[Unleash the Power of] Marketing The Complete Step-by-Step Guide for Marketers on How to Profitably Implement RSS Marketing to Generate Traffic, Increase Sales, Manage Customer Relationships and Conduct Business Intelligence the Easy Way Written by Rok Hrastnik, MarketingStudies.net [Unleash the Power of] RSS Marketing Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................2 Introduction: Setting the Stage for RSS Marketing ........................................3 I. Know! What is RSS? ......................................................................... 15 The Quick Introduction to RSS.............................................................. 16 Understanding How RSS Works & Comparing It With E-mail........................... 35 What Kind of Content Can You Publish via RSS? … Or How RSS Isn't Just About Delivering Blog Content and Getting News From The New York Times.............. 49 Seeing the Technical Side of RSS From the Business Perspective .................... 50 II. Understand! The Business Case for RSS................................................ 67 Why RSS Really Matters for Marketers: The Business Case for RSS ................... 68 Taking a Structured View of the Business Case for RSS ................................ 87 The Disadvantages of RSS .................................................................. 120 III. Integrate! RSS Marketing Strategies.................................................. 122 RSS Marketing Mix Integration............................................................. 123 RSS Content Strategies ..................................................................... 126 RSS Marketing Models and Marketing Mix Integration ................................. 226 IV. Act! Your 9-Step RSS Marketing Plan ................................................ 240 1. Start Using RSS as an End-User......................................................... 241 2. Start Using RSS for Business Intelligence............................................. 250 3. Plan Your Outbound RSS Content & Marketing Strategy ........................... 260 4. Define Your RSS Marketing Requirements & Select Your RSS Marketing Vendor ................................................................................................. 268 5. Promote Your RSS Feeds Internally.................................................... 270 6. Promote Your RSS Feeds Externally ................................................... 277 7. Measure and Optimize Your RSS Feeds ............................................... 279 8. Use RSS to Syndicate Your Content to Other Media ................................ 285 9. Use RSS to Enhance Your Website ..................................................... 299 2 [Unleash the Power of] RSS Marketing Introduction: Setting the Stage for RSS Marketing Real RSS Results From Real Marketers Will these real results from real marketers motivate you to learn about RSS … and then start implementing it as part of your marketing strategy? • Increased Online Sales W. Atlee Burpee & Co (the garden seed people) saw their RSS strategy help them increase November 2005 sales by four times ... just from a trial RSS feed featuring a "seed of the day". [source: MarketingSherpa.com] • Improved Click-Through Rates Lockergnome.com, one of the most popular tech sites on the Web today, used to distribute more than 400.000 e-mail newsletters weekly. Today, they have 5 times more RSS subscribers than e-mail subscribers and their RSS click through rates are 500% greater than their e-mail click through rates. [source: Lockergnome] • Online Advertising Standalone RSS ads are achieving an average 7.99% click-through rate. Compare that with traditional and rich-media online ads with CTRs ranging from 0.20% to 1.17% CTR, according to a report by DoubleClick, and the opportunities of advertising in RSS feeds immediately become more inviting, although the reach is still only getting there. [source: Pheedo] • Visitor Loyalty RSS users visit top news sites more frequently than RSS non-users, meaning they are more loyal to their favorite news sources. [source: Nielsen/NetRatings] 3 [Unleash the Power of] RSS Marketing • Public Relations 87% of influencers are in fact using RSS to keep up with news and other information. If you're not using RSS chances are you won't be able to either reach them or reach them affectively enough. [source: Nooked] • Subscription Generation In mid-2005 RSS subscriptions were growing at 5% weekly. [source: FeedBurner] Let's face it --- marketing today is all about grabbing attention and then keeping it. As much as these quick examples are here to grab your attention for RSS they also demonstrate how in fact RSS will help you grab and keep attention through all of your key marketing functions. Really, it's all about attention … About Stories and the Attention Economy Each day marketers are faced with rising challenges of grabbing attention from the wary consumer or the B2B decision maker. But they don't want to give attention, unless they feel we deserve it or they need it. From e-mail to search, there are more and more competing marketers fighting for that same piece of attention … every single day. Millions of marketers fighting for the one consumer, and it's the consumers' choice who they give attention to. "Free shipping!" "Get now, pay later!" "Two for the price of one!" "Best quality!" "Best prices!" "Order within 5 minutes and get a free gift!" (which incidentally isn't really worth anything, and they'll give you the gift if you order after half an hour anyway) "Only 5 more days until this amazing offer expires!" (and until it's available again after a 5 day rest) "Lifetime guarantee!" "Free white paper!" A ruthless attention game in a ruthless attention economy. 4 [Unleash the Power of] RSS Marketing And make no mistake about it --- today, with gazillion offers out there wanting to get a piece of the consumer's wallet, it is all about attention. About who grabs it, earns it, keeps it, uses it … and monetizes it. And about who gives the consumers more value and better (at least "perceived better") value as payback for the attention. How will you win attention? What's your marketing strategy for taking attention from your competitors, and even more importantly, keeping it? As Seth Godin would put it, it's "all" in the stories you tell to your market and the stories you live and use to better explain your value to the consumer. Well, almost, but not quite "all". It's also about getting the story across to the consumer. • Crafting the story to resonate best with your audience and the current market situation. • Making the story visible. • Making the story findable. For those that actually want to find it. • Making the story accessible … the way that your audience wants to access it. • Bringing (delivering) the story to your target audience. • Keep bringing your "stories" (content) to your target audiences. • Empowering consumers to give feedback on your story. • Enriching your story to give it more lasting appeal. After all, what's a story worth if no one can "read" it and then act on it? This book is not about crafting your story. Read Seth Godin for that … or any other book on marketing strategies for that matter. It's about the other side of the coin --- helping you get the story out to your target audiences and helping you keep getting its parts to your target audiences again and again, day in and day out. The "content delivery" side of the coin … What's Stopping Jane Doe From Giving You Her Attention? Jane Doe is either the average (there's really no such thing as average, but just for the sake of the argument …) consumer or the high-powered CEO or the lawyer next-door or a purchasing officer at a target company or even a reporter … or even your employee. It doesn't really matter. 5 [Unleash the Power of] RSS Marketing Jane represents your target audience, or better yet, the different target audiences you are communicating with online. But communicating with Jane demands that you master all the different elements of getting the story across to her in the right way. Crafting the Story Communicating with Jane demands that you know what she wants, what your competitors are saying and even what everyone else that has Jane's attention is saying. Your story won't live in vacuum, so make sure that it's crafted to appeal to Jane, also taking into consideration the other "attention-grabbers" - your competitors, the influencers and everyone else - talking with her. From developing your content strategy to creating your content every day, you need to make sure it's as relevant as possible to your target consumer. That it's spot on with what's happening in your consumer's world today. The keywords here are market research and business intelligence. The only problem is that as the market grows bigger and bigger by the second (and it is --- in February 2006 Technorati reported that on the average there's one new blog created every second) so is the scope of market research you need to do to be the most relevant. Market research is no longer something you do when you start-up or every year when you prepare the next annual business plan, but rather something you need to do every day. Welcome to the world of streamlined market research … and press clipping just won't do the job. Making the Story Visible Jane is shot at by thousands of your competitors with their own stories every day, even multiple stories per second. If your story isn't contextually