Build trust with `permission marketing': if you have something to say, this new trend in marketing will get your customers to listen - business corner

Art Business News, Dec, 2002 by Lynn Fey

Keep records of customer purchases. With this information, you can contact customers when their favorite artist releases new work or when a new frame collection is launched. This information helps keep your calls or letters personal and relevant and, with time, even anticipated.

Invite customers to events or seminars that you sponsor. Offer a range of topics that address a wide variety of interests that focus on solving a consumer need versus a hard sell on your product or service.

Create a Preferred Customer Program. Invite your best customers to join. Offer exclusive member-only sales, develop a points-based award system or provide free-services such as gift-wrapping or in-home consultations.

Send cards--birthday cards, holiday cards, cards for any reason you can think of. Of course, just about everyone is going to give you permission to send a birthday card.

Over deliver on promises. By over delivering on a promise, you create trust and goodwill. You can then leverage the permission you earned in doing the first job for the customer to get additional jobs through word of mouth and a loyal customer base.

Develop a series of letters and/or e-mails that turn strangers into friends. These communications:

* Take place over time

* Offer the consumer a selfish reason to respond

* Use the consumer's responses to change the messages as you move forward

* Initiate a final call to action so you can measure results.

While permission marketing is most effective on the Web, it is really more about mind-set than about medium. Simply put, it means talking with your customers instead of talking "at" them. Using permission marketing is a mind-set that helps you learn more about your customers and develop relationships with each one of them that grows stronger over time. And in business, strong relationships translate into strong profits.

Lynn Fey has more than 17 years of marketing experience with a diverse range of products and services. She currently owns her own marketing consulting firm, InSight Solutions, which is based in Atlanta. She can be reached at lynnfey@aol.com.