RSS more effective than email

Home
>
Blogging, RSS & Feeds
>
RSS more effective than email

RSS more effective than email

Long have I been proclaiming the effectiveness of RSS as a communications channel for non personal communications over that of email. The protection and anonymity that RSS can offer over email means that it is fast becoming the preferred medium for many users. It seems visitors to your site now put more trust in RSS as they are five times more likely to subscribe to an RSS feed as they are to the equivalent information via email.

A recent article from Rok Hrastnik at Marketing Studies shows that there is greater trust in RSS over email as well as RSS being more effective at attracting visitors back to your site. Over a 48 hour period it was shown that the average CTR from feed to site was 23 percent. That means that nearly a quarter of the readers of your RSS message click through back to your main site.

Rok's report also shows that there is a 6.8 percent average CTR from a content item in your feed to the web page that the content item points to. Better still is the results that show a 150 percent CTR from your feed to the site within a 30 day period. That means on average each subscriber of your RSS feed clicks through to your site one and a half times each month.

The report also points from data obtained from Lockergnome where it is shown that RSS subscribers out number email subscribers by 5 to 1. This clearly shows the increased take up of RSS, particularly among the more tech savvy internet audience.

At http://newsniche.com/ I have often argued that one of the major benefits of RSS over email is that it does not have the flaws that makes it susceptible to spam and control over the subscription to the information you provide is totally in the hands of the subscriber. This makes RSS subscribers more confident than email subscribers that they can unsubscribe knowing they will no longer receive communications from that source.

I have seen numbers banded about that show there are as few as 5 percent of the browsing public use RSS. The reason for this is that it is not yet as ubiquitous as email, but email has had a lot longer to be established. I truly believe that these results will encourage more webmasters to offer RSS feeds to their readers and help educate the browsing public to the benefits of this form of communication.

Allan is the webmaster at http://www.newsniche.com/ an RSS resource for webmasters. Learn how to use RSS to attract and retain visitors to your site.

In The News:

Live blog: Coyotes lead Kings 2-1 in Game 5
Tucson Citizen
22, 2012, under USA TODAY News We're live-blogging Game 5 of the Western Conference. The Los Angeles Kings, visiting the Phoenix Coyotes, can clinch a berth in the Stanley Cup Finals with a win. 10:24: Radim Vrbata puts the puck over a wide-open net.

and more »

5 Common SMB Online Marketing Optimization Issues Solved: Q&A with Lee Odden
Search Engine Watch
Ongoing Engagement Means You'll Never Run Out of Things to Talk (or Write) About We asked Odden what advice he has for entrepreneurs who have shied away from blogging and/or social because they don't feel they can produce enough contenton a regular ...

and more »

Live blog: Devils lead Rangers 3-1 in Game 4
Tucson Citizen
21, 2012, under USA TODAY News NEWARK – We're live blogging Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final. The New York Rangers lead the New Jersey Devils 2-1 in the best-of-seven series: 10:34: Rangers pull Henrik Lundqvist with more than two minutes left.

and more »

Bloglovin, a prettier take on RSS and Tumblr, gets Betaworks investment
GigaOM
Now, the company said it has about 1.4 million members worldwide and 2.4 million monthly unique visitors, who use the site to follow blogs in a range of areas, from fashion and food to photography and interior design. Like an RSS reader, ...

and more »

12 Reasons Why Blogging Is The #1 B2B Marketing Tactic
Business 2 Community (blog)
What is a 'Blog'? Shorthand for “Weblog,” a blog offers an easy way to present brief chunks of frequently refreshed Web content. Backed with easy-to-use technologies for syndication (eg, RSS), comments and trackbacks, blogs are often the blazing ...

and more »

Twitter applies greater precision to 'Who to Follow' feature
Red Rocket Media News
If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. Micro-blogging service Twitter is tweaking its 'Who to Follow' feature, as not everyone is interested in “Justin Bieber, FC Barcelona or Kim Kardashian.

and more »

Blog To Get More Patients? IDA's New Dental Marketing Websites Can Showcase ...
San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
New websites from Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. (IDA) let doctors easily embed their blogs into their IDA New Patient Portals to automatically generate fresh content and new patient leads. IDA's Portals let doctor's integrate the RSS feeds from their ...

and more »

How to Get Bloggers to help in Your Press Release Distribution
PR Newswire (press release)
In Vision Smart News online press release distribution system if the press release is crafted well it will help reach various blogs by way of RSS feeds. To learn more about a How to Get Bloggers to help in Your Press Release Distribution contact Qamar ...

and more »

COMMENTARY: Does "The Stage Door" need a Facebook page? My thoughts.
Naples Daily News (blog)
But how do you feel about getting anywhere from 50-90% of the blog content via Facebook? 4. This is the big one. Does anyone else have concerns about me building an audience for and inside Facebook - a platform controlled by someone else?

and more »

Toronto Star
Aveda Born to Style hairstyling contest crowns two winners
Toronto Star
The audience of about 150 — half of which was comprised of family and hair folk, the other half of beauty and fashion bloggers — was especially excited. Susan Chong, who created the attendee list for the event, focused on the online world.

Google News