Chapter 17 This is Marketing
Part 2
Permission Marketing
Permission doesn’t have to be a one way broadcast medium. You can treat different people differently and you can let your permission base choose what they want to hear and in what format. It can be in the form of emails, messages and more.
You need humility and patience to do permission marketing and there’s no shortcut to it. That’s why it’s properly done by only a few companies.
Once you earn their permission, you can communicate the information that they want. That way you can take your time and tell your story and engage with the right people.
A loyal subscriber base, be it your podcast, a channel or anything else. This is much more valuable than your office furniture. You don’t let a person take your office furniture so don’t let anyone spam your customer base just to make the metrics go up.
The simplest definition of permission is the people who would miss you if you didn’t reach out.
Communicate only with those who want to hear from you. Earn their trust and keep it with you.
Showing up with generosity
Everyone might not be a neophiliac but there are definitely enough of them, the ones who care about new things and seek out for new voices, new ideas and new options. So when you come up with a product, you go to these people seeking for permission to break new ideas, to help them find the next big thing and do it with generosity.
You are there to earn permission, to gain attention over time to tell your story to the people who choose to hear it from you. What matters here is the quality of the story you are telling and the depth of their empathy and generosity.
If you do it right, i.e. seek permission the right way from the neophiliacs then the word will spread by itself.
As it is practically impossible to spread your word directly. That’s very expensive and a slow procedure. The better alternative is to create a product intentionally that people decide is worth talking about.
Whether it’s remarkable or not is up to the user. If they remark on it, then it’s remarkable and the word spreads and others will engage with your idea and the process will continue. But it’s not as easy as it looks. You got to have intent, every step of the way as you are also in charge of the customer’s experience.
You make things easier by coming up with a product that makes the customer’s life easier and make it easy for them to talk about it. They are talking about your product because they are actually talking about themselves. That’s a good sign. On the other hand, if they are evading you, then they are sending a signal to others that you are just making things worse and they are not impressed by you.
We only spread the word when it benefits us and our desire for change and unconventionality.
Sharing it with others is a generous act, a chance to do for others what was done for you. Ideas travel from person to person now. We can choose to market whatever we want but when the change you are seeking is not worth talking about, then you should find something different.
People will only spread the word when it’s important for them and when it permits them to talk about something they are proud of. If your product is designed with generosity and intent then it will definitely come forward as something worth talking about.
