Getting a prospect’s permission and moving them up the permission marketing scale is about building trust. Spam is considered interruption marketing. In permission marketing, permission is always granted in one form or another.
5 Levels of Permission Marketing
According to Seth Godin in his book “Permission Marketing” There are five levels of permission that the customer can grant, each increasing the business’s autonomy and the level of the customer’s trust in the business.
1. Situational Marketing
“Situational Marketing” permission requires contact to be first initiated by the customer. “Can I help you?” and “Do you want fries with that?” are examples of the lowest level of permission marketing.
Perhaps you called your newspaper provider to say, “I would like to put my paper on a vacation hold.” In situational marketing, the person on the other end of the phone might reply, “Sure” and add, “Oh, I see you are a good customer. Would you like to upgrade to monthly billing where we bill your credit card directly each month?”
In situational marketing, once the customer makes contact, the business takes the liberty to up-sell.
2. Brand Trust
“Brand Trust” permission is expensive to obtain, but once established, provides you the opportunity to charge a premium for your product or service.
Starbucks is a good example of brand trust since Starbucks is considered a premium brand worthy of a higher price tag.
Brand trust is often the desired level of permission marketing. However, brand trust can be lost with one misstep. For example, Coke nearly lost all of its brand trust overnight when it introduced its new formula.
3. Personal Relationship
“Personal Relationship” permission is where permission is granted to a person to solicit them.
When it comes to bed & breakfasts, (B&B), permission is often bestowed on the innkeeper and not to the B&B business itself. Permission resides in the individual and if the innkeeper leaves the B&B’s, customers do not automatically stay with the business.
I have a trusted relationship with my auto mechanic and when he says I need to make a repair I often say, “You are the expert make it happen.”
An issue with personal relationship permissions is that it is not scalable and has no resale value. Moreover, if the person makes an error, all trust is gone.
4. Purchase on Approval
“Purchase on Approval” permission is where the customer signs up for a program and builds up points on each purchase which can be redeemed later. The customer is aware that purchases are accumulating and willingly directs his purchases there.
Frequent Flier Miles or loyalty cards are examples of purchase on approval.
A downside of purchase on approval is that they build up a liability for the company to deliver on the promise. Since many points are not redeemed, the company’s level of liability is often unclear.
Chance or giveaway marketing is a variant of purchase on approval that overcomes the unknown liability issue. In chance marketing, points equate to the number of chances a person accumulates to win a specific prize. Each point, therefore, increases the person’s odds of winning a set number of prizes.
5. Intravenous
“Intravenous” permission is the most coveted permission marketing level.
Intravenous permission is the level of permission you give your doctor during a medical procedure. The doctor can give you anything through your IV and you have agreed to pay for it. You give him 100% permission to make decisions for you without further consultations.
Another example of intravenous permission is the Book of the Month Club where each month a committee selects a new book and sends it to you with a bill.
The value proposition for all this trust is that the permission granted saves the customer time and money.
How can you incorporate permission marketing into your business?
