10 Ways for E-Marketers to Use RSS

October 26, 2006

I had the honor of participating on the panel on the uses of RSS for marketers at the DMA's annual conference. The panel consisted of the founder of Bloglines, Mark Fletcher, and Heidi Cohen of Clickz.

In an article today on Clickz, Heidi highlights the conversation. Below is the summary.

Here are 10 ways to extend your e-tail marketing using RSS (note: some of these can be used by content marketers as well):

* Drive traffic and purchasers. Use RSS feeds to distribute time-sensitive information, such as weekly travel specials and niche content. Some implementations can put consumers directly into the shopping process.

* Set up existing customers to receive RSS feeds. In this case, there's often one individual per URL. A Silverpop financial client, for example, regularly distributes reports to its customer base this way.

* Advertise on content providers' feeds. Use providers such as FeedBurner and Pheedo. FeedBurner has found ads that engage readers to sign up for RSS alerts for special offers perform better than ads for a specific product.

* Create channels for affiliate communications to distribute marketing content. Use RSS to enhance affiliate communications by developing links that allow you to automatically push updates.

* Expand rich media distribution. Use podcasting, videocasting, and PDFs to create broader reach for your marketing message.

* Distribute content to other devices (mobile phones, iPods, PDAs, etc.). A mobile RSS reader can be an easier solution to implement than an SMS one. When creating content for those devices, consider the environment in which the user will consume your content.

* Extend site content with feeds from other sites and blogs. In this case, you're using syndicated information to supply related content on your site.

* Develop partnerships to cross-promote with relevant content sites to build traffic. Use RSS to attract a content site's readers to your product.

* Repurpose rich content, such as white papers, into smaller chunks. Use small pieces of content to engage readers and lure them to your site for further information. Think about this content in a sequential way. This can work well for business-to-business (B2B) marketers.

* Create Web widgets that are fun to use and viral and that include RSS feeds. You can develop a widget, for instance, that provides tips and tricks for your product, especially if you've got a product for which consumers are evangelical, such as hybrid cars.

Posted by Bill Flitter on October 26, 2006 10:11 AM
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