Build Customer Relationships and Loyalty With RSS

By Bill Flitter

How is your online business different? What keeps customers coming back? How do you get customers to keep your site top of mind?

The simple answer to all these questions is customer relationships. Many online retailers offer the same products and services today, and the relationships that retailers build with their clientele become the main driver of customer loyalty.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS), is a 100 percent opt-in (and easy opt-out) content delivery method that offers retailers a spam-free, customer-controlled subscription medium to easily communicate with customers. RSS makes managing customer relationships easy and can help your business develop a loyal customer base that's constantly tapped into the latest news, reviews, products and services your company offers. Today, savvy online retailers are making the jump to RSS and moving their e-mail newsletters to this new, more consumer-friendly medium.

CREATE CONTENT, LET THE CUSTOMER DECIDE
Because RSS is 100-percent consumer controlled, the burden does not rest on the retailer to determine what content to send to which customers. Instead, retailers can offer a large amount of content across several feeds spanning many interests and categories, and leave it to consumers to decide what they receive. While one customer may want up-to-the minute price changes, another may want to hear about new products. RSS automatically updates subscribers as your content is updated and allows customers to choose exactly what they want to read.

LIVE SHOPPING LISTS
As the holiday season approaches, many consumers are putting together their shopping lists. RSS offers consumers a real-time monitor for deals, low prices and other product information to help them with their purchase decisions. Customers can subscribe to several feeds from retailers that carry the products they are looking at, creating a customized virtual shopping list and personal shopper. When they are presented with the right product at the right price, they can click through to the website and make a purchase. From here, the consumers are most likely still subscribed to your RSS feeds, as they have had a positive experience with your business and can be marketed with future offers and content. They are becoming loyal customers.

However, cluttered inboxes, spam filters, e-mail blacklists and phishing scams are all elements that keep marketing e-mails from reaching customers. RSS is a pure one-to-one relationship medium that only contains the content you provide--the many problems with e-mail are non-issues with RSS.

FUTURE OF RSS IN RETAIL
Many retailers are catching on to RSS, as demonstrated by large online and offline retailers--such as Sears and Target--adopting RSS to distribute their weekly advertisements. Countless smaller retailers are on board as well--experts proclaim 2007 to be the year that consumers truly get RSS. Implementing RSS feeds is an easy and low cost venture that offers retailers the opportunity to more efficiently communicate with customers and quickly increase customer loyalty and strengthen relationships.

Bill Flitter is vice president of marketing and founder of Pheedo in Emeryville, Calif. He can be reached at (510) 923-9250.