The Power of Permission Marketing

Permission marketing, a phrase coined by an internet marketing genius called Seth Godin (founder of Squidoo and former President of direct marketing at Yahoo), describes the solution to the problem of the growing ineffectiveness of traditional advertising.

Interruption marketing

Traditional marketing, which could also be called interruption marketing, relies on interrupting people in their daily lives. At home, at work, on public transport, and in the car we are all assailed every day with advertising.

Billboards, radio, television, magazines, newspapers, the internet-there is no escaping interruption marketing. The difficult for advertisers though is that as people become more desensitized to and aware of this type of marketing it becomes increasingly expensive and counterproductive.

Permission marketing

Permission marketing on the other hand involves building trust with your potential customer to the point where she/he will give you their permission or approval to market to them.

This explains the huge rise in the use of “club” or loyalty cards from major retailers.

On the internet the full power of permission marketing can be exploited to it’s fullest potential through the use of email or subscription marketing.

This involves the website owner giving away, for free, something of value to the potential subscriber in return for their signing up as a subscriber and/or giving their email address. The trust required to bring about this mutually satisfactory exchange must be earned and cannot be abused.

However the benefit of a large list of subscribers whose permission you have earned to engage with them through their email inbox is enormous and stands in stark contrast to traditional interruption marketing.

Communicatiing with potential customers via their email inbox, provided your emails don’t go into the spam folder, offers huge potential to build your relationship with them, and demonstrate your authority and authenticity.

It is an incredibly cost effective form of marketing which, if done correctly, can ensure an organically growing customer base.

Hopefully you will remember this the next time you head for the kitchen during the ad breaks of your favourite tv programme and resolve to put permission marketing to work in your small business.