Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers
By Seth Godin

Traditional marketing is dead says Seth Godin, author of Permission Marketing. The old one-way of advertising Godin claims doesn't work any more. Godin calls the traditional approach interruption marketing. With interruption marketing, a TV commercial breaks into your favorite program, a telemarketing phone interrupts your dinner. The marketer then peddles their wares. The marketer then hope that a tiny percentage of those they interrupt will buy their wares.

Permission marketing comes from the opposite direction. Instead of interrupting consumers with unsolicited messages it asks consumers to volunteer to have you sell to them. And since you have the consumer's permission to sell you are much more likely to be listened to.

Once you receive a consumer's permission you build up a relationship over time. Permission marketing recognizes the balance of power in marketing and selling has shifted to the buyer. On the web no is only ever one click away.

Permission marketing says Godin has three qualities:

1. "It's anticipated, meaning that people look forward to hearing from you."
2. "It's personal, meaning messages are targeted to the individual."
3. "It's relevant, meaning it provides information and products that are of interest to the consumers."

Do you practice Permission Marketing? Here are Godin's four tests:

1. Does every single marketing effort you create encourage a learning relationship with your customers?
   
   
2. Do you have a permission database? Do you track the number of people who have given 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 these people?

Hunting and Farming

Godin likes to say the difference between interruption marketing and permission marketing is the difference between being a hunter and a farmer. Hunting involves roaming around and shooting whatever targets present themselves. With farming, you have to stick to it - hoeing, planting and watering. "In the end you can feed more people with hunting."

Permission Marketing will make you rethink your future marketing value proposition. A must read.

Available for purchase from Amazon.com