Getting the attention of your friend's friend = Priceless

Seth Godin offers yet another insight for us to ponder.

If you want to promote your brand, organisation, product, service or whatever then you need to get your audience on board with what you’re about before you can really reach them with your information. We do this through a permission marketing based endeavour. But how do you get them to bite in the first place?

Well you have to know your target and what motivates them in the right way. As Seth points out, offering that latest have to have will get people to comply with your “please give us permission to tell you about us” (i.e. permission marketing) request, but its not likely to make converts to your message, that is, people who will then turn around and promote you to their friends and acquaintances. We have to provide an incentive which will encourage and grow the behaviour and loyalty you need to successfully communicate the next message.

If you offer people the chance of a reward or prize for signing up to a newsletter, then you should be offering something which encourages a level of participation with you in the future, i.e. passing on the URL to a friend who is also likely to become a convert. That’s a network connection that costs you nothing and one which can translate into a new follower = Priceless.