Lately, though, it seems permission has changed. Or at least the way some people define permission has changed.
It used to be that there were so few avenues that required you to “opt-in” or give your permission that the tactics were fairly straght forward. At least for those people who were following Seth’s advice of getting permission rather than interrupting their audience.
What has permission become?
Now, it seems that any action a person takes is considered granting permission.
The typical scenario I see is this:
1) Come up with an offer of some sort (a contest, a giveaway, a free gift, whatever the “hook” is).
2) Require someone to give their contact information to get that “thing.”
3) Assume that means they gave you permission.
When you get down to it, it’s really just requiring more effort on the part of the audience to push the same interruption on them they always did.
What permission really is
One thing that is missing from that list, that always seems to be forgotten is the concept of being up front about what you intend to do with the permission. It almost seems that marketers don’t feel that what they have to offer or the story they have to tell is interesting enough to a potential customer so they feel they need to trick them into giving permission.
Wouldn’t a better solution be to have a story worthy of passing along and telling the person that’s what you intend to do?
Too many marketers look at the size of their list rather than the quality. They figure that since they’re sending out hundreds of thousands of emails, they’re doing good work. What if 1,000 of the people on that list were actually receptive to that message and responded? Would the results have been any different if they did the work on the front end and found out who those 1,000 people were and focused on them?
I think it’s time that we look at what permission is.
Don’t just satisfy the letter of the law. Get real permission from real people and give them real value.
