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Bill Flitter is founder and chief marketing officer of Pheedo. Bill is an established expert on blogging, podcasting, RSS and online marketing trends and best practices and speaks regularly on these topics at industry events. Prior to Pheedo, Bill founded Email Shopping Network and directed its sales and marketing activities until its acquisition by eUniverse in 2002.

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Really Simple Success! An Insider’s View of the Rising RSS Tide

Written on
May 3rd 2006
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by Bill Flitter  |
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Beyond Text Ads

Freestyle Interactive, a full-service digital marketing agency focusing on creative media services, works primarily with clients in the gaming industry, including Electronic Arts (EA). Brian Eakin, associate media director at Freestyle, states that they are just now getting their feet wet with RSS.

Freestyle’s advertising efforts for EA focus on very rich, heavy graphical creative units that incorporate game play visuals and video that help convey the excitement of the game to end users — and this type of creative doesn’t easily translate to RSS. “Although [RSS] definitely has some additional capabilities, it seems to be a little bit more of a text focused approach in some cases,” comments Eakin.

Eakin does see a lot of potential value in RSS over the long term — particularly as a serial communications tool. “I think the most compelling thing for me [about RSS] is just the dynamic nature of being to update the information throughout the duration of the campaign, incorporating it whether its in a creative unit or whether it’s just streaming the data into an end destination that has some strategic potential.”

A lot of how much any firm moves into RSS depends upon client need and demand. In terms of Freestyle’s clients, Eakin says, “They haven’t been asking for it specifically, but they are always asking for innovative solutions… And [RSS] is something that we’ve talked about as a great potential area for opportunity.”

With EA, Eakin views RSS as a supplement to advertising over the short-term. “Over the long term, I see it as a tool that will allow a circle of one-to-one relationships between EA and their customers and those that have an interest in staying up to date with [game] releases and a greater depth of information.”

For many interactive marketers, RSS provides a number of possibilities and potential, but it also lacks a clear role. Clients like to be able to easily categorize and budget for efforts. Because RSS is very flexible and dynamic, it still has a fluid and undefined role for many marketers. “Because it is such a flexible and dynamic medium, where is [RSS] going to fall within larger corporate umbrellas?” Eakin asks. “Is this a PR distribution mechanism? Is it the new Newswire? Is it an opportunity for us communicate more traditional advertising collateral? In that sort of one-to-one relationship with interested consumers. I don’t know exactly and obviously it’s going to have to be paid for from somewhere.”

Malone adds, “In many cases, RSS, because it’s text-based, is being compared to performance of other text-based advertisements or even search… We need to kind of get beyond that and maybe use richer, potentially richer, engaging experiences for the client. Move beyond text in some sort of way, without harming the user experience.”

More People, More Options

As RSS usage increases, more data and best practice information will be available to help advertisers and marketers make better, more informed decisions.

Freestyle’s Eakin sees increased adoption as the key hurdle for RSS. “You need to have enough people in the environment to get an understanding of personal behavior. There needs to be enough critical mass and understanding. If they like something, if they don’t something, if they find a particular application useful or if they ignore it. I just need to be able to see some trends. And, particularly in the case of emerging technology, which I am personally much more willing to suspend judgment and watch it and see if it develops and see if some of the trends are incorrect or correct.”

Many marketers are also eagerly awaiting the next release of Internet Explorer, which includes a homegrown RSS reader integrated into the consumer experience. Says Funnell, “The inclusion of RSS Readers in the next release of Internet Explorer should expand the user base of RSS dramatically.”

The Rise of RSS…

From conversations with marketers, it’s clear that RSS is top of mind, but that the medium itself is still evolving. RSS also has a lot of growing up to do. The scale must increase. The targeting options must increase. The awareness and understanding must increase — and advertisers and end-users alike just need more exposure and experience with RSS.

One thing that is certain, however, is that RSS is different and has the potential to quickly become part of everyday media. In fact, in mid-2005, Jupiter research said that 12% of online consumers used RSS, up significantly from previous studies. Since then that number has grown even more. Nielsen/Netratings recently reported that RSS users visit over three times more websites than traditional online users.

All the signs are there indicating that RSS is growing rapidly and will provide a very dynamic medium for advertisers and marketers in the near future. As with any new technology though, there are fits and starts, and getting in early, trying new things, is the key to succeeding down the road.



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