RSS marketing is quite different and unique as compared to most of the other internet marketing tools or technologies. In RSS marketing, success or failure lies in the hands of the consumer or the internet user. Although this may sound scary from a business perspective but at the same time there are certain advantages.
There are some online businesses that have garnered a good click-through-rate varying from 7% to 10% using RSS feeds and this means that it has actually outperformed various other mediums of online advertising. Of course this number can’t be reached overnight. There has to be a strategy in place and the execution has to be perfect to derive such a high click-through-rate.
For those who have not been able to capitalize using RSS marketing and for those who are new to RSS marketing, here are some tips that will definitely help you in leveraging consumer control in RSS. The tips are as follows:
Feed characteristics
There are many websites who have their feeds while others don’t. It is not necessary that the feeds in the websites that have them will be created equally. There are quite a few variables that have to be considered during content delivery using RSS feeds. Let us look at an example: Some websites like My Yahoo is able to display only the headlines of their RSS feeds while websites like Bloglines are able to show almost the entire feed or complete article content. So there are some publishers who will provide only partial feed while others might provide entire content in the feed.
In marketing terms, this means that you should know how you will present the content and what the marketing message will look like. If you are not aware of the various characteristics of a feed, then RSS marketing can be a risky proposition. It is important to hence understand the feed characteristics and identify the methods of distribution. You need to think and imagine in advance how your consumer will receive this feed, and how it will help them to make an informed marketing decision, which will help your business in the long-run.
One of the prevailing issues is that of full feed vs. partial feed. Let us take another example. If an online publication has 5,000 RSS feed subscribers and the publisher is offering only the first paragraph of each of their articles in the RSS feed then the reader will have to click through each of the feed to view the entire content. There are many internet readers or users who will skim quickly through the feed content click through directly to the website. In such a scenario, if the publication has placed any advertisements in their feed then the consumer will miss it completely. So the online publication might get a high readership rate but will be a bad option for RSS advertising because the click-through-rate is low.
Hence it is extremely important to evaluate the various feeds where you would want to advertise.
Make content interactive
If your content is not interactive or engaging then it will not attract too many RSS consumers. Consumers are not looking for saleable content; they are looking for useful and relevant information. For example if you are running an advertising campaign for the launch of a new paint then you need to target the different home improvement blogs and websites as a part of your RSS advertising & marketing campaign. In a home improvement blog, you will find the audience who will be interested about the various aspects of home improvement and how it can be done and what all they can use. This will boost your advertising efforts.
Another important aspect is the matter, the concept in the advertisement. Don’t try to sell the product, try to attract people with a story. If you present a nice story with information, facts, research analysis, benefits, pros and cons then it will increase a reader’s interest and thirst for knowledge. This will be advertising at its best.
Fresh and creative content
There is nothing like fresh and creative content. How many times would you read about a product in articles that have been rewritten over and over again? It will be boring, monotonous and put you off. This stands true for all consumers. Hence the need is for refreshing content that will hold a readers attention and keep adding new content. A thumb rule in RSS feeds is to have creative content in every six new posts.
The bottom-line is attracting consumers with intellect and not the same old story.
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