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The Buzz About RSS - How you can use RSS in your marketing communications |
We know you're familiar with the benefits of using email marketing in
your arsenal of communications tools. If you haven't heard the buzz
surrounding the latest tool for communicating with customers and
prospects, you soon will. It's called RSS (Really Simple
Syndication), a relatively new technology for publishing that allows
readers to seek out content they're interested in rather than it
being delivered to them.
RSS allows the interested party to subscribe to a very specific
stream of information - news stories, advertisements, special
interest articles, etc. The content must first be published to RSS,
called an RSS feed (accomplished via xml). Second, the person
receiving the content must have an RSS reader, an application or
client that supports RSS feeds. (In some applications, this
capability is already built in. If not, a simple web download will
get you started.) The RSS reader pulls content published to the
selected RSS feed and displays it for the subscriber to read. The RSS
reader continually checks RSS feeds for new items on a set schedule -
every 20, 40, 60 minutes, etc. - and pulls any new items it finds.
RSS AND EMAIL
RSS and email are similar in that both are great ways to
communicate electronically. They also have unique strengths. With
email, you can provide your audience a complete branded experience.
You can push readers to your website, track who opened your message,
clicked a link, etc. All of these aspects are an e-marketer's dream.
Conversely, your email list is only as good as your opt-in process.
Depending on how you gathered your list, your readers may or may not
be truly interested in hearing from you.
RSS targets readers who are actively pursuing your published
information. With RSS, the only way your reader will receive items
from you is if he or she specifically subscribed to your RSS feed.
RSS subscribers are your most captive audience. Additionally, your
feed will always be delivered and it will always be delivered to a
place where it's not competing with anything else. Unlike a typical
email inbox where your message competes with messages from other
senders, your RSS feed stands alone.
Will RSS replace email? In a word: No. RSS still faces some
challenges. Though it opens the door to a great dialogue between you
and readers, it doesn't lend itself to branding as easily as email
and there are no mature systems in place to track RSS subscribers and
their activity. Additionally, the reality is that the majority of
your prospects still need a push from you before they take action.
Email will remain a robust tool in customer communication.
HOW TO MAKE RSS WORK FOR YOU
How can you make RSS work for your business model? Think of
anything that's timely or valuable to your customers: product
updates, new services, special offers or sales, press releases,
events, new hires, etc. Then publish them to an RSS feed. This is
information you are likely publishing to html currently on your
website. Now all you need are subscribers. Still sound a bit
complicated for you? SubscriberMail can help. With our integrated RSS
generator, you can easily publish content from Content Manager to an
RSS feed in just a few quick steps. Give us a call, we'll show you
how. 866-622-2600.
RECEIVE OPT-IN NEWS AS RSS
Give RSS a try! Subscribe to our Email Marketing News RSS feed.
Just copy and paste this URL in your RSS reader:
http://feeds.subscribermail.com/rss/9fecfa0e884d4810b357b19ce2d9ad9c.rss
Need more information about RSS, like how to set up an RSS
reader? Download our white paper,
An Introduction to RSS.
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