blogging 102

Reading time: 9 – 15 minutes Every so often I take time out of my busy Email Marketing Consulting schedule and steal an afternoon just for myself. A few months ago I decided to take one of those days. With five glorious hours ahead of me I pondered how best to enjoy my break. I really wanted to do something memorable, something that would inspire me and something that would last long after my special day was over. So I did what everyone does on an afternoon off I got a tattoo. I had never gotten a tattoo before and did not know which shops were the best but I was on an e-newsletter list of a shop called Brave Tattoo. I had joined the list while they were running a contest to win a Harley. I didnt win but stayed on the email list because I was impressed with how creative the tattoo shop was with their e-zine. There was always two or three professionally written articles about tattoos and a whole bunch of tattoo design suggestions. I really looked forward to their bi-weekly e-zine... 

Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes It’s clear that RSS and e-mail in fact need to be used together, as opposed to either one replacing the other. While RSS might not be used by as many people as e-mail, you can be sure that those that do use it and subscribe to your feeds will get your content without fail. In addition, many already prefer to receive information via RSS instead of e-mail, making RSS an absolute must as a supplement to e-mail delivery. Let’s now take a detailed look at exactly how RSS and e-mail can work together. 1. ANNOUNCING YOUR E-ZINE VIA RSS What’s the use of an excellent e-mail e-zine if it’s blocked by spam filters or lost in the recipient’s mailbox? No matter how high quality content you prepare, if it’s not received it can’t be read and then acted upon to drive sales your way. Namely, you need to stop thinking of your e-zine in terms of e-mail delivery, but rather consider it as a vehicle to present relevant and related... 

Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes RSS is certainly still far from being user-friendly, which is especially evident once you try and left-click on an RSS subscribe button. In most cases your browser will simply display the XML code of the RSS feed … which does not go far in making internet users comftorable with RSS. Heck, if you didn’t know what RSS was and clicked on an RSS button only to get a page full of code you don’t understand, would that aid in turning you in to an RSS user? Probably no. And much worse, you’d probably never consider clicking on one of those buttons again, at least not any time soon. Consequently, if as a marketer you’re trying to generate RSS subscribers, simply using an RSS subscribe button is the worst way to go for you and for the RSS industry as a whole as well. So, what alternatives are there? a] CREATE AN RSS PRESENTATION PAGE If you’re trying to generate RSS subscribers from your site and are targeting audiences that might... 

Reading time: 7 – 11 minutes If you’re wondering how to get started with RSS marketing, here’s a basic 7-step plan that should provide some needed guidance. Use these steps as your personal RSS marketing checklist to get your started and help you see whether you’re on the right track. 1. START USING RSS AS AN END-USER The first step to getting started with RSS marketing/publishing is getting your own RSS aggregator, subscribing to other RSS feeds and just seeing and understanding how it all works. There’s a variety of RSS aggregators to choose from. Just a small sample: a) Web-based RSS aggregators (websites): http://my.yahoo.com, http://www.pluck.com, http://www.newsgator.com, http://www.bloglines.com b) Desktop RSS aggregators (software): http://www.awasu.com, http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/, http://www.stevenwood.org/stories/2003/06/08/voxLite.htm c) Integrated RSS aggregators (integrate with IE or Microsoft Outlook): http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/...