Perspective

Email Positive

Email Negative

RSS Positive

RSS Negative

General

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Email Marketer

Email is intrusive

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Email is trackable (open rates, CTR, etc) down to individual level ?Äì ROI is easily understood, mature channel with industry standard metrics

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Email content can be highly targeted

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Email can be highly cost effective

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Email can be highly designed / branded / rich content (if HTML version)

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Viral (marketing) effects well known

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Email drives sales

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Email¬?can be to¬?easy to¬?forward

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Widespread use and knowldge of email (products)

Once opted out, contact is suppressed / not contactable

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Opt out rates are on the up (normally due to irrelevant communications)

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Response rates are falling

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Email blocking / filtering out is increasing

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Regulation tightening up on opt out / opt in ?Äì governance and compliance is becoming harder – risk of legal action by customers

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Important/critical content / messages can get lost/blocked in fog of spam

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Spoof emails creating environment of ¬?confusion / distrust about email

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Total number of emails being sent is not sustainable (i.e. number of emails sent out per year as a ratio to the number of recipients and numbers of emails received)

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RSS provision is fully and automatically opt in ?Äì zero opt in / opt out governance and compliance overhead ?Äì zero risk of legal action by customers

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RSS content (through topic ¬?channels) has the potential to deliver highly relevant content to subscribers

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RSS is able to deliver designed / branded / rich content

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RSS does not get blocked / filtered out so that important/critical content is sure to be ?Äòdelivered?Äô.

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Not just email-type content can be provided by RSS

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RSS content can be accessed through many devices

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RSS customer use is growing

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RSS awareness by software developers is increasing, more RSS integration and ease of use)

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Strong evidence of ?Äòviral?Äô (marketing) effects

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RSS aggregation becoming common portal feature

RSS is not intrusive, customers are in control (although marketers should see this as a positive)

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RSS is trackable, but there are no industry standard metrics yet

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Customer does not expect to provide any data in exchange for ability to subscribe to RSS (this will change ?Äì early websites were free-to-view, many are now require registration)

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Little evidence to show RSS feeds drive sales, but early signs are good

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RSS reader is one more application to download and one more user interface to learn

Marketers (should) recognise, enable and honour customer preferences – ¬?medium (email, web, RSS, DM, IM, etc), frequency, content relevancy

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If marketers really want data (and/or money) from customers through the provision of RSS content then marketers need to provide a proposition compelling / valuable enough for customers to do so

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Marketers have opportunity to innovate in provision of personalised single RSS feed

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Marketers should consider providing an RSS option on current emails

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RSS tracking metrics need to be defined by marketing industry (so marketers can clearly compare & contrast against standard email metrics)

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Email as a sales driver has had dramatic success over the years…the debate should move away from RSS v Email and move to how RSS can compliment email marketing. Email is here and ain?Äôt going away, at least in the short-to-medium term)

Customer

Once opted out, not bothered again (theoretically)

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Email content can be highly relevant

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Emails can be blocked to some degree

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Increased power to customers to report spammers though increased regulation of opt out / opt in laws

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Email¬?can be to¬?easy to¬?forward

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Email¬?can be¬?easy to add/edit/delete then forward

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Email can be highly designed / branded / rich content (if HTML version)

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Email can be filtered, sorted, and archived

Email is intrusive ?Äì that is why opt out rates (for irrelevant communications) is on the up

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Email is trackable (open rates, CTR, etc) down to individual level ?Äì potential privacy concerns

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Email inbox content is mostly highly irrelevant

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Email subscription often requires the provision of additional PII data

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Important/critical can get lost/blocked in fog of spam

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Spoof emails creating environment of ¬?confusion / distrust about email

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Number of emails is increasing ?Äì not enough time (nor inclination) to open and read all

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Email address obtained by marketer, and once given can never (or hard to) be retrieved

RSS is not intrusive

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RSS subscriptions can be easily stopped

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RSS (through topic ¬?channels) gives easy access to highly relevant content, and lots of it

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RSS subscription process usually requires no provision of additional PII data (including email)

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RSS content can be designed / branded rich (although this may be seen as a negative)

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RSS channels can be managed, ensuring important/critical doesn?Äôt get lost/blocked in fog of spam

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RSS is efficient – enables much larger amounts of content to be viewed from more sources

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RSS content can be accessed through many devices

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RSS content being provided by more and more ?Äòproviders?Äô

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RSS content can be more trusted (e.g. harder to phish)

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RSS¬?can be to¬?easy to¬?forward via email (standard feature in most readers)

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RSS can be¬?easy to add/edit/delete then forward via email

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RSS can be filtered, sorted, and archived

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RSS integration and add-ins into existing products¬?is increasing¬?(e.g. Outlook)

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RSS is trackable ?Äì potential privacy concerns

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RSS reader is one more application to download and one more user interface to learn

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Customers want choice of medium (email, web, RSS, DM, IM, etc), frequency, content relevancy

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Customers expect content for free, without providing data or money), but may be willing to do so if the proposition has real value

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