Sometimes it’s lonely working in the PR business. We look at our cousins in advertising and marketing—the ones with the big budgets—and lament management’s perception that we are a cost center. According to a study from the Council of Public Relations Firms back in 2001, lack of money to invest in new technologies was one of the main reasons the PR profession was so slow ramping up its understanding and use of the Internet.

So it comes as some comfort to read that we’re not alone when it comes to the profession’s painfully slow uptake of RSS and blogs. A press release issued over Market Wire yesterday reports on a study that reveals e-mail marketers have been equally slow to embrace RSS and blogs. (I might be inclined to abbreviate that as R&B—but then again, maybe not.)

According to the study, conducted by WordBiz Report, 74% of e-mail marketers claim to be familiar with the concept of RSS but only 37% have gone so far as to download news reader software or subscribe to a Web-based reader. Only 23% subscribe to any kind of feed.

The WordBiz survey highlights the fact that most marketers still don’t understand the significance of RSS as an online publishing strategy; namely, that RSS sidesteps delivery through email. A whopping 68% of the more than 370 marketing pros surveyed identified their single largest concern about online marketing as “rising above inbox clutter.” Another 60% claimed spam filters as their biggest headache.