If youve been getting caught up in all this talk of RSS versus email, its time to stop wondering.
Marketing Sherpa just posted a new report that stirred up the old RSS vs Email debate again. http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfmcontentID=2988
The report starts out by stating, It chills our blood when we hear email marketers and publishers blithely state, Im thinking about switching over to RSS entirely! Oh no. Please dont. RSS is worthy of testing, but its not an email replacement and it never will be.
A report in Jupitermedia titled E-Mail Marketing: Alive and Well notes, RSS wont be immediately effective as an alternative to e-mail marketing. (But) for some companies (primarily publishers who cater to a technical audience), its sensible to press forward with RSS now as a supplement to e-mail marketing. http://www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/research:concept/1103/id=96103/
A lot of people think this debate has been going on for long enough. RSS is NOT a replacement for email. It does not (and may never) rival the marketing reach and immediacy of an email message.
Those whove been mourning the death of email marketing dont seem to get the fact that RSS hasnt reached the tipping point yet. More people read email than RSS feeds many more.
I believe that a smart publisher or marketer must use both - Email and RSS. Its not an either/or question.
I know for a fact that my blogs get read more when I send out an email with a blog post roundup. I personally prefer email and tend to read those blogs more frequently that use email notification.
But the news is not all good for email marketing. According to DoubleClick, 64.7% of all legitimate email being sent (based on their own customers stats) is never opened. Email delivery is cited as the #1 email marketing headache.
The good news is that email marketing has a terrific Return on Investment (ROI) bringing in $15.50 per dollar spent on a campaign according a report in Email Sherpa. http://www.emailsherpa.com/emailblog.cfmID=360
That $15.50 per email-marketing dollar spent is roughly 17% more than in direct-mail campaigns and 73% more than telemarketing campaigns.
eMarketer reports that email is still a powerful marketing tool if used well in a new report, Email Marketing: How to Improve ROI. http://www.emarketer.com/article.aspx1003369
Some points it notes:
71 percent of US online advertisers used email marketing in 2004, while 77 percent using paid search.
Despite spam and email overload 45 percent see email as a good way for companies to stay in touch with customers.
Customer retention and increased loyalty is the main objective for email marketing among 63 percent of surveyed marketers
62 percent also see email as a way to acquire new customers.
Email volume in the US is expected to rise from over 2 trillion message this year to nearly 2.7 trillion by 2007.
Even though both email spam and email delivery are on the rise, end-users are getting used to spam and its bothering them less than it used to.
The Marketing Sherpa report also notes that 91% of US Internet users use email on a regular basis, while roughly 4% use RSS feeds on any sort of basis at all.
It suggests that publishers do test RSS, but recommends that they not treat RSS as shovelware for email content because it is a new medium.
Other disadvantages it notes for RSS publishers is the challenge of metrics.
No deliverability, open rates, hard vs soft bounces. No a/b tests, no usability tests, no offer tests, no recency/frequency tests, and multivariable testing
The kind of data that marketers and publishers rely on to make business, content, and marketing decisions for email campaigns is almost entirely lacking for RSS at this time, says the report.
So if youre wondering what you should publish - a blog or an email newsletter - I suggest you do both.
Or at least publish a blog with email notification built in. Remember, your list is still your most valuable asset online.
Keep either Email or RSS out of your marketing toolbox and youre losing out on a significant portion of your audience.
RSS has other advantages that email does not have - like being able to syndicate your content across the web. It can be a very useful tool for building link popularity - if you do it right.
As a marketer you do need to start brushing up on your knowledge of RSS and a good place to start is here. http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/rss-blogging.htm
Priya Shah is the CEO of . She writes the and publishes an .
This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.
Need for Privacy
People have become hypersensitive about their privacy during the last few years. They now expect that their details will be used only for the purposes for which they have been provided and not shared by original trustees. This is especially true of email addresses because of the huge volume of unsolicited commercial email (spam) circulating the web.
In Australia and elsewhere, there are statutes requiring privacy when collecting and using personal information. (In Australia the Privacy Act (Commonwealth) was recently amended to include private sector use of personal information eg, medical records retained by private practices).
