I have to apologise to Amazon for missing on two of their RSS content delivery options, which I previously missed.
Sorry guys, and thank you for the heads up.
1. Product Discussions
Most Amazon.com product discussions are now available also as RSS feeds. An excellent way of keeping track of the conversations surrounding your favorite products, and certainly something more websites should implement ... especially those that provide content that people are pashionate about.
The first one that comes to mind is TV.com and their community show reviews.
2. Customer Reviews by Author
Like a product reviewer? Subscribe to their Amazon.com reviews RSS feed.
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
Part of the upcoming 2007 edition of the RSS Marketing e-book are also the interviews we are doing with various internet marketing experts and RSS practitioners. In the following days and hopefully not too many weeks, we'll be posting those interviews here.
I'm sure most of you have heard of Bryan Eisenberg before. Bryan is the leading worldwide authority on internet marketing optimization and website persuasion architecture. He was also one of the few marketers that got on the RSS Marketing bandwagon early on.
Recently, Bryan started exploring RSS Radars as a tool to increase the traffic to their optimization portal GrokDotCom.com, increase visitor loyalty, position the website as the key news source for internet optimization ... and naturally facilitate online sales of their books and consulting services. Take a look here.
But while most RSS Radars are based on contextually filtering content from selected third-party RSS feeds, the GrokDotCom.com RSS Radars go far beyond anything else we have seen on the market so far.
Instead of relying only on contextual content filtering to select the most relevant third-party content, they are employing a number of additional filters, such as the amount of linkage the story is receiving, source relevance and credibility, and so on ... and they're calling it a discovery engine.
What are their RSS Radar marketing goals?
How their RSS Radar is different from what you can generally see online?
What concrete results are they achieving?
What you can learn from their RSS marketing?
All of these answers, and more, available in the audio interview.
Click here to listen to the MP3 file [14 minutes; 3 MB]
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
What works best in RSS marketing? How are RSS subscribers different than e-mail subscribers? RSS publishing best practices if you want to sell?
These and other practical questions are all revealed in the 2nd part of the RSS interview with Bryan Eisenberg. Without doubt, this is one of the best and most practical RSS marketing interviews we've done so far.
In part 1 of the Bryan Eisenberg RSS interview we focused on how the GrokDotCom.com is going beyond traditional RSS Radars by employing intelligent content aggregation tools, instead of relying just on contextual filtering, and what kind of results they are achieving.
In part 2 of the interview we move beyond RSS Radars to their overall RSS marketing strategy.
In this interview find out about ...
1. How RSS subscribers are different from e-mail subscribers and why?
2. How to sell products through content-rich RSS feeds?
3. Do RSS subscribers mind seeing product promotions in your feeds?
4. When to publish your latest RSS content to get the most links from other websites and most readership?
5. What's the right RSS publishing frequency for promotional content?
6. Why branding your RSS feed is important and how to do it?
Click here to listen to the MP3 file [8:33 minutes; 2 MB]
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
Defining Online Conversion: Combining Action and Exposure Elements
Conversions aren't just about new sales or subscribers versus your website visitors.
First, let's review the conversion rate definition from Defining Online Conversion: What Is It?:
The conversion rate is a % of unique actions that result from unique exposures.
The conversion rate metric can be used to measure anything you want to track, analyze and optimize, and is by no means linked only to sales or subscribers and your website.
Here are just some quick examples of conversion rates not used as often as the standard sales/visitors CR:
sales / e-mail clicks
sales / e-mails delivered
order finished / add to cart
sales / ad impressions
phone calls / website visits
product recommendations / product views
etc.
There are countless combinations available, depending on what specifically you want to measure and optimize.
Let's return to our conversion rate definition for a second:
The conversion rate is a % of unique actions that result from unique exposures.
As you can see from the definition, the conversion rate is a combination of actions and exposures, with a simple formula of:
conversion rate = actions / exposures
Consequently, conversion rate optimization begins first with defining what you want to measure and optimize, and then by defining the action and exposure elements that help you get to the numbers you need.
Let's presume you want to measure the overall effectiveness of your e-mail e-zine in driving sales.
The overall effectiveness of your e-mail e-zine can be measured as a conversion between the number of unique e-mail messages delivered [exposures] to your list and the number of unique sales generated [actions] from the e-mailing. [CR = unique sales / unique delivered e-mail messages]
However, this will only give you the overall effectiveness and a trend to watch over a longer period of time, telling you whether you are increasing or decreasing your overall effectiveness. It does not tell you what you need to optimize to increase your sales.
