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RSS 101 for Marketers

Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li shares her insights from two recent reports on RSS for marketers: "RSS 101 for Marketers" and "Using RSS as a Marketing Tool"

The executive summary for "RSS 101 for Marketers" is described as:

In Forrester's February 2005 Marketer Online Survey, 57% of marketers said that they were interested in using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) as a marketing channel. Why the interest when just 2% of North American online adults use RSS? The combination of reduced email marketing effectiveness and growing consumer advertising backlash drives marketers to test RSS — from creating their own feeds to putting ads into RSS feeds themselves. This report introduces who uses RSS in North America and the implications of RSS adoption. The second report in the series looks at best practices for marketers using RSS.

And the exective summary for "Using RSS as a Marketing Tool" is explained as:

Despite its resemblance to the Wild West, best practices for how marketers can use Really Simple Syndication (RSS) are already emerging. In this second of two reports, Forrester outlines why marketers should experiment with RSS, especially marketers with customers who fit the profile of early RSS adopters. Even if it's something as simple as putting press releases in an RSS feed, marketers will benefit from early exposure to distributing information via RSS — and receive valuable feedback from key constituents on what types of content they would like to have.

While the first summary reveals that only 2% of American households use RSS, Charlene reminds us on her blog that this number doesn't include all the people who may be using RSS (for example, through My Yahoo!) and don't realize it. Also that young consumers between the ages of 12-21 were more likely to be using RSS -- 5% of online young consumers say they use RSS. 

In the comments section of Charlene Li's blog, Lockergnome's RSS & Atom Tips points out what I was thinking, that "this data, although based on a survey of 68,000 households, is highly contradictory to other available research of RSS usage, especially the 12% figure from Jupiter Research and the PEW research, which shows that 9% of Americans online have a good idea of what RSS is."  Regardless, I suspect this number is only expected to grow by the end of 2005 and as marketers understand the value.

Jeremy Pepper does a great job summarizing these reports (for PR as well) here.

Posted by Cymfony on August 3, 2005 at 02:26 PM | Email this post Permalink

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