Our website, if you’d like to contact us: http://www.jbsystemsllc.com

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/permission-mark.html

Some ways to build your list – a qualified, permission-based list:

• Add an opt-in form to your website – ask for very simple information, maybe name and email address and that’s it. Reassure people that you don’t sell or share your list with anyone else. As you gain their trust, you can (over time) ask for other tidbits of their information.
• Train your sales staff to ask for an email address! It seems so simple, but actually getting sales people to feel comfortable asking for an email address can be challenging. Offer exclusivity or very special content in your emails and that will make it much easier to get those email addresses.
• Offer free content on your website – give them a few freebies, and then offer something really good…but collect a very small amount of information (name/email) before they can download/view it.
• Hold a contest – we all know how those work, but make sure that you collect their email! Note on your entry form that a valid email must be provided in order to win. Again, reassure people that you will not sell or share their personal information.
• Promote your email promotions/newsletter in other marketing that you do – ‘sell’ it as a quality source of information or great deals and people will go looking for it.

Permission marketing is personal, relevant, and anticipated. – Seth Godin

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From our early days jamming after basketball games or playing at Phil’s Pub, I always believed that Travis’s passion for music and talent would bring him opportunities, now unfolding in front of our eyes.

Visit his website to listen to the album – if you like what you hear, download them for only $0.99 each on iTunes or Amazon.

Don’t forget to share with your friends, too…

Follow Travis…

…on Twitter: @TravisGrode
…on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Travis-Grode/524335480

Why should someone choose your product/service? What makes you different from your competitors? If there’s nothing differentiating you from the other guys, how is someone supposed to produce the logic to choose you? There has to be a reason why they buy from you. There’s always a reason why people buy.

Here are a few areas where you can differentiate if you find yourself wondering ‘why me?’:

Expertise - Narrow your focus and be the very best at something more specific. Hone your skills and make yourself known as the ‘expert’. Being just OK at a lot of things puts you in a category with too many others. Focus on being the best.

Price - are you lower cost (perceived: less quality), higher cost (perceived: higher quality), or somewhere in the middle? How do you choose? In your industry, is price a deciding factor? If you’re selling a commodity, probably..in a sea of products that are virtually the same, who wouldn’t choose the lower priced one? If you’re selling a specialized service, custom, or hard-to-find product, price may not matter…most people are willing to pay for value.

Convenience - Maybe you have more locations or more accessible locations, maybe your service is a much quicker process, maybe you have a drive-through service, maybe you make house calls, maybe your product works by itself…

Emotion - I believe that everyone buys for some kind of emotional reason. Does your product/service make someone feel better? Does it validate or support their own personal views? Think of the environmentalist, the law enforcement officer, the mother, the ambitious young professional, the blue-collar steel worker, the Catholic grandmother…they are passionate about some very specific things, and you can differentiate yourself by aligning your messages with their views.

Now ask yourself, ‘If I could choose either my company, or my biggest competitor, WHY would I choose me?’

Be specific.

Your social media strategy is only as good as the website you’re directing your friends, fans, and followers to. If the two aren’t consistent, and aren’t geared at turning those friends, fans, and followers into customers and raving fans, then how can we expect social media to work?

Social media is not just another channel for you to push the same messages about the same old products, either. It’s a new way of interacting with and listening to your customers. If your business isn’t willing to adapt to the new ways that consumers are absorbing messages and making buying decisions, it’s going to be a long road of trying to make the new marketing (i.e. social media) tactics work.

Because consumers (or buyers for business services) have so many choices, and can decide more freely how to receive marketing messages, they don’t have to settle for what marketers are telling them anymore. They can now listen to their friends, and their friends’ friends, or seek out other independent third-party credible sources about where to shop, eat, get their car fixed, etc.

Our job as marketers then becomes how to be part of the conversation and offer anticipated, relevant, and useful information at the right time, instead of scrambling to find audiences to listen to a message that isn’t relevant to them. I guarantee, if we stick with the old ways, no one will be listening.

So, take a look at your own website. Is it ready for the social media world? Ask yourself these questions. What changes can you make?

