Permission Marketing - critical summary review

Seth Godin is a marketing professional and one of the most influential bloggers in the world. In his classic "Permission Marketing," he brings fundamental concepts essential to anyone who wants to do marketing for a changed consumer. Commercials during your favorite TV show or telemarketing call at family dinner time are over as is traditional advertising based on catching people's attention through the interruption. Rather than bothering your prospect client, why not encourage him/her to accept your marketing messages voluntarily? Permission marketing allows you to talk only to who really cares about your products and services and allows your company to build long-term relationships with your customers. Do not miss this 12min microbook!

Who Likes To Be Interrupted?

When color TV came out in the 1950s, it was the dream of every marketer. People spent all their time staring at that screen and watching it all through their free time. How many opportunities to show ads, right? The old marketing premise is based on disrupting the customer and bombarding them with ads trying to get their attention. That is interruption marketing. It worked for a long time because people were watching what happened on TV and did not mind being interrupted for a few minutes before getting back to watching a TV show. Giant companies like Procter & Gamble have used interruption marketing for decades to reach as many people as possible. It did not matter if they were potential clients. If you reached more people, you made more sales. But times have changed, and interruption marketing has died. The ads on the streets, in the supermarkets, bus stops are still there. But we do not see any of them anymore. We have come to a point where we are exposed to so many advertising messages that our brains have begun to pay no attention to any of them because so much information cannot even filter. Do you know that budget you were going to spend on billboards and TV commercials? Save it. Seth Godin wants to introduce you to a new idea.

A New Age Of Marketing

Today we live a new era of marketing, the age of permission marketing. In addition to sounding better than the old way of doing marketing, it is much more efficient. It works like this: 1. You invite people to learn more about your product by creating a unique offer; 2. You begin to talk to people who accept your invitation regularly; 3. Once you've created a legal relationship, sell your products; In Permission Marketing consumers give in to your attention without you having to interrupt them. It involves a conscious acceptance on the part of the client. You should be thinking about email marketing or other forms of digital marketing, but that goes for all channels. Instead of making ads asking for purchases, you could have an ad that invites people to know more about your product. It's an initial contact, focused on relationship building and not just asking the customer to buy it now. That puts the consumer in charge, and now they can choose. They can get in touch with you or not, and that's fine. It radically increases the efficiency of your marketing and the people you communicate with become much more likely to get in touch with you, start a relationship and buy because they have expressed interest voluntarily. When people give you their contact details and say it's okay to communicate with them, then you know you're doing permission marketing.

The Fundamentals of Permission Marketing:

For your permission marketing strategy to be successful, it must be based on 3 main characteristics:

• It must be anticipated by the customer: He has to wait for information about the product or service of his company beforehand. It's not about catching him by surprise. It's about wanting to hear you.

• It must be personal: Marketing information has to relate deeply to the customer and not focus on a mass market. It has to be personalized.

• Relevant to the client: It has to be about something that really matters and wants to know more about that subject. If you follow these 3 criteria, people will want to hear more about you and your brand.

Interrupt Creatively

Although Permission Marketing disturbs the customer less than Interruption Marketing, it is still extremely necessary to be able to connect with your audience and get their attention. Therefore, it is still important to make use of some types of interruptions. But to get it right, permission marketing needs the interruptions to be directed to the right people.

To ensure that your interruption is effective and catches the consumer's attention, you must show clear advantages to the consumer. People only pay attention to things that bring in earnings for them, so you need to find something relevant and appealing to your target audience.

It also takes consistency. Your message needs to be repeated because people tend to forget or ignore punctual messages. When you communicate regularly, it increases the chance that your potential customers will be exposed to your message and remember it. Also, you need to focus on your target audience. You need to communicate with the people in the media that they actually pay attention to. If you communicate massively, trying to reach out to all people, your message tends to be ignored.

Create Long-Term Relationships

Getting people's permission is a long-term investment, and no one can become a brand with which one wants to bond overnight. To start a relationship, the best way to attract people is by inviting them to know something and not to buy something. After the potential client has bitten the bait, the process of creating the relationship must continue. The company must continue to communicate and strengthen that relationship over time. To be able to do that, your brand should reinforce the initial message and educate potential customers about the advantages of their products. With the relationship, comes trust. The consumer gradually remembers and feels confident in the brand. It means that when the customer chooses to buy, he/she buys from someone they trust and not from an unknown brand.

