Permission Granted
Once upon a time – a time when children were allowed to actually play with each other mano a mano, no electronic devices required! – there was a popular little game that could be played anywhere, indoors or out-: "Mother, May I?". The rules were simple: All but one of any number of kids would line up, shoulder-to-shoulder, and face the lone kid who'd been chosen to be "Mother" (and no, it didn't matter if Mother was male or female – talk about progressive!). One by one, each player would be "ordered" by Mother to move forward a specified number of steps ("Billy, take 3 giant steps", "Susie, take 5 baby steps", etc.); the first one to make it all the way to the other side won and got to be Mother in the next round. The only catch was having to ask permission of Mother before taking those all-important steps. If you forgot to ask, "Mother, may I?" before proceeding, you had to go all the way back to the beginning and start again.It doesn't take a genius to see the beauty of that game. It was a simple and fun way to teach basic politeness, something which is sorely lacking in today's world.
Attention Interactive is nobody's mother, but as marketing experts, we are very much aware of the role that polite behavior plays when it comes to enhancing our clients' approach to getting their feet in the door of potential new customers. In today's world, it's called "PERMISSION MARKETING" and that has become a viable – and in many ways preferable – way of reaching people who may very well benefit from what it is our web clients' companies provide.
Permission marketing differs from old-fashioned direct mail advertising in a very fundamental manner:
The overwhelming majority of direct mail campaigns target no one in particular. They tend to rely on the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" method of reaching potential customers. In a world outside of the internet, an advertiser's costs expand with the number of actual direct mail pieces that are printed, folded, stuffed, licked, stamped and mailed. Obviously, a certain amount of sales dollars have to be generated just to cover the cost of producing and mailing that advertising to total strangers, who may or may not have any interest whatsoever in the product being touted. The same principal applies to media buys (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, etc.).
With the proliferation of email and easy access to email addresses, advertisers realized that it basically cost no more to send their message to 10,000 people than 100. Not only that, but they could also purchase ad banners on the internet in the hope that online consumers would notice and respond to them. Other than the method of disseminating the materials, none of that is much different, if at all, from paper-based advertising.
Then along came permission marketing. The basic premise makes the consumer a participant in the marketing, by allowing him to actually inform the marketer about where his interests and needs lie. This exchange of information is done in a variety of ways, but they all begin with the marketer ASKING PERMISSION to send the consumer a number of informational emails about the service or product that he is offering.
Let's face it: Psychologically speaking, the average human being loves being made to feel special. An easy, non-intrusive way to do that is by asking him to tell you a little bit about himself. For example, let's say your product is a super-duper gizmo that shoots nails into drywall, removes screws and sands. Wouldn't it help to know if your prospective customer is a do-it-yourselfer? Or owns his own home? Or is a building contractor? If, on the other hand, you reached a 23-year-old manicurist, who can't afford to break a fingernail, and rents a room in her cousin's apartment, well, that wouldn't be a very good prospect for your gizmo, now would it?!
Permission marketing provides you with a means of reaching potential consumers and giving them the opportunity to respond to your pertinent questions regarding their specific needs. It enables you to eliminate (or more to the point, never include in the first place) people who will never, ever want or need your particular product or service. Instead, you will be concentrating on those who actually are likely purchasers and encourage them to become "partners" with you in a mutually beneficial, non-intrusive information exchange.
If you wish to become better-informed about this direct marketing approach, there are dozens of articles available on the web. Since it can be a bit daunting to weed out the better ones (which, you will discover, is also part and parcel of permission marketing's ability to push your website to the front of the pack), Attention Interactive will happily provide our clients with a short list.
Attention Interactive adheres to the principals of permission marketing, particularly since its methods have proven to be far more effective than traditional direct marketing. We encourage and assist our web marketing clients to do the same. If you wish to ask us for further information... permission granted.
Learn how marketers should ask permission before they send advertisements to prospective customers and how it is the most efficient use of your resources because advertisements are not sent to people that are not interested in the product.
Learn why marketing should be done on a one-to-one basis rather than using broad aggregated concepts like market target or market segmentation.
You can get this book here.
Conceptualized by Seth Godin, permission marketing is the opposite of traditional interruption marketing. Permission marketing is about building an ongoing relationship of increasing depth with customers. In the words of Seth Godin, "turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers." Permission marketing has been hailed as a way for marketers to succeed in a world increasingly cluttered with marketing messages.
