Interruption Marketing Vs. Permission Marketing

Interruption Marketing and Permission Marketing

Do you like to be interrupted by advertisements, while you are watching your favorite TV show or while listening to music through your favorite FM channel? I know you certainly don’t. But that’s how marketers tried to pursue their brands to customers traditionally. All of us know that it is an annoying version of doing marketing, but we couldn't do anything to it other than watching all the advertisements during breaks. But now, marketers who thought out of box had developed advertisements which will appear even when the TV program is airing. That is more irritating than watching advertisements during the breaks because here we can't switch channels since the program is airing. This type of marketing can be identified as Interruption Marketing. Unfortunately, almost all the marketing efforts in this world fall into this category.

On the other hand, Permission Marketing is totally the opposite of Interruption Marketing. Basically in here, marketer asks for the permission from the customer to send any relevant information regarding the product or service. In other words, they’ll send the details, only if the customer asks for it. For an example, customer will get the catalog only if they ask from the organization. This method of marketing ensures the best use of available resources of an organization since only the people who are truly interested in the product or service are getting the information. If you want to build close one to one, long lasting relationships with the customers, this is more appropriate.

Even though the word “Permission Marketing” existed earlier, Seth Godin who is a great American entrepreneur, gave it a new dimension by writing a book called, Permission marketing: turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers. According to him, “Permission is like dating. You don't start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right, over time, bit by bit.”

Pros and Cons

When comparing Interruption Marketing with Permission Marketing, Interruption Marketing would be more suitable to mass audiences where as Permission Marketing is more relationship-oriented. Meanwhile, when Interruption Marketing gives you quick feedback, Permission Marketing takes a considerable time to create a loyal customer because we usually ask permission before doing anything.

Consumers are bombarded with an enormous number of advertisements from the moment they get up and go to sleep. How can a marketer ensure that the consumers remember everything they saw? A single advertisement could reach thousands of people at a time but there’s no guarantee that everybody’ll buy that product or service. This is where the Permission Marketing could lend a hand. This allows only the interested customers to get the related information.

What method is more appropriate?

It is really very difficult to attract a customer and it’ll take up to several billions altogether for a huge organization. This shows how important the consumer is to an organization. The most vital thing for an organization is to build a long lasting, mutually beneficial relationship with the consumers. Although both the methods have inherent pros and cons, they are equally important in making a brand successful and ultimately creating a long lasting relationship.

Through Interruption Marketing, an organization could speak to a mass crowd including the potential consumers as well as the people outside the target group and from the Permission Marketing, they could better target their marketing efforts more specifically to the interested set of consumers.