Guerrilla Insight for Authors: Good Coupon RSS Idea Gone Bad and 4 Lessons to Learn

Good Coupon RSS Idea Gone Bad and 4 Lessons to Learn

As a direct marketer myself I always like seeing new direct marketing examples of using RSS, especially since it's so underused in the field.

The new Cost Saving Network, which specializes in discount coupons and best deals from hundreds of webstores, has the right idea.

a] Subscribe to a coupon RSS feed for any webstore.

b] Subscribe to a search RSS feed that will give you the latest results from hundreds of webstores for your keywords.

c] Subscribe to their blog, either to the entire blog or again using the search function to subscribe only to what matter to you.

It's a great idea ... too bad it's implemented so poorly. But certainly a good lesson for the rest of us.

The gist of the lesson: if your RSS initiative doesn't provide value, just don't do it.

a] In this case, the first problem is with the actual search function. It just works quite poorly and doesn't give me any really relevant information.

The lesson: if the service that your RSS initiative is based on, doesn't work, RSS won't work either.

b] The site might be OK for those that already know what RSS is, but for everyone else the orange button will just be another "what's this" question. No explanations, no instructions, no benefits, no subscribe buttons like MyYahoo or MyMSN ...

The lesson: if you do RSS, do it so that even those that haven't used RSS before will find your service accessible.

c] They do have an e-mail newsletter option ... but I don't see an RSS option for the newsletter as well.

The lesson: make your relevant e-mail content directly accessible to RSS users.

d] Why can't I subscribe to an aggregate feed of multiple webstores, without using the keyword feature? And why won't you let me specify a specific product that I want to be notified of ... perferably when the price reaches the botton I specified when I subscribed.

The lesson: if you offer listings from a database via RSS, make it easy for the subscriber to really customize his subscription.

OK guys, still lots of room for improvement, but you still have time ...

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RSS Data From Ad Age

Not much new in the Ad Age Interactive Marketing & Media Fact Pack 2006 [PDF], but nonetheless a good aggregation of some RSS metrics we already know.

OK, I don't think we've written about this one yet ...

RSS is currently used or is planned to be used within the next 12 months by 63% of consumer product marketers, 65% media and communications marketers, 37% retail marketers, 37% financial services marketers and 38% equipment and tech marketers.

What's happening with retail, finance and tech?

These are especially industries where RSS is needed by consumers to keep up with their latest relevant content ...

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RSS Becoming a Hit With Marketers

RSS marketing is poised to getting more attention from marketers soon, at least according to MarketingSherpa survey.

40% of marketers are definitely planning on investing in adding RSS feeds to their marketing mix in 2006, while 19% plan to spend more than a year out.

The tide is finally turning and the time to get on the train is now, or your competitors will get there ahead of you.

It's not only about being among the first and getting a better start, but also about having the upper hand in testing the various approaches to find just the right one for you.

RSS Marketing Realism ... Or Do Some People Simply Not Understand?

Well, RSS is certainly getting more attention from marketers lately. The only problem is that it at least seems that the level of understanding still isn't there.

The latest piece from Bill McCloskey of Email Data Source over at MediaPost is no different.

His argument goes something like this:

1] The promise of RSS for marketers was delivering content directly to the desktop, giving the marketer direct access to the prospect's desktop, evading all spam filters and crowded mailboxes. In other words ... an e-mail marketer's holy grail.
2] But only 4% of the online population use RSS from their desktops, while all the rest use websites like MyYahoo to consume RSS content.

3] Essentially, this means that RSS failed on its promise. It doesn't deliver content to the desktop, meaning it's crap for marketers.

4] "RSS is just another in a long series of technologies known as desktop apps that marketers have been trying to exploit for years."

5] The reach just isn't here, and it won't get here either. "There is no historical precedent that people want it, and plenty of evidence that people grow tired and abandon these types of apps quickly."

6] Plus, RSS really doesn't work for marketers, since it's text-centric, has no "send to a friend" capability and so on.

Well, Bill, excuse me for being so blunt, but you're wrong.

OK, let's take the claims on one-by-one ...

