Seth, Stop The Bogarting

Seth Godin wrote yet another pithy, insightful blog post. This time about marketing on the internet. His insight:

I think there are two strategies that are shaping up online.

The first: burn your permission. Every time you have something to sell, either buy enough ads on popular sites to achieve frequency, or just burn out your core base by repeating your message over and over again. At least you’ll make enough money to be able to rebuild your audience later.

The second: go easy on the frequency and embrace your audience. Give them what they want (interesting, new stuff) instead of what you need (frequency). Play for the long run.

You chose plan-b, right? Now that you have the marketing stuff down pat, what next?

If you provide content frequently, and embrace the audience, interacting in fresh, enlivened ways, then you can and should express how a relationship works. Tell them what you think is fair, and give them the means to honor a shared sense of fairness.

A donate button, or $20 tee shirt, or better, some form of exclusive content. Something simple and impulsive mixed in with more traditional offers of content in classic form, sold only after several clicks and perhaps a journey to another site.

I know the instinctive retort is, “well, they can just go buy my book, or my CD.” Maybe they will. Still, make contributing as easy as possible because some of them will. Leaving your audience uneasy with a vague sense of obligation really isn’t easy, or fair.

Seth, please stop bogarting all the insightful, smart ideas. Thanks.

Earlier post inspired by Seth: Promote, Well Defined