Nearly all mass Phone Number List communication was supported by advertising — television, newspapers, radio. The internet brought something different. The attempt to “monetize” the web with advertising has been a mixed bag. There have been a few stunning successes (ok, one stunning success, Google AdWords — which succeeds because it delivers a marketing message at the precise time the customer is actually looking for one) and a lot of flops. If you’ve spent any time at all on the web, you’ve noticed something: You cannot make anyone on the internet do anything they don’t want to do. The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. ~John Gilmore The internet routes around not just censorship, but any impediment to what its users feel like doing. It’s in the nature of the internet (and more to the point, of the people who use the internet) to “route around” experiences they don’t want.
You can’t force anyone to pay attention to you online. All you can do is entice. Permission Marketing was an expanded observation of that fact, and an exploration of an alternative. Instead of trying to gain attention by being increasingly obnoxious, we can earn a prospect’s permission to deliver a message to them. This calls for a whole new tool kit. If people are going to ask you to communicate with them, you have to come up with a form of marketing that’s too valuable to throw away. Advertising copy gives way to content — informative, interesting material that speaks to a highly informed customer. Is Permission Marketing just another term for “email”? Email has been the “killer app” for permission marketing for a long time. RSS seemed like a promising candidate, but never picked up widespread adoption.