The Essence of Permission Marketing: Efficiency, Measurability, Results

Despite the ability to target advertising messages, marketing remains remarkably unchanged. Organizations continue to focus their efforts on selling, not helping, and do almost nothing to build relationships with the people most likely to buy. Organizations seeking to focus on value creation can benefit by identifying and building relationships with the people most likely to buy.

By Bruce Bolger

The Continued Pitfalls of Marketing: The Failure to Measure Business Impact
Step 1: Draft Your Strategic Plan
Step 2: Identify Your Customer Personas
Step 3. Develop Your Content Strategy
Step 4: Manage Data Collection
Step 5: Analyze Both Processes and Outcomes
Skills Required

Click here for links to information about EEA engagement solution providers.

A lot of people are talking about what’s wrong with marketing. Here’s how to make it better based on 25-year-old principles that were the topic of the day in the late 1990s but never truly took hold: permission marketing—identifying and building relationships with the people most likely to buy.

The Internet and social media were supposed to transform marketing by reducing the high cost of spraying and praying. Instead, it just led to more efficient forms of doing the same thing. Yes, it has made message targeting far more efficient, but a quick search online for the topic of “marketing is broken” yields plenty of signs of dissatisfaction.

The Continued Pitfalls of Marketing: The Failure to Measure Business Impact

According to a survey conducted last year by McKinsey of an unreported number of marketing executives, and conversations with 100 CEOs in conjunction with the Association of National Advertisers, “Sometimes CEOs feel they are missing the link between marketing measurement and business impact. On average, the CEOs responding to our survey feel that marketing metrics clearly tie to business impact less than 60% of the time. CEOs cannot properly manage their growth strategy without understanding a direct link between marketing measurement and business impact.” The report finds that relatively few chief marketing officers sit at the executive committee.

As concluded by McKinsey, marketing continues to fall short because: much of it still remains difficult to measure; the focus is not on the recipients of the information but on what the organization is trying to sell, and almost nothing is done to build a meaningful relationship with anyone who engages.

Marketing is self-centered because that’s what’s taught in school: sell, sell, sell. There’s only one problem, most people don’t like to be sold. They prefer to be guided, helped, entertained, rewarded, or understood and appreciated. I’ve never heard or read anywhere that people like to be aggressively sold—most appear to prefer trusted help and guidance. And, yet, that’s what most organizations do: sell.

Almost every day, my inbox or mail is filled with “special offers” or other sales pitches that focus almost entirely on what the organization is trying to sell. Personalization at best focuses on addressing me directly by name, or maybe, rarely, referencing a previous purchase. My family and company spend on average thousands of dollars with multiple airlines, car rentals and manufacturers, technology, entertainment, grocery stores, financial companies and it’s stunning: with rare exceptions I never hear anything from them but an offer to buy something more or maybe to attend an event at which they want to sell me something more.

Not one effort is made to engage me with useful information related to what they sell—new trends in their fields, insights, interesting promotions—so much so that I can’t think of one company to use as a case study. (Our clients have no interest in exposing the nitty-gritty of what they consider to be a competitive advantage.)

No wonder my Linkedin feeds are filled with comments by frustrated marketers complaining that their inbound sales, marketing and other go-to market strategies no longer work.

Granted, at best, even with unprecedented targeting capabilities through social media and search advertising, marketing remains a challenge, often starting with finding answers to the most basic question—where is our business coming from? In marketing, there is no perfect solution, because people often don’t remember what prompted them to buy, but the best one starts with engaging your entire enterprise in an ongoing effort to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy based on their permission.

Organizations successful at this process reduce the media and “middlemen” whom they must pay to reach people they can reach on their own: reducing the need to “spray and pray” through third party media and to instead focus on telling a story and promoting opt-ins if they are not ready to buy.

Media and events and search engine advertising, etc. remain critical to branding, what many organizations overlook is their critical role in identifying new people—not just leads, but fundamental prospects. The better those people are qualified, the better the open rates of e-newsletters and other media and chances of future sales. Effective content marketing campaigns delivered by permission through email can generate open rates averaging 40% or more, based on our clients’ experiences, if the focus is on helping, informing, and entertaining.

Remember, no social media platform guarantees that your message goes to all your followers; you’ll be lucky if 15% even see them unless a large percentage of your social audience are highly engaged.

Here's an overview of the fundamental steps for permission marketing that make it possible for both small and large organizations to have a one-to-one strategy based on email that doesn't depend upon third-party social media platforms.

Click here for a brief step-by-step deck of the entire process.

