Welcome! So you're ready to make the jump from FeedBurner to FeedBlitz. Congratulations! We're happy to have you and want to make this transition as smooth as possible for you. Below you'll find the steps on:
Getting started in your FeedBlitz account:
1. Setting up your account
2. Creating your first mailing list
3. Editing your email template
4. Designing a subscription form
Followed by FeedBurner-specific steps:
5. Exporting your FeedBurner subscribers
6. Importing them correctly into FeedBlitz (here's a hint - we take care of that for you!)
7. Removing any RSS feed redirects on your site
8. Creating a FeedBlitz RSS feed
Ready to get started? So are we. Let's go!
1. Setting up your account
The first thing you'll need to do is tell us a little about yourself. Enter the name and URL for your website and click Next Step.
2. Creating your first mailing list
You'll be ready to create your first mailing list when you hit Next. There are a few different ways to create a mailing list as you can see. We're going to get started with Create From Scratch.
Give your list a name and a brief description. Remember that your subscribers can see this information when they update their preferences or unsubscribe. We suggest keeping it simple and to the point.
3. Editing your email template
Now you're ready to edit your basic email template in our drag-and-drop visual template editor. This is used for activation emails, notifications sent to imported subscribers, and other transactional emails. This is *not* the template you’ll use for your newsletters unless you choose it to be. You'll be able to edit or create a new template for your campaigns later.
With our visual template editor, you can easily upload your logo, change the colors, switch fonts, edit social icons, and more. When you're ready to work in the VTE, be sure to be sure to check out the guided quick tour that's here in the corner for more tips.
Once you have things in place, you can preview this email on desktop and mobile at any time, as well as send a test email.
When your template is ready, hit next to enter the information for your envelope settings, letting subscribers know who the email is being sent from and the sending address for replies.
As a side note, you can always see your setup progress and upcoming steps here on our progress bar.
4. Designing a subscription form
Up next is to create your first subscription form. Just like our template editor, there are many adjustments you can make when creating your forms. You can see a beginning form and ending form below:
To begin collecting email addresses, navigate to the code tab and select the code for a sidebar widget, a full page or popup and add the code to your website accordingly. Don't forget to remove any existing FeedBurner forms.
Hitting continue takes you to our next step, which is importing your subscribers, where you'll find three options to choose from:
Since you're coming over from FeedBurner, select Option 2 - No thanks, I'll import my subscribers later. as we'll pause here on your setup to grab everything from FeedBurner and complete the setup process.
5. Exporting your FeedBurner subscribers
After logging in to your FeedBurner account, we'll begin by exporting a list of your current email subscribers by clicking the Publicize tab.
Then navigate to Email Subscriptions on the left.
From here, scroll down to the bottom of the page for View Subscriber Details as we enter our next step of the process, importing your subscribers into FeedBlitz.
6. Importing your subscribers into FeedBlitz (Hint - we take care of that for you!)
Under View Subscriber Details, export a CSV file of your subscribers.
Send the unedited CSV file as an email attachment to Support@FeedBlitz.com. When your account is all set up and ready to start sending mailings, let us know, and we'll import your list of subscribers directly to your account.
After you export the CSV, be sure to Deactivate your email subscriptions in FeedBurner to avoid sending duplicate emails to your subscribers!
7. Removing any RSS feed redirects on your site
Check your website for any possible RSS feed redirects point to FeedBurner. This is usually found in a FeedSmith plugin, but can also be in the theme.
Doing this lets your site know you're not using FeedBurner anymore and will be automatically updated once you finish up the process listed below in creating a FeedBlitz RSS feed.
8. Creating a FeedBlitz RSS feed
You're almost there! Now it's time to head back over to your FeedBlitz account and create a new RSS feed for your website.
Start from the Left-hand menu and select Feeds > New Feed.
Tell us where to go to find your RSS feed information by entering the URL of your website. We'll search your site and pull the source RSS feed information for you. If you happen to know your source RSS feed for your site already, you can go ahead and enter it here as well.
On the next screen, you'll be asked to name your RSS feed and if you'd like to create a mailing list attached to the feed.
We already have a mailing list in place, so for right now, we're going to say No to creating a new mailing list. Once we're all set up, you can come back and create a new Automated Mailing Campaign for this feed.
And congratulations! You've created your FeedBlitz RSS feed.
Now select Customize the feed to finish up redirecting everything. On the FeedBurner migration tab, change the drop-down to Enabled, send to the source feed as shown below and hit Save Changes.
When all of this is in place and your FeedBlitz RSS feed is set up, log in to your WordPress site and add the FeedBlitz FeedSmart plugin. This will tell your site to redirect the source feed to your newly created FeedBlitz RSS feed.
After this, if you'd like to test to ensure everything is connected and redirected properly — and we always recommend testing everything — select the Integration tab on your RSS feed's dashboard, and we'll walk you through how to check everything.
You're nearly there if you would like to begin sending automated mailings based on this feed!
Create a New Campaign > Automated Mailing. Use the list you created during set up, your newly created FeedBlitz RSS feed URL as the source, set your sending schedule, edit the template if necessary, and you're on your way.
And that's it! You're all set. As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let us know. You can find all of our great support resources and how to get in touch with us via email, chat or phone on our Support Page.