Why RSS Beats E-Newsletters Hands Down

E-Newsletters are notorious for WYSINWYG: What You See is NOT What You Get.

Overcoming format foibles in the delivery of an HTML newsletter that I was testing for launch, is what first got me looking into blogs back in 2005.

When I found out how easy, painless, and beneficial RSS was over e-mail, using blog technology, with a Feedblitz email delivery option for those not RSS savvy, was a no-brainer.

Feedblitz is awesome and automatically distributes my RSS feed to the subcriber by email whenever I post. It's reliable and self-administered by the subscriber so I don't have to worry about anti-spam law compliance, administering my list, or any other regular maintenance. And did I mention it is free??

This is why I was surprised this evening when I received an e-newsletter (!) from another great (and free) blog tool provider SiteMeter. I love SiteMeter, too. And I subscribe to their RSS feed to stay current on product news so I'm not sure why I received this e-newsletter (because I don't remember signing up for it) but out of curiosity, I clicked. And look at what happened when it opened...

And I bet someone spent a lot of time making it look "just so."

I can't understand why companies still spend so much effort and money formatting e-newsletters when they can just use a blog/RSS and benefit from both "push" marketing to subscribers (both RSS and email readers) AND "pull" marketing, too, to grab web readers and searchers who might be future customers.

Is it just me or does it seem weird that an RSS feed tracking tool company still uses e-newsletters?

I'm not saying e-newsletters are necessarily dead... (can you imagine the hate mail I'd get??) but I have to ask why they are still so widely used when they are clearly suboptimal.

Comments

[Mary Frances]

Thanks for this post! I am working on rolling out a subscription based information service and had been planning on using an email newsletter. After reading your post, I'm trying to figure out how I can create a feed separate from my blog that only my paid subscribers can access. Thanks for the lightbulb!

[Csalomonlee]

Hi Michelle, I just started reading your blog and this post caught my eye as my company just sent out a newsletter. From my perspective, an email newsletters helps augment how your subscribers may want to receive information. RSS, email newsletters, print magazines, etc. are all serving different purposes. Providing choice isn't a bad thing.

However, you make an interesting point about how the newsletter can also be distributed as a RSS ... food for thought.

Best,
Cece

[Erno Hannink]

Hello Michelle,
It is so obvious that we tend to forget that not everyone is on the same level about RSS. Apart from RSS I have an email newsletter. There are still a lot of people/readers that do not understand the value of RSS and subscribe to the newsletter. This also gives me the opportunity to write some extra information next to just the articles.

Regards
Erno

[Andrea Harris]

I think it depends on what you are publishing and what medium your audience is comfortable with. Email is something that everyone understands. RSS is a whole other animal. I like it myself, but my techie husband had to have his hand held in setting up Bloglines and even still never looks at it. It’s still a new technology and that frightens a lot of people. Or they just don’t think they have time to learn something new. I think that I would like to see RSS replace newsletters some day, but I know we’re ready to do that yet without losing a big chunk of our audience. This is why many of my clients have both e-newsletters and blogs.

One of the advantages of the e-newsletter is you know who opened it and what they clicked on. With RSS you can see statistics, but you don’t get any data on an individual’s behavior.

Also, assuming you don't have the goofs that were in your example, a newsletter can look very professional. Some audience members may respond better to a format that is more traditional.

But certainly, email can be a hassle, both to send and to receive.

[Jo Dane]

Hi Michelle,

RSS is great and wonderful, but... I think one of the problems is the RSS reader software. Most of them have tons of feeds included when you install them. I already don't have enough time to keep up with what I want to, now I have loads more!

And, I find it difficult to remove the original feeds as I might miss something interesting!

Of course, another route is to use something like Artemis Pro and publish your newsletter as an article. This would promote your site to an entirely new audience.

Then all you have to do is email the link to the article and you're set! No HTML email problems to worry about.

[Ed Kless]

I have it on good authority that most of the problem with the email newsletter formatting is due to stupid things Microsoft did in Outlook 2007.

This does not diminsh Michelle's point, but I thought I would weigh in on the source of the problem.

[Michelle Golden]

Wow, thanks for all the comments on this post. Seems I struck a chord. :-)

Mary Frances, TypePad offers the ability to password protect private blogs. That may help...

CeCe, you're so right. Choice is key. What I find is that offering an email sign-up option (via FeedBlitz, for instance) solves the problem for those not acquainted with RSS and reader. I totally agree that print is a lost art and I enjoy the few print pieces I still receive. Easy to grab for a read on the plane or train, too, or while my kids are at sports practice.

