And then we discovered email as a promotional tool, and the email newsletter was born.  For a while, everything was rosy as many businesses benefited from this faster, cheaper form of communication.

Fast-forward a few years and things are starting to look very different.  Email has turned from being a tool that saves us time in our work, to something that creates more work!

An eCommerce guru in the United States tells me that, for every thousand people that you send a newsletter on your email list – only two hundred will actually receive it.  In the UK, the SPAM filters are not quite as tough (yet), with around half of your email newsletters reaching their destination.  Even then, you can't be certain that they are going to open or read it.

So what's the answer if we want to use technology to communicate with clients?

'RSS' or 'Really Simple Syndication'.  Check out the BBC website (and increasingly many others) and look for the orange RSS button.  This gives you a great new tool with which to pull the key bits from your favourite websites and display them in a 'Newsreader' on your own computer. 

So how can this benefit IFAs?

Instead of (or as well as) sending out email newsletters, you should start a Web Log or 'Blog' on your website (or at a public Blog site such as Blogger.com).  A Blog is a short message that you post regularly which provides your thoughts, ideas, comments, opinion or wisdom for your site visitors to read – a bit like an online diary.  It can be anything from a couple of sentences to a couple of paragraphs – but gives readers the opportunity to find out more about you and to enhance the perception of your credibility and expertise.  For example, an IFA might want to comment on something relevant that is in the news, or perhaps offer a simple tip on personal finance.

The trick is to keep it short, and to post something new regularly.  Once a day is the ideal, but most serious bloggers will add something once or twice a week.  With RSS and a Newsreader, subscribers to your Blog are then guaranteed to receive it.  What's more, the Search Engines love websites that have Blogs.  Their regularly changing content encourages them to re-index your website frequently – thus pushing you up the search results when people are looking for an IFA in your area.

It is only a short matter of time until RSS becomes a standard tool with which to communicate essential messages – but it's available now and can be added to your own website and so maximise opportunities from both new an existing clients.

In the next few weeks, Quay will be adding RSS feeds to its News and Blog - so check back soon for further information.