For those who read Seth Godin’s books like "Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers" he has some interesting comparisons to make you understand what he’s talking about. I was lucky enough last week at the Return Path IN conference in NY to hear a keynote titled "No Free Stamps Here!" from him. One of the funniest, but truest things I heard was this:
THE TWO WAYS TO GET MARRIED
The Interruption Marketer buys an extremely expensive
suit. New shoes. Fashionable accessories. Then,
working with the best databases and marketing
strategists, selects the demographically ideal singles bar.
Walking into the singles bar, the Interruption Marketer
marches up to the nearest person and proposes marriage.
If turned down, the Marketer repeats this process on
every person in the bar.
If the Marketer comes up empty-handed after spending
the entire evening proposing, it is obvious that the blame
should be placed on the suit and the shoes. The tailor is
fired. The strategy expert who picked the bar is fired.
And the Interruption Marketer tries again at a different
singles bar.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s the way most large
marketers look at the world. They hire an agency. They
build fancy ads. They "research" the ideal place to run the
ads. They interrupt people and hope that one in a hundred
will go ahead and buy something. And then, when they
fail, they fire their agency!
The other way to get married is a lot more fun, a lot more
rational, and a lot more successful. It’s called dating.
A Permission Marketer goes on a date. If it goes well, the
two of them go on another date. And then another. Until,
after ten or twelve dates, both sides can really
communicate with each other about their needs and
desires. After twenty dates, they meet each other’s
families. And finally, after three or four months of dating,
the Permission Marketer proposes marriage.
Permission Marketing is just like dating. It turns strangers
into friends and friends into lifetime customers. Many of
the rules of dating apply, and so do many of the benefits.
THE FIVE STEPS TO DATING YOUR CUSTOMER
Every marketer must offer the prospective customer an
incentive for volunteering. In the vernacular of dating,
that means you have to offer something that makes it
interesting enough to go out on a first date. A first date,
after all, represents a big investment in time, money and
ego. So there better be reason enough to volunteer.
Without a selfish reason to continue dating, your new
potential customer (and your new potential date) will
refuse you a second chance. If you don’t provide a
benefit to the consumer for paying attention, your offer
will suffer the same fate as every other ad campaign that’s
vying for their attention. It will be ignored.
The incentive you offer to the customer can range from
information, to entertainment, to a sweepstakes, to
outright payment for the prospect’s attention. But the
incentive must be overt, obvious and clearly delivered.
This is the most obvious difference between Permission
Marketing and Interruption Marketing. Interruption
Marketers spend all of their time interrupting strangers, in
an almost pitiful attempt to bolster popularity and capture
attention. Permission Marketers spend as little time and
money talking to strangers as they can. Instead, they
move as quickly as they can to turn strangers into
prospects who choose to "opt-in" to a series of
communications.
Second, using the attention offered by the consumer, the
marketer offers a curriculum over time, teaching the
consumer about the product or service he has to offer.
The Permission Marketer knows that the first date is an
opportunity to sell the other person on a second date.
Every step along the way has to be interesting, useful and
relevant.
Since the prospect has agreed to pay attention, it’s much
easier to teach them about your product. Instead of filling
each ensuing message with entertainment designed to
attract attention, or with sizzle designed to attract the
attention of strangers, the Permission Marketer is able to
focus on product benefits — on specific, focused ways
this product will help that prospect. Without question,
this ability to talk freely over time is the most powerful
element of this marketing approach.
The third step involves reinforcing the incentive. Over
time, any incentive wears out. Just as your date may tire
of even the finest restaurant, the prospective customer
may show fatigue with the same repeated incentive. The
Permission Marketer must work to reinforce the
incentive, to be sure that the attention continues. This is
surprisingly easy. Because this is a two-way dialogue,
not a narcissistic monologue, the marketer can adjust the
incentives being offered and fine tune them for each
prospect.
Along with reinforcing the incentive, the fourth step is to
increase the level of permission the marketer receives
from the potential customer. Now I won’t go into detail
on what step of the dating process this corresponds to,
but in marketing terms, the goal is to motivate the
consumer to give more and more permission over time.
Permission to gather more data about the customer’s
personal life, or hobbies, or interests. Permission to offer
a new category of product for the customer’s
consideration. Permission to provide a product sample.
The range of permission you can obtain from a customer
is very wide, and limited only by its relevance to the
customer.
Over time, the marketer uses the permission he’s obtained
to change consumer behavior, that is, get them to say, "I
do." That’s how you turn permission into profits. After
permission is granted, that’s how it becomes a truly
significant asset for the marketer. Now you can live
happily ever after by repeating the aforementioned
process while selling your customer more and more
products. In other words, the fifth and final step is to
leverage your permission into a profitable situation for
both of you. Remember, you have access to the most
valuable thing a customer can offer – attention.
Five Steps to Dating Your Customer
- Offer the prospect an incentive to volunteer
- Using the attention offered by the prospect, offer a
curriculum over time, teaching the consumer about your
product or service - Reinforce the incentive to guarantee that the prospect
maintains the permission - Offer additional incentives to get even more permission
from the consumer - Over time, leverage the permission to change consumer behavior towards profits
I hope you’ll be intrigued enough by this sample to go ahead and buy yourself a copy of his book! You can get the book at any bookstore or you can buy it online.
To buy online, click on one of the links below:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684856360/permissionmarket
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Permission-Marketing/Seth-Godin/e/9780684856360/?itm=1
http://www.permission.com for a big chunk for free
-Dennis
Eloqua
Don’t Just Send, Deliver!
Last 5 posts by Dennis Dayman
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