CONTENTS:
1. Maximize marketing by increasing brand trust
2. Bookbyte: Gaining permission to boost loyalty and sales
3. E-Broadcaster provides more power for the same price
4. The Email Evangelist takes to the road :)
5. Spire2 Spotlight: Upgrading Kinney's brand

Maximize marketing by increasing brand trust
Gaining trust is the most critical step in making a sale. When you consider that the most trusted brands are almost always the most profitable, it is clear that building trust should be a central theme of your marketing efforts. Here are three ways to build trust into your brand:

1. Create a brain trust. Be a byline. Get on the agenda! Every organization should be using internal expertise to get its brand name in industry publications and on conference platforms. Best of all, cultivating and using the best of your staff can gain huge trust for your brand for virtual pocket change.

2. Build on history. There is always an angle on history that can make your brand more trustworthy, or it could be as simple as always stating that you've been in business for xx years. (I won't consider a contractor without a long history since the patio installer disappeared two years after completing my now sinking patio with a worthless five year warranty).

3. Brand and brand again. Familiarity is the launching pad for trust. Consistent and regular exposure to a brand will build trust. Most people think of advertising, but there are many ways to get brand exposure. Creating a rewards program, adding an online value-added resource, sponsoring an event, or launching an opt-in email program are a few ways to give a brand regular exposure.

These ideas build a foundation of trust that can shorten the sales cycle and increase your profitability over time. To keep customer's trust, consistently meeting or beating their expectations is the goal. Customer retention, though, is fodder for another article.

Gaining permission to boost loyalty and sales

Editor's note: You always need to keep learning to stay creative. We share the wealth from books we've read.

Seth Godin's book Permission Marketing clearly shows why permission marketing should be a strategic part of your marketing program.

What is permission marketing? Permission marketing offers the consumer an opportunity to volunteer to be marketed to. Volunteers are then rewarded in some way for paying attention to increasingly relevant messages. It really is just having an executable plan for turning a stranger into a friend, a friend into a customer, and a customer into a loyal customer.

Though not limited to email, the following example makes the idea come alive: Imagine, for example, if Pizza Hut were to send every loyal Pizza Hut customer with kids (who had given permission to receive emails) an email offering them free soda with purchase, but just tomorrow, and just at their particular local store. And by the way, there will be a clown and face painting! If Pizza Hut can contact 2 million people this way, overnight and for free, what will be their return on investment? Is this more efficient than spending $1 million on TV advertising? Of course, it is.

Marketing too often focuses on trying to meet and marry on the first date. Permission marketing builds on the idea that dating and courtship lead to a more lasting and profitable business relationship.

E-Broadcaster provides more power for the same price

Over the past few months, E-broadcaster(pdf), Spire2-hosted email marketing solution, has been enhanced with more templates and more ways to manage databases, including even better response tracking (providing more useful information from campaigns). The folks who make E-broadcaster possible send between 2 and 3 million emails a month in traffic (and growing quickly), and promise to continue to enhance the best email marketing tool available.

The monthly cost is still as low as $30 per month for 1000 emails each month. Contact Spire2 about an E-broadcaster demonstration.

Recent Inspire newsletters: Vol2: No.1, Vol 2: No.2 Vol 2: No.3