Blogging With Jupiter

As a part of JupiterResearch’s blogging efforts, they’ve once again invited a few bloggers to take a look at some pieces of research and blog about them. David Schatsky was kind enough to invite me to blog about some JupiterResearch I found particularly interesting.

The research report is by analyst David Daniels and is entitled: “RSS and E-mail Marketing: Exploring Viability of RSS to Supplement E-Mail Marketing.” While the report is only available to JupiterResearch clients, you can check out a concept report here.

It’s an interesting piece of research that surveys the current landscape of RSS use by marketers and specifically, what the outlook is for marketers using RSS feeds as an alternative to e-mail marketing.

Instead of rehashing the findings of this report, I’d like to focus on looking at the underlying idea, that newsletter content should be published in RSS feeds as an alternative to e-mail marketing. Is this the way things should happen?

As a part of JupiterResearch’s blogging efforts, they’ve once again invited a few bloggers to take a look at some pieces of research and blog about them. David Schatsky was kind enough to invite me to blog about some JupiterResearch I found particularly interesting.

The research report is by analyst David Daniels and is entitled: “RSS and E-mail Marketing: Exploring Viability of RSS to Supplement E-Mail Marketing.” While the report is only available to JupiterResearch clients, you can check out a concept report here.

It’s an interesting piece of research that surveys the current landscape of RSS use by marketers and specifically, what the outlook is for marketers using RSS feeds as an alternative to e-mail marketing.

Instead of rehashing the findings of this report, I’d like to focus on looking at the underlying idea, that newsletter content should be published in RSS feeds as an alternative to e-mail marketing. Is this the way things should happen?

I’ve heard this idea mentioned several times, that RSS can replace e-mail marketing. And it makes sense to think about RSS in this way. Newsletter content is mostly text and images, which can be easily mirrored in an RSS feed. The advantages of using RSS instead of e-mail are as follows:

• RSS can be deployed at a lower cost
• RSS doesn’t have barriers that e-mail does, such as spam filters

It’s important to note that these are benefits to marketers, not to consumers. So what’s the benefit to consumers?

The main benefit consumers have seen in RSS feeds is that they easily let consumers know when there’s updated content. This is why news sites and blogs have been the primary creators of RSS feeds. But RSS feeds wouldn’t really provide any advantage over e-mail delivery. Seeing new content in an RSS feed reader is as easy as seeing a new e-mail in your inbox. And newsletter content isn’t updated daily.

Ok, so I could also argue that newsletter content delivered in RSS feeds means less clutter in my inbox, but this doesn’t hold up either. The amount of clutter would remain unchanged, as consumers would have a cluttered RSS reader replacing a cluttered e-mail inbox.

There may not be much benefit to consumers at all in having newsletter content in RSS feeds. In fact, RSS may actually create a major disadvantage from the user perspective. The JupiterResearch report points out that RSS “does not offer the targeting and personalization capabilities of e-mail.” As we know, many marketers use dynamically created content to keep their newsletters personalized, targeted and relevant to the consumer. It’s possible that these type of newsletters, in RSS format, would actually be less relevant to consumers than if they were delivered via e-mail. Let’s not forget that this is a disadvantage to marketers as well, since performance can suffer when content is less targeted.

While there may not be many advantages to consumers to get newsletter content in RSS, I think it’s important to remember that the technology is in a relative infancy when it comes to marketing. Marketers and consumers alike are finding new ways to use RSS feeds. We can see that when we look at recent innovations such as podcasting. And as consumer adoption of RSS grows, both groups may find advantages we haven’t even thought of yet. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic above, and thanks again to David Schatsky at JupiterResearch for letting us bloggers participate in these discussions. If you haven’t checked out the JupiterResearch analyst blogs, you should.

Comments

[Bill Flitter]

The most important thing to remember about RSS is its stage of development. Having come from the newsletter business and now working with RSS, newsletters started the same way - just text, no targeting. Look how email has grown. RSS will grow-up to.

Secondly, It is important to point out that the consumer is in control of RSS - not so with newsletters. This will keep the RSS inbox free of clutter. One click and I can unsubscribe from irrelevant content.

I wrote a post several months back on where RSS fits into the marketing mix: http://www.pheedo.info/archives/000250.html. RSS has a home in marketing, but we are early.