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A long, long, time ago advertisers would interrupt people to get their message in front of them.  Commercials interrupting your favorite show, coupons in your mailbox, awkwardly placed billboards, branding of anything and everything, commercials interrupting the top 10 countdown on the radio, telemarketers trying to sell you something, sales people showing up at your door, and video billboards promising even more interruptions than static billboards.

There was no permission established so eventually these were bound to fail once the market was saturated with messages competing for the next chance to interrupt you.

Enter Seth Godin coined term “permission based marketing“.

I need to be friends with you for you to show up in my Facebook newsfeed or to be able to post on my wall.

I need to be following you on Twitter to receive your tweets.

I need to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter to receive it.

I have never been forced to watch a Youtube video, I choose what I want to watch.

I can’t force you to read my blog, it’s your choice.

Notice a trend here?  To communicate with people you must have their permission, no matter what medium you use.  Marketing hasn’t gone anywhere since “social media” took over, it just got smarter.  The winners now will be the ones who understand permission based marketing and come up with the newest innovative way to acquire permission.  It’s the next generation of word-out-mouth.

On the other hand, I hate to hear campaigns talking about “mass-text-messaging” services and mass e-mail marketing.  Just further attempts at interrupting more people to tell them a message they don’t want to hear.

If you want to delve further into the topic pick up this book:

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Anytime you cross someone in a bad way they will remember.  Your reputation is your business.  We have the ability to communicate online with thousands of people instantly, it is what those people say about you that becomes your reputation.

Humans remember the bad things much longer than the good, if you have broken someone’s trust in the past I’d suggest working on making it better soon because it’s going to take a while.  Think of the last person who broke your trust, have you worked with them since?  How do you feel about him/her?

Trust is a peculiar trait, difficult to earn but once trust is established amazing feats can be achieved.  On the contrary, if you lose someone’s trust it is extremely difficult to earn back and you probably ruined the relationship you had with that person.  In the small business landscape that Saskatchewan is, you can’t afford to break someone’s trust, word spreads too quickly.

Remember:

• you can’t hide your reputation
• acquiring and keeping ones’ trust will be one of the most important things you ever do in business
• bad things spread much faster than good
• people who really do trust you will defend your reputation as if it were their own
• if your business is not based on integrity you will lose in the long run

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Cause marketing is utilizing a non-profit organization as a means of putting a for-profit brand or product in front of someone in return for fundraising and awareness.  Anytime you partner with a charity for anything it is a win-win situation.  The charity gains funding and exposure to a group of people it may not have been able to touch and the company gets to show people that they actually do care by helping out a charity.

Cause marketing is growing in part because some large players are getting involved such as Pepsi with it’s refresh project.  Other companies have the charity aspect as a part of their day to day business like Toms Shoes, their fascinating business strategy is worth a read.

The example I love to tell people about is a local company.  Coda Clothing & Shoes (@CodaClothing) throughout the year does not promote the store or sales via any mass media type other than the large billboard on the side of their building shown here:

Instead of telling everyone in Regina to come to Coda, they host Charity fashion shows where a large amount of money is donated to a specific charity and Coda gets to show off their new line of clothing.  It’s difficult not to like companies like Coda that are active in the community, that care about your city, and that want to give back.

I love the concept behind cause marketing because in this ever-changing marketing world you can never be certain as to what is the best medium to be broadcasting your message on.  Cause marketing works because it’s like putting a huge sign on your company’s building that says, “WE CARE”.

So when you’re thinking about the next big ad campaign to roll out with, why not pair up with a charity and try help them too, you’d be surprised at what you can do.

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1. Instead of “news” build your own RSS reader
2. Begin following local bloggers in your RSS reader and keep searching for new ones
3. Challenge a local blogger, disagree, leave a comment
4. Offer to write a guest post for a local blogger
5. Offer to write a guest post for an industry specific blog
6. Hold a local specific contest (Treasure hunt via Facebook?)
7. Start a local restaurant review site, make it fun
8. Ask for feedback of your product/service via Twitter
9. Offer to take pictures at an event and start a Flickr account for them
10. Host a picture contest
11. Host a picture caption contest for other businesses
12. Encourage patrons to take a picture of their meal and share it online for 25% off the meal
13. Tell stories about your product on a blog
14. Host a community blog with many different contributers
15. Start selling your product on Facebook
16. Encourage employees to offer reviews of the company via LinkedIn
17. Start a local trivia blog (written, video, picture)
18. Offer free products/services to people with lots of friends on Facebook
19. Put your website on all printed material
20. Put your Twitter name in places where no one would expect to see it (get creative with this one)
21. Put your blog and Twitter name on the inside of a box of donuts and deliver them to potential readers
22. Put your blog, vlog, landing page or video in your e-mail signature
23. Start a collection of local website on Delicious, sort them in a meaningful way
24. Host an online garage sale
25. Host an actual garage sale via Ustream
26. Add you company to Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and any other geo-location service
27. Offer different deals on Foursquare, see what works
28. Host a city wide treasure hunt via Foursquare
29. Host a 24 hour Foursquare challenge
30. Leave an unbelievable “deal” on Yelp and see who takes you up on it
31. Document the entire Foursquare challenge on YouTube
32. Do a video production of your safety manual
33. Record the “Monday morning announcements” on YouTube, make them fun
34. Set up Google alerts to monitor your company’s name being mentioned
35. Add you business to Google maps (seems simple but many people overlook this one)
36. Give me a reason to go to your website daily
37. Host a local “Tweet-up”
38. Offer to begin a Twitter account for a large local event
39. Setup an your automatic e-mail the next time you’re on holidays to say “you’re only responding to requests on Twitter”
40. Have a video contest, offer a large cash prize
41. Make a video explaining everything about your organization
42. Make a video about a different employee every day until you run out of employees
43. Start a YouTube channel for your company and post a video per week about industry specific topics
44. UStream your Friday at the office
45. UStream a different place/person in your office weekly
46. Have a “submit question” box on your homepage, answer every question that comes in
47. Submit a fascinating story to Digg and Stumble Upon once a week
48. Sell T-shirts on your home page for charity, let people vote on the charity
49. Start a Foodbank challenge with one of your competitors, document everything on a picture blog
50. Create an interactive fundraising tool on your website
51. Encourage all of your staff to fill out their entire profile on LinkedIn, make it a company wide activity
52. Host an appreciation BBQ for the employee of the month, video tape it and post all the pleasant things said on your company blog
53. Start an e-mail newsletter and fill it with the most helpful information/links in your industry
54. Recognize employees who go above and beyond on your company blog
55. Put your Twitter name on a billboard by a busy street
56. Give free coffee to everyone downtown who becomes a fan of yours on Facebook

This is just the beginning of what you could do, the possibilities are endless.  Have anymore you want to share?  Please do!

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