To determine this, consider the steps needed to make the sale via the e-mail campaign.
It starts with getting the click from the e-mail message delivered to your website. Increasing the number of clicks requires increasing the attractiveness of the Calls-to-Action [CTAs] in the e-mail message.
Hence you need to know how effective the CTAs are in driving recipients from the e-mail to the website, by measuring the conversion between the number of unique e-mail messages delivered [exposures] and unique clicks [actions] to your website [CR = unique clicks / unique delivered e-mail messages].
This will of course only give you the basic information --- getting more will require measuring each individual CTA.
A click of course does not mean sales, so the next step is measuring the conversion from the e-mail clicks [exposures] to purchases [actions] --> [CR = unique purchases / unique e-mail clicks]. This will help you optimize the actual landing pages to which you lead the subscribers to your e-mail list, using your e-zine.
And finally, to fully optimize your process you may want to measure the conversion on the sales process level to help you optimize each step that leads to the purchase after the click, such as how good the product landing pages are in getting clickers to add the product to the shopping cart [CR = unique add to carts / unique e-mail clicks].
Much like everything else in series so far, this is just a simplistic demonstration, here primarily for the purpose of helping you see how to combine action and exposure elements.
In the case of e-zine optimization for sales, you would also need to measure relevant clicks (since only relevant clicks will increase your sales), different CTAs, open rates and so on.
The point is, combine different actions and exposures to come up with conversion rate formulas that will impact your bottom line.
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
Online conversion is not only the result of online activities. Rather, the conversion process can be initiated by an offline channel, such as direct mail, catalog, flyer, TV advertising, mobile, print advertising and even radio advertising ... or even prompted by brand or retail.
On the other hand, the conversion doesn't really need to happen online, but it could happen in a physical retail store, over the phone or even using a mobile phone.
Consequently, measuring and optimizing conversion for multi-channel merchants, as well as for B2B marketers, where conversion is most often achieved in a live meeting, is a complex issue.
What Initializes Conversion?
Why do we even care which channel initiated the conversion?
Optimizing for the Source Consumer
Different sources of conversion always generate different results. A TV customer will convert at a different rate than a catalog customer, and an SEM customer will convert at a different rate than a print customer. The point is, each source of traffic delivers a different type of prospect. Being able to tailor the on-site experience to these different types of customers impacts our sales success.
Optimizing the Source
By measuring the conversion, and naturally sales, per source of conversion we are able to directly attribute revenues to that source. That allows us to optimize both the source (advertising) and the conversion touch-point (website). It allows us to evaluate each source, decide whether that source is performing according to our standards, and in the end helps us optimize our ad spend by channel.
So far so good. But it gets even more complex.
Imagine this scenario:
TV advertising generated demand for our product.
But instead of going to our website, the consumer goes to Google and does a search for a phrase he remembers from the TV ad.
Google delivers him to our website, where he does not make a purchase, but rather subscribes to our e-mail e-zine.
Our new subscriber then receives 5 more e-mail e-zine issues, before deciding to make a purchase.
But instead of coming directly to our website from the e-zine issue to make the purchase, he again uses Google to visit the website.
He finally ads the product to his shopping cart, but then changes his mind.
Because we already have his e-mail address and have identified an abandoned shopping cart, we initiate an abandoned shopping cart e-mail program.
After 3 follow-up e-mail messages from the abandoned shopping cart e-mail program, the consumer finally completes his purchase and converts.
Or in graphic terms ...
This isn't a sci-fi scenario, but rather a reality we're seeing in our webstores every day.
For example, in my own experience I'm finding that in our case e-mail e-zines don't convert the majority of subscribers directly, but rather facilitate the conversion indirectly. Subscribers receive the e-zine, which builds their trust, builds demand and gets them ready for the purchase. But when making the purchase, that same subscriber still enters the website through a Search Engine.
While looking at the conversion from this complex viewpoint does present difficulties, it simply needs to be done.
Just take a look at the number of steps outlined above. Each of these steps represents an optimization opportunity, enabling you to further increase sales. And every step also represents a threat that decreases conversion.
But in addition to the question of how to measure this process, the next logical problem is how you actually attribute conversion to the appropriate channel. It is clear in this scenario that TV started the process. So while each of the following steps assisted in achieving the conversion, the TV advertising needs to be attributed for starting the sales process.
The problem here is that the above scenario is really a simple one. In a multi-channel environment, the paths are much more complicated and can shift from channel to channel, including offline channels, before the purchase is concluded.
