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Make your customer your friend.

Turning strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers. That is what Permission Marketing is all about. Persuading customers to voluntarily give you and your product their attention and to agree to learn more about a company and its products. Or another way to view permission marketing is when the marketer asks the consumer for permission to send them targeted ads based upon personal data supplied by the customer. You tell the consumer something about you and in return they respond with a little about themselves and the cycle continues until the relationship is firmed. The first rule of permission is not what is in it for the company but what is in it for the consumer: they will communicate and give permission if they are getting something in return they want or need. Permission Marketing is the modern day elixir; the cure for interruption marketing that has so thoroughly penetrated our lives and antagonized consumers through junk mail, spam, and the blitz of media messages everywhere one looks (estimated at over 3,000 per day). Permission marketing encourages consumers to participate in a long-term interactive campaign in which they are rewarded in some way (information, entertainment, monetary payment, contests, etc) for paying attention to increasingly relevant messages.

A Vanderbilt University analysis of consumer responses reported that more than 72 percent of Web users would relinquish their data if they were assured of a 'cooperative relationship built on trust' from the vendor; specifically, if the sites would provide statements about how the data were going to be used. Permission marketing has three major components: it is anticipated, it is personal, and it is relevant. In permission marketing, you must change your mindset from millions of impressions, how many millions watched my ultra-expensive superbowl commercial, to one of the few and the brave, fifty thousand or more consumers who have agreed to undergo deep relationships with you.

First item is to get their attention which may be costly. Like the Farmer who hit the mule in the head with a two by four, Now that I have his attention . . It is then up to you, the company, to turn attention into permission. Mass Marketing is necessary to bring about this first stage; getting their attention. Now that you have their attention, you must provide something of value to the customer; very few customers wish to waste their time waiting for you to reply.

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