What gives you the right?

I am working with a number of people right now on different projects but there is one issue that keeps jumping up and causing consternation to all – permission.

Since 1998 when Seth Godin released his book Permission Marketing and coined the phrase that has gone on to be the bane of marketers everywhere, the question of what permission is, and more importantly how you get it, has perplexed and bamboozled.

Doing research for my projects on the issue I stumbled across a couple of Seth’s blog posts that nicely define permission and give a case study of deliberate permission that paid off in spades (actually in sold apartments).

In general, I take a fairly hardline view of permission (don’t care whether the medium is email or posted mail).

• If I don’t know you and haven’t asked for something from you it is JUNK (or SPAM).
• If I know you and haven’t asked for something from you, it is still JUNK.
• If I know you and have given you my permission to get a specific something from you it is okay.

Most businesses these days have a good handle on the potential damage to your brand the first kind of JUNK causes. For my money, it is never okay to buy a list and cold send things to people. It is lazy and is almost guaranteed to annoy as many (if not more) people than you attract. The potential cost of the opportunity is just too high.

What many organisations struggle with is the grey areas in between JUNK and okay. What if someone has given you their email/mail address for a specific purpose (that specific something) – to send you an email newsletter, to make a delivery. Is it okay to then use that address to send other offers that haven’t been requested by that person?

I am constantly amazed by the number of organisations who would say – yes it is fine. They signed up to our mailing list so I get to mail them.

But what did they sign up for? Did they know that by giving you their address they would be lambasted with offers and information they don’t want? Were you upfront with them about what you were planning, or did you hide the reality in your “privacy policy”?

And what about opt-out – the lazy mans permission if ever there was one. I will assume you have said yes just because you didn’t say no. WRONG. The fact is that just because someone doesn’t say no does not mean they are saying yes (see my ode to Greenpeace on this issue and the damage it can cause).

So what’s an organisation to do?

• Ask for permission for anything you don’t already have permission for.
• Ask nicely.
• Do it once and if you don’t get it move on.
• Be totally clear and transparent about what you will and won’t do with the information you get (yes even the hidden agenda stuff).
• Give people easy to find options to opt out at any time… oh and the kicker…
• GIVE people something worthwhile for the exchange; give them a reason to give you their permission.

No one is going to opt out of receiving well thought out, useful, interesting information and offers. Hell they will probably even get their friends to give you their permission too.

Bottom line, it is called permission for a reason. Sure it’s more work than JUNK, but most worthwhile things are. So be deliberate and take a bit of extra time to really think about how you treat the people on your database(s). Your brand will thank you!

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognise who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.