Blog – The Architect’s Log

You spend a lot of time crafting your email marketing messages, but unfortunately, the only people getting to read them are your email subscribers. Why not make that content available to your web site visitors as well?

Most email marketing vendors (i.e.: Constant Contact) offer a message archival service, but for an additional fee. To avoid the additional fee, there are two ways you can manually “archive” that content, making it available to a larger audience.

Manual Archive Options

1. Use the “View Online” link:
   Some vendors offer a link your subscribers can click to view the message in a web browser. (Look for something like “Having trouble viewing this email? Click here.” at the top or bottom of your campaign messages.) You can simply create a link to this location on your web site or blog so visitors can read old messages.
2. Re-purpose the message content:
   Rather then linking to the content, you can publish it to your web site using any old content management system, or even easier, your blog software.

Getting the Message Content into your Blog

1. Using your email campaign software, send yourself a copy of the message you’ll be “archiving.”
2. In your email program, get the HTML source code for this message.
   • In Outlook 2007, double click the message title to open it in a new window.
   • In the ribbon tool bar, select Other Actions > View Source. This will open the code powering the message in a new Notepad window.
   • In the new Notepad window, select everything (press ctrl-A), and copy it to your clipboard (ctrl-C).
3. Open your blog admin software and create a new post.
   • In WordPress, click the “HTML” tab to the right side of the post’s content area. (This will change the content editor from “Visual” to code view.)
4. Paste the code into the post content area (ctrl-V).
5. Use the blog software’s “Visual” or “HTML” editor to make any needed changes.
6. Make any additional post setting selections and publish the message as a normal blog post.

Notes:
- You might consider adding a blog category called “Newsletters” or something similar, to best organize these types of posts.

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