In an increasingly litigious society, there are not only sound business reasons, but legal reasons why you should ensure the strictest standards of privacy are applied to personal information of which you are custodian. Despite this, numbers of people using email unwittingly reveal the email addresses of other people to whom they are sending email.
This article tells you how to maintain client confidentiality when sending email to multiple addressees by using Blind Carbon Copy or BCC.
Blind Carbon Copy
The term Blind Carbon Copy is a hangover from the dim, dark ages before word processors when we used typewriters (some of you have probably never seen a typewriter). To produce multiple copies of a document, one had to place a sheet of carbon paper between sheets of plain paper so that the type key impact on the top sheet would be copied to the second sheet (and any subsequent sheets).
It was a somewhat messy, but proficient process. When one wanted to send an original letter to one person and copies to several other people without showing each recipient who the other recipients were, a BCC annotation was made on the original. Each copy displayed only the name and address of the individual recipient, but the BCC notation on the original showed to whom the copies had been mailed. A BCC looked like this: Bcc: Mr Tom Jones, 14 Weaving Court, East Melbourne VIC 3000
Some email programs allow you to enter email addresses into the BCC field and send them. When you do that each recipient receives your message, but the names of other recipients are not displayed.
That is why they are called blind they are not seen.
By using the BCC feature you preserve the identities of those who are on your mailing list and ensure that anyone receiving your email cannot email your list or harvest their email addresses and sell them.
Your Email Program
When you obtain an email program, make sure it has a Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) feature. Programs such as Outlook Express and Outlook 200 have BCC capability. Although I have never used it, Id be surprised if Eudora and other common email programs didnt have it too.
If when you click to send a new email your email client displays only the To and Cc boxes it may be that the Bcc feature IS available, but is simply not displayed. Try the View menu or Help menu to see if you can find a Bcc option.
If your email program has a BCC option that you can select as a permanently visible option, select it. If it doesnt, you may need to think about getting a new program.
How to Use BCC
When you send email messages to multiple addressees and you do not want each addressee to know who else has received a copy, use the Blind Carbon Copy field.
Simply enter all the addresses in the BCC field separated by a semi-colon, comma, or whatever your program uses. When you click the send button, your email will go to each individual with only his or her name in the To field. None of the recipients knows to who else the email has been sent.
Outlook 200 will allow you to send BCC addressed email without an address in the To field. Other email clients require at least one address in the To field before they allow multiple recipient addresses in the BCC field. Test the program you use to see if it needs to have an addressee in the To field. If so, address it to yourself. (Surprisingly, email programs usually allow us to email ourselves ... thats why I receive so many emails from Jennifer Lopez (just joking).
If you need to make an entry in the To field, place your own email address in that field and everyone elses address in the BCC field.
Disadvantages
What you need to know about BCC is that some spam filters automatically delete email addressed in the BCC field so it never reaches its destination. This means that while sending BCC is okay for privacy, your email might not always reach the intended recipients.
A problem I had with Outlook Express 2002 was that if I sent my email using BCC I couldnt print a hard copy of the sent message with the addresses on it. I had to write address details on my file copies for record keeping purposes.
If sending BCC email is likely to be impractical for you, then you need to consider upgrading your email client from the standard run-of-the-mill version to a professional version. Thats what I did.
Email Management Programs
If, like me, you distribute large quantities of email regularly to newsletter subscribers, clients, club members, colleagues or anyone else, you will be better off getting a program designed for high volume mailings.
I use and sell a heavy duty bulk email program that lets me do simply, many tasks not easy to achieve with standard email clients like Outlook 2002. For example, the program I use will allow me to:
By having a separate program for bulk emailing, I overcome the problems involved with privacy and reduce the likelihood that my messages will be eliminated by overzealous spam engines.
If you rely on email to carry out business activities (and who doesnt), it may be time to consider how well your email strategy meets the needs of your business in todays security conscious society.
Copyright Robin Henry 2005
Robin Henry is an educator, human resources specialist and Internet marketer whose firm, Desert Wave Enterprises, helps individuals and businesses improve their performance by using smart processes, smart technology and personal development. He lives at Alice Springs In Central Australia. Visit Desert Wave Enterprises to read more about this topic.