The 411 on RSS: Syndicating Content Gets Your Message Directly to Consumers

When you get down to it, all any marketer wants to do is get their message heard by the people who will find it most relevant. E-mail is one way to reach your audience, provided you can traverse the gauntlet of spam filters and other gate keepers. But RSS can get readers to filter your content directly to their desktop. We recently talked about the benefits of using RSS feeds with Rok Hrastnik, international Internet director of Studio Moderna Group, which operates in the U.S. and 19 Central and Eastern European Markets. A site like Amazon, for example, could use RSS to offer relevant information about a product such as a tablet PC, linking to video demos on YouTube, user reviews on Epinion and expert reviews on ZDNet. But, he stresses, keep the customer’s needs front of mind. “RSS needs to be more relevant than e-mail,” says Hrastnik. “You can unsubscribe in a blink of an eye.”

ECENTRIC: Why do you think RSS has the potential to be such a powerful marketing tool?

HRASTNIK: Obviously, RSS is an incredible content delivery channel with a few distinct advantages over e-mail. It’s 100% opt-in, and delivery is 100% guaranteed, because your content won’t get lost in spam filters. Plus, subscribers can unsubscribe at any time with just a few clicks, which actually isn’t a bad thing. It means savvy consumers will remove the subscriptions that aren’t relevant to them, making them pay more attention to you … if you are relevant, of course.

The problem is that many marketers completely ignore all the other benefits of RSS feeds. You can easily use RSS to conduct online business intelligence and market research, or generate traffic online, through using RSS for search engine optimization. It also provides a great opportunity to enrich your Web site with relevant third-party content, for increased visitor loyalty/frequency, sales conversion optimization and SEO. All of these things relate directly to the needs of direct marketers. There is so much potential, but so little of it is being used.

ECENTRIC: What are the major uses of RSS that direct marketers are missing?

HRASTNIK: The key issue is that marketers are looking at RSS as a new simplistic channel, and not understanding all of the direct marketing implications, like lead generation, e-commerce, customer relationship management, affiliate marketing and transactional messaging. RSS can be used for all of these, and much much more. But it’s usually not.

ECENTRIC: What are the main challenges or pitfalls of RSS that markers should avoid?

HRASTNIK: Marketers should stop thinking of RSS as something entirely new, and start implementing the good old tested DM tactics that have worked so well with e-mail and direct mail. You need to make sure that your content is relevant for the subscriber and makes him want to come back for more. Give the reader concrete benefits for subscribing to your feed. Saying “this is my news, please subscribe” just won’t cut it. Increase your conversion rate by adding bribes, such as a free whitepaper, additional content access or coupons. And make sure you’re using targeting and personalization, just as you would with an e-mail marketing program. This will ultimately help you analyze the behavior of your subscriber and optimize your RSS strategy.

ECENTRIC: What types of calls to action work best in RSS?

HRASTNIK: This is a difficult question, since RSS can in fact be used to deliver any type of content, from how-to articles, blog updates, forum updates and corporate news to product items, offers, coupons and so on. Essentially, you can deliver anything via RSS, and each type of content will have a different call to action that will work best for it.

ECENTRIC: How do you see clients judging the ROI of their RSS initiatives?

HRASTNIK: The research we’ve done shows that RSS initiatives yield a highly positive ROI, and anecdotal evidence certainly supports this. The biggest issue is that very few marketers are actually measuring anything at all with RSS. We’re only just getting into the “counting clicks” phase, and are still far from most marketers measuring conversions, analyzing clickstreams or calculating cost per orders. The funny thing is, RSS lets you do all of this and more. You just need to start doing it.