What’s that got to do with anything you say? See the worn away patch? That’s the mute button. And it’s telling you that traditional methods of marketing, such as TV ads, are failing.

When I Was A Lad…

Back in the old days (y’know, like the 80’s or something), with no mobile phones and only a handful of TV channels, the way to win the race of getting to the customer was to shout the loudest. Known as “interruption marketing”, TV was the champion.

These days of course, we are bombarded with information everywhere we care to look, wander or listen.

This also means there’s been a shift in who holds the power over what we choose to pay attention to. And guess what – it’s us that are holding the power (or the mute button!).

While there are certain outlets for which the interruption method still works (yes, I’m looking at you Harvey), falling revenues, tougher competition and shorter attention spans mean that they are not as effective as they once were. The good news is that its evolution leaves us with something called “permission marketing”.

Permission Marketing? Wassat?

Based on the idea of creating a relationship with those interested in your service, via ‘opting-in’ to information you produce; it’s a boon for small business owners as it turns the ‘one-to-many’ of interruption marketing on its head, giving us a much more budget friendly ‘many-to-one’ relationship instead.

Thankfully, building that relationship is not as hard, or better still, as expensive, as it may sound. For example, email-marketing is hands down the most cost effective form of permission marketing there is, and can be had for free. Yes, FREE.

Calling All Control Freaks!

Another reason to use permission marketing is control. With many methods of permission marketing being internet based, you have the ability to change something you don’t like at your very fingertips. Try doing that with the copy you supplied Yellow Pages three months ago that has the wrong phone number on it…

And building on this, is your ability to test and measure – vital to knowing if your marketing is working. Running an ad on Google AdWords and its not working as well as you’d hoped? Well then, start tweaking! You may see results in as little as 10 minutes.

The Wrap

Permission marketing comes in many flavours, and while I am (obviously) an advocate of its methods, unless you have the type of business that can support it I wouldn’t recommend sealing the coffin on your traditional advertising just yet. Instead, for now look upon it as a secondary channel of marketing; it won’t break the bank, but you will find it earns its keep a lot quicker than other methods.

If you have any comments or questions about this topic, feel free to let me know in the box below. Alternatively, send me an email via the contact form.