A long, long, time ago advertisers would interrupt people to get their message in front of them. Commercials interrupting your favorite show, coupons in your mailbox, awkwardly placed billboards, branding of anything and everything, commercials interrupting the top 10 countdown on the radio, telemarketers trying to sell you something, sales people showing up at your door, and video billboards promising even more interruptions than static billboards.
There was no permission established so eventually these were bound to fail once the market was saturated with messages competing for the next chance to interrupt you.
Enter the Seth Godin coined term “permission based marketing“.
I need to be friends with you for you to show up in my Facebook newsfeed or to be able to post on my wall.
I need to be following you on Twitter to receive your tweets.
I need to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter to receive it.
I have never been forced to watch a YouTube video, I choose what I want to watch.
I can’t force you to read my blog, it’s your choice.
Notice a trend here? To communicate with people you must have their permission, no matter what medium you use. Marketing hasn’t gone anywhere since “social media” took over, it just got smarter. The winners now will be the ones who understand permission based marketing and come up with the newest innovative way to acquire permission. It’s the next generation of word-out-mouth.
On the other hand, I hate to hear campaigns talking about “mass-text-messaging” services and mass e-mail marketing. Just further attempts at interrupting more people to tell them a message they don’t want to hear.
If you want to delve further into the topic pick up this book:
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