Blogs: Marketing Through Relationship Building - RSS feeds and instant update notification
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RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it’s as easy as it sounds. Most available blogging platforms have ready to use RSS feeds. An RSS feed sends a notification that the blog, or traditional website, has been recently updated.
To read other blog RSS feeds, an RSS reader, often called an aggregator, is required. Many good ones are available, including Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com, Feedster http://www.feedster.com, Feedburner http://www.feedburner.com, Feed Demon http://www.feeddemon.com, News Gator http://www.newsgator.com, and Kinja http://www.kinja.com. There are many others as well, including services provided by Yahoo and MSN.
To activate one of the services, a subscriber enrolls at the RSS reader site. The process is usually very easy to complete. Once enrolled, the subscriber can add as many blog and website RSS feeds as desired.
For blog marketing purposes, the RSS feed is delivered directly to the RSS reader right on the subscriber’s desktop. With the instant notification that a new blog post has been added, the regular readers are able to access it immediately in real time. As a result, the ongoing blog conversation can continue, further cementing the business and customer relationship.
Conclusion
Online and offline businesses who are serious about developing long term relationships with current and potential customers are well advised to add a blog component to their overall marketing strategy.
By writing regular, helpful blog postings on interesting and informative topics, while keeping the self serving sales and public relations talk to a minimum, a regular readership can be created. Regular readers will return over and over to their favorite business blogs as long as open and honest information is readily available.
Thinking in terms of the needs and wants of the readership, which are always the core values of any relationship marketing program, will turn a blog into one of the most powerful business tools available.
Enabling comments from the visitors, to add their voices to the discussion, will help the business in the short and long run.
Comments are about initiating and continuing a dialogue between business and customer. As that conversation builds, a sense of trust is nurtured and grows. That trust, in turn, becomes a long term loyal customer, thanks to the open and honest conversation of the business blog.
A lasting business relationship is born.
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