“Your website should be 100% focused on signing up strangers to give you permission to market to them.”
Seth Godin in this book elucidates the idea that why no one in today’s world is concerned about TV commercials and flyers.
It also explains that in the noisy market today, the most effective way to market your products/ services is to establish a relationship with the customer.
Permission Marketing brings out a whole other side of marketing. The basic strategy is to initiate a relationship with a potential customer but with their due permission.
Once a relationship is established, the customer tends to share more information with you that can be used for making your campaigns more effective and personalized.
Through this, the company is provided with more useful information on the customer like their browsing behavior and purchasing patterns.
“The heart of Permission Marketing is giving the stranger a reason to pay attention, while Interruption Marketers hold people hostage.”
The philosophy proposed in the book is that with Permission Marketing, a company can acquire more customers, a wider range of audiences, and an increase in the frequency of contact with a customer.
The customer also accepts and encourages these contacts because they are facilitated with benefits for the same. Seth Godin shines a light on the Five Levels of Permission Marketing. Starting from the lowest (least effective) to the highest (most effective)
1. Situation Permission
This is the circumstance when a customer allows a business to assist them in making a purchase or completing the transaction process.
2. Brand Trust
This is where the customer allows the business to keep fulfilling their needs by a minimal ‘shopping around’. At this stage, the customer trusts the brand.
3. Personal Relationships
The customers in this case permit a business to market to them because they know someone within that organization.
4. Points Permission
This is when the customer now has given full permission to the business for selling products to them. In the process, collecting data from them in turn for prizes and redeemable points.
Here, there are two parts to this theory, first is the Points liability model, where each point has an actual value for the customer and equivalent cost for the business. Second is the Points chance model, where the customer receives chances to win prizes by purchasing more from the business or giving them more useful information.
5. Intravenous Permission
Godin explains, “This is what you’ve got going when you’re in the intensive care unit with a needle in your arm and a bag of medicine dripping into your veins…Your doctor has your written permission to inject just about anything he wants into your IV bag. Not only can he select and administer the drug, but he then can charge you for the treatment and fully expect that you’ll pay for it.”
This means that now the business is an integral part of the customer’s organization.
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin is a book saturated with ideas, case studies, insights, and actionable techniques for the marketing world. It can be used to expand your business reach with a whole new perspective.
Want to learn more about permission marketing? Get the book here.