Erno and Andrea, have you thought about using RSS, through FeedBlitz, to disseminate your e-newsletter? One disadvantage would be the tracking behavior that Andrea mentions. Though I do know firms that have access to this tracking of enewsletters and do nothing at all with the info. Are there other disadvantages to using RSS to send your enewsletter? I cannot think of any? You can customize the appearance of FeedBlitz at the paid level...

Jo, Bloglines doesn't prepopulate feeds and unsubscribing is super easy. I'm curious which ones do prepopulate? How annoying that would be! I'm not familiar with Artemis Pro...I'll take a peek.

Ed, good point (as always!). Too bad most of the modern world uses Outlook and it "breaks" emails. Hmmm. So, you're a big fan of MS, huh?? (jk).

Thanks again everyone, I appreciate the feedback!!

[Account Deleted]

Michelle,

RSS beating e-Newsletters hands down is a bit like the proverbial comparison of apples and oranges. You bring up some valid points and as a general philosophy I would have to agree that having content fed to an RSS reader, rather than an email inbox (especially Outlook 2007) is, at least for a number of newsletter platforms, a better option from an appearance standpoint alone. However, although your suggestions are great for one-size-fits-all newsletters, our e-Newsletters and those of some of our competitors have taken a different approach. Those CPAs who use our e-Newsletter service get enhancements that they couldn’t begin to manage as an RSS feed.

I’ll get to those specifics in a moment, but first, just so you know, we’ve been offering our clients an RSS feed and reader for our e-Newsletters for nearly two years now. Our “Dashboard,” which allows clients to pull in content from feeds other than just our newsletters, is free. Yet a majority of our clients still fail to utilize it, because just as Andrea pointed out in her post, “Email is something that everyone understands. RSS is a whole other animal.” Now, I should say that although our Dashboard is really easy to use, it isn’t a typical reader. You need to be a client or a client of one of our clients to make it active, frankly because we need to protect our copyrighted content. One of the key reasons our clients invest in our services is the wealth of 100% original, industry-specific, professionally written articles we provide them to include in their newsletters. That content isn’t something that we feel should be diluted by allowing anyone receiving it the ability to pass it on to the world as their own creation. Plus, our dashboard allows our clients to see the stats they will never see from an RSS feed, including who read what and when right on their desktop. Granted most accounting firms aren’t as proactive as they could or should be, but having the ability to know that one of your prospects just read an article on a service you provide at least gives you the option of calling them due to e-Newsletter tracking. You don’t have that choice if you rely solely on an RSS feed for feedback.

Which leads to the difference between someone writing a single newsletter in their office on a Friday afternoon and a company that automatically sends out up to hundreds of e-Newsletters each week, with different content in each. Oh yes, our clients, even small ones, do just that and you’ll see why in a moment. First though, you mention Feedblitz, as a delivery option for those not RSS savvy. Agreed, it’s easy, but how easy would it seem if you had to create 500 different RSS feeds? As I mentioned, many of our clients send out that many unique newsletters. Why? They are tailored to specific market segments (from an industry niche to a region of the country), or from the point of contact within the office, or to a specific recipient status, such as client or prospect. Part of our proprietary technology allows every newsletter to be built independently, with specific content based on unique criteria, such as when they were entered into the database (someone entered today doesn’t get the same newsletter as a two year-old client), what niche areas they are interested in receiving and more. Plus we can create unique mastheads and banners based on point of contact information. Think about that for a moment. Personally speaking I will probably open a newsletter if it’s coming from an individual I have a relationship with and therefore know it contains information important to me. I might not open a newsletter from the same company, if it’s a standard generic corporate piece that isn’t personalized and has to be so broad in its approach and content so as to cover every product or service line hoping one article has some impact. Through our Master Accounts, each satellite office can put their own stamp on content in a newsletter while the corporate headquarters controls content that will go out in every office’s newsletter. That’s HUGE and can only be accomplished through RSS with multiple feeds and the creation of tons of content by that single marketing person.

In conclusion, I would simply like to point out that although RSS is wonderful, it simply can’t do everything a great email newsletter platform can accomplish. We advocate firms utilize every resource at their disposal, including RSS, to reach today’s clients, who are as varied in how they like to be informed as they are in the type of practice they run or whether they prefer an apple or an orange or both.

Mike Braun
Online Marketing Manager
BizActions LLC