Content marketing – why you need to ask permission
Active choices build good relationships.
Content marketing is a bit of a buzzword at the moment. As someone who was working on whitepapers for Oracle and others nearly a decade ago, I find the supposed newness quite amusing. However, far out-weighing the amusement is the alarm with which I observe how some marketers, or business people doing a bit of their own marketing, seem to think that because they have ‘content’ that this gives them the right to inflict it on people.
Content marketing, or thought leadership, works best when you treat permission as a precious and fragile thing.
Typical content campaigns include a paper, an online event or an article – an instructive and valuable piece of content that you believe your market will value. Here I am doing it now. The moot point here is that you believe that they will find it valuable, only they know whether it is or not. Your content is a great marketing tool when people choose to read it or engage with it.
Furthermore, the act of opting-in is a flag as to their interest, and it should help you measure your effectiveness too. By making people aware that the content is there, and then letting them choose whether to read it, you know that people have moved from awareness to interest.
Not only is permission the right thing to do for your business to measure actual marketing effectiveness, it is also legally required as part of the Data Protection Act, and industry best-practice. Common actions that are rife, and that remove this choice, and irritate your audience, are:
- Assuming email permission because someone gave you their business card.
- Signing up customers and prospects to your eNews without asking first.
- Making the unsubscribe process difficult.
Twitter and LinkedIn are opt-in mediums, but even there you need to take care. Automated DMs, or replies to individuals linking to your content can be seen as over-stepping the ‘psychological contract’ of the permission they gave. On email, the boundaries are pretty clear, and legally defined.
So, how do you get people to give you permission?
We send a monthly opt-in request email. Any business cards or contacts we’ve made in the month go in to our database tagged with a specific campaign code. At the end of the month, those people receive an email asking if they’d like to opt-in to our monthly eNews. This covers us legally and maintains our integrity.
Here are some other techniques:
- Put a link to a sign-up form where people give you permission to stay in touch on email on email footers.
- Ask people when they give you their business card, and note it on the back.
- Provide an excerpt to an article, then require registration to see a more detailed version, in which you ask for permission.
- Put a prominent link to your sign-up form on your website.
- Post a link to your opt-in form on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook Fan Page every few weeks for a day.
One final note. Take care not to burn permission once you have it. Too much or too little contact once permission is given can turn people off. And, of course, relevance is key. You can be smart on this by allowing people to select the kinds of things they want to hear about, or the frequency of contact that they are comfortable with on your sign-up form. Keep an eye on your unsubscribes rates, this will give you an idea of whether you’re trampling on hard-won consent.
So, in response to Heather Townsend who tweeted this morning: “Am I just naive, but it feels very bad manners to sign someone up to your mailing list just because you have met them?” – No, you are not naive, permission is your gift to give, and their right to earn.
By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | @bryonythomas | www.clear-thought.co.uk
You may also be interested in:
- Case Study: Fraudscreen ‘Lifecycle of a Debtor’ thought leadership campaign »
- Blog: A typical thought leadership campaign »
- Sign-up: And, of course, you can sign-up to our eNews »
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Published on 28 January 2010