Keep The Relationship Alive With Yout Customer

When a customer calls your 0800 phone number or is served by a sales representative, he is starting a relationship, but most of the time, the sale does not occur at this first moment. You have gained the attention of the person for some time and can already use it in your marketing. If your sales rep starts a captivating conversation with a customer and builds a relationship, you're positioned to create something larger than just one-on-one interaction.

The 5 Levels Of Permission Marketing

There are 5 levels of permission your brand can have from your customers:

• Situational permission: The potential client allows your company to contact you, providing you with your contact information and personal information, although you still do not have confidence in the brand;

• Brand confidence: The potential customer trusts the brand and allows the business to continue communicating with it about their needs;

• Personal relationship: Permission exists because the potential client has a personal relationship with someone in the company;

• Permission for points, sweepstakes, and contests: At this stage, the client has agreed to receive information about the company's products and services and has already authorized the use of his personal data because they had incentives, such as a draw, a competition or some occasional promotion;

• Intravenous Permission: The company has already taken command of the supply of a product or service, and the customer is totally dependent on the business. The more a customer trusts your business, the more permissions he or she will give you. In the ideal scenario, your company gets to the point of having an intravenous permit. Just as a patient can be medicated in a hospital through a solution injected directly into the vein, intravenous permission allows your company to make sales automatically, without customers having to make buying decisions every time. A good example of this is when you subscribe to a magazine. You pay in advance, trust the publisher to get content that interests you, never know what's coming next time, but keep paying.

Maintaining Confidence Is As Important As Gaining It

If customers trust your brand, you do not want to disappoint them. In permission marketing, this respect to customer trust becomes even more critical. If you have gained the permission of the potential customer, you must never violate it. Otherwise, you will lose that permission and still undermine your reputation. For example, if the customer discovers that you have sold his data and information to a third party, that trust breaks down, and you lose your relationship and your chances of selling.

The Internet Is At The Center of Permission Marketing

Permission marketing is an old concept, although many people think otherwise. Before interruption marketing, people needed to trust each other and sales were based on reputation and word-of-mouth marketing. The emergence of new media through which businesses can engage consumers and gain attention as the internet has been the mainstay of growth and this renaissance of marketing permission. The internet drastically reduces the costs of sending marketing messages through email. The email also allows for a constant frequency and is extremely relevant and personalized to the user, different from what could be done in traditional media. Another interesting point is that, on the internet, the consumer can respond to their messages without spending time or money and thus start a conversation.

The History of Yoyodyne

Seth Godin is the founder of an online marketing company, and it is a typical example of how the Internet can be used in Permission Marketing strategies. Yoyodyne, in the 1990s, attracted potential customers to its website by using award-winning banners and leading up to a contest entry page where consumers could leave their email. Only after gaining this permission did the company send messages to the public and communicate with them by email. For potential customers, the more emails they received, the greater their chances at the contest. It allowed the company to send partner deals to customers and they were happy to receive offers from the company.

Any Company May Adopt Permission Marketing

You do not have to be a giant company to adopt this type of strategy. Small businesses can also start their strategies by just sending a relevant message to potential customers through available channels. Since this message attracts people's attention, the focus must be entirely directed towards creating a long-term relationship. With the established relationship, the company must expand this confidence to expand the business and thus sell their products. You do not need to be great to try the way up, but big companies are also adopting and succeeding. American Airlines, with its mileage programs, allows its passengers to travel for free after reaching certain volumes of miles flown. That makes people prefer to fly with American, and they are allowed to collect data about those customers and send relevant marketing messages.

Permission Marketing Brings Better Returns

Although the Permission Marketing process may seem more expensive than a single Interrupt Marketing advertisement, focused on selling a product, it is much more cost-effective per interaction as the relationship spans multiple messages. Also, they are more likely to actually sell a product or service because they deal with people who have already paid attention to the company and are interested. It results in repeat sales and many more word of mouth recommendations from new customers by satisfied customers. Amazon.com is a good example of a company that knows how to use permission marketing to connect with its customers. They are attracted by their extensive selection of products that can be purchased over the Internet but keep coming back due to personal recommendations from books and other products relevant to the buyer. The more people buy, the more the company learns about their customers' preferences, and this allows them to make better and better recommendations for their customers.

Final Notes:

Instead of creating an ad that focuses on getting people to buy your product without knowing you or knowing who you are, ask for their permission to send more information. In every information you send, ask permission to continue sending and build a lasting, trustworthy relationship. That will help you sell more and have more loyal customers.