I’m not qualified in computer coding or website design. Everything I’ve learned from trial and error over the years of trying, exploring, and, more often than not, failing!
One feature that I knew I was going to have to add to the new website was the ability to send newsletters to subscribers. Easy right? I mean, how hard can it be?
After some research, I soon found out that several facilities need to be present for this simple process to happen. Each one needs a degree in rocket science to configure. Late into the wee small hours and continuing the following morning, I kept my focus and persisted with trying to get it to all come together and work.
I sent myself many test emails and thought everything was working well enough. Ready for the first newsletter, I thought. I spent half an hour crafting a decent newsletter ready to send to all the subscribers, well over 100 that I’d imported from other platforms. I checked and double-checked the wording and felt quite confident my first newsletter was going to be fine.
At the top of the email configuration page was a nice big green button with the word ‘SEND’ on it. Excitedly, I clicked the button. A few moments later, a message popped up telling me my ‘campaign’, as its called, was sent successfully. I was overjoyed. Probably in excess of 20 hours had been spent configuring this and now it finally worked.
Well, it would have, if I’d remembered to first save the new newsletter before I pressed the send button! Instead, I’d sent out over one hundred emails with a blank template with no content. Worse still, I’d sent it from the wrong email address. And to top it all, the hosting company instantly suspended my email account in the assumption the account had been hacked and was sending spam emails. Oh dear oh dear, I think I said aloud, or words meaning that.
So there is good news and bad. The good news is I have the mechanics in place for sending newsletters and emails from the new website. The bad news is there is some fine-tuning needed to make it work properly. For the time being, the task is back on the shelf whilst I get back to stuff I can do without cocking up.
I was thinking of a famous film quote we often hear. “I’m getting too old for this *_it”