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Have RSS feeds killed the email star?
Email marketing hit by spam and falling customer conversion, claims new book

By Andy McCue

Published: Monday 28 February 2005

Spam blacklists and falling customer conversion rates are turning web marketers from email to really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, according to a new book.

RSS feeds offer a short description of a piece of web content with a link to the full version on the site it was originally published. These feeds can then be picked up by other websites.

Rok Hrastnik, author of Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS claims email marketing is no longer an effective way to deliver information to customers and readers.

Among statistics cited are ones from DoubleClick that claim only a third of all email messages are ever opened. The book also says the fact that email marketing conversion rates are decreasing combined with spam blacklisting make RSS feeds cheaper and more effective to use than email.

Hrastnik said: "Unfortunately most marketers still don't understand RSS or how to use RSS news feeds to substantially improve their bottom line. Businesses can actually start publishing and marketing with RSS today with minimal, if any, costs or investments whatsoever."

Improved search engine ranking and increased traffic generation through content syndication is another added benefit, according to the book.