1] RSS is not only about getting content delivered to the end-user, but also about conducting business itelligence easier and cheaper than ever before, increasing your content visibility via content aggregations sites and even traditional search, getting more content for your own website to make it more relevant for your visitors ... and so on.

Aren't all of these benefits that marketers need and want? Increased exposure and visibility, increased traffic, etc.

2] and 3] Bill, the desktop as an entity is no longer where the action is ... the internet browser is the next desktop. And RSS is getting integrated into the most popular internet browsers. Case closed.

OK, one more thing. For Jane and Joe, websites like MSN, Google and Yahoo! are THE INTERNET. If you get your content there, directly to them, it's just like being on the desktop, or even better.

Because desktop apps tend to become annoying, while the "homepage" is the user's window into the internet.

4] RSS is not a desktop app. It's an "app" to deliver content anywhere, to anyone, using almost any content consumption client, from the PC to mobile, from Playstation to your IPTV.

Oh, and have I mentioned RSS is getting integrated just about everywhere?

And that once integrated it's easier to use than almost any other content consumption vehicle?

5] Now I'm starting to repeat myself. RSS is not an app:)

And in a few years no one will even know what RSS is or remember it. It will become an integral part of the internet, which people use without even knowing what they're using.

6] RSS supports visuals almost like e-mail does, and "send to a friend" is achieved via e-mail integration and other tools.

And no, RSS is not replacing e-mail:)

There it is, again. Bring on the next one ...

Online Conversations About RSS Customization and RSS Direct Marketing

A few quick links to conversations following the topics we visited the past week ...

Charlie Wood Changes His Stance on Customizable RSS Feeds
Basically, he agrees with RSS feed customization, as long as it's used in conjunction with individual feeds and not instead of them.

Also in the post is the news that Forrester Research just made available their customizable RSS feeds.

"Users now can create their own customized feeds, based not only on specific, pre-determined categories but also by keywords (so you can choose a technology, company name, or even analyst). The benefit: You'll get exactly what you want in your RSS feed."

Too bad that the RSS feeds on their website are practically invisible ...

Kevin Birody Joins the RSS vs E-mail Debate
... giving his thoughts on why Bill McCloskey is opposed to RSS (yeah, he's an ESP, so it figures:) and painting a larger picture of why RSS matters for marketers. In short, because it reaches the early adopters who are more likely to buy. Great post, with just one little mistake. RSS actually is a trackable direct marketing channel.

Your RSS Marketing Strategy: Deciding How To Deliver Your RSS Content

You're interested in RSS marketing, but there either seem to be so many options of how to do it or you've only ever come accross simple RSS feeds that just don't seem to be the approach you're looking for.

The problem with most RSS marketing plans is that the marketer doesn't really go beyond providing a simple RSS feed for all of his online news or his blog. But since you've been reading this column for a while now you know for a fact that RSS offers so much more.

To get started the right way you need to correctly plan your RSS Marketing strategy, starting by deciding how you are going to deliver your RSS content.

The right way to go, even if you're only starting out with a simple RSS strategy, is to provide individual RSS feeds for:

your individual target audiences,
your different types of content and
even your different content topics.

Think of this as a consequtive list of how to develop your RSS strategy.

Target Audiences
Start by listing the target audiences you want to deliver your content to via RSS. Each of your audiences has different content needs, resulting in different groups of RSS feeds that need to be created for these target audiences. One group for the media, the other for your employees, the other for the general public, the other for your existing customers and so on. You can even go further and divide your master groups in sub-groups, based on their prevailing interests.
Content Types
Now consider the different types of content you want to deliver to these audiences. For example your latest news, your blog posts, your how-to articles, your press releases, your podcasts, the latest posts from your forums, direct communications messages and so on. In most cases these types of content don't mix well together. If someone wants to receive your blog updates, which are full of your company representatives' personal opinions and commentary, they don't want to receive your corporate-speak press releases. If someone is interested in what's happening in your forum and what the latest forum posts are, they don't want to receive your how-to articles in the same RSS feed, simply because these two types of content are so much different. And so on. Essentially, you will need to provide separate feeds for each of the different content types, and you will need to determine what content types you wish to deliver to each of your target audience groups and sub-groups.
Content Topics
Finally take a look at each individual content type for each individual target audience and further break that down by content topic, if needed. And if you're trying to cover many different topics for each content type, you will need to provide different RSS feeds for these different topics, because, again, people interested in topic A are not neccessarily also interested in topic B.

