FeedBlitz Simplifies Multi-Feed Email Customization with Master Templates

If you're a business or entrepreneur running many RSS feeds, you want to ensure that the correct branding (yours, of course) is on each mail that goes out - this is what the FeedBlitz Pro upgrade delivers as discussed in "Don't like FeedBlitz Orange...?"

Thing is, adding graphic design templates for lots of feeds, especially ones added automatically or in bulk using the API or OPML, is a manual effort. Once a feed has been added, publishers have to go into each new syndication to customize it by hand. It could be a chore for lots of feeds, especially having to remember to do it for imported content.

No more. Enter Master Templates, available for "Pro Plus" users (i.e. relevant to publishers with more than five feeds to customize and the $24.95 monthly subscription fee). "Pro Plus" publishers can designate a design template as the Master (one per Pro Plus account). The benefits are:

• The Master Template is automatically used for all feeds which don't have their own template (existing ones and those added or imported later).
• Changes to the Master Template automatically effect the other content using it - no more copy / paste.
• Master Templates can be overridden on a feed by feed basis to allow for differentiated branding across multiple properties if necessary.
• Updates built using Master Templates are consolidated into a single consolidated email by default - this may also be overridden.

In short, once a Master Template has been defined, any new feed added - a new book chapter, say, or a new online store, or a new news channel or product line - will automatically go out with your designated branding, including "from address" customizations and your specified subject lines.

We've been testing Master Templates with a group of medical practitioners in Kentucky. The core blog, "Evidence in Motion" - visit - subscribe - has been upgraded to a "Pro Plus" Master Template. You can see the Master Template in action by subscribing to one of the over one hundred feeds they publicize, all customized by this one Master Template. Here are a few of their higher traffic feeds:

• Orthopedics - subscribe
• Physical Therapy - subscribe

If you subscribe to all three for a little while you'll see that they all have the same look and feel, and are chained together into a digest if there are updates in more than one. Incidentally, these feeds were added to FeedBlitz using the OPML import facility, saving another chunk of setup time.

As a result, Master Templates dramatically lower the time to deliver new content (as new email updates) to your readers that reinforce your messages.

RSS, Blogs and FeedBlitz - publisher power without the hassle!