Are RSS Feed Emails Right for You? Explore How RSS Emails Can Connect You With Subscribers Quickly & Consistently

You’re already creating great content on your site, so an RSS feed email can help you leverage sharing it with subscribers efficiently.

As a busy content creator, an RSS broadcast takes a load off of YOUR mental plate because you know that the posts going up on your site are also being shared with your list on a regular basis. This means “doing email” is one less thing to think about.

Are RSS feed emails right for your business? Let’s find out.

What is an RSS feed?

RSS feeds were created in 1999, a la Netscape. (Remember this gem?!)

If you’re not familiar, an RSS feed is a “Really Simple Syndication” of what’s getting published on your site, as it’s going live.

The more I’ve talked with different industries of bloggers, podcasters and online businesses, the more I see the value of implementing RSS feeds into your regular email marketing automations (yes, even today).

Related: 5 reasons why email marketing can’t be ignored — and how it benefits bloggers and online businesses

Should you use RSS-feed emails?

The timeliness and ability to automate RSS-feed emails may benefit your email marketing strategy as an online business owner.

As great as RSS feeds are, an automatic RSS feed broadcast is not suitable for every type of online business.

An RSS feed email strategy might be a good fit for you, if…

• You publish timely, relevant content (and if you don’t send it out in a few days, you risk the content being outdated by the time your readers get it)

• You publish lots of content regularly, and your subscribers want to see the variety of posts (so they can choose what suits their fancy ✨)

Examples of this could include:

• Deals, coupons or limited-time offers (like Scott’s Cheap Flights or Groupon)

• News sites or publications

• A job board

• Blogs publishing lots of posts for things like recipes or DIY projects

• A podcast with new episodes releasing a few times each week

With an RSS feed, all of this content can go to your list in ONE fell swoop, on a regular basis, straight from your site to their inbox.

Imagine how sending a list of easily-scannable posts (so you can pick entrees and ignore the desserts) or relevant deals on Amazon (so you get what’s hot!) would be helpful to your readers.

3 ways to add RSS-feed emails to your email marketing strategy

01 | Introduce yourself

This is an important step for developing rapport with new subscribers.

Welcome your new subscribers before you start hitting them with RSS feed emails. They may have signed up for deals, but you don’t have to swamp their inbox immediately.

Create one to two emails to introduce yourself, so you can share with new readers what you’ll be sending them and why they need to stay in the loop.

Related: Write your first welcome sequence

We can’t assume they want to open your emails. Give subscribers a reason — make sure they know why it’s important to stay in the loop (i.e., so they don’t miss limited-time offers or new job postings).

02 | Set your frequency

Once a week should be sufficient for sending out a collection of posts to your list.

But if you’re like a client of mine where her deals website has SO many posts (upwards of five to ten each day!), it’s a bit overwhelming for one email, so she split her RSS feed emails to go out twice per week instead.

Related: 7 tech tips to organize and optimize your email marketing

03 | Give your readers options

Use tags and link triggers in your emails to allow your readers to opt-out or adjust their individual sending frequency.

If you’re emailing your list multiple times each week, give readers the option of moving to a weekly digest, if that’s what they prefer.

Related: How to personalize email content using subscriber tags in ConvertKit

Leave a comment and let me know: Would an automated RSS feed be helpful for your type of business?