I re-read a book the other day called "Permission Marketing" by a chap called Seth Godin.
The copy I read was a little dated as it was written about 10 years and was making references to AltaVista for example rather than Google but even so it was great to read it again.

Seth's whole point is about the use of permission with your marketing. It is about offering the potential customer or client something for free (or at least at a peppercorn price) to start a relationship and then gradually win people's trust over time and develop a mutually profitable relationship with them.

Now this is a concept I've heard again and again from people like Chris Cardell, Dan Kennedy, Cory Rudl and loads of people who's names I can't remember. And I know it works because I use it myself.

The average website asks people to either "pay up" or "go away" basically. Blunt but true.

The website that starts a relationship and then follows up with multiple emails and contacts generally does much better. Even for e-commerce sites, capturing contact details by offering the right "bait" usually gives you the edge over people that expect their sites to work simply by selling and nothing else.

Most people's websites are expecting to sell straight away. Well ok that's fine for the 1% or 2% that are in that part of their buying cycle, but it leaves 98% of the money on the table.

It's a bit like a man going into a bar and seeing an attractive woman and asking her to marry him there and then. It may work in a small percentage of the time, but it's not very effective! There's no RELATIONSHIP.

Look at my site. I give away tons of great stuff to encourage people to return on a regular basis and tryout our training services.

For example, one simple way of using permission marketing is with a multiple step signup form.

We've all seen enquiry forms that have loads of pointless questions. Daunting at the least and usually very poor at conversion.

Far better to offer someone a free guide/whitepaper/e-book etc in exchange for the very basics i.e. a name and an email. Then, on the "thank-you" page, you can ask more questions and this way it doesn't look too onerous.

In fact I have tried and tested having many questions over several pages and the more pages people go through(as long as they're suitably motivated by the right "bait") the more qualified the leads are coming out the other end. You can actually "see" people going though the sales "funnel".

It's a bit like a breadcrumb trail. Nice 'n easy steps.

My question is, what can you do with your sales process to make it very easy to sign up to something and then gain progressively more information (permission) about your visitors?

Once armed with this information, you can run personalised, targeted campaigns for maximum conversion and loyalty. Again and again and again.

Why not let us show you how easy it is plus give you some great, specific advice about your website in loads of different areas? Register at http://www.mklink.com/getstarted now and don't look back!