Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

The Internet Is Finally, Primarily A Content Platform

From siliconalleyinsider.com

It used to be the Web's only real killer app was communications -- email. But these days people use the Internet for content consumption more than anything else.

Users spend 88% more time consuming content on the Internet each month in 2009 (7 hours) than they did in 2003 (3 hours, 42 minutes), according to a study conducted by the Online Publishers Association's Internet Activity Index.

Whereas people used to spend 46% of their Internet time communicating in 2003, in 2009, that number is now down to 27%. As indicated in the chart above, content consumption is up to a 42% share from 34%

ShoppeSimple annoucing new enhancements to TransactionalRSS Feed Analytics Tools

What separates ShoppeSimple? Feeed Analytics. TransactionalRSS's platform enables a merchant to use tools that manage/grow the TRSS channel.

New ShoppeSimple Features

from RSCheck.com

What really separates ShoppeSimple TransactionalRSS (TRSS) from plain old RSS?  One of many compelling answers: Management and Analytics. ShoppeSimple’s SaaS-based TransactionalRSS platform is the only place to get a rich suite of tools that online marketers need to manage and grow the TRSS sales channel.

Case in point:  VP of User  Experience Jake Ingman just announced two new analytics features for the TransactionalRSS management side that should help our clients and peak the interest of many an online merchant:

1. The “Today” Row

This row on the analytics page provides up-to-the-second information about the pageviews, product click-throughs, and order conversions for the current day.

2. Campaign Tracking

ShoppeSimple stats now support Hub traffic source segmentation!  That means you can add a unique identifier to the end of your ShoppeSimple Hub URL, and it will be displayed separately in your detailed statistics report (and soon, in your summary table as well).  Some email campaign programs add variables to the end of your URLs automatically.  If you don’t use a program that adds these variables for you, you can add them manually.

For example, if you wanted to track visitors that came through your email campaign, you could modify your Hub URL like this:

Your generic hub link:

http://hub.shoppesimple.com/for/yourcompany/

Your email-specific hub link:

http://hub.shoppesimple.com/for/yourcompany/via/email/campaign/23/

This would tell the ShoppeSimple statistics program that those visitors came “via: email” and “campaign: 23″.  If you don’t have a campaign id, you can just use the /via variable.

There’s more, of course.  As usual, check out www.shoppesimple.com to see how it looks to the consumer; and have a look at www.shoppesimple.net to get a sneak preview of the next phase — a first of its kind opt-in prospecting portal for online merchants.

Let us know what you think — and if you want to learn more

For more information click on the Contact Us link at the top right of the home at RSSCheck.com

Jump starting your catalog sales with TransactionalRSS -- TRSS

Have you considered using TransactionalRSS (TRSS) starting the week before the drop of the latest catalog drop  through the first few weeks of the catalog mailing to announce your catalog is on the way. The TRSS feeds should focus on on key items from the catalog.  Announcing the catalog mailing and introduction of new collection or products items from the catalog will help jumpstart the book sales.  To learn more check out RSSCheck.com contact us at info@rsscheck.com

iDEAS to BUILD your brand in a continued downturn

Check out this video from http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24361.asp and then contact ShoppeSimple who can put your New Arrival and New Seasonal Offerings in front of your consumers every day 365 days.

Worried about being to promotional and as a result loosing contribution margin? Then ShoppeSimple can give you a cost affordable way to let your customers know about merchandise you want to show them.

Through ShoppeSimple's TransactionalRSS (TRSS) Content Management System (TCMS) you can now digital merchandise your product line to consumers who have requested to see you merchandise every day

To learn more check out RSSCheck.com and also ShoppeSimple.net for more information email info@RSSCheck.com or phone 612.349.2740

Take a peek at our new online customer acquisition portal at shoppesimple.net

From Federated Media

Boing Boing

Boing Boing attracts more than 5 million unique visitors to its site each month, and has over 600,000 RSS subscribers. This mirrors my experience of email to RSS. The power of TransactionalRSS or TRSS like RSS is not in the collection or growing a massive TRSS subscriber file but in its ability to provide a consumer with promotional or product offerings everyday or multiple product offerings every day 365 days a year.

This is a very different strategic approach then what you tend to do with email subscriber files. thegies

ShoppeSimple August over July 2009 up over 250%

ShoppeSimple gross Client Revenue up more than 250% August over July 2009. Can we help your online business? You bet we can. Check out RSSCheck.com

Invading inboxes

There is no invasion of an email inbox if you are using the TransactionalRSS channel called ShoppeSimple

But more importantly your customer has suggested they are interested in your products and want to hear from you everyday, 365 days a year. That not only dramatically increases your site visits , but helps build impulse sales at a higer Average Order Value. To learn more about ShoppeSimple go to RSSCheck.com and contact ar Sales Consultant at 612.349.2740

ShoppeSimple's Transactional RSS is is a fast efficient way for merchants to provide product and promotions offers to consumers. To also learn more about Shoppesimple.com click here Click Here

Invading Inboxes by Morgan Stewart imediaconnection.com

Remember the notion of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? In the heat of pressure to build lists, marketers start to ignore the simplest truths. No one likes spam. It is a nuisance. Yet, when marketers need to add names to their lists quickly, they turn to the open arms of list rental and email append vendors who prey on desperate marketers. "Oh, no," they will say, "our list is all double opt-in!" Maybe they did opt in somewhere, but they never double opted in to your program. Nope, you simply barged your way into their mailboxes uninvited.

