REFERENCE CHANNELS

Book Review: Permission Marketing
by Seth Godin

The Internet is changing business. Information flow is faster, email costs less than paying the Post Office and you can send information to only the people or businesses interested in receiving it.

Your potential customer can reply to your offerings easily - and they also can set filters so that they will never see anything from you. The business press said that the Internet would level the playing field for small businesses. Recent results have indicated that big business is getting the biggest share of Internet business. Big surprise, eh?

In fact, a lot of the biggest companies are lousy at communicating with their customers. When you call a company and find yourself stuck in voice-mail menus and on hold, you have found a company that values your time and annoyance as being less valuable than paying a $9 hourly employee.

Where do you get an "edge" that can make your business more successful?

Seth Godin's book, Permission Marketing, provides information that you can use to gain your customers' trust and business. The best and most effective way to sell products is by establishing a personal relationship with your customer.

Until the 1880s, when Montgomery Ward established a price list, that's how ALL business was done. Customers and business owners haggled, with better prices and terms going to better customers. That's still the way many business to business sales work. If a business owner got something in that they knew a customer would want, they'd tell them about it.

Then came the rise of mass marketing as we know it today, with lots and lots and LOTS of ads and offers hitting the average person on a daily basis. Mass marketing is a numbers game - if you get a 2% response, that's a huge response. Compare that to one of my favorite direct sales efforts, Boy Scout popcorn. My son is disappointed if he only makes one sale in three attempts.

What's the key point in internet marketing? Get the customer to tell you what they want. Then give it to them. Get their trust so that you can give them offers and information that they'll want to accept.

How could you use permission based email and website marketing to improve your sales? Start building a relationship with your first customer contact. Get them to tell you what they want and make it attractive for them to give you that information. People are used to filling out contact information with the chance of winning a prize in a drawing. If you get more information, you can make far more of them into customers, then into "best customers"! And "best customers" mean higher profits and a stronger business.

Godin provides suggestions and examples of how permission marketing works. He's got solid examples and real experience to share. Before it was bought by Yahoo, I used to be a regular subscriber to email produced by his company, Yoyodyne. He tells you to pay attention to your "share of customer" more than your market share. Why? It's profitable to sell more deeply into the customer. Key to that is obtaining a deep level of permission. He defines five different levels, from permission to communicate to a customer for one specific situation, right on up to "intravenous" level, where the customer relies upon you to meet their needs. Each step must be earned and customer trust maintained.

The book assists you in gaining trust and explains how far each level of permission goes. It could be a deadly mistake to assume you've got even one level more of permission than the client has given to you. There are case studies of companies that have succeeded and companies that have flopped. I've learned a lot from the book and now information from it every day.

Permission Marketing, published way back in 1999, has become an Internet Marketing classic. If you are doing business on the Internet, you will want to read the book. If you want your business to boom, buy a copy and use it regularly.

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- C.N-J.

ABC's Rating System: $ - A few useful items; $$ - Some good content; $$$ - Well balanced and worthwhile; $$$$ - Recommend highly; $$$$$ - Excellent! Buy it now

 

Be sure to read Cindy's article on Permission Marketing!