Has RSS Made YOUR Newsletter Redundant?

Is it even worthwhile to publish a newsletter anymore?

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.