It's Christmas Time!

July 16, 2006

Christmas in July, that is. I know it sounds premature, and maybe you just got around to returning some of those sweaters and useless gadgets you got for Christmas last year, but to stay competitive in the holiday shopping frenzy, retailers need to start gearing up for the holiday rush early.

It's always surprising to me how every year holiday advertising and marketing appears earlier and earlier, but the bottom line is, retailers need to be among the first to get through to consumers because as soon as they are presented with the right product at the right price, they will not hesitate to buy it.

This year, with RSS adoption on the rise, RSS is the logical choice for retailers to try out as a new marketing tool to directly communicate with potential customers and help them build shopping lists. How can you create shopping lists via RSS, you ask? Here's how:

• Consumer opts-in to receive RSS feeds from various retailers about certain products, product categories or just for general browsing.
• They now have a list of contenders for their business that they will monitor for deals, new products, etc. - a virtual shopping list and personal shopper.
• When presented with the right product at the right price, the consumer simply clicks through to your website to complete the purchase - RSS has turned the shopper into a buyer.
• Since they are subscribed to your RSS feed, the customer is interested in your business and can still be marketed to for other products for future business.

It's simple for the consumer and the retailer, and keeps the customer in-touch with your business even after the transaction is complete. Browsing a website or even a store may lead to a purchase being made, but no line of communication has been established and the customer may no longer return to or even think about your retail business again this holiday season. The customer has opted-in to your feeds to hear what you have to offer, so communicate!

Already have RSS feeds set up? Great! Need to start new ones? Not a problem. Either way, here's how to kick off a successful retail RSS marketing campaign for the holidays.

• Implement RSS feeds easily using services from companies like Nooked, SimpleFeed or PRESSFeed.
• Create several feeds for consumers to choose from: new products, hot deals, holiday promotions, and various product categories. Or, let the user create customized RSS feeds with just the content they want to receive.
• Grow your feeds through the Pheedo Feed Growth program by displaying RSS ads throughout the Pheedo network promoting your feeds and business.
• Analyze RSS usage with detailed analytics to optimize your feeds and content before the real holiday rush begins.
• Keep your creative fresh with new deals, products and even contests posted regularly.

Starting an RSS campaign is easy, and very low-cost - especially when compared to maintaining an email list. Furthermore, RSS allows you to keep customers updated in real time. If a price changes, a new product comes in or you want to change something you previously published, RSS makes it easy and alerts the customer of the changes. The equivalent can only be accomplished with email by completely flooding customers' inboxes - they generally don't like that.

I will continue to write about the value of RSS for retailers in the coming months as the holiday season approaches because I see RSS as a revolutionary medium for retailers to help establish meaningful lines of communication and relationships with potential customers and customers you want to retain for future business.

Posted by Bill Flitter on July 16, 2006 10:22 PM
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