• Is your website social? Does it allow people to share information with you and about you easily?
• Does it focus on things that people are really interested in or does it just focus on you?
• Does it let them interact with you, and with others?
• Are you listening and responding to them?
• Does it allow them to share their own content that’s relevant to your products/services?

I’ll be talking about this and more at a social media conference coming up next Wednesday, September 29th for the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce. To register, go to their website. For website questions, contact me at JB Systems and I’d be happy to help!

Here’s a link to Jeff’s blog if you’d like a shortened version: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/07/29/the-8-keys-to-success-for-facebook-marketing/

Here’s the full version to get examples and more in-depth stories – The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing:

Traditional marketing uses a funnel process where you try to use different methods to get a bunch of people into the top of the funnel. Once they’re there, you start weeding them out with other tactics – sales calls, advertising, and other mostly unsolicited requests to buy your product or use your service. Even though those people are in your funnel, chances are only a small percentage are really interested in buying. As you work your way down the funnel, you finally get to a handful of qualified buyers and typically only a small percentage of those convert to sales. Seems like a whole lot of work for an overall small percentage in the end.

In Small is the New Big, Seth riffs about turning the funnel upside down – into a megaphone. Find a small, niche group of people who love your product, service, company, or style. Build your product around what that small group needs and wants and then make it painfully easy for them to share their enthusiasm and excitement about your product or service. Seth talked about this concept in Permission Marketing as well – to turn strangers into friends, friends into customers, and customers into your salespeople.

If you find those people who already think the world of you and who want to tell others about you, all you have to do is give them an easy way to do it, and they will. All of a sudden, you’ve got a small group of people who are using the best form of marketing out there (word of mouth marketing) to help you sell your product. I don’t know of any other medium out there that has the potential to be that powerful.

To find this riff, check out Small is the New Big and Permission Marketing. Fascinating, quick reads that are a must for any modern day marketer.

Thanks again, Seth!

More on this and related topics:

Seth’s Blog

Find Small is the New Big on Amazon.com.

Another great read from another great mind – David Meerman Scott:
The New Rules of Viral Marketing (view the free e-book)
This one also talks about reaching that small audience with your message and giving them the ability to share it with others. Talks about using YouTube, e-books, and more.

There is that number out there, and it’s your job to find it. Oh, and by the way, that number can’t be “as many as possible.” When I ask someone who their target audience is and they tell me it could be everyone, that’s a red flag and I know they haven’t done as much research or targeted their product as much as they should. Unless you’re selling toilet paper or dental floss, you can narrow your target audience down to be more specific. I know, some of you are thinking that it’s better to cast a wide net and get as many people as possible. But is that really cost effective? But what if you could have a smaller number of really great, repeat customers? Ones who talk about you and rave about your products? Ones who are loyal to you because your product is just for them? What is that worth? This is what social media is great at – niche markets. Facebook groups, Squidoo lenses, YouTube channels…it goes on and on.

My point is that you can’t be afraid to exclude people from buying your product. If they’re not your target audience and they’re not going to become a raving fan, then don’t spend your precious marketing dollars to reach them. Instead, spend it on people who will love your product, love your company, and love telling others about you.

Find your number, find your ideal customer, and go for it! I think you’ll be surprised.

I’m not sure why, but it seems that too many people don’t take ownership or accountability for the job they do. I’ve met very few people who have an attitude of ‘this is my work and I’ll take credit…if it’s successful or a failure.‘

Next time you’re working on a project, take a new job, get a promotion – try thinking of it as yours. YOU are accountable for reaching your goals. YOU are accountable for getting projects done. I would imagine this would motivate you to work harder and do better at your job. And I think you’d be surprised at how many people pick up on your enthusiasm and hard work in your job.

For those employers reading this, getting your employees to really take ownership of their tasks doesn’t just magically happen. You have to create a culture of confidence and trust so that they can thrive in areas where they can be great. Don’t micro manage, don’t make them approve everything with you, don’t stifle their creativity. Give them some freedom to reach their goals on their own. Chances are, they’ll do it, and have a new-found confidence in themselves to get the job done. If they don’t – then they know that they need to do something different. This is where you can help them grow and learn to become better at what they do for you.