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.

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Blogging/RSS Information:

Related Articles

How to Create an RSS Feed
An RSS news feed can be used to communicate with your target audience. It is an ideal means of notifying people of new content on your website without the need for them to keep on visiting your site.
RSS for Bloggers
While syndication has many applications, we will deal specifically with its use for blog content and some technical information will be included at the end of this article.If you have any interest in blogs or weblogs as a publishing format, then you have undoubtedly come across the term R.
You Are Losing Money If Youre Not Using RSS Feeds On Your Website!
(An RSS primer can be found near the bottom of the article)A commercial website in 2005 is really costing itself money if it does not utilize the myriad advantages of implementing RSS feeds. RSS provides near real-time delivery of information your website visitors are interested in, it provides constantly updated content that search engines crave, and it is quite simple to implement.
Marketing With Blogs - Part 1
Marketers have found that blogs are excellent tools for communicating with their audience. Anyone who has something to sell or an idea to promote can benefit from using blogs.
Get Website Visitors From Blogs
Blogs are becoming more and more popular.The word "blog" is short for web log.
Utilize The Power Of Blogs To Market Your Business On A Budget
Budget marketing with blogs is one of today's top methods for cost-effective advertising to the consumers you want to reach, whether they're in your neighborhood or across the global community.'Blogging' is a fairly recent addition to our vocabulary, and it's exactly what you'll be doing if you pursue budget marketing via blogs.
Why are you abusing RSS
When you are involved in RSS everyday you get to see the fantastic opportunities RSS can bring to the web and how it can contribute to bettering the browsers experience and the webmasters bottom line. Unfortunately there is a dark side of RSS use.
How Blogs Can Be An Excellent Promotional Tool
Blogs as an online promotional strategy if done right could save you huge dollars in reaching out to people. This is also a medium where you need have absolutely no dependence whatsoever on any professional help and you can do everything yourself.
For Wordpress users version 1.5 new feature "Pages"
After many requests from wordpress users, the latest version of wordpress has a build in option to create static pages. You can use static pages for an about page, contact page, a links page, etc.
Should Affiliates Really Use Blogging and Pinging To Get Indexed?
There seems to be a huge craze lately with everyone trying to blog and ping to get their websites indexed into the search engines. Although this can be a great tool, all marketers should first understand exactly what they're getting themselves into before starting.
RSS Feeds Future Revealed
I don't claim to be a futurologist or an RSS pioneer but I have been keeping a pretty close eye on RSS and how it has been evolving. From what I have seen so far I think I can make some pretty good predictions about where RSS feeds are heading.
Should You Get A Blog?
A blog is a type of website. It allows the website owner to easily write messages that get posted to the site automatically, often in a journal or diary-like style.
Microsoft and Google Show Its Time for RSS Marketing
Many internet marketers are still wondering whether to start marketing with RSS or not. It seems that not even all the case studies, hard metrics and benefits available can't convince them, or everyone would be jumping on the RSS wagon by now.
The 7-Step RSS Marketing Plan
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.
The Key To Marketing With Blogs
I've spent months answering questions from marketers about blogs and blogging and how they fit into the marketing mix. Still, 99% don't understand the power of blogging.
Your RSS Feed Might Look Like Spam
RSS feeds seem to be the breakout technology for the year. With more users turning to them for driving traffic to their site, it's no wonder that a trail of RSS feed spam is following in the wake.
The Blog Revolution: How To Use Blogs to Generate Solid Web Profits
Blogs were originally only meant to be 'Web Logs', or personal journals for members of on-line communities to stay in touch, sort of like 'underground news media'. But, it didn't take long for net-repreneurs (internet entrepreneurs) to catch on to their popularity and to find ways to use them to make money.
Make Money Blogging Using These Nine Powerful Strategies
The question "How to make money blogging" sits high on every blogger's mind. In fact I received many questions on "How to make money blogging" when I conducted my first webcast to answer my subscribers' most pressing questions on Blogs and Rss.
An Example of a Business Blog: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Blog
Think of a product or a service that your business provides to customers. This product may requires lots of instructions to assemble, tips to use efficiently, or simply requires lots of questions to be answered before it can be used.
Are Blog Meant for Raves and Rants?
Blogging is the latest internet craze and it may turn out to be just that and killed off if the avalanche of misinformation continues. One is amazed at how an excellent online medium is promoted for all the wrong reasons.