The From Line

When most people think of mashups and automation with regards to email marketing, the thought of data sharing and intertwined applications usually come to mind.  However, these terms can easily apply to messages even though most email marketers rarely take advantage of such mashup technologies.  In fact, a large portion of email marketing budgets and time are spent performing message assembly and managing content.  Dynamic content features have helped to alleviate some of the complexities of message assembly but it falls short in bridging the gap between desperate content sources and precision timing for delivery.  This is one of the reasons why SMS and Twitter have cannibalized some of email's footprint for mobile delivery of commercial messages. 

The answer to help unwind some of the vagaries of message assembly is incorporating RSS feeds into email messages.  This process is somewhat ironic since a few years ago RSS pundits were pronouncing the death of commercial email with the medium's popularity.   Sad for them however, RSS never took off as they had hoped and marketers never took too much stock in the medium's ability to capture eyeballs.   Yet RSS as a delivery medium on the wholesale side of email marketing provides much promise that has been overlooked.

Web Publishing to Email

Many email newsletters today are comprised of articles from a website with four or five line teasers and a link back to the actual article.  With the simple incorporation of an RSS feed to a pre-defined template, an email marketer can save countless hours cutting, pasting and configuring text automating the majority of the message assembly process.  The RSS feed not only includes text but can also include images as well as the "Read more..." link.

Web Publishing from Multiple Sources

For the email marketer that needs to work with multiple web sources the same thing can be done as with a single source.  An example of this is the Smart Brief news updates provided by many trade associations that compile news and information from a number of sources.  As valuable as this service is, it is simply a daily compilation of RSS feeds from different news sources delivered via email.

Automated Item Stock and Price Alerts

Some very large retailers who provide automated item stock and price alerts from their website have laboriously spent hundreds of programming hours to provide this service.  Using a simple RSS to email feed, a small or mid-sized retailer can easily affordably provide an automated email updates to subscribers every time a hot item is in stock or there has been a price drop. 

Redistributing Social Media and Web 2.0

In addition to RSS feeds from websites, you can include Twitter and other types of social media feeds with automated timed delivery as soon as the feeds are updated.  This process helps to reach parts of your subscriber base that's not always in the social media loop.  Aside from Twitter updates, you can also automate the inclusion of blog and feedback content using an RSS to email process widening their reach and saving you time during the message assembly process.

For all the great things RSS has to offer, its lack of market penetration and end user understandability prevents it from being relied on as a true marketing medium. However, from the examples above there's a big place for RSS in the email world and the technology can be vital component for automated content assembly.  Just about all content management systems (CMS), blog software and social media accounts come with some sort of RSS or XML feed so half of your message automation battle is already won.   Now you just need to get it into your email.

When most people think of mashups and automation with regards to email marketing, the thought of data sharing and intertwined applications usually come to mind.  However, these terms can easily apply to messages even though most email marketers rarely take advantage of such mashup technologies.  In fact, a large portion of email marketing budgets and time are spent performing message assembly and managing content.  Dynamic content features have helped to alleviate some of the complexities of message assembly but it falls short in bridging the gap between desperate content sources and precision timing for delivery.  This is one of the reasons why SMS and Twitter have usurped email for mobile delivery of commercial messages.  

The answer to help unwind some of the vagaries of message assembly is incorporating RSS feeds into email messages.  This process is somewhat ironic since a few years ago RSS pundits were pronouncing the death of commercial email with the medium’s popularity.   Sad for them however, RSS never took off as they had hoped and marketers never took too much stock in the medium’s ability to capture eyeballs.   Yet RSS as a delivery medium on the wholesale side of email marketing provides much promise that has been overlooked over the years.

Web Publishing to Email
Many email newsletters today are comprised of articles from a website with four or five line teasers and a link back to the actual article.  With the simple incorporation of an RSS feed to a pre-defined template, an email marketer can save countless hours cutting, pasting and configuring text automating the majority of the message assembly process.  The RSS feed not only includes text but can also include images as well as the “Read more…” link.

Web Publishing from Multiple Sources
For the email marketer that needs to work with multiple web sources the same thing can be done as with a single source.  An example of this is the Smart Brief news updates provided by many trade associations that compile news and information from a number of sources.  As valuable as this service is, it is simply a daily compilation of RSS feeds from different news sources delivered via email.

Automated Item Stock and Price Alerts
Some very large retailers who provide automated item stock and price alerts from their website have laboriously spent hundreds of programming hours to provide this service.  Using a simple RSS to email feed, a small or mid-sized retailer can easily and affordably provide an automated email update to subscribers every time a hot item is in stock or there has been a price drop.  

Redistributing Social Media and Web 2.0
In addition to RSS feeds from websites, you can include Twitter and other types of social media feeds with automated timed delivery as soon as the feeds are updated.  This process helps to reach parts of your subscriber base that’s not always in the social media loop.  Aside from Twitter updates, you can also automate the inclusion of blog and feedback content using an RSS to email process widening their reach and saving you time during the message assembly process.

Gold Lasso now provides an RSS to email feature at no additional charge.   Gold Lasso offers eLoop as an all inclusive system – meaning we never charge extra for advanced features that are developed by Gold Lasso programmers.  If you would like to learn how to use this feature please contact your Account Manager for guidance and instructions.

This time last year I predicted that basic batch and blasters would start to look at RSS as an alternative to email because of cost and deliverability.  Boy was I dead wrong.  Now that I look back at my words, what the hell was I smoking?   Most batch and blasters aren't sophisticated enough to even figure out what RSS stands for let alone how to implement it.  In my opinion RSS didn't make the slightest ding into email's market share and penetration in 2007.  All the RSS proponents that declared the death of email in 2007, where are they now?  They're either jobless or banished to work in the coat closet since they cut their email marketing budgets in 2007 when email returned 48X for every dollar invested.  Ha! Ha!

Don't get me wrong, RSS is a power tool for content syndication... but it's not replacing email.  Not for the rest of 2007 and not in 2008.

What's my prediction for 2008?  I have another few more weeks to figure it out.

There has been an ongoing debate in the email marketing industry for the past couple of years regarding RSS (Real Simple Syndication).  With just 3% Internet user penetration, proponents of the medium say RSS will replace email marketing because it is 100% opt-in and has 100% deliverability.  True, these two characteristics make for very compelling arguments however most proponents of RSS overlook four major characteristics of email that trump RSS; personalization, data collection, portability and two-way communication.  These characteristics will sustain email's marketing vitality until another technology comes along and does a better job.

That said, it doesn't mean RSS doesn't have a place in the marketer's arsenal.  With Microsoft's launch of IE7 yesterday, RSS will find its way to many more Internet users in 2007.  When there is massive market adoption of RSS, marketers who rely on traditional batch and blast email marketing will want to start looking to RSS for this task. 

My Prediction:
Toward the end of 2007, traditional batch and blasters will BEGIN to consider RSS on a mass scale for marketing purposes in addition to using email.