If that is not bad enough, know this: Customers complain when you arrive uninvited to their mailboxes, and this affects your reputation within the ISP community. Don't be surprised if you run into deliverability problems as a result of these practices. Some companies will even help you navigate these issues by setting up separate IPs or URLs for these mailings. But honestly, if you need to be that sneaky to make it work, maybe it was a bad idea to begin with.

Now that I have your attention, there are good ways to approach list rental and email append -- they just aren't what most people advertise.

List rental is legitimate when you are sending your email to a known publisher's list. Many publishers have regular sponsor mailings that go out to their subscribers. In this instance, you are not only renting the names, you are renting the reputation of the publisher. Before cutting a check, subscribe yourself and determine if a sponsored mailing from this publisher is more likely to be interpreted as a beneficial service or spam. Trust your gut; if it seems fishy, it probably is.

Email append only makes sense if subscribers opt in. Traditionally, email append is handled on a opt-out basis, but this leaves you with a list of people who simply never respond. You may ask the append vendor to send multiple requests on your behalf, but at the end of the day, you want responders, not dead weight.

RSS Subscribers or Twitter Followers: Which Are Worth More?

http://gigaom.com/2009/08/01/rss-subscribers-or-twitter-followers-which-are-worth-more/

By Blake Snow 

Mark Ormond can’t get his “followers” to do anything. After they increased to several hundred only days after creating a Twitter account, the Internet marketer was encouraged by the prospects. Now he wonders how much influence he really has over the fast-growing but unproven community.

“They don’t click on anything I share,” he says of his followers, admitting that he sometimes propagates links to online ventures he’s involved with. “I get a way better response from RSS subscribers,” he adds, “regardless if I’m genuinely sharing something or commercially promoting it.” It’s a fair criticism. And one that hasn’t been fully explored. So just how loyal are Twitter followers? And which provides a more captivated audience: Twitter or RSS?

“Under a direct comparison, I would say that RSS subscribers are worth more than Twitter followers,” says Daniel Scocco, proprietor of Daily Blog Tips and purveyor of 8,000 Twitter followers. “A Twitter account with 1,000 followers has a much smaller reach than a web site or blog with 1,000 RSS subscribers.”

As it stands, Twitter followers are at a significant disadvantage over RSS subscribers, because the former are less engaged than the latter. This is due to a number of reasons:

1. Lack of context. Finding value in a character-restricted tweet is a lot harder to do than a dynamic and expandable RSS item. As a result, it’s a lot easier to tell a story and make a lasting impression via RSS than Twitter.

2. You don’t have to work for it. It takes more effort to subscribe to an RSS feed than to follow someone on Twitter (i.e., choosing your reader, selecting the right feed, and so on, compared with simply clicking on “follow”). Consequently, subscribers have a greater vested interest in what’s being broadcast than who they are following.

3. Spam. Ashton Kutcher may have been the first to record 1 million Twitter followers, but only the Fail Whale knows how many were legitimately interested in his affairs. Twitter is combating the problem, but there’s no such thing as spam subscribers.

4. Deficient continuity. Unlike RSS, unread tweets or status updates “drop off the stream” — that is they are not stored and labeled for a follower’s later use. An RSS reader, on the other hand, keeps everything tidy in reverse chronological order, so subscribers don’t miss a thing (unless they want to).

5. More noise. Twitter’s open API is great. But it comes at a price. Because third-party platforms are allowed to tweet on a user’s behalf, readers have to filter an increasing number of tweets they may have not originally signed up for. RSS, on the other hand, comes directly from the source.

6. Vanity. Being able see who’s following whom dilutes the value of Twitter, perhaps inadvertently. Instead of judging individual Twitter accounts by the utility of their postings, some readers follow and expect to be followed in a childish and unwritten law of reciprocity, resulting in even more noise.

This isn’t to say Twitter accounts can’t be highly influential, just that they require a lot more skill on the part of the author to engage his or her audience, says Scocco. “It really depends on the content of each tweet, and how the author interacts with his audience. People who are very active on Twitter and are always trying to add value through their tweets can still enjoy good click-through rates.”

That said, the active Twitter user said he thinks “having a web site or blog is far more important,” adding that he would trade multiple followers for one extra RSS subscriber in a heartbeat. “I would need to test first to find the optimal valuation, but I am guessing it would be between 5 and 10 Twitter followers for each RSS subscriber.”

Image courtesy of Twitter Tees by Threadless.

Email Click Trough Rates...are your ready to try an new online media channel?

E-mail click through rate in Q1 '09 was 6.1% however lower for apparel (4.1%) and specialty retail (3.1%) and declining.

Full report:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007192

With email penetration stats as poor as the above doesn't it just make sense to explore a new online marketing channel? TransactionalRSS can help you build deeper relationships with your customers, send the product information that is wanted and therefore opened by top tier customers, generate higher lifetime value site visits and close more business both from your current customers and convert new buyers from email and your site visits.

For more information check out RSSCheck.com