Also in many cases it will be difficult to establish the initial channel that started the sales process. If for example you're conducting a full-scale offline campaign through TV, print, outdoor and radio, all at the same time, all of these media will generate online search, consequently making it impossible to determine from which media exactly the prospect came.
Furthermore, we must not forget that an offline media cannot be taken out of the equation once the sales process has already started. Even while the consumer is receiving our e-mail campaigns, he may be exposed to our offline advertising, further facilitating the purchase decision.
Where Conversion is Achieved?
As if measuring the impact of various sources of traffic and conversion were not enough of a challenge, we also need to take into account that the conversion can be completed using an offline channel.
Many website visitors will make the purchase through your call center, using the phone number on your website.
Multi-channel merchants with their own retail stores or even with retail partners will often see the conversion happening in the physical store.
A website visitor may order a print catalog from your website, and then make the purchase using the phone number in the catalog ... or go back to the website and make the purchase there.
In B2B, online will often generate the lead, which will then be processed in-person by live sales reps.
Unfortunately we can never expect to be able to measure the multi-channel environment with 100% precision, but we certainly can get close enough.
What we have to understand though is that measuring multi-channel conversion is not a one-time deal, but rather a long-term process that will slowly enable you to increase measurement precision.
We will return to these issues in more detail in many of the future posts on this blog.
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
Only a few more weeks until the ACCM (Annual Catalog and Multi-Channel Merchant Conference) event in Boston, one of the best DM conferences of the year.
If you're in Boston or are coming to the conference, drop me a note.
I'll be speaking on RSS and other new internet marketing media, together with Scott Voight of Silverpop.
If you're at the conference, definetly reserve the Monday 3 PM slot to come hear us. The last presentation we did together with Scott in London was a huge hit, and we promise not to dissapoint:)
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
While the original plan for the RSS Diary blog was leaving on hiatus until the 2007 edition of the RSS Marketing e-book is done, the FeedBurner acquisition by Google is a story just to important to pass up ... especially all the implications it might bring into the world of RSS Advertising, and RSS Marketing as a whole as well.
So, yes. FeedBurner, a leading RSS metrics and RSS advertising company was just acquired by Google. Finally confirmed after weeks of speculation. I won't go into the details of the acquisition, as you can read more about it at the FeedBurner blog and just by following the news at Google News.
Here, we'll take a look at the implications this brings to the world of RSS Marketing. Just my predictions of course:)
1. RSS Metrics Will Finally Become Integrated With Web Metrics
In my book, all marketing/communications channels should be judged using the same metrics, such as conversions, cost-per-order, cost-per-subscriber, sales etc.
Although you could already do all of this with RSS, it required some tinkering.
But, as FeedBurner gets assimilated into Google Analytics, tracking the key marketing metrics should become a breeze, giving everyone access to crucial internet optimization data.
2. RSS Metrics Moving Closer to the Mainstream
With RSS Metrics being integrated directly into Google Analytics (which I'm sure will happen very soon), marketers might finally start actually measuring their RSS feeds.
Means better RSS Marketing, finally.
3. RSS Advertising Going CPC
Although FeedBurner is cautions to provide any details about how their CPM pricing model might change with the integration of their ad services into Google, I'm quite certain that RSS advertising will move the way of cost-per-click.
Means less revenues for RSS feed publishers, but better ROI for you, the advertiser.
4. RSS Advertising Moving Closer to the Mainstream
RSS Advertising will finally reach the mainstream, utilizing Google's massive advertiser database.
Prices will go up, and RSS content monetization will again start becoming the talk at industry events.
On the plus side, it also means Google will be able to attract more RSS feed publishers, meaning more RSS ad inventory for you. Your RSS advertising reach potential is about to explode, finally enabling you to reach the masses using RSS Advertising.
5. Trouble for Other RSS Advertising Companies
I love Pheedo, another leading RSS Metrics and RSS Advertising company, but the FeedBurner acquisition makes me wonder what's in store for them as Google starts pushing RSS advertising to their massive database of advertisers, especially as part of an integrated online advertising service.
It's certainly not the end of other RSS Advertising companies, but they might all soon see themselves transforming from RSS ad networks to RSS media planning & buying consultants.
Which would be a shame, especially considering the advancements in RSS Advertising developed by Pheedo.
6. Better Targeting for Google AdWords Advertisers (We Wish!)
Advertiser demand seems to be growing quicker than the inventory offered by Google.
