Permission Marketing

What me, a technical person, doing writing about Marketing. I am doing it because it is relevant to engineers too, and anyways most of the managers are slow to understand the new rules of marketing. They are all busy with the older methods of marketing which involve stopping a potential customer and bombarding him with interventions only when he is least interested in them. For instance, I don't care about biscuits, when India needs only 12 runs to win from 2 overs. I need to watch Sachin and Dhoni get those runs and not watch some stupid person drooling over biscuits.

"Every business is all about Innovation and Marketing."

This was said by management guru Peter Drucker over 40 years ago! But all our managers talk about is: finance, sales, production, management and people. If you are not innovating, you are not growing and even if you got off to a brilliant start, you will stagnate once you stop innovating. If you don't do marketing, you are a charitable organization!

Let me start with the misconception towards marketing:

"Your goal when you advertise is to get as many people as possible to read and agree with the ad you have written. You need a "grabber" - in a written ad that would be the headline that grabs attention and you need the body, which "sells" the product. In a print advertisement you must use as few words as possible to get your point across. The rule of "keep it simple" is a big rule here. No one is going to read a lot of 6 point type that explains the inner workings of your product.
Marketing a product takes a lot of work. To reach as many people as possible takes time and, depending on the medium you use, a lot of money. Mass mailing has proven to be effective even though the studies show you get only a 2% return.
The main basic principle then is REACH THE PEOPLE and keep it simple."

The main principle here is: Get as BIG a funnel as money can get you and try to reach out as many people as you can. But the major problem with the funnel is: the size of your funnel is directly proportional to the advertisement budget. Secondly, you get only a few people who will be funneled out after a long process leaving the rest disgruntled. So, while you spend a lot of money in the funnel method, you identify very less customers.

Here are some popular funnel advertisement examples:

1. TV Ads
   
2. Newspaper ads
   
3. Spam Emails
   
4. Telemarketing calls
   

Now, let us look at another scenario, elevator advertisement. It is a perfect example of permission marketing. Elevators is a place where people never talk, nobody starts a conversation in an elevator only to leave it a few seconds later. Thus, it is one of the places where a person has nothing to do. Any form of intervention will be welcome. People will be interested! Apart from that any elevator caters to a large number of people everyday.

Although, the trend has not caught on in India, it is one of the hottest trends of advertisement in the west. Thus, by understanding the human psychology, we look at a new and an innovative way of advertisement.

Another great example is Google Sponsered Links or the age-old method of classifieds. These are ads placed where the user wants them. So they don't need to be flashy, don't need to shout and interrupt people because people are actually looking for them. Although, you shorten your funnel in these cases, but still you reach to the people who matter. The output of the funnel is large. So, with less amount of money spent, you are able to do better advertisements.

I think the best way to end this post would be to quote Seth Godin's words on permission marketing:

Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them. It recognizes the new power of the best consumers to ignore marketing. It realizes that treating people with respect is the best way to earn their attention.

Permission is like dating. You don't start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right, over time, bit by bit.