January 27th, 2007
RSS. All the cool kids are doing it.
RSS is a technology that's beginning to gain steam. In this edition of the Alpine Results newsletter we'd like to take some time to bring you up to speed with this newfangled format. RSS might not be something that you need to add to your website at this very moment, but in the right hands it can bring in a high rate of return for a small bit of investment.
This icon
is the universal symbol for RSS feeds. Keep your eyes
peeled!
But what is it, man?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which is a standardized format for packaging and delivering website content. It lets you share and distribute the information from your website across different channels, giving your web visitors the freedom to choose how they want to consume your content.
Observe real-life RSS in its natural habitat!
Many news sites, including CNN, The New York Times, and even The Onion, offer RSS feeds that allow web visitors to subscribe to new stories and headlines. Some e-commerce sites like ThinkGeek offer RSS feeds for announcing new products.
What's more is that podcasts (regularly updated radio or video shows that are downloadable to your iPod) are packaged and delivered to iTunes via RSS, where you can easily subscribe and manage them to your heart's content.
The RSS feed for a website can usually be accessed by
clicking a link somewhere on the page, often represented as
an orange square 
, an RSS icon 
, or an XML icon 
.
Oregon Business is an Alpine client that has done some great work integrating RSS into their website. Alpine developed an articles management tool that actually pulls in the RSS feeds from numerous other news sites, allowing the editors at Oregon Business to pick and choose which ones will be packaged up and sent to the site. These final stories are arranged into more than 20 different news categories, each of which offers its own RSS feed for subscribers.
For more information, read our case study on Oregon Business Magazine »
Sharing is caring.
With RSS, users are able to consume your content without even visiting your site. Is this really a good idea? We think so. It allows you to give away something of value, with the hope of eventually getting something back in return. It empowers your customers by allowing them to access your content in whatever manner they see fit, and to do with it what they will.
Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood...
Even now, at the dawn of 2007, word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool you have. Personal recommendations carry as much weight as ever, and people still frequently consult their own personal networks when trying to make a decision. By giving away your content you're not only giving your customers something to talk about, but you're giving them a reason to really care about you and your business.
...and your customers are the ones you need.
The reality with website and email marketing is that you are literally one click away from being irrelevant. Most organizations focus on making sales to new accounts, and as a result their existing customers are ironically the least-informed about new products and services. The best way to overcome this is to regularly provide information to your current customers, and RSS is just another way to make sure that your efforts are reaching the right people.
In the next edition of our Results newsletter, we'll talk about how RSS can breathe new life into your email marketing strategy, and perhaps even save it from an untimely demise! Our developers are hard at work building a new tool for Rainmaker that does some hot stuff with RSS. If you can't wait to hear about it, just give us a call. We always love to chat!
Team Alpine
Your Web Marketing Guides
