A New Marketing

“Revolutionary” is a word that gets thrown around a lot, so you’ll understand my hesitation in using it. However, something is happening now that just might fundamentally change the way people get a lot of their information.

Every morning, my Dad wakes up, grabs his coffee and spends about half an hour reading the newspaper before work. The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the Philadelphia Inquirer, has decided what might be important/of interest to my father. And not only my father, but most of the newspaper readers in the greater Philadelphia area.

Every morning, I also wake up and grab my coffee, but instead of paging through the newspaper, I fire up my laptop and spend 30-45 minutes going through the new posts in my RSS reader. And who decided that these stories/posts would be important or interesting to me? I did. I didn’t have to worry about the greater Philadelphia area. I didn’t even have to worry about the rest of my family. Just me. I’m my own Editor-in-Chief.

This could be a revolutionary change. No longer do you have to let someone else decide what matters to you, now you control what information you recieve. Love the NY Times’ book reviews, USA Today’s entertainment news, and the Wall Street Journal’s economy reports? No problem. As DIY-EIC you can create your own media outlet.

The impact of this on marketing is huge. As people become more selective, they might not be interested in the entire paper anymore, but the segmented content that matters to them. Pretty soon, RSS feed advertising will become a more efficient and effective way of reaching people compared to traditional media outlets. As the feeds become more segmented, targeting audiences will become easier, for example the NY Times already has 67 individual feeds.

If you’re trying to stay ahead of the game, then you can’t ignore the power of RSS and the growing number of DIY-EICs. After all, if you don’t understand the way that people are interacting with their media, then how can you expect to reach them?