Permission Marketing

Permission marketing is a relatively new term, which was coined and developed by the entrepreneur, Seth Godin.^[1] 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 to win people’s attention. However, in today’s world of mass-marketing, people are consistently overloaded with adverts 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

The 5 Levels of Permission Marketing

From the lowest to the highest effectiveness, there are 5 levels of permission in Permission Marketing.

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.^[8]

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 to send a friend request (or a permission) to the potential prospects.