor subscription form, but I kept on getting error messages from Elementor. There were so many points where something could have been the cause of the problems. The marketing automation services might not have been able to communicate with Elementor’s blog feed or subscription form. Using an Elementor blog page instead of the WordPress theme’s default blog page might have prevented the services from recognising my blog page and its feed. I could have also failed to set up the campaigns correctly. I finally tried MailerLite and used its form rather than the Elementor form. It added subscribers to the list on my MailerLite account and, when tested, sent out a very nice-looking update email.
So, after about eight hours of work, things are looking good.