The obvious choice for Google (in addition of course to increasing ad inventory through additional reach, media expansion through the content network, and expansion to new ad channels, like RSS and banner inventories) is to offer better targeting, for a premium price.
As a marketer, I clearly want to place my ads in front of the most relevant prospects. Keyword targeting is OK, but adding behavioral on top of that introduces another filtering element to my media planning, enabling me to really pin-point the users I want to see my ads.
How about displaying search ads only to people who have already visited my website, but haven't made a purchase? Google AdWords and Google Analytics integration could offer exactly this.
How about displaying search ads only to people that respond to marketing content banners on other websites? Integrating Google AdWords with one of the latest Google acquisitions, DoubleClick, can get us exactly this.
Of course, I might also want to target my ads to people who are subscribed to X e-mail newsletter. What do you know, Google already has that information through their Gmail service.
And then, how about displaying search ads only to people who are subscribing to other RSS feeds about RSS marketing? Integrating Google AdWords with FeedBurner would make this possible.
Now just take these concepts, put them all together, and expand them to banner advertising, feed advertising and any other online ad channel Google develops/acquires in the future.
This may either be science fiction or Google's actual long-term masterplan. As more advertising budgets rush to the internet, available quality ad inventory will continue shrinking.
By introducing such targeting, integrating the metric and capabilities of all of their properties, Google could come as close as possible to total ad targeting, the holy grail of marketing we are all striving towards.
Things will get much more interesting ... and soon.
If I were an ad agency, I'd start developing a targeting department, focusing on targeted media buying.
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
While RSS has certainly become well-established with most marketers, few are using it to its full advantage.
Now, while the original Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS e-book focused on explaining RSS marketing in a world where RSS was just starting out, the 2007 edition will focus on optimizing your RSS marketing and getting as much as possible from it.
The 10-step plan is one of the tools we will be introducing in the 2007 edition, once it's launched (getting there:).
Going through this plan will help you get as much as possible from RSS, on all levels. It will help you bring your RSS marketing to the same level as your e-mail marketing, and more.
But for now, here's a very quick summary of the steps from the process view point.
1. Develop your RSS marketing strategy
It all starts with a strategy that defines all the other elements of your RSS marketing plan. Developing your RSS marketing strategy consists of planning your RSS usage for each marketing function and integrating it with the rest of your marketing mix, and setting the goals for each of the marketing functions.
2. Start using RSS for business intelligence
Conducting business intelligence using RSS is the first step to improving your marketing overall. You will start by finding the right RSS Reader for you, define your business intelligence needs, find the relevant information sources, and implementing the right RSS business intelligence tools.
3. Plan your overall outbound RSS content strategy
Outbound communications using RSS are the most complex part of RSS marketing, with numerous choices available to you. During this step you will define your outbound communications target audiences, define your goals for each of them, decide on your RSS feed publishing model, define your RSS feed content and define your RSS feed content sources.
4. Define your RSS marketing requirements & select your RSS marketing vendor
Defining your RSS marketing technology requirements and selecting the appropriate vendor to supply you with all the features you need to support your strategy.
5. Plan your RSS content strategy on the content-item level
Once you have prepared your overall RSS content strategy you need to plan your RSS content-item level strategy, which essentially means getting the right content in place within the feed to meet your objectives. This consists of defining your writing style, defining the content item structure and defining your calls-to-action.
6. Promote your RSS feeds internally
Simply publishing RSS feeds on your website is not enough to generate subscribers. In this section you will define your RSS feed subscription process, define the RSS feed promotion locations for your feeds, develop the subscription offer and implement the other neccessary technical items to increase your subscription growth.
7. Promote your RSS feeds externally
After setting everything correctly through your own channels, it is neccesary to promote the RSS feeds using external websites as well. This process includes optimizing your RSS feed for the search engines, submitting the feed to the search engines and performing periodic pinging.
8. Measure and optimize your RSS feeds
Measurement and optimization are the two areas that can have the most profound impact on your RSS success. This consists of defining the required metrics, establishing the technical capacities for measurement, measuring and optimizing your content strategy and measuring and optimizing your subscription generation tactics.
9. Use RSS to syndicate your content to other online media
Use RSS to get your content published on other relevant media. The neccessary steps for syndication are defining your target media, defining your RSS feed content, preparing the right syndication tools and promoting your syndication offerings.
10. Use RSS to enhance your website and brand
Enhancing your website is about adding third-party content to enrich the user experience, while enhancing your brand is about providing your own branded RSS Reader.
