Permission Marketing vs Interruption Marketing: Which One Should I Use?

Permission Marketing is the term popularized by marketing guru Seth Godin. Seth says permission marketing is the delivering of anticipated and personal messages to people who actually want to receive them. Whereas Interruption Marketing on the other hand is when companies just bombard the person with continuous unwanted advertising, promotions. The main question is: Which one should you use? Which one would bring more traffic into your business more? In this article we will answer all these questions.

Permission Marketing

Permission Marketing is when you ask for the potential customers consent and then send them a personalised message or promotion/advertisement. This can come in the form of many different methods.

Remember real Permission Marketing is not when you only obtain the email and that's it. Real Permission Marketing is when someone would complain or miss the feature if they were not to get it every couple of days. For example if you have subscribed to a newsletter or a Youtube channel, then you would want a new video or new newsletter every couple of days from the business. The potential customer may complain or get frustrated that he is not receiving updated videos or newsletters.  This is true Permission Marketing. When someone actually wants to receive something and would actually complain if they did not receive it. Marketers ask for permission before moving onto the sales process.

Another form of Permission Marketing is Tesco with their Tesco Loyalty card. Customers sign up to the loyalty program and expect to hear back from Tesco through personalised promotions, letters, advertisements, etc. Tesco even email customers on their birthday and wish their customers a happy birthday, which is an even more personalised service. Permission Marketing does tend to take longer then Interruption Marketing. Permission Marketing builds a longer, lasting relationship with the customer while Interruption Marketing doesn't.

Some examples of Permission Marketing include:

• Entering your details for free stuff on their website
• Promoting to your existing customers through email (Share 'xyz' with us and you could win a Ferrari)
• Like our Facebook Page and Enter your details to win a house

Interruption Marketing

Interruption Marketing is the total opposite to Permission Marketing.  Interruption Marketing is advertising in a continuous way in which the customer may or may not have an interest in the product or service but still targeting them with promotions, advertisements and sales letters/emails. Interruption Marketing is seen as a distraction to a customer as it is actually interrupting what the person is actually doing. Interruption Marketing is a technique considered to be used by with a bigger budget or are targeting a mass audience. It is used by marketers as a method which will produce quick results.

Have you ever been called by someone only to realise it was a telemarketer trying to sell you something? It is most likely they interrupted you from doing something. Potential customers don't really like it when you interrupt them from something. But those telemarketers are pretty annoying, aren't they?

Another example of Interruption Marketing is when you are watching your favourite movie or program. Lets say you are watching Geordie Shore on MTV and you are getting into it, then all of a sudden it goes to an advertisement of Soap. That is Interruption Marketing, because it actually interrupts you from doing what you were doing.

Some other examples of Interruption Marketing include:

• Print Advertising - advertising in the paper or a magazine/billboard
• Post - advertisements sent through the post (e.g. 'You have won a thousand pounds...)
• Spam email - We all hate spam email
• TV/Radio advertisements - The Classics

Both are great techniques to use to boost your business and bring more traffic/customers to your business/site. Permission Marketing requires more time and patience as it develops and builds lasting relationships with customers which are likely to come back. However Interruption Marketing takes less time nonetheless it is more expensive but it does reach a wider audience.

We would love to hear from you! Which techniques do you use to promote your business? Which methods are the most effective? Comment below! Remember to sign p to our RSS Feed to receive all our updates and sign up to the newsletter as well!

Permission Marketing - Seth Godin Book Review

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers is a book by marketing guru Seth Godin. This book details how you should use permission marketing into your business as this brings in the most customers. Permission Marketing as you guessed it means getting permission from the customer before you advance to the sales process. Permission marketing can be anything from 'Join my mailing list and get free ebooks sent to you' or 'Like this page and have a chance to win a car'. Permission marketing was a term that was just popularized by Seth Godin has been known for many years before Seth Godin.

Seth Godin is a famous entrepreneur, marketer and blogger who resides in America. Godin founded the site Squidoo in 2006 and Squidoo has since become one of the 500 most visited sites in the world. Godin has authored 15 books and is the author of many best selling books such as All Marketers are Liars and The Dip. Seth Godin is one of the brightest minds out there and you can learn a lot from him.

Seth writes in his book that the normal way that marketers used to get their consumers attention does not work anymore. For example a television commercial playing in the middle of the program you were watching or a telemarketer calling you while you are busy eating, this is called interruption marketing and is the complete opposite of Permission marketing. He goes on to say that in todays day and age, interruption marketing no longer works. He claims using Interruption marketing just annoys your potential customer.

He goes on to say how Permission marketing builds a much long term lasting relationship with the customer, and how it increases trust, brand awareness and also increases the chance of parting with the customers money.

Godin tells us about the four tests of Permission Marketing:
1. Does every single marketing effort you create encourage a learning relationship with your customers? Does it invite customers to "raise their hands" and start communicating?
2. Do you have a permission database? Do you track the number of people who have given you permission to communicate with them?
3. If consumers gave you permission to talk to them, would you have anything to say? Have you developed a marketing curriculum to teach people about your products?
4. Once people become customers, do you work to deepen your permission to communicate with those people?

Also in this jam packed informative book, Seth also includes many real life case studies such as Amazon and Yahoo. He shows how big companies are using permission marketing effectively and gaining more customers through using permission marketing.

The book was first written in 1999 and some readers may find this outdated as some of the examples and case studies used are not up to date and do not include the latest examples. However if you can look past this then this should be no problem for you. Seth also does have the tendency to repeat himself and sometimes he does repeat the same point over and over again. From time to time he also uses contradictory statements in his book.

All in all this is a very well written book that will help you understand the term permission marketing. It will also help you implement permission marketing in your business and help grow your business. It is slightly outdated however that is not such a big issue. Seth is an excellent author and we highly recommend this book as you will end up learning a lot from this book. Please click here to buy this book on Amazon.