RSS for Direct Marketing

[toprank]

I am curious if anyone has implemented a RSS feed for product promotions? As in daily sales, specials, closeouts, that sort of thing.

I guess RSS readership at about 5% (Pew Internet & Americal Life Study) is probably still too low for any type of mass marketing, but it seems an ideal platform for certain types of promotions.

Imagine someday being able to view the weekly grocery specials via RSS that you would normally get in your Sunday paper. Or the other inserts offered by big box retailers.

[toprank]

Found an application of using an RSS feed for direct product sales with the ClickBank RSS Feeds (http://www.ambatch.com/cbrss/). You can select product categories to generate the feeds and add your affilate id to earn commissions.

I have no doubt that as RSS feed usage increases, we'll see RSS emerge as a direct sales channel. Not a dominant channel, but a compliment to email and web sites.

[Bonz]

There's a discussion about delivering product data in RSS feeds going on here (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5866).

Coupon and deal sites are delivering their new promotions via RSS more and more and it fits well into the RSS model since there's new stuff every day.