Lists, Permission, and Content Marketing

In case you missed it, we had a conversation about permission marketing a little over a year ago. It bears revisiting the concept, given the current rediscovered role of the customer or prospect list in marketing.

Rediscovered because for a while it looked like with social media you could just throw messages out there for free and have them stick to your target market.

Now that everyone has had a chance to settle down to the hard realities of conversation and calls to action within the same sentence, I wanted to explore the topic with you.

Do you have a permission-based list ready to be used? In that case, you may skip this post. All others, think with me.

List making

Even when you work on your to do list, start it with an objective in mind. What is it that you want to accomplish this year, month, quarter, today?

Rather than having  a scattered compilation of items, if you put some thought into your goal, then the list becomes the process to get you there.

For marketing to be successful, you need to have repeatable processes that you can measure and tweak depending on the social situation and context and get you results. The one key consideration is that of attracting and retaining the right people to your conversation.

Hence the role of the list. What are some ways to having a customer and prospect list?

• building - you start from close to zero
• creating - you have data on customers and prospects
• renting - typically trade publications that rent their subscriber lists
• buying - vendors abound

Have you noticed how many of the social networks you belong to are focusing on list building? You guessed right, that's where the money is... but not just in random lists.

Lists, like all data sets, need to have a rhyme or reason to make sense and yield results.

Getting permission 

Building a list is hard work compared to renting one. The upside is much greater. Think about the magazine you subscribe to, some of them you might even get comped for.

Now think about someone renting that list and sending you something. They're just guessing as to what you may respond to.

There are statistics as to the percent hit ratio using such a method. Is there information on the percent people who consider you a mail spammer now? Many vendors are out there selling pre-qualified lists. Do they work?

My preference is for creating a list with existing information and asking people if they'd like to opt in. Or, if no data exists, you could work on building a list from scratch. Permission works to both create and build.

Some considerations on permission:

• it's not universal - in fact, it works best when very specific and context-driven
• it does not entitle you - taking permission for granted without providing value is a slippery slope
• it's time limited - it's a good idea to ask again after a certain period
• it's non transferable - permission is attached to the person, not the role

Most importantly, remember that just because you can, you shouldn't if you don't have permission. With the cost of email being much lower than that of mail, email is getting the bulk of spam. Will we see an active do not email movement (that link is to tell you there isn't one) as we do with do not mail?

How do you go about getting permission once you identified who you'd like to attract or add?

Providing value

Value is contextual and is content-dependent.

Your job as a marketer is to articulate what is already there, and highlight its existing value through relevant and valuable content that attracts, engages, and acquires a clearly defined and understood group of people.

You do it to meet a stated objective or set of goals.

With the help of social media, you can make those communications as frequent as the people on the other side wish to make them, thus gaining some insights into who and how often by interacting with them in a context in which they choose to syndicate your content, follow your account, or become a fan of your product page.

Maybe you started with a blog and you attracted many to subscribe. How do you know that those same people are interested in more offers from you? How do you build a list from there?

Give your readers the opportunity to subscribe to a newsletter, or to follow a specific Twitter account where you share special deals.

***

Building or creating a list requires more work than renting or buying one, the upside makes it worth it.

Some people at this point usually ask me - but what if people don't want to opt in your content? Wouldn't it be so much better to ask them to opt out? What do you think?

Tomorrow we will talk about how to tie the data and actions so you can gain a better appreciation of what's working and what needs tweaking.

© 2006-2009 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Ryan Waggoner]

Renting and buying lists is not just easier and less valuable, it's usually just downright scummy. This is why many reputable email list management services won't allow you to use their service in conjunction with rented or purchased lists.

[Rich Becker]

Valeria,

The differences between the B2B marketer and company data tells the story. There seems to be too much thinking about how will "we use" social media as opposed to how will "we benefit our customers" using social media.

The answer to that question might even provide the answer to the opt in or opt out question.

One decision allows someone to consciously choose to become engaged. The other reinforces someone's decision to become disengaged.

I love the clarity.

All my best,
Rich

[Ricardo Bueno]

It's particularly difficult to build a list when you don't have a clear sense of direction on the type of content that you want to share spelled out. I've built two lists: 1.) for my REBarCamp Los Angeles event, and 2.) for my blog at Ribeezie.com. The first one had a clearly defined objective and it was easy to communicate that to the folks who opted in. The second one was a bit more difficult to create because I wasn't entirely sure what type of message that I wanted to communicate. Once I defined that a bit more, it became easier to communicate it to my audience and get folks to opt in.

Now, I don't have the biggest list as compared with other A-listers but I know that I have an excellent relationship with the people who have decided to opt-in. We communicate, we engage and that's what I'm looking for (a higher level of engagement to turn prospects into clients).

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Ryan - thank you for saying that. So it's really very interesting how much of a market that is, still.

@Rich - well, yes. Many companies don't know their customers really well. Your acute observation caught the dichotomy in the choice between engaged and disengaged. I believe traditionally trained marketers and practitioners actually do not want to be engaged, they just want to count the leads.

@Ricardo - really good observation on building a list and needing clarity. The same applies, as you know, for any program, business model, etc. Yet, so many venture to try things out without even having a modest goal on what they're trying. The second part of your observation goes to the core of good brands - they know what they're about, and it's not all things to all people or as broad an offering as possible, etc. You have permission through relationship. There's the value right there, for both your customers/prospects and you.