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Practical RSS Marketing Strategies, Part II: Publishing
This is the second in a three part series on RSS marketing and advertising which try to show RSS strategies in the context of a real-life case study. The first part focused on advertising strategies and used PriceRunner as the example. The second part will discuss strategies from the perspective of an online publisher, hopefully showing how publishers and advertisers can work together to bring out the full potential of RSS advertising.
Geeks with Blogs is a blogging community of more than 1100 bloggers that focuses on software development and new developer products - pretty much all things geek.
Recently, Geeks with Blogs and Microsoft partnered to create a large-scale marketing campaign to promote Microsoft Visual Studio Express by leveraging the community of bloggers at Geeks with Blogs and get them talking about the new product in their postings. Microsoft leveraged Geeks with Blogs‘ assets — large community of knowledgeable bloggers and their content — to promote and raise awareness of their new product while Geeks with Blogs created revenue from the content being produced by Microsoft - a match made in heaven…
The Campaign
Geeks with Blogs and Microsoft created a contest where the bloggers (most of whom are also developers) of the Geeks with Blogs community would download the new Visual Studio Express product and use it to create a video game. While using the product, the bloggers were encouraged to blog about their experiences with the product and the process they used to create the games. The bloggers then submitted their games to Jeff and Julian, who run the community, who judged the games and gave out a free Xbox 360 to the creator of the best game.
On the RSS side, ads were inserted into the Geeks with Blogs community’s feeds that alerted readers of new games that were created, displayed direct quotes from participating bloggers about the contest and product and ultimately helped build awareness and buzz about the contest that highlighted Visual Studio Express. This proved to be an integral part of the campaign’s success because a large portion of the tech-savvy readers of the Geeks with Blogs community view the content via RSS.
Relate to the Audience
In the last edition of this series, I wrote about how advertisers need to closely identify and analyze their audience. The same goes for publishers — but once that is accomplished, relating to them is an important next step. Because RSS is regarded by consumers as a pure content medium, the enclosed advertisements need to tell a story, not just push a product.
In the Visual Studio Express campaign, Geeks with Blogs and Microsoft used content from specific bloggers in the advertisements and then published the ads in each blogger’s feed. After reading several blogposts about the contest and how their favorite blogger was using Visual Studio Express, the reader is presented with the advertisement - an actionable item that allows them to purchase the product for themselves. But the ad creative is not from Microsoft trumpeting the virtues of the product and trolling for a sale. Instead, by making blogger quotes the content of the ad, the reader can relate to the personal nature of the content. A blogger that they read, respect and trust has validated the product. There is no hard sell, just compelling content from a trusted source about a new Microsoft product in the form of an ad.
Don’t Always Advertise a Product
Because it can’t be said enough, I’ll say it again: RSS users want content, not sales pitches, in their RSS feeds. Geeks with Blogs used its bloggers’ content in Microsoft’s ads to publicize the contest and the video games that were created. Using quotes and examples of some of the video games that were created, Geeks with Blogs and Microsoft piqued the interest of the blog readers by involving them in the contest.
In this case, the ads were not about the product, they were about the contest. The ads highlighted the potential of the product and positioned it as a technology that was enabling everyday programmers to make cool video games. Readers wanted to get in the action, try it for themselves, and just because the ad was not a direct link to the purchase page for Visual Studio didn’t keep the readers from purchasing the product.
American Idol is a good, mainstream example of this strategy. With American Idol, viewers vote on their favorite performers, keeping them very engaged. They form a connection with the show and their favorite singers that ultimately leads to them purchasing American Idol CDs, supporting the winner of the contest and buying the products that are placed within the show - Coke, Ford, etc. Similarly, the Geeks with Blogs campaign gets the readers involved in the contest and ultimately leads them to buy the product.
It’s not ALL About the Advertiser
From this case study, we can clearly see that the publisher can take a very active role in rolling out an advertising campaign to create revenue from their main asset - content. While inserting third-party ads into RSS feeds has proven to be successful, as we can see from the Geeks with Blogs campaign, when publishers free their content to be used alongside the marketing efforts of an advertiser, the opportunity is huge. Furthermore, the monetization of the publishers’ content is just the beginning. By engaging bloggers and readers, Geeks with Blogs built up buzz about the contest that promotes itself and its bloggers in the process. The campaign was a success, and it set the stage for future campaigns by generating excitement among the community.
Key Takeaways
- Leverage your assets. Integrate your content, audience or other unique aspects of your publication into the advertising.
- Contribute content to the advertisement that the reader can relate to. This helps you and the advertiser tell a story instead of hard-selling a product - a best practice in RSS advertising.
- Engage your readers in the campaign by allowing them to take a proactive role.
- Think outside the ad. How can the advertisement, and the goals of the advertisers, fit into a broader marketing and content strategy.
- Work in tandem with the advertiser to create compelling creative and a great campaign.
The final part of this series will focus on strategies around direct marketing with RSS, so stay tuned…
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