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Permission Marketing
Definition
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Permission marketing is a relatively new term, which was coined and developed
by the entrepreneur, Seth Godin. Traditional methods of marketing often
revolves around the idea of attracting the customer’s attention away from
whatever they are doing – whether it is a television advert that cuts into a TV
show, or an internet pop-up that interferes with a website. According to Seth
Godin, such traditional methods of advertising (often referred to as
“Interruption marketing”), has become less effective in the modern world,
where information is overloaded. Therefore, Godin has developed the idea of
permission marketing. Permission marketing is the opposite of interruption
marketing; instead of interrupting the customer with unrequested information,
permission marketing aims to sell goods and services only when the prospect
gives consent in advance to receive the marketing information.
Opt-in email is a prime example of Permission marketing, where Internet users
sign-up (in other words give permission) to receive information about a certain
product or a service. Supporters of Permission marketing claims it to be
effective, as the potential client would be more interested in an information that
was requested in advance. Furthermore, it is also more cost-efficient in
comparison to the traditional methods, as businesses will only need to target
consumers who have expressed an interest in their product.
Permission marketing vs. Interruption marketing
Interruption marketing is essentially a competition to win people’s attention.
Twenty years ago, when the internet was not as common, it was relatively easier
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to win people’s attention. However, in today’s world of mass-marketing, people
are consistently overloaded with advertisements that compete for their limited
time and attention span. The average consumer is said to come into contact with
1 million advertisements per year – which is nearly 3000 per day. When there is
an overflow of interruptions, people’s inevitable response would be to disregard
them, tune out, and refuse to respond. Such traditional methods of marketing
has thus become more difficult and costly – increasing the number of exposures
will be required to attain the same outcome.
Permission Marketing in contrast offers an opportunity for the consumers to
choose whether to be subjugated to marketing. By only targeting such
volunteers, Permission Marketing assures that the consumers pay more attention
to the marketing message. Permission Marketing thus encourages consumers to
engage in a long-standing, cooperative marketing campaign.
The 5 Levels of Permission Marketing
From the lowest to the highest effectiveness, there are 5 levels of permission in
Permission Marketing.
 Situational Permission: The prospect permits the business to come into
contact by providing their personal information.
 Brand Trust: The prospect permits the business to continue supplying
their needs.
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 Personal Relationship: The prospect’s permission is granted because of a
personal relationship that he/she has with someone in the provider
organization.
 Points Permission: At this stage, the customer has agreed to receive goods
or services and has allowed the business to collect their personal data.
This is usually because they are provided with incentives, such as
exchangeable points or an opportunity to earn a prize.
 Intravenous Permission: The supplier has now taken over the supply
function for a specific good or a service; the customer is completely
dependent on the business.
At each successive level of the permission framework, the business achieves a
higher efficiency state, with a decrease in the marketing cost. Thus, businesses
usually aim to achieve the “intravenous permission” level. However, the 5
levels of permission should not be considered as a necessary sequential process,
as more than one level could apply simultaneously depending on the nature of
the business.
Examples of Permission marketing
After Permission Marketing was first introduced in 1999, as of today, it has
inspired a large number of firms and companies to establish permission-based
marketing agencies, campaigns, and platforms. It has also largely contributed to
the development and the expansion of the social media, which heavily utilizes
the methods of permission marketing; “friending”, “liking”, and “following”, all
closely associates to the idea of Permission Marketing. Facebook is a prime
example – whether it is to post, to share, or to amplify, the marketer would have
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to send a friend request (or a permission) to the potential prospects. Other
notable examples of permission marketing are listed below:
Huffington Post
Huffington Post is an American online news aggregator and blog which offers
original content including the areas of politics, business, entertainment,
environment, technology, etc. The Huffington Post has a clear permission
marketing-based approach; the readers will be required to register on the site
using their social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The registration
implies that readers have given the permission for Huffington Post to send them
with marketing information, such as their newsletters.
History
Permission marketing was first publicized in Seth Godin’s book, “Permission
Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers”,
published on May 6, 1999. Seth Godin is the founder of the Yoyodyne
Entertainment, and his experience as an entrepreneur was what cemented his
idea of Permission Marketing. He witnessed that successful campaigns were the
ones that first sought for customer’s consent. From such observation, Godin
believed that marketing strategies should be based on the following elements –
“anticipated, personal, and relevant”. The three elements were then put together
to define Permission marketing.
 Anticipated: people will anticipate the service/product information from
the company.
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 Personal: the marketing information explicitly relates to the customer.
 Relevant: the marketing information is something that the consumer is
interested in.
Benefits and Limitations of Permission Marketing
Benefits
 Cost Efficient: Permission Marketing employs low cost online tools –
social media, search engine optimization, e-mails, etc. Furthermore, by
only marketing to consumers who has expressed an interest, businesses
can lower their marketing costs.
 High Conversion Rate: As the targeting audience are those who has
expressed an interest to the product, it is easier to convert the leads into
sales.
 Personalization: Permission marketing allows businesses to run
personalized campaigns; it allows them to target specific audiences
according to their age, gender, geographical location, etc.
 Establish Long-Term Relationships with the Customer: Through the
usage of social media and e-mails, businesses can interact and build longterm relationships with the customers.
 Maintains Marketing Reputation: Unlike Interruption marketing where
consumers are bombarded with marketing messages, Permission
marketing only sends information to those who are anticipating the
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information. Therefore, prospects who receive the information do not feel
discomfort.
Limitations
Though supporters of Permission marketing claims it to be effective over
Interruption Marketing, there is a paradox; Permission marketing is inevitably
initiated with Interruption Marketing. To develop a permission-based
relationship with a prospect, the very first step is always in the form of
traditional marketing, where the marketer has to win the prospects attention.
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