If you use email marketing you should listen to Seth.
Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, best selling author and all-round business prophet.
I’ve read more than my fair share of businesses and marketing guides and in my opinion no one comes closer to explaining the revolutionary impact of technology on business than Seth Godin.
In 1999 he coined the phrase ‘permission marketing’. The term has had a huge impact on the way people and businesses market products. So what does ‘permission marketing’ have to say about marketing and advertising in the internet age and what’s the significance for email?
The end of interruption advertising?
The central point in permission marketing is that we can no longer rely on traditional forms of advertising, also known as ‘interruption advertising’.
The central point in ‘Permission Marketing’ is that we can no longer rely on traditional forms of advertising, also known as ‘interruption advertising’
A trip back in time to 1941 provides a great example of interruption through advertising. Just before the 1941 US World Series, the watchmaker Bulova broadcast a 10-second TV advert – the first TV ad in history. Basically they wanted to reach a massive audience with a very direct message.
While you may think that advertising looks and feels so different given the impact of celebrities, creative flair and demographic targeting – the principle is fundamentally the same – interrupt as many people as possible in the expectation, or hope, that most of it will stick.
Now I’m not saying that advertising to a mass audience shouldn’t be part of a marketing plan but here’s where it starts to get problematic. Most businesses aren’t large brands with huge advertising budgets and, critically, there’s now a lot more broadcast and print media than there were in 1941.
So many, in fact, that your target consumers have splintered across a very wide media spectrum including a multitude of internet channels and sites. ‘Media fracture’ now starts to make interruptive marketing pointless and ineffective.
So what’s the big problem with interruption advertising in the internet age?
In an environment saturated with new media and consumers bombarded with countless marketing messages across TV, radio and print there’s a huge problem with actually getting through to your target audiences.
Businesses, both large and small, continue to waste a huge percentage of their marketing budget. Most of them are annoying people who don’t care!
Worst practice email marketing
Back in the late 1990s when some businesses and not-so-smart marketers realised you could send practically unlimited email messages to mass lists of email addresses they were essentially replicating the interruptive strategies used by major advertisers.
Send out enough emails in the hope that some of them stick was the thinking. Welcome to the birth of spam email marketing – the very worst way to market to consumers. Sadly, spam marketing is still common place.
The solution – ‘permission marketing’
Seth Godin’s central point is that you need to get people’s attention by being relevant to them. And the very best way to do this is to gain permission from people who want to know more about your brand or products. Once you start to gain permission from lots of people who you know are a captive audience, you can build a goldmine of customer contact information.
So what’s the secret of great email marketing?
Permission and relevance form the basis of great email marketing. Experienced and successful email marketers carefully build lists of relevant people who want to be marketed to and provide regular emails with engaging content, valuable offers and generous rewards.
Or, as Seth says: send ‘Me-Mails, Not Emails’.
