| |
| |
|
Marketing Resource Center |
|
|
|
Future of Marketing Part 2
In Part 1, I discussed how traditional marketing is no longer working the way it used to. This is happening for a variety of reasons -- people have too many mass media choices, they're bombarded with way too many marketing messages, the Internet is adding accountability to advertising, etc. So if traditional marketing is no longer effective, then how will you get the word out about your products or services? What Internet Marketer Seth Godin, author of the book Permission Marketing, calls permission marketing. Permission marketing is when your customers give you permission to market to them. This is opposite from traditional marketing, also known as interruption marketing (another term coined by Godin). Interruption marketing works by interrupting you. Nobody watches television for the commercials. Nobody flips through a magazine for the ads. But that's how interruption marketing gets you to buy something. Permission marketing is completely different. With permission marketing, customers look forward to hearing from you. They LIKE receiving information about your products and services. That's because they've agreed to enter into a relationship with you. And if permission marketing is done correctly, you'll eventually develop a stronger relationship with your customers than you ever would have with interruption marketing. (But that doesn't mean interruption marketing doesn't have its place. More on that later.) Permission marketing isn't new. In fact, it's older than interruption marketing. Back before there was mass media, business owners routinely developed long-term relationships with their customers. And customers expected to be involved with the selling process from the beginning. Now, of course, we no longer need to be dependent on building relationships face-to-face. With the Internet, we have a whole host of low-cost options available to us, which makes permission marketing easier now than it was before. Here's how it works. You start by developing something that your customers find valuable enough to give you permission to contact them on a regular basis. E-newsletters or e-zines, which are e-mail newsletters, are popular and so are Web blogs. Web blogs are like online journals. For a fun sample, check out http://www.boingboing.net Or Seth Godin has his own blog -- http://www.sethgodin.com But e-zines and Web blogs aren't the only things of value people sign up for -- you can offer them classes delivered via e-mail or tips or contests or points programs or special offers or whatever your creativity can come up with. While it is possible to develop a relationship with customers using only offline techniques (for instance, a printed newsletter you mail to your customers) it's less expensive and more effective to use the Internet. It's quick and easy for your customers to sign up via your Web site and it's cheap for you to send it out via e-mail. However, in order to get people to sign up, you first need to tell them about it. That's where interruption marketing comes in. You still need to get the word out about what you're offering. Then once they sign up, you can start building the relationship. Is this a lot of work? Yes. Is it more work than interruption marketing? Yes again. But is it more effective than interruption marketing? It can be. Especially since interruption marketing isn't working the way it used to. I feel that permission marketing favors small business owners. That's because permission marketing only works when customers and businesses form a relationship, and customers prefer forming relationships with people rather than entities. Customers want to know the person behind the business, not just the business itself. But that doesn't mean big corporations can't employ permission marketing techniques. They just need to get creative about it. Perhaps developing a spokesperson or a business "personality" or a forum or group of people. The important thing is to start thinking about how marketing is changing and what you can do about it. (Resource for article: Seth Godin, Permission Marketing) Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She offers two free e-newsletters that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.writingusa.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Marketing - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Hermey Wants To Be A Dentist December marked the 40th anniversary of the original broadcast of the classic "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer", network television's longest-running, highest-rated holiday special. From my earliest childhood memories, watching Rudolph has been a tradition, one that continues today with my own family. How Nearly Going Broke Taught Me The Value Of Niche Marketing If you want to learn how effective Niche Marketing can be,I suggest you "don't" take the route I did.Back in 1983 I started a company offering general Electronics Subcontract Assembly services to just about anyone who made Electronic products. Produce More Sales from your Email Promotions - Part 2 Do sales come from your ezine regularly? How many well-written articles do you submit per week to Online ezines? How often do you send thank you's and follow up messages to your different email groups? If you answered not many, then you need to re-evaluate. The answer to online success is the same as traditional success--promotion, promotion, promotion. The Beginners Mail Order Business Guide No claim is made that the steps outlined would be successful for someone else. Each individual should obtain whatever professional advice may benecessary for his particular operation. PowerPositioning: WillYouAcceptThisRose.com Positioning is a powerful concept in marketing. To illustrate, have you ever visited a fast food restaurant, and, in a rush to complete your order asked for a coke when you "perhaps" meant to order some other soft drink? The Coke brand and its owners have achieved a top of mind awareness. To Swag or Not to Swag: Tip to Brand Your Tchotchkes on a Shoestring It's interesting to see how resourceful people become when starting their own business. Especially when budget is tight, creative juices go into high gear. How to Turn Your Marketing Into a Money-Making Machine - Examples of solid Marketing As Claude Hopkins presented in his Scientific Advertising many decades ago, there are scientific ways of tracking your Marketing and Advertising and determining clearly and unequivocally what works and what does not. Without knowing the facts about what is effectively increasing your leads, and subsequently your sales success, you might as well be throwing money out the window-literally. Reverse The Risk And Boost Your Profits As a business owner or marketer, if you don't reverse the risk in your product and/or service offerings, you're really missing out in what can be one of the most powerful weapons in your marketing arsenal.Risk Reversal DefinedRisk Reversal, in essence, means that you, the business owner, assumes all the risks associated with the businesstransactions, and your customers none. Your Marketing - From The Couch To The Cash Register When you put time or money into any marketing plan, your only objective is to MAKE A SALE. Are you sure your marketing is going to get your customer from their couch to your cash register?When somebody hears your message or sees your logo from some medium you have created, what does the path from that first 'touch' to your cash register look like?We call this path the yellow brick road. Your Ultimate Competitive Advantage The biggest secret to success in business is to always maintain a competitive advantage in everything you do. One of the best ways to get and maintain a competitive advantage is to always make it as easier for your prospect or customer to say yes than to say no. How Prince Connects With His Target Market! While Internet legend (and young pup) Frank Kern would have you believe that I'm so old I should be confined to a wheelchair, I'm still on the good side of 100! And I can stil enjoy a good concert from time to time. My daughter - Rachel, my wife and I had the good fortune to score some last-minute tickets to the recent Prince concert here in Atlanta. Ten Tips for Creating a Winning Proposal - Part 2 Part 1 of this series described five critical components for creating a winning proposal. In some instances, these components are all a prospective client needs to make a determination and award the job. Motivate Your Market Force IntroWant me to tell you something on how you can motivate your market force in 2005. I will do so today. Business Cards and Business Etiquette One of the very basic conditions of being a successful businessman is to get people (your existing or prospective customers) to like you and a very basic requirement for being liked by people is to have proper business etiquette. We all like to be in companionship of well-cultured people and etiquette is one of the most important components of culture. How to Size an Emerging Market In developing their business plans, companies of all sizes face the challenge of determining the size of their markets. To begin, companies must present the size of their "relevant market" in their plans. 3 Quick Robotic Online and Offline Marketing Strategies to Help You Work Less and Make More Money What is Marketing? There are many text book answers to this but I like these two definitions the most.To be successful, you have to understand what marketing is, and how to advertise. How to Earn the Right "How to Earn the Right.. Marketing Quandaries Being in a quandary prevents you from moving forward in developing and marketing your business. When we're in a quandary, we are in a state of perplexity and doubt. Market Your Identity One of the most critical but overlooked parts of business success is using your identity. If you want to build a successful business you have to strike the word image from your vocabulary right from the start. Meaning and Marketing - The Hurricane I step outside my back door and look at some large limbs lying on the ground. They are all dead.
|
| home | site map | Advertising Articles |
| © 2006 |
