Yep, today I’m unsubscribing from a ream of newsletters of various Internet Marketing gurus of one form or another.

Why?

Because I’m not getting ANYTHING of value from them. Nothing. Nyet. Nada. And I’ve given each one a chance. More than a chance, in fact. But all good things must come to an end, and today, I’m outta here.

Fact is, I’m tired of being treated as little more than a wallet on the receiving end of an e-mail. Almost every message I receive is some variation of…

“Click here to find out how “so-and-so” (often an unemployed “former” loser with about $5 worth of cash assets) generated $1,000,000 in revenue last year from an old laptop. All while sitting poolside waiting for his/her unemployment checks to show up.”

Of course, if I manage to resist this amazing story and subsequent offer (because there is always an offer), I have nothing to worry about. A new, equally amazing opportunity will arrive in my inbox tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that.

I’ve written before about the golden rule of successful online/e-mail marketing. It’s called “Give… THEN Take”.

These folks are happy to “take” (i.e., your money and your time), but they haven’t figured out the “give” part yet. And therein lies the rub…

If you want your newsletter to be read and your recommendations to be credible, you need to establish a relationship with your visitor/subscriber. And you do that by giving… your insight, your valuable, insider information (in the form of tips, “how-to’s”, etc) and so on. So that people trust you when you make a recommendation.

When you make recommendations every single day, for every product on the planet, they lose impact.

Think about it.

If you’re a fledgling Internet Marketer, this is one message you must heed (if you need a positive role model in this regard, sign up for Paul Myers’ newsletter… and see how it’s done!). No, there’s nothing wrong in asking for the sale, but you do need to earn that right.

So earn it.

If you’re not a marketer, and are simply trying to find your way to building a successful online business you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. And I recommend you do what I did… vote with your mouse. Force these guys to offer something of value.

Don’t worry… you are not going to miss anything important.

I must ask myself that at least four times every month – each time I put together and send out UltimateFatBurner.com’s newsletter, and each time I login to my account over at Aweber.com to check out the results of each mailing.

You see, the main reason I publish a newsletter is simple.

Yes, I want to stay in the forefront of my vistors’ mind, ensuring that they don’t forget about UltimateFatBurner.com. I want to encourage return visits, build the site’s brand, and of course, generate some revenue. My newsletter does not feature weekly specials, discount coupons, or “member’s only” discounts. Instead, it’s a concise update of major new updates on the site (which has grown to the size that this sort of update seems appropriate).

It will occasionally feature new and unique content, guest articles, the introduction of  relevant new products and so on (I’ve experimented with creating a newsletter with completely unique content, but did not see any perceptible difference in the way it was received. So I stopped bothering).

Regardless, the newsletter is of pretty decent quality, has a compelling title, and it is published every two weeks like clockwork.

Yet, the response to it is pretty meagre. The open rate generally averages between 19% and 25%, which, as far as I’m concerned, is pretty awful. Less than 1 in 4 people who have proceeded through the double-opt in subscription process actually bothers to even open the newsletter.

Why is that? Obviously, these folks are interested in the content we deliver. So what is it then?

Obviously, the first thing that crops up is that maybe the newsletter needs a revamp. It needs to be more compelling, more inclusive. There needs to be a REAL reason to open and read it.

That’s obvious.

But then, something else crossed my mind…

All the updates on UltimateFatBurner.com and Real-Customer-Comments.com are available via RSS (a simple syndication format) which makes the newsletter slightly – although not entirely – redundant. UltimateFatBurner.com’s newly reformatted subdomains use WordPress as a content management system, so feeds are published automatically.

The two UltimateFatBurner.com domains that remain in plain HTML format (Body Building and Fat Burners) have RSS feeds as well, although I have to create and update the feeds manually (I use the FeedForAll software to do this).

I’ve also written about using newsfeeds, so my visitors know exactly how to make this powerful option available to them.

So the question is…

Are a growing number of my subscribers getting their updates via RSS? Is this the reason why a diminishing number of them seem to be interested in the newsletter?

Possibly.

Problem is, I never thought to use a feed tracking service (like FeedBurner) when I started publishing my feeds on UltimateFatBurner.com, so it’s impossible for me to tell for sure (I didn’t make that mistake with this site; this RSS feed is syndicated through FeedBurner. And I will be switching everything else over soon).

The other issue for me is that even with only 19-25% of subscribers opening the newsletter, that’s still enough to warrant publishing one. Yes, I’m “roped” into publishing a bi-monthly newsletter for the foreseeable future.

However, if you are just getting started, you may want to consider the merits of educating your visitors on the merits of RSS, and skipping the newsletter all together (you ARE planning to publish an RSS feed, right?). Especially if your main purpose for publishing a newsletter is to provide site updates to your visitors. Specialty-focused newsletter containing unique “one-off” content, sales promotions, coupons, or marketing messages will be still worth the effort, methinks.

But I’m not sure I’d publish a newsletter again.

Something to think about.