RSS is popping up in the marketing efforts of a growing number of retailers

[Kristijntje]

One of retail’s oldest brands became one of the first to offer an RSS feed to its customers when W. Atlee Burpee & Co.’s Burpee.com launched a feed early last year, and as with the company’s regular e-mail, any product mentions are linked back to the site and the opportunity to buy. The channel is driving traffic and sales...

“One of the hardest things about an RSS feed is that you have to be able to provide a steady stream of content to keep it fresh. You can’t just post once a month,”

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=17045

[mandy]

... in an age where legitimate marketing e-mail has fallen prey to spam overload, RSS—really simple syndication—is getting some retailers’ attention as a way to rise above spam...60% of marketers polled said spam filters are reducing the effectiveness of their e-mail marketing campaigns. And even when permission-based e-mail makes it past spam filters, overburdened consumers may ignore or delete even e-mail they signed up to receive.

Part of the appeal of content delivery via RSS for consumers is that the only content that the channel delivers is content they’ve asked for: as a subscription-only model, it’s 100% spam free. That’s part of its appeal to marketers, too: Though subscribers ultimately may or may not choose to view the content, the delivery rate is 100%.

...the more immediate nature of RSS feeds and options on feed delivery that already exist or that are on the way stand to create more of what the industry is calling “seducible moments” between marketers and their customers: zeroing in on them with the right offer at the time they are ready to buy.

“Blogs are not for everyone. Podcasting definitely isn’t. But RSS is one of those no-brainer technologies that everyone should be experimenting with,” she says.

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=17147

[Bidera]

RSS has moved beyond the realm of blogging that is true.

Our auction site offerred RSS feeds for over a year before eBay finally woke up and started offering the same functionality.

I have noticed an alarming tendency though. There are many leech sites, which generated completely junk content purely though RSS feeds. I really hate seeing our feeds appear on such sites.

[amy]

I have noticed an alarming tendency though. There are many leech sites, which generated completely junk content purely though RSS feeds.

There are programs available that use RSS feeds to generate 100's of pages of fresh content from RSS feeds based on high-payout AdSense keywords. Google and Yahoo's search are drowning in those spam sites.

[jezebel]

Nuke 'em all 

100 of them http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_an...index.html

A press release for another http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb245110.htm

Are you allowed to get that feed? Yes! In fact, RSS is designed to make the distribution of any form of content easy. The reason that an author, news organization or corporation’s content is syndicated is because they want other people to subscribe and post that syndication. If they didn’t want it out on the web, they wouldn’t syndicate it! So we use it.

The TOS of many RSS feeds say otherwise.

[mandy]

[RSS] provides an alternative way to inform users of new content from sending them e-mails or hoping for a placement in the main Google or Yahoo search engine. Also, unlike search engines that update on at most a daily basis, an RSS feed is constantly being updated...

For webside owners, there are many advantages.

The first is little known: a reduction on server load. A web server is just like a regular home PC, it can only handle a certain amount of tasks at any one time. So while it's great to have visitors, you only really want those that will make you money and provide page views. A vistor who just looks at the homepage and then clicks off when they see its not been updated is worthless; they haven't gained anything nor have you...

The other key advantage for a website owner who offers RSS feeds is the ability to communicate directly to customers or users without the hindrances of e-mail spam filters or search engine technology...

full article: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/articl...71,00.html

[mandy]

As the clutter and static of the Internet grows, how can online retailers best reach shoppers? Is there a better way than using paid search, e-mail, affiliate programs and other conventional marketing tools? That’s the big question. And Hammacher Schlemmer & Company Inc. is giving serious thought to the answer, which might be RSS feeds...

“RSS cuts through the noise. It lets users control information,” says Bateman, who is exploring the RSS option as a way of getting product and company news directly to shoppers. “Folks are ready to use this technology. It keeps them informed without overwhelming them with details and noise.”...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=17674

[mandy]

Another article on retailers using, and choosing, RSS feeds in addition to, or as a replacement for, email marketing.  Hint. 

Looking for new ways to reach consumers, retailers like eBags, ICE.com, TowerRecords.com and others are using RSS, or "really simple syndication," to feed product alerts to Internet users who have set up personalized Web pages on Yahoo, Google and other sites.

"I don't know how many e-mails you get a day, but I can't keep up," said Jon Nordmark, the chief executive of eBags. "Rather than delivering a slightly relevant message to a person's mailbox, this allows us to get customers very detailed information directly."

By giving merchants another free way to reach consumers, these alerts serve as a hedge against the recent move by AOL and Yahoo to start charging for some commercial bulk e-mail deliveries. More importantly, retailers see them as a way to reach consumers who are growing weary of commercial e-mail...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/A0Pv5M5R...ping.xhtml

[mandy]

Another related article:

Like most e-retailers, DVDEmpire.com does e-mail marketing, among other vehicles, via an e-mail newsletter that goes out once a week. But it’s moving toward the greater use of RSS feeds as an e-mail alternative, with the goals of making RSS delivery of the newsletter an option this summer, and customizing the daily feeds it already does with customer-specific content and coupons.

Unlike e-mail, “You don’t get spam blockers, you can get the content you want, and it’s a lot easier to get to things that you want to read without going to the site. You just open up your RSS reader,” ...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=18397

[jezebel]

I love RSS. 

I hate spammers who put my feeds on their splogs.