I vividly remember reading and buying into the concept of Permission Marketing by Seth Godin. It has become one of my favorite marketing books and I’ve used it’s principles ever since. The overriding message is traditional advertising attempts to gain our attention by interrupting our lives while permission marketing is based on opting-in and to have a conversation. (Sidenote – I recently read David Meerman Scott’s “World Wide Rave” and it shares many of the same principles, which I’ll review here soon.)
I won’t even begin to debate the ROI of traditional advertising even though I’ve tried most of them (tv, radio, print, direct mail and billboards). I do think it can work for some consumer companies even though they continue to interrupt my day. However, I’m seeing more and more interruption tactics that are crossing the line into intrusive.
A perfect example is the picture above. Recently, I came home to find this “gift” lying on the fringe of my front yard. If you can’t see from the photo, Cash Express filled a plastic bag with their swag and threw it onto my yard along with all my neighbors in the area.
I totally buy into the fact that people LOVE free stuff, but what does a cup of nail files, notepads, mints and pens tell me about your brand? Not to mention, I’m not sure my neighborhood is the target audience, which I would describe as average or middle class. My beef with this tactic was I had to physically go remove the “ad” from my yard and dispose of it. It absolutely got my attention, but for all the wrong reasons.
Other examples of intrusive marketing including the phone books dropped off at my door, “professional” magazines I never asked for, pop up video ads on news sites and purchased email lists. I was recently pitched by a direct mail firm to just “blast out” my message to the lists they’ve obtained, but I explained I see the inbox becoming more and more sacred for professionals.
I could go on and on about the benefits of permission marketing, but where can we draw the line to stop marketers? They’ve infiltrated virtually every nook of our public space and they’re blowing right by my mailbox to attack my home. If you think I’m overreacting please remember, I’m a capitalist! I love free enterprise, appreciate the need to grow of a business and actively seek out great marketing campaigns. However, intrusive marketing smells of desperation and I’m tired of holding my nose.
