Simple permission marketing – ‘In Action’ UPDATE

An MP3 will be uploaded shortly for those who missed it. 

 

Today I am being interviewed on ABC radio (Australia) to discuss www.rentoid.com

 

The interesting thing is that I didn’t pitch for the interview, they called me. This is great news because it means that we’re starting to get some real traction with rentoid. It also means that the general populous believe as much as we do in the community and environmental benefits of the service. So they’re helping us spread the word.

 

The interview is at 5.10pm – Melbourne / Sydney time Australia.

 

You can listen live on line by clicking here. You can convert to your local time by using this link.

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Happy listening.

Me vs We

The greatest , Muhammed Ali was credited as delivering the shortest poem of all time while addressing Harvard University with:

‘Me We’

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And it’s not lost on entrepreneurs either. Given the brands, markets and business evolve from conversations we need to pay attention to tiny details in the way we speak. So here’s a start up blog view on some best practice.

Whenever we can, we ought use the word “we” before we use the words “I” or “me”.

Here’s why:

It’s inclusive

It’s generous

It’s team oriented

It’s bigger than ‘me’

It confirms in a subconscious way that any business is about much more than the founder.

Successful start ups and businesses involve we, not just me.

Permission marketing in action

I recently spoke about newspapers being a good forum for simple permission marketing.

We’ve just done exactly this for our start up rentoid. We approached the local western district newspaper called “the Leader” and discussed the community and environmental benefits of the rentoid service.

It worked and the article can be seen here.

The other reasons we started with a small newspaper is it’s in line with our clustering strategy and it gives us experience before we approach larger circulation media.

Keeping promises

We’ve recently challenged ourselves at rentoid as part of our clustering strategy. We promised our members in ‘Melbourne Australia’ that rentoid has ‘anything’ they could possibly want to rent. Especially given our moniker for Rentoid is “the place to rent anything”. The promise can be seen here.

 

Some may think this is crazy. The fact is we couldn’t possibly have everything available for rent. But that’s where the depth of idea is:

 

Here are the possible outcomes:

  • People search Melbourne and see the depth of items for rent.

  • They may find what they need, or not.

  • If they don’t, we have promised to find what they need.

(unless they ask for something like elephant tusks!)

 

We’ll find what they need by asking other members if they have it, or we’ll find it through other means. In short we’ll keep our promise. We’ll find them what they need. 

 

The idea ensures we stretch ourselves to serve our customers and it gives us an authentic way to create a positive customer experience. Which we hope they’ll talk about.

 

If you’re in Melbourne, test us!

Simple Permission Marketing

Here’s a really simple way to execute some permission based marketing.  Get a story of your business in a newspaper. 

Pages need to be filled. Business writers are interested in reporting on new businesses. Start with a small local newspaper. Tell them why the local community needs to know about your business. We must focus on what’s in it for them – not us. 

Most big newspapers are also interested in start ups these days, and even run entrepreneur and enterprise specific sections. So why not go for some big fish:

  • The New York Times? 

  • The Australian Financial Review?

  • The Wall Street Journal?

  • The London Daily Telegraph? 

It’s permission based marketing because people choose to read or choose not to read the article. If they do read it, they’re engaged and obviously interested. The article title tells the reader if it’s for them. It’s content, not interuptive advertising. Simple permission marketing.

                  

                                                                                                                                                              

Here’s the trick: It’s got to be news worthy.