In the old marketing model we threw our messages at the world, sometimes we targeted those messages by selecting the right television channels or magazines or even shot our mailers to a specific demographic or georgraphic region. And while that still can work for some brands, others are finding that there is greater ROI in a new model. In this new model instead of the marketer being in control, we put the customer in the drivers seat. We let them make their own decisions and couple that with asking their permission before we try to pitch them. This model is facilitated by the web and helps to create a more valuable two way relationship with the customer where they don’t feel the pressure of a sales pitch while interacting with your brand.
The model is simple – it combines 2 tried and true online marketing principles, Permission marketing and inbound marketing.
The Customer Discovers Your Site
Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers rather than find the customer. The basic premise is that rather than be interrupted by advertising and sales pitches with traditional outbound marketing techniques like cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam and trade shows that are easy to ignore with caller ID, TiVo, and spam filters, you allow the customer to discover your brand on their own. The value of this approach is that it can be less costly and build better relationships with the customer that where they don’t feel the pressure of advertising and sales pitches.
Read Also: Inbound Marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web
The Nuts and Bolts of Inbound Marketing
- Content – useful information in the form of freely available data rich, entertaining or how to blog posts, free ebooks/webinars/whitepapers (these should be behind data capture forms so you can build a solid database).
- Search Engine Marketing - SEO or PPC strategies that help customers find your website in key term searches on Google, yahoo and MSN.
- Social Media – by distributing your content, personal brand and lifestream across multiplenetworks you can amplify your message and connect more personally with your audience.
The Customer Finds an Irrestible Offer on the Site and Freely Provides Their Contact Data
Landing page Optimization is the process of visually optimizing the pages of a website for the best possible conversion of a visitor to a lead or customer. It involves the use of irresistible offers and graphical call to actions that drive vistors through to shopping carts or lead capture forms. This is step is critical in the permission marketing model. In order to be able to ask permission to market a visitor you need to first offer them something they want badly enough to provide their information. In the case of most businesses this would be a free gift, a contest offering, a sweepstakes or an ebook.
The Nuts and Bolts of Landing Page Optimization
- Easy navigation and interface – An uncluttered environment with few options that clearly defines the offerings, benefits and features and how to get started with them. The interface should be so simple a child couldeasily find where to click to get what they need.
- Irresistable offer - Offer something spectacular ad require the user to provide you with soething in return. For example, if your goalis to grow an email or permission based email list – offer a free eBook that requires them to provide you their email address.
- Graphical call to actions – People respond toimages much better than they respond to text so use a combination of call to action text and a graphic or image to get people to click and funnel through to your sales site, landing page or lead generation form.
You Ask Permission to Market to Them
Permission Marketing
Permission Based Marketing is a term used in marketing in general and e-marketing specifically. Marketers will ask permission before advancing to the next step in the purchasing process. For example, they ask permission to send advertisements to prospective customers. It is used by some Internet marketers, email marketers, and telephone marketers. It requires that people first “opt-in”, rather than allowing people to “opt-out” only after the advertisements have been sent.
Read also: Comprehensive outline of Permission Marketing Model
The Nuts and Permission Based Marketing
Direct Relationship Maintenance Model this is when the advertiser/brand and the consumer form a direct relationship and is characterized by low permission intensity, direct contact with advertiser and minimal targeting.
- Permission Partnership Model – In this model the consumer provides a portal or media site with the permission to send him or her promotional offers.
- Ad Market Model - A consumer provides an infomediary (Hagel & Singer, 1999) with detailed information about his or her preferences and interests. The infomediary then uses this information to identify advertisers. The ads supplied by these advertisers are then carefully targeted to be consistent with the consumer’s tastes.
- Permission Pool Model - Here, different consumers provide different firms with the permission to send them promotional offers. These firms pool the information provided by the consumer and then promotional messages are sent out targeting this larger pool.
Inbound Marketing + Permission Based Marketing
The power of combining these models comes from the perception of choice and freedom that the visitor has. First they feel as if they organically “discovered” you, your site and your brand, interact with you on their terms and have the option to give or not give you permission to sell and market to them. But most importantly, they retai their right to cancel their permission at any anytime. Kinda like the Pro-choice of marketing approach. In this model the marketer passively provides messages to the customer and gives the customer all the power so the customer feels more comfortable in their interaction with the brand.
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