I always struggled (like many solopreneurs) with making the time to create email newsletters, which is ironic since I help clients with e-newsletters all the time! It’s not for lack of topics to talk about or the ability to create the e-newsletters – it can just be time consuming. However, with blogs and RSS,  you can not only repurpose your writing but also automate your newsletter creation process using your blog’s RSS feed and a email marketing provider like AWeber that offers this capability.

Basically the idea is this: you already post to your blog – creating articles of interest to your audience. So, why reinvent the wheel when you create your e-newsletters? Your blog has an RSS feed (as all blogs do), so use it to automatically generate your newsletter content without rewriting or redesigning. This approach not only saves you time, but will keep your email marketing schedule on track with no extra work on your part. Once the initial process is set up, it literally will run itself… all you need to do is continue to post to your blog (there’s no way to automate that process just yet!).

Setting this up is not as geeked-out or difficult as you may suspect – here’s a quick overview:

First – you need to be working with an email marketing service that offers this feature, and not all of them do. Among the major self-service companies, only AWeber, iContact and MailChimp offer this feature.  Constant Contact, although one of the largest and most widely used, does not as of yet.  As a side note, you probably also want to choose an email marketing provider that offers autoresponders as well (as AWeber, iContact and MailChimp do).  My preference is AWeber, as they have fantastic client support and a host of sophisticated features including shopping cart integration. However, if you are looking for something that’s easier to use at a lower price point, iContact and MailChimp are excellent choices.

This how-to overview focuses on AWeber, as that’s the service I use, but the process is basically the same no matter what provider you choose.

1. Within your AWeber account, Go to Messages then Blog Broadcast... then click the Create A New Blog Broadcast button.

2. Enter in the URL (web address) of your blog’s RSS feed. If you use Feedburner, use the Feedburner address, as the feed traffic will be tracked.

3. Type in the email’s subject line. With AWeber, you can enter in the recipient’s first name (if you collected it) so that your email subject line can be personalized – for example:  “Jane, here are your latest blog updates from Mary“.  You can add other variable items too like dates or blog titles.

4. Select an email layout template you like. If you are handy with HTML you can also design your own or make changes to the one you pick.  You can also add other content that will be included with the mailing.  Also be sure the RSS data fields are present so that the feed-generated content will appear correctly within your mailing.  Your template will display the feed content fields – they look something like this:

Be sure to not alter the highlighted fields above – they need to be there to define the area in which the feed content will appear.

5. Select your delivery settings. AWeber offers a lot of delivery options – and most are self-explanatory.  Note that when you are starting out with this, it’s probably best to NOT launch automatically, as you may want to review it or add other content before you send out your broadcast.

So how does all this magic happen? In the case of AWeber, your blog’s feed address is checked every few hours to pick up the latest posts (that have not yet been broadcast). The message is compiled according to the parameters you set, and whenever those specific parameters are met, the broadcast message is automatically created and placed into queue for you to review and launch to your list.

For example, I have my RSS-generated newsletter set up to compile every 1st & 3rd Sunday of the month at 5:00am. So on every 1st & 3rd Sunday of the month – at some time after 5am – I log into AWeber, check the new broadcast message that is in queue, make any adjustments – then launch.

Other options include sending every “X” number of new posts, a particular day (or days) of the month or week.  You can also have the message launch automatically without your involvement at all – much like the Feedburner mailing service…. but with much more personalization and control.

RSS Power Tip:  If you post to your blog frequently and categorize your posts  (you should)… use your blog’s category-specific feeds to create specialty topic newsletters!

Again – there’s a bit of setup work at the beginning – and then – e-newsletter nirvana! Just check in with your email marketing provider at the mailing times you set and the work is already done for you!  Just don’t forget to post to your blog.