While this may sound complicated, it's really simple once you start doing it.

The point is, this is about giving your subscribers choice of what they subscribe to. Instead of forcing them to subscribe to everything, allow them to subscribe to only what they want and need.

Quite simple, right?

Just remember that you should only break this down as far as it makes sense, keeping in mind the actual content that your target audiences want from you.

Depending on your business, you just might only need to communicate with one target audience, deliver only one content type and deliver only one content topic for that target audience.

Decide How You Are Going to Deliver This Content

Once you have your RSS content mapped-out, you need to consider how you are going to make this content available to your target audiences. This is especially important since it's going to influence the tools you need to get started with RSS publishing

One-Size-Fits-All RSS Feeds

This is about as standard as it gets --- publishing one RSS feed to meet the needs of all of your target audiences at once or publishing multiple topical RSS feeds, which always remain the same. The easiest to do, can be done with any RSS publishing tool on the market

Customizable RSS Feeds

The more and more complex you get with the different feeds you're offering, the more difficult it is for your visitors to select what exactly they want, simply because an individual subscriber might be interested in 10 of your 100 feeds, but he doesn't want to be subscribed to that many feeds by your company.

In this case the best way to go is to also offer your visitors the opportunity to customize your RSS feed à they decide exactly what content type and content topics they want to receive in one or a few RSS feeds they'll be subscribing from you.

The opportunities here are quite endless, as you can allow them to customize their feeds based on topics, content types, authors and more.

If this is the way you need to go because you are offering so much content via your RSS feeds that it makes it difficult for someone to subscribe to only one or a few feeds from you, you will need your RSS publishing solution to support feed customization.

Search-Based RSS Feeds

Search-based RSS feeds are a subset of customizable RSS feeds, and they work just like a search engine. You type in a certain keyword or keyword combinations and the search engine gives you the most relevant or the latest results for that keyword combination.

You can do the same with RSS, allowing your visitors to enter specific keywords and then get the content from you only based on those keywords.

Personalized RSS Feeds

Giving users the choice to customize the content they are receiving from you is one thing, but certain content may actually demand you to personalize the feed using your subscribers personal information.

The most basic variation, used to lift response, is addressing your subscribers by name or using other data about the customer from your database, such as his address, previous purchases etc.

In other cases a bank might want to deliver information directly relating to your bank account, directly via RSS, such as your latest credit card transactions, and so on.

RSS Feeds With Content Targeting

Now imagine that you want to create individualized campaigns to individual subscribers, based on the information you already have in your database about their activities, demographics and so on, for example to send a promotion for product A only to those subscribers that might be most interested in product A.

In this case you will need an RSS solution that can pull this data from your database and then segment your subscribers based on the actual data.

Autoresponder RSS Feeds

Since their introduction, e-mail autoresponders have become a relatively mainstream internet direct marketing tool, although they haven't really made their way to the world of public relations.

The concept is simple à a certain action by your visitors on your website triggers a sequence of e-mail messages, delivered to that visitor, provided you have his e-mail address, over a period of several days.

Direct marketers use this to automatically communicate with the prospect after a certain action, trying to get him to do what they want.

The most common application is offering your visitors a free report, delivered to them via e-mail. After subscribing they start receiving consequtive parts of the report day after day or a every few days, receiving both new information as well as being exposed to the marketer's promotional message.

Other applications include autoresponder messages in relation to transactional e-mail:

Subscribe to a free e-mail newsletter. The first autoresponder message thanks you for the subscription and also gives you access to one of the newsletter issues. A couple of days later, while you're still "hot as a lead", you receive another e-mail, pertaining to the newsletter topic, giving you more advice or information on the topic and trying achieve a sales conversion. And so on.
Complete a webstore order. The first message thanks you for the purchase and recommends an additional product at a lower price. The second message tells you more about the product you purchased. The third messages makes a special additional purchase offer. The fourths message gives you some great additional tips, and so on.
Start an online order, but don't finish it. The first message reminds you that there are still products in your shopping cart. The second message reminds you again, giving you added inscentive to complete the order. And so on

The opportunities are practically limitless, but you get the picture.