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
I interviewed Greg Reinacker of NewsGator end of January, as part of the interview series for the 2007 edition of the RSS e-book.
NewsGator is one of the leaders in the Enterprise RSS space, a provider of top-breed RSS Readers and also a branded RSS Reader vendor.
So, you can imagine we had alot to cover.
In part 1 of the interview, find out about how Windows Vista and Internet Explorer are changing the RSS landscape ...
How are Vista and Internet Explorer changing the world of RSS marketing and RSS content consumption?
How much and how quickly will they make an impact?
Are they really the game changer every marketer expects them to be?
What changes can we expect?
How can marketers take advantage of the advances Vista offers for RSS?
Click here to listen to the interview [MP3; 8 min.]
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
In part 2 of the RSS interview with Greg Reinacker of NewsGator find out how online media can take advantage of RSS beyond publishing RSS content.
Why should online publishers care about branded RSS Readers?
Does it still make sense to provide a branded RSS Reader, especially with the wide adoption RSS is getting through Internet Explorer 7?
What kind of value can publishers bring to RSS Readers?
How can online media enhance the user experience through third-party content via RSS?
Is visitor ownership still a possibility, or are services like MyYahoo! owning the game? How can online media compete?
How can small businesses compete with large portals and large media sites?
Does syndicating your content via RSS mean that you're giving up content?
Is RSS becoming a significant traffic driver?
How can companies profit from pulling together relevant content on a specific topic from third-party sources?
Is there a difference in how summary and full-text feeds drive visitors to your website? When to use which?
Best practices for re-publishing third-party content on your website
Can you put ads next to re-published RSS content on your site? How to do it?
Click here to listen to the interview [MP3; 14 min.]
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.
Site Info
Links
Articles
Videos
News
Site features
Members
Styles
Library Card
Articles
Videos
News
This isn't a sci-fi scenario, but rather a reality we're seeing in our webstores every day.
For example, in my own experience I'm finding that in our case e-mail e-zines don't convert the majority of subscribers directly, but rather facilitate the conversion indirectly. Subscribers receive the e-zine, which builds their trust, builds demand and gets them ready for the purchase. But when making the purchase, that same subscriber still enters the website through a Search Engine.
While looking at the conversion from this complex viewpoint does present difficulties, it simply needs to be done.
Just take a look at the number of steps outlined above. Each of these steps represents an optimization opportunity, enabling you to further increase sales. And every step also represents a threat that decreases conversion.
But in addition to the question of how to measure this process, the next logical problem is how you actually attribute conversion to the appropriate channel. It is clear in this scenario that TV started the process. So while each of the following steps assisted in achieving the conversion, the TV advertising needs to be attributed for starting the sales process.
The problem here is that the above scenario is really a simple one. In a multi-channel environment, the paths are much more complicated and can shift from channel to channel, including offline channels, before the purchase is concluded.
Also in many cases it will be difficult to establish the initial channel that started the sales process. If for example you're conducting a full-scale offline campaign through TV, print, outdoor and radio, all at the same time, all of these media will generate online search, consequently making it impossible to determine from which media exactly the prospect came.
Furthermore, we must not forget that an offline media cannot be taken out of the equation once the sales process has already started. Even while the consumer is receiving our e-mail campaigns, he may be exposed to our offline advertising, further facilitating the purchase decision.
Where Conversion is Achieved?
As if measuring the impact of various sources of traffic and conversion were not enough of a challenge, we also need to take into account that the conversion can be completed using an offline channel.
Many website visitors will make the purchase through your call center, using the phone number on your website.
Multi-channel merchants with their own retail stores or even with retail partners will often see the conversion happening in the physical store.
A website visitor may order a print catalog from your website, and then make the purchase using the phone number in the catalog ... or go back to the website and make the purchase there.
In B2B, online will often generate the lead, which will then be processed in-person by live sales reps.
Unfortunately we can never expect to be able to measure the multi-channel environment with 100% precision, but we certainly can get close enough.
What we have to understand though is that measuring multi-channel conversion is not a one-time deal, but rather a long-term process that will slowly enable you to increase measurement precision.
We will return to these issues in more detail in many of the future posts on this blog.
How Can RSS Power Your Internet Marketing and Publishing?
Find out more in the most comprehensive and best guide on RSS for marketers, as acclaimed by leading RSS experts, developers, marketers and publishers.
Click here and get the step-by-step guide to taking full marketing advantage of RSS.