Our new e-mail list!!! (or, "How to sign up for e-mail updates from Tapir and Friends Animal Store")

What It's Not

Although this cool stuffed pelican can be purchased from Tapir and Friends Animal Store online, that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

Our New E-mail List!

I'VE INSTALLED A WIDGET THAT WILL ALLOW YOU TO GET OUR BLOG POSTS SENT DIRECTLY TO YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS! YES!!!

Easy and Safe

Check it out at the top of the sidebar on the right. It's easy to sign up, and you have complete control of opting out if you get tired of receiving the posts by e-mail. Each time you receive a post, there's a sign-off link on the bottom. You don't need to wait for anyone to take you off the list - or worse, you know what I mean - they NEVER take you off the list! This can't happen. You sign yourself on and off. Why am I harping on this? I hate spam as much as anyone, and having my e-mail address on blogs and web pages all over the Internet generates quite a lot of spam, too. I'd love to have you reading our blog posts, but only if you want them!

You Can Help

This brings me to the next point. Since the blog can now be used as a real e-mail list, the style may change a bit anyway. I'd like to begin to think of it more as a conversational medium, and include more about what we're up to and what we're doing. Please feel free to comment. Our business responds to what you want. That's what we're here for! That and saving tapirs.

Why We Did It

Thanks for bearing with me. I am so excited about this new blog capability. E-lists have been problematic for the last number of years. Either they cost money, or they get our e-mail account branded as spam (although we've only mailed to honest-to-got opt-in, it's just a hazard of e-lists since spammers came on the scene). Or you try to communicate through ugly free bulk mail, or Google or Yahoo groups, which are also not pretty. They're really best for discussion groups. If your e-mail program uses HTML, you'll get the post in lovely formatting with the photos, and you can also click through to the original blog post. If your e-mail is not HTML-compatible, you'll get it in text. You don't need to know that when you sign up, the system will figure it out.

Find Us on Facebook

Lately we've been using our Facebook Page, which I'll continue to update, but let's "face" it, everyone does not want to sign up for Facebook, or if they do, only a small percentage of us wants to log in every day. Anyway, I'm seeing this new subscription widget as having tremendous potential. I hope I'm right!

Sign on up or let me know what you think!

The pelican . . .

Oh, yes, why did I co-opt our stuffed pelican today to talk about e-mail? It occurred to me that he would like to know he's earned a rest. He doesn't have to carry our letters in his beak anymore! The blogosphere has given us a much-needed new mailing option! Yeah!!!

Join our Facebook Page and learn about FREE GIFTS!

Our Facebook page IS our e-mail list. Become a fan,

and find out about FREE GIFTS!

Oddly enough, we've never actually had a logo for Tapir and Friends Wildife World Gift Shop. Strange? It didn't feel like we needed one. We use lots of fun photos on our web site, and they attract tons of visitors; and we have loads of nice tapir pictures in the Tapir Gallery. We have a logo for the Tapir Preservation Fund, although we don't use it much any more, but it kind of slipped my mind to get a logo especially for the gift shop. Now that I've made a page on Facebook just for the gift shop, I'm starting to think about logos. It may take awhile to come up with just the right thing, and meanwhile I've used this drawing of Stanley K. Tapir from one of our t-shirts.

Are you a member of Facebook? If so, please visit the Tapir and Friends gift shop page! If not, it's easy to sign up, and it's free. In either case, right at the top of the page next to our name is a button that says, "Become a Fan." Click that button and you'll receive updates on your Wall. If you get tired of them, you can "un-fan" us at any time. It's totally up to you! You'll learn about free stuff, new products, and learn fun things about real live animals.

The fan page is our ONLY MAILING LIST. Along with not creating a logo, we've neglected another thing that a business is supposed to have - a mailing list! Why? Well, things got complicated once spammers started taking over the cyberwaves. You hate spam, we hate spam, and we didn't want our e-mail to be considered spam. Spammers also make it hard to run a legitimate opt-in e-mail list, because if you send group e-mail to more than 12 people at one time, YOU CAN BE CONSIDERED A SPAMMER. Did you know that? You can get your e-mail address blacklisted by many e-mail providers. We didn't want that, either.

Legitimate businesses with real customer lists have gotten around that in several ways, but the most recommended way is to pay another company to send out your e-mail for you via a program that sends one e-mail per "send." In that case, it's no longer considered spam. To be honest, it just felt complicated. We keep busy enough here in the store. But, when I found out about the nice-looking Pages you can create on Facebook, and when I found out that anyone interested can become a Fan, I thought this might be the way to go. Won't you join us?