Now simply transform this concept into the realm of RSS.

Someone subscribes to your RSS feed. The first couple of content items, spread-out through the first week, serve as a series of welcome messages giving the new subscriber access to your top content and inviting him to actively participate. Your latest feed updates come through as well, but your new subscriber also gets the extra treatment (content) in the same feed.

And now apply this to anything you're doing with RSS, where it makes sense to follow-up with additional information to your new subscribers once they subscribe, of course depending on the feed topic and target audience.

Very few RSS tools today offer autoresponder capabilities, but some do.

To Recap

Think of your RSS publishing strategy and try to establish which of the these publishing models your RSS publishing tool should support:

Topical or Target Audience Oriented RSS Feeds
Customizable RSS Feeds
Search-Based RSS Feeds
Personalized RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds With Content Targeting
Autoresponder RSS Feeds

RSS Industry Night Roundtable II

Pheedo, iUpload and PRWeb are organizing the RSS Industry Night Roundtable II event, following the event we did together last December, coinciding with the Syndicate Conference.

Now, to part II (which I unfortunatelly won't be able to make) ...

Coinciding with Ad:Tech San Francisco April 26-28, the RSS Industry Night Roundtable II aims to assemble a group of the top thought leaders in the RSS industry to discuss key topics that challenge all of us in RSS Advertising. This group will span the disciplines of RSS advertising, RSS manufacture, RSS aggregators and readers, and RSS purveyors and luminaries.

The event is free and seating is limited to 40 people. The event is sponsored by iUpload, PRWeb and Pheedo.

The first RSS Roundtable dinner, brought together some of the pioneers in RSS marketing and services including, Yahoo!, Microsoft, eBay, NewsGator, Simplefeed, Pubsub, Feedburner, Pheedo and Forrester.

The intent of this meeting is to discuss a number of key issues facing our industry and it's chances for continued success. This meeting will also serve as a vehicle for our key industry partners to discuss mutual challenges and viable solutions, as well as come to a mutual understanding of goals and objectives that we all have for the RSS advertising space. Lastly, we will have an opportunity to collaborate, as leaders in the industry, on how we can increase the rate of RSS adoption among information consumers. Case studies on RSS advertising success will also be presented. Attendees will also be encouraged to share their stories.

Where: San Francisco, 10-15 minute walk from Moscone (location of Ad:Tech). Event location details will be sent to interested parties.
Time: 6:30PM - 9:30PM
Date: April 27 (second day of Ad:Tech)
Cost: Free dinner sponsored by iUpload, PRWeb, Pheedo, cash bar
RSVP:: Send an email to bill AT Pheedo.com with your name, email, telephone and company name/address

Topics:
There are so many topics that we can collectively address as an industry, however, it's critical that we focus on the important few that address issues of RSS growth and adoption.

We will focus on key industry issues that are preventing business adoption of RSS. Below are the high-level issues that we'll cover. At the end of the document are additional topics that can be discussed if there is additional time.

--> Lack of standardized RSS metrics
--> Lack of presentable case studies and best practices
--> IRSS mass syndication
--> Actual RSS penetration
--> Rich-media advertising

Attendees:
Ideally, the event will attract around 40 high level leaders from within the RSS and Advertising industries including the following disciplines.

RSS Manufacturer
RSS Advertising
RSS Readers
RSS Services
RSS Convergence
RSS Research

If you are interested in attending, please send an email to bill AT Pheedo.com with your name, email, telephone and company name/address.

New Stats on Podcast Growth by FeedBurner

FeedBurner just released the latest stats on the podcast feeds managed through their system.

a] They manage 44,000 podcasts ...

b] ... with a total of 1.6 million subscribers.

c] Unfortunatelly, as a simple calculation will show, that average only to 36 subscribers per podcast feed, which isn't much, but it's certainly a start.

d] Podcast circulation is growing 20% per month.

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Saturday, April 29, 2006

Good Coupon RSS Idea Gone Bad and 4 Lessons to Learn

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