Comments on: RSS to Email Tutorial

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:21:48 +0000

Jason – I don’t know of any limits to the size of the RSS image, though you’ll want to be mindful of the width of your email template and its column “gutters” (margin/padding). For example, we set a max width of our built-in templates to 600px, with about 20 px on each side for padding. That gives you 560px to insert a graphic. The typical side column layout in our templates is 150px wide, with about 10px on each side, leaving you with about 130px.

Of course, you can always just use your own customized template code that accommodates the 600px wide graph.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:32:48 +0000

Is it possible to include a large image into content of an RSS email? My understanding is that 144px is the max width of a RSS image.

We have a “Chart In Focus” blog/email and the 600px wide chart image IS the main content.

By: Stijn Van Cauwenberge

Stijn Van Cauwenberge — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:48:14 +0000

RSS to email is just great. Will this work however?
- you have 4 interest groups
- you combine several (say RSS feeds using chimpfeedr or sth else; each individual feed corresponds to one or more interest groups

CAN YOU SEND CAMPAIGNS THAT ONLY INCLUDE THE INFORMATION FOR YOUR SUBSCRIBERS INTEREST, or put differently: link feed components to interest groups…

Without setting up a multitude of campaigns of course.

Thanks
Stijn

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:49:12 +0000

Wordpress and Movable Type offer RSS per category. Not sure about the others.

By: Mr Ulster

Mr Ulster — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:19:13 +0000

Thank you, Ben. I understand your suggested process. However, I’m having difficulty finding blog platforms that allow you to create separate RSS feeds by category/tags. While I can filter postings by such, Blogger and Posterous at least don’t provide an RSS for the same (at least I don’t see how). Any suggestions out there? I’d really like to implement this solution.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:31:58 +0000

Sort of. Many blogs allow you to create separate RSS feeds for your different categories. So you could create a signup form asking people what types of updates they want, using our checkboxes for interest groups. Then, create separate RSS-to-email campaigns for each category, and send them to your list using our segmentation feature to filter to recipients by category interest. You might give each email a different design to match the category, such as a checkered flag in the header for “race results” vs. a bullhorn in the header for announcements.

By: Mr Ulster

Mr Ulster — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:25:57 +0000

Forgive me if I missed it in the tutorial, but can you set it up so that only one’s blog postings matching a defined blog category/tag (e.g. “race results” but not “announcements”) gets pulled into the RSS to email newsletter?

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:13:42 +0000

Multiple feeds can be “mashed” together using something like Yahoo Pipes. Or, Chimpfeedr (which you can find at mailchimp.com/labs). After they’re mashed into one RSS feed, you can pull them into MailChimp. Yahoo Pipes gives you very finite control over the mashing part, while Chimpfeedr keeps it simple. Hope that helps!

By: Charles Montgomery

Charles Montgomery — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:50:56 +0000

@ Julie – ME TOO! I emailed tech support a few hours back and haven’t heard back. I’m really hoping to pull in a cartoon from one source and articles from a couple more… this would be a great opportunity for cross branded email marketing in B2B applications… I just had another idea – a newsletter that pulls in new testimonials as they come in on your website and combines them with your blog posts…

Please Ben – let us know!!! Multiple Feeds PLLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!!

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:15:56 +0000

Not at the moment, Kevin. But it’s something we’ve discussed a lot, and I have a feeling it’s a matter of when, not if, we do this.