A Trusted Source Marketing Program will be successful only as far as it is able to prove that its primary goal is to influence people to make informed choices to their own advantage.  Good information about good products delivered in bite sized chunks without pressure to decide will go a long way to prove this.  It does not mean that we shy away from discussing, as time goes by, the other reasons for using the program.

From the outset this is about helping employees get the things that they need and want at lower cost and easy terms from companies that are reputable.  It is equally important that the products do what they are supposed to do.  The trusted source must do its homework (due diligence).

Many companies offer an array of great voluntary benefits.  Historically low participation indicates different things to different people.  Some might say that if the products are good then people will buy.  A basic premise of Trusted Source Marketing™ is too much information about too many options and too many products packed into too little time creates no decision at all.

We need to present the cost/benefit aspects, the frequency of projected use, and how it might affect our lives.  How having the benefit has affected the quality of life for someone else is a story to be told.

Much of Trusted Source Marketing™ is story telling.  Do we have stories worth listening to? How can we assure our audience that it will be worth their time to listen?  Permission Marketing uses many different incentives to urge customers and potential customers to give permission.  Then using the permission wisely, other means are employed to increase participation.  Recognize that the communication must morph from monologue to dialogue. This is the source of many stories that should be told.  How colleagues are using their benefits to advantage can be the tipping point in decision making.

We need to give reasons to look at the material that goes beyond its origin being the trusted source.  The encouragement can be a request for input, a chance to improve the process, even a contest or sweepstakes that requires feedback of some sort.  We must engage the influencee to keep them in the game.

Some prerequisites: The stories need to be short.  Other stories are best told in video format, again short.  Each should have a call to action or at least an easy way to get more information via a link or phone call.