Step 1: Draft Your Strategic Plan

Develop a planning process that involves all relevant stakeholders: sales and support employees; distribution partners, customers.
Specify the purpose, goals, and objectives of the organization and the business development effort, with clear process and results measures.
Establish your unique selling benefits and overall story.
This includes addressing the fundamental issue of permission and deliverability: how do you maintain control of your own audience.

It’s critical to involve all key stakeholders in this process; to follow up at least quarterly to monitor process and results metrics, and annually to regroup for the following year.

Step 2: Identify Your Customer Personas

What are the general characteristics of different types of customers, based on their needs, buying cycles, and influences.
This includes distribution partners, if you sell through resellers.
What types of information, entertainment, gamification, incentives can help or engage them.
How are they most likely to consume information—social media, e-mails, videos.
How are going to guarantee that people opting in to your information actually receive it.

Step 3. Develop Your Content Strategy

What is the appropriate mix of what type of content based on your audience—words, voice, video, promotions, incentives, events, etc.
Who will create it and how and when will it be deployed—email, social platforms, print, mail: daily, weekly, monthly?
How will commercial information and calls-to-action be woven into the content?
What is done to ensure that it’s easy for people to opt-out.
How is the CRM (customer relationship management) system set up to manage the process and create the right reports.

This is where having experts in journalism, service articles, video, podcasts, etc. are essential in identifying and producing the type of relevant information, entertainment, games, etc. that will engage the audience.

Step 4: Manage Data Collection

Deploy your CRM system to make it as easy as possible for all stakeholders to enter the contact information of those who give permission.
How will you get people to opt-in—via email, events, sales force, customer service, employees, contests and sweepstakes, events?
Engage all stakeholders at every possible touchpoint to add new permission-based names to the system or remove when people opt-out.
Whenever possible, try to capture the source of the contact.

Step 5: Analyze Both Processes and Outcomes

Track the engagement of all related stakeholders in identifying and entering permission-based contacts.
Track the engagement of all contacts with your various types of content.
Correlate inquiries with content triggers when possible.
Correlate new and repeat customers with their engagement in your content.
What percentage of customers of what size and type engaged with your content?
What content is correlated with highest quantity of inquiries?

Skills Required

The good news, most marketing professionals and agencies have most of these skills. Where they are lacking is in the are of content development, which they traditionally leave to the media platforms they support with advertising. With permission marketing, the opportunity is to enhance media and events as a means to not only build brands but also meaningful permissions.

Strategic planning
Social media
Content development: digital, print, video, audio, promotions, contests, sweepstakes, events etc.
Marketing copy writing
Customer relationship management
Graphics
Analytics

ESM Is Published by The EEA: Your Source for Effective Stakeholder Management, Engagement, and Reporting

Through education, media, business development, advisory services, and outreach, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance supports professionals, educators, organizations, asset managers, investors, and engagement solution providers seeking a competitive advantage by profiting from a strategic and systematic approach to stakeholder engagement across the enterprise. Click here for details on all EEA and ESM media services.

1. Professional Education on Stakeholder Management and Total Rewards

Become part of the EEA as an individual, corporation, or solution provider to gain access to valuable learning, thought leadership, and marketing resources to master stakeholder management and reporting.
The only education and certification program focusing on Stakeholder Engagement and Human Capital metrics and reporting, featuring nine members-only training videos that provide preparation for certification in Enterprise Engagement.
EEA books: Paid EEA participants receive Enterprise Engagement for CEOs: The Little Blue Book for People-Centric Capitalists, a quick implementation guide for CEOs; Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap 5th Edition implementation guide; a comprehensive textbook for practitioners, academics, and students, plus four books on theory and implementation from leaders in Stakeholder Management, Finance, Human Capital Management, and Culture.

2. Media

ESM at EnterpriseEngagement.org, EEXAdvisors.com marketplace, ESM e–newsletters, and library.
RRN at RewardsRecognitionNetwork.com; BrandMediaCoalition.com marketplace, RRN e-newsletters, and library.
EEA YouTube Channel with over three dozen how-to and insight videos and growing with nearly 100 expert guests.

3. Fully Integrated Business Development for Engagement and Total Rewards

Strategic Business Development for Stakeholder Management and Total Rewards solution providers, including Integrated blog, social media, and e-newsletter campaigns managed by content marketing experts.

4. Advisory Services for Organizations

Stakeholder Management Business Plans; Human Capital Management, Metrics, and Corporate Sustainability Reporting for organizations, including ISO human capital certifications, and services for solution providers.

5. Outreach in the US and Around the World on Stakeholder Management and Total Rewards

The EEA promotes a strategic approach to people management and total rewards through its e-newsletters, web sites, and social media reaching 20,000 professionals a month and through other activities, such as:

Association of National Advertisers Brand Engagement 360 Knowledge Center to educate brands and agencies.