RSS & Podcast Marketing Get Tangible

A series of recent articles provide nice snapshots of RSS marketing applications:

eWeek.com (Aug. 25): At this point, 30 percent of companies with $50 million or more in annual revenue have deployed RSS feeds...while another 28 percent have indicated they intend to offer RSS feeds this year.

Companies with rapidly changing content may find that feeds generate sales and drive Web site readership, particularly when audiences are made up of impulse buyers. For example, Continental Airlines now has a feed to promote vacation packages, while American Express is testing feeds to advertise special events and travel updates.

In addition, some companies are using feeds to save money, since RSS/XML feeds are less expensive to publish and deliver than e-mail.

InformationWeek (Aug. 26): Podcasting can reach very targeted audiences or large masses of people, without costing them a penny to listen. Oracle is among the latest companies to embrace podcasting, which is the act of publishing digital-audio broadcasts to MP3 players such as Apple Computer’s iPod and the Dell Jukebox via the Internet. Oracle, which began offering podcasts from its Web site in May, now envisions technologists donning earphones as they traverse its Oracle OpenWorld conference next month. Oracle will publish two 10- to 20-minute podcasts daily during its user conference on subjects such as middleware, applications, databases, and grid technologies, designed for the ears of the software developers and database administrators who buy its products.

Earlier this month, IBM began offering podcasts from the investor section of its Web site on the use of its technologies in automotive, retail, health care, and other industries. Podcasting isn’t limited to tech vendors: Purina, a subsidiary of Nestle S.A., is supplementing its traditional advertising with podcasts published every other week for veterinarians and pet lovers. They include interviews with vets and other experts on animal training, pet surgery, medical insurance, and behavioral issues.

WebProNews.com (Aug. 25): Amazon.com is using RSS to announce their bestsellers and to help their users keep track of releases they are most interested in.

Some affiliate managers already communicate with their affiliates using RSS. You can of course use it to communicate with any other target audience as well, such as your employees or team-members, and even your company owners.

FindSavings.com uses RSS to deliver savings coupons and related information.

Lockergnome uses RSS to provide visitors with the latest downloads and relevant software. Yet again other companies are using RSS to deliver product updates and patches directly to their customers, just as they become available.

A few hundred content publishers are using RSS to deliver audio content, such as .mp3 interviews and even "radio" shows.

Textamerica.com allows people to post pictures, videos & text from their mobile phones and then make this content available via RSS feeds.

Other companies are using RSS to deliver whitepapers and other educational content, even PowerPoint presentations.

Tags: marketing rss podcast business