opinion
The term 'permission marketing' was originally coined by innovative Yahoo marketer Seth Godin in his 1999 book. To direct marketers, steeped in a world in which consumers were merely seen as percentage response rates in mass direct mail campaigns, the principle of passing control to the consumer was both brave and frightening. Godin however argued simply that the established models of press, TV and direct mail (what he called 'intrusion marketing') were simply not working anymore and that the web (long before 2.0 appeared) would be the tool that enabled the consumer to choose who had the right to a dialogue with them. Arguably, we have now gone a step further - the consumer now (via UGC) makes their feelings known to the wider world and may never instigate a one-to-one dialogue with a brand - if we're not careful.
Permission marketing at this early stage applied only to e-mail marketing. The principle of permission mutated into the opt-in versus opt-out debate; is it right to assume that the consumer consents to receiving advertising messages unless they say otherwise. This then became the opt-in versus double opt-in question (or when is permission not permission? - when it hasn't been confirmed). Whilst the purists argued around these terms, the vast majority of marketers carried on regardless using the old media and the old metrics.
The early pioneers (whether using opt-out, opt-in or double opt-in) generally had similar business models. These were about creating consumer facing sites that collected consumer's permission to show them advertiser messages in return for incentives. These incentives varied from points to sweepstakes and lotteries with cash and product prizes. The consumer signed up to the programme on the understanding that this could mean a range of offers from a range of advertisers but all under the banner of the programme. The principle was that offers would be relevant because they were targeted on the basis of the very information that the consumer registered when giving permission - but often they weren't as the commercial pressures of many advertisers chasing a small audience meant that the purity of the idea was sacrificed. This wasn't what Mr Godin intended at all.
Fast forward to the current marketing environment and we face a sea change. Many brands now collect channel permissions from their own customers themselves, and there are sound reasons for this. Permission marketing principles are now enshrined in law for all electronic channels (via the Privacy & Electronic Communications regulations) but there is increasing pressure on non electronic channels too. The Government, primarily driven by its green agenda, continues to pressure the DM industry on the subject and the debate now focuses on whether or not the existing Mailing Preference Service (a classic opt-out scheme) is adequate. The viability for marketers of the telephone as an outbound channel has been decimated by the extraordinary growth of the Telephone Preference Service. Even unaddressed mail (i.e. non-personalised such as door drops and inserts) is now under threat as legislators look for ways of reducing paper used for unsolicited marketing.
So the marketer now has an increasing range of media to use but a decreasing audience. We could call this the permission spectrum:
From left to right we have -
• The mass broadcast medium of direct mail where consumers have often not requested the contact and, on cold recruitment campaigns, have no easy way of identifying its source. Their only means of stopping it is to opt out of all mailings via MPS or to contact each sender. This is the old world.
• The more targeted area of call centres where the selection is really based on an active suppression file (via TPS) and the call often resulting from the consumer having given their phone number for a non specified use. Consumers therefore rarely expect the call.
• The most established electronic channel, e-mail is pretty much universally based on some form of permission albeit often for general mailing programmes (i.e. third party) which means many offers from many advertisers until the consumer says stop.
• The newest and most pure form of permission, mobile messages are by and large sent either on a one off basis or part of a subscription. In both cases though they are invariably from the single brand to which the consumer gives permission (i.e. first party). Mobile too has the only 'universal opt out' programme (policed by the networks) in which all consumers simply reply with the word 'stop'.
The line shows the volume variance. We will receive many, many more direct mail pieces than we will mobile messages. The response rate line would generally follow an opposite trajectory.
However, the permission spectrum also illustrates a real dilemma for DM'ers. We are used to mass planning but permission marketing cuts right across this - audiences are smaller, more volatile (it's easy to opt out) and less available (e.g. many e-mail bases are restricted to monthly quotas). Whilst the results can be argued to warrant the shift - the DMA's Benchmarking studies show cold e-mail rates of 6% average and mobile campaigns in similar or even higher ranges - few large brand marketers can yet move more than a fraction of activity to these media; we all have targets to hit.
So where are we heading?
Some developments in permission marketing look somewhat retro (for instance the mobile services that offer free texts and calls in return for the consumer viewing ad messages on their handset) but others offer more of a flavour of the future.
Take for instance online lead generation. In the US this has overtaken e-mail marketing and most of the trends here look to be heading in the same direction. This is about asking the consumer to step forward, generally, to receive a contact from a single brand about a single proposition. Mr Godin would approve. There's no rocket science here but it takes us back full circle to the original principle and that's why brands which follow up promptly, and adhere to their promises, are seeing spectacular conversion rates.
Then there are areas that may not even be seen as permission marketing such as behavioural targeting. The process of serving online content and ads on the basis of the viewers' previous browsing history within the current site or across others is not personally addressed. It is however increasingly based on the consumer choosing to allow the tracking to be used. Existing legislation governs the use of cookies; a minor consumer backlash was felt when some of these services were launched without permission. The result is an example of both how legislation is driving media and how the consumer is very wise to the value of their permission.
And for those consumers who have maximum trust in a brand, there's the Desktop Marketing Icon. A downloadable application that enables permitted brands to send messages directly to the user's desktop - bypassing inboxes, spam filters and any other obstacles. Isn't this where all marketers would like to be? But it's the consumer who decides to whom they'll open their door.
Of course the ultimate question is - when will there be no such a thing as non permission marketing? With a mix of consumer and legislative pressure this isn't such a fanciful idea. In the meantime, the marketing winners will be those who make the most of permission marketing to ensure that, as we say at DMG, they create 'positive interactions' from every contact.
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