May 16, 2005

RSS vs Email Newsletters (MarketingSherpa and Adrants - disagree)

MarketingSherpa.com wrote an excellent column advising businesses to CAUTIOUSLY use RSS feeds but to surely not get rid of the money and insight they invested into putting together great email newsletters.

Not enough small businesses are using email newsletters to their full potential. While RSS is VERY useful and should be looked at, at this time, NOTHING beats a well written newsletter.

Ad Rants gently slammed the Marketingsherpa story and said Comparing RSS to email, MarketingSherpa offers three drawbacks to RSS and gets all three wrong leading us to believe if the writer has ever used RSS..

I've used both RSS feeds (I publish and receive them) and I produce a great newsletter.

"Leading edge" technologists are indeed using RSS feeds, like crazy, but if you are going to start using RSS feeds you'd better know your customer base quite well.

Are they early tech adopters? Are they going to want to use RSS feeds? Should you get rid of your email newsletter (NO. No. NO!)?

The best solution is to CONTINUE to grow and produce your email newsletter but put your toe in the RSS water.

If you want educate your customers about RSS feeds and help them use and understand it - then you are not only doing them (your customers) a service, you'll do yourself a service in the long run by enabling your company to reach (new and existing) customers in new ways.

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