RSS
Q&A: Blog, Newsletter, or Both?
Q: Should I have a blog AND a newsletter? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having both?
A: Yes – we recommend having BOTH a blog and a newsletter – for a variety of reasons. But for the sake of brevity, here are just a few ideas to get your brain thinking creatively on the concept of using business blogs.
Until your market catches up with the world of blogging and RSS feeds, you’ll want to keep your newsletter up to date, keeping in constant contact with your clients, subscribers and referrals. Offering both delivery channels keeps you from losing any subscribers who don’t understand what RSS feeds are or who are unwilling to step into a new technology yet.
And publishing both a business blog (using RSS technology) and a newsletter does not have to be double work either. You can even use RSS feeds to automatically CREATE a newsletter for you — including content. You become a resource center for your target market, saving them valuable research time. If you’re the type of business owner who prefers not to write articles, this is a neat strategy.
And if you do like to write, with some pretty basic programming steps to customize your business blog — your blog can actually SERVE double duty as your newsletter. If you keep a client-centric focus no one will even realize the change. Your subscribers would just think your format changed a little, but otherwise, they would continue to appreciate the valuable content you provide for them – sending it directly to their inbox.
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January 21st, 2005 at 6:11 am
I am in the process of trying to convert several electronic weekly newsletters into blogs. Once they are in blog format, people who prefer to read news daily (with a reader or without) can visit the blogs or subscribe to the feeds. For those who prefer e-mailed weekly newsletters, I will send the titles of the entries with links - they can click on what they want to read. (My point is that it’s much easier to convert an electronic newsletter into a blog format than most seem to think. And I agree also that it shouldn’t create double work if you think it through on the front end.)
January 22nd, 2005 at 9:28 pm
Thanks for the comments Shawn. We really think that it is important for business owners to create a synergistic pairing of RSS delivery and email. With only 27% or so of surfers using RSS, email as an optional delivery is a necessary option.
We’re actually working on a solution that will automate everything after our blog posts are made. In other words, articles are posted to our blogs, the content gets pulled into our Journal subscription site, and then once per week our subscribers will get an email with links and brief summaries of all that week’s posts (both ours and some select strategic partners. The system should be up and running by early February. Watch www.BusinessOwnersJournal.com for the upcoming changes.
September 14th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
[…] logue et newsletteure
par Richard Gauthier dans Stratégies, Blogues
Lu dans advancedbusinessblogging.com. Q: Should I have a blog AND a newsletter? A: Until your m […]