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E-mailing your podcast? Well not really, but there is an argument to be made for supplementing your faith in RSS with a backup e-mail list.

There are many reasons podcasters might want to maintain an e-mail list. All of them relate to marketing and/or promotion of your podcast.

E-mail marketing done right, that is with the complete permission of the recipient, is powerful. Not only can you use e-mail to remind your listeners that you have a new show available for download, you can parlay the relationship into additional marketing opportunities for your show and your sponsors.

But there’s another technical reason to build an e-mail list. What happens if your RSS feed somehow gets toasted? Let’s say your provider shuts down or you lose your domain. How will you contact your audience to let them know you have a new feed? The problem with relying 100% on RSS is that no matter what you’re doing, having all your eggs in one basket can lead to a seious mess.

I use Constant Contact to manage my e-mail list and handle my outbound e-mail notifications and marketing. On my iLifeZone website, I have a place for listeners to sign up for e-mail updates. I let them know when I post a new episode and for those who opt in, I pass on marketing messages from my sponsors.

It cost me $15 per month to maintain this service but I feel like it’s a good investment, given the time and energy I’ve put into building an audience.

There are other ways to accomplish this. A company called Feedblitz will send e-mail for you for free. Another called GetResponse is a fee-based competitor to Constant Contact.

Give them all a try and let me know what you think. My e-mail address is info@podcastingtricks.com.

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Thanks to Jason Van Orden’s upcoming book “Promoting Your Podcast,” (I have a review copy and will provide my review here next month) I learned about a new place to promote podcasts.

Yahoo has a fairly new service called Yahoo RSS Media Search. According to Yahoo, the search results are based on ID3 tags, show titles, show notes and any other text associated with your podcast. The service is free and you can submit your podcast feed to Yahoo RSS Media Search here.

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I am announcing a new consulting service today. I normally charge $200-$250 per hour for my in-person podcast consulting. But if you want to have help setting up, writing, producing, hosting, promoting or delivering your podcast or you just want to talk about anything related to podcasting or new media in general, I am available for $100 per hour. Let me know if I can help. Call 253-265-1801.

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What the Heck is RSS? And why should I care? Good questions. First, here’s why you should care.

Unlike getting website updates or ezines by email, RSS feeds give you absolute, 100% complete control over the situation. You don’t have to reveal your email address. If you want to stop receiving content, you don’t have to request to be “taken off the list.”

One click, and poof… the subscription is gone.

Plus, since there’s no email address involved, there’s no way a publisher can sell, rent or give away the means to contact you. That’s right… no more spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft. And best of all, no reason to put yourself at the mercy of the publisher’s intentions.

You won’t need to suffer through the legalese in the privacy policy (if there is one) looking for loopholes that will send you deeper into inbox hell. No more setting up dummy Hotmail accounts “just in case.”

Again, if you don’t like the content, you can make it disappear as fast as you can change a TV channel. With just one click. Pretty cool, huh?

That is cool! Umm… What the heck is RSS? Alright! Now we’re ready to get to that part.

RSS is a simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest. You might have figured that much out by now. But basically, that’s the essence of an RSS feed – you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader.

What the heck is a feed reader?

You may already be using a form of feed reader, and not even realize it. If you use personalized home page services like My Yahoo or My MSN, you’ve got RSS capabilities built in. That’s how syndicated content like news, weather and stock quotes appears on your personal page. You can also add content from any blog or other site that uses RSS to provide updates.

Other web-based tools are primarily dedicated to feed reading only. One of the most popular web-based feed readers at this point is Bloglines, and it’s also free and easy to get started with.

If you use the Firefox browser, you can also receive RSS feeds from your tool bar by using the Live Bookmarks function. The next version of Internet Explorer will add this feature as well.

Finally, there are desktop-based feed readers. These function somewhat like an email program for feeds. Examples include Newsgator and Feed Demon.

If it sounds complicated, it’s really not. And things will get even easier when the next version of Outlook integrates feed-reading capabilities. So, you’ll have the same convenience that email subscriptions offered in the old days, without any of the terrible consequences of giving out your email address to potentially unscrupulous characters.

Sounds good. So how do I subscribe to a Feed?

First of all, look for the subscription or feed options (some bloggers make this difficult for some odd reason). You might see a variety of buttons (amusingly called chicklets).

If the site you want to subscribe to uses FeedBurner to aid in the subscription process, you’ll likely see the standard RSS icon, which takes you to a page that will give you an array of the most popular feed readers so you can select yours, and you’ll go from there. Sometimes there will be a set of chicklets for your particular reader right on the blog that will take you to the appropriate subscription page. Finally, you may also see little orange buttons that say XML or RSS. Often these chicklets will take you to a page that looks like code gibberish. In this case, you simply cut and paste the page URL from your browser window and manually paste it into your feed reader subscription box.

In summary: RSS solves BIG problems and is being adopted at a phenomenal rate, because it’s a good thing for everyone.

The benefit to readers is obvious. And it’s good for publishers too, because we want to make sure that people feel comfortable subscribing, and that our message is not nuked by an overzealous spam filter.

If there’s anything here that is confusing, or you have a question, please email me at info@podcastingtricks.com and I’ll be happy to help!

Thanks to Copyblogger for a helping hand with this RSS mini-tutorial.

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