Tourism Internet Marketing U

The Essence Of Permission Marketing

For as long as most of us can remember, consumers have been bombarded by marketing messages left and right from every medium known to man. You get up in the morning to your radio alarm clock and right away you hear two or three commercials. The nature of those commercials will depend on the station and its target market, but you will hear some kind of marketing message. You brush your teeth and head downstairs for breakfast. The kids have the TV turned on and you hear their favorite cereal being advertised from the kitchen as you make your scrambled eggs and bacon with hash browns. As you eat your breakfast, you pull out the morning’s newspaper and begin to read. Each page is half filled is advertisements from the local businesses in your area. After breakfast, you leave for work. On your way in you see billboard after billboard and listen to the radio with more marketing messages. While stopped at a stop light, you see a man standing on the side of the road with a sign that says “Flowers For Sale”. They’re all over the place.

This is what Seth Godin calls Interruptive Marketing because these are not messages that you asked for. They are interrupting whatever you are doing and hitting you with a message that you didn’t ask for. With permission marketing, you’re going to get your prospect’s permission before you contact them and hit them with any kind of marketing message. It’s called permission marketing because it requires a permission before the message can be sent. Your prospect has opted to receive your message because it is something that she has an interest in. On the Internet, this kind of marketing is much more prevalent than the Interruptive Marketing that Seth Godin talks about. It’s also a lot more effective.

Still looking for more on permission marketing? Lucky for you, I’ve got a fantastic webinar all about Permission Marketing, now available on CD!

-Written by Susan Sweeney