If you're wondering how to get started with RSS marketing, here's a basic 7-step plan that should provide some needed guidance. Use these steps as your personal RSS marketing checklist to get your started and help you see whether you're on the right track.

1. Start Using RSS as an End-User

The first step to getting started with RSS marketing/publishing is getting your own RSS aggregator, subscribing to other RSS feeds and just seeing and understanding how it all works.

There's a variety of RSS aggregators to choose from. The most popular and recommended are:

• MyYahoo! (web-based aggregator)


• Bloglines (web-based aggregator)


• NetNewsWire (Mac)


• Firefox (browser with integrated RSS features)


• NewsGator (web-based aggregator and Microsoft Outlook integrated aggregator)


• FeedDemon (desktop aggregator)


• Pluck (IE integrated RSS aggregator)


• SharpReader (desktop aggregator)


• YouSubscribe (Outlook integrated aggregator)

2. Plan Your RSS Feeds

Planning your RSS feeds might be the most important thing you do about RSS. You most certainly need an RSS feed for your e-zine, your news section, your articles etc.

But how you will package these, what others you might want to offer and other important issues, are much more complex than we can cover in this space. A precise overview of all of the opportunities is available in the "Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS" e-book.

You might also want to do follow-up (autoresponder) RSS feeds, feeds for your affiliates, feeds for your employees or business partners, feeds for the media, and so on.

3. Create a List of RSS Marketing/Publishing Requirements

Then create a list of requirements for the RSS marketing/publishing solution you will be getting to publish your feeds. The list should answer the basic questions, such as:

a) Do you want to integrate RSS publishing with your existing content management system?

b) What RSS metrics you'll want to watch? For example, are you satisfied with just a rough idea of how many people are reading your RSS feed, or are you interested in more precise subscriber counts, clicks and even individual content item popularity?

c) Do you need feed personalization, such as personalizing your RSS content with the receipient's name and other details?

d) Do you want to provide your subscribers with the ability to precisely select the content they want to receive in your RSS feed (customization), such as by content topic, keywords, authors and so on?

e) Do you want the RSS feeds to be hosted on your own server?

f) Do you need the ability to target promotional messages or other content to your individual RSS feed subscribers, for example based on their previous clicks and reading habits, or even their subscription data?

g) What's your budget?

h) Etc.

More information on all the different possibilities provided by RSS is available in the free Business Case for RSS report.

4. Choose an RSS Publishing Tool and Create Your First Feed

After you've prepared a list of requirements you can start searching for the appropriate RSS marekting and publishing tool. These come in a few general categories:

a) Desktop feed generation tools
Desktop software you can use to inexpensively, quickly and easily generate RSS feeds, but doesn't allow for more advanced features such as content targeting. The market leader in this category is FeedForAll.com.

b) Hosted online RSS publishing solutions
If you don't want to be bothered with a desktop tool and having to constantly upload your RSS feeds to your server, you could try a basic hosted online RSS publishing solution, such as MyRSScreator. Using their simple service you don't even need your own website to publish via RSS. Another good choice, especially if you're in PR, is PressFeed.

c) Advanced RSS marketing solutions
These will cover more advanced RSS marketing capabilities, such as metrics, scheduled autoresponder messages, database building capabilities and similar. The strongest contenders in this market are SimpleFeed, Nooked, MyST Technology Partners and some other strong players as well. Solutions aimed especially at smaller companies include RSS Auto Publisher and ByPass.

d) Other options
There are many other options as well, one for example being using your existing content management system to publish RSS feeds, or using a blog publishing solution such as MovableType.

5. Promote Your RSS Feeds through Your Own Channels

a) Create an RSS presentation page, on which you explain: what RSS is; how the visitor will benefit from using RSS; where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!); how they can subscribe to your RSS feeds; and why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds.

Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds. In addition to the standard orange RSS button, also include direct links for subscriptions via MyYahoo! and other relevant services, such as Bloglines.

b) Now promote this RSS presentation page as much as you can using all of your available channels.

c) Promote your RSS feeds directly below your e-zine subscription box, and always "above the fold". Promote your RSS presentation page (telling your visitors that's where they can subscribe to your feeds) on the most prominent locations of your site.

d) If you're publishing more than one RSS feed, but rather a couple of focused topic feeds, promote each of them next to their topics on the site.

e) Promote your RSS feeds in all of your e-mail messages and e-zine issues.

f) As for the content, don't just say "Subscribe to receive news from my site", but rather prepare compelling copy to specifically show your visitors why they need to subscribe to your content in the first place and why they should subscribe specifically to your RSS feeds.

e) Enable Auto-discovery
Just include the following piece of HTML code in the section of your webpages and you'll be all set:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="ENTER_RSS_URL">

6. Promote Your RSS Feeds Through External Channels

a) Submit your feeds to the appropriate search engines and directories. The best list can be found here.

b) Ping the RSS aggregation sites each time you update your online content, letting them know that new content is available to be indexed. You can use this free service: http://pingomatic.com

7. Other Key RSS Activities

a) Measure and optimize your feeds

b) Syndicate your feed content to other web media

c) Display third-party RSS feeds on your site

These 7 steps cover the basic phases of getting started with RSS marketing and can be used for both complex and simple RSS marketing strategies.

To get detailed information on each of these and find out more about RSS marketing strategies, tools and approaches available to you, take a look at Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS.