Permission Marketing

Abridged
Author: Seth Godin
Narrator: Seth Godin
Genres: Business, Marketing
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date: November 2000
Length: 2 hours
Ratings:
  • Book Rating: 3.5/5
Formats:
  • CD
  • WMA

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Overview

The man Business Week calls "the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age" explains "Permission Marketing" -- the groundbreaking concept that enables marketers to shape their message so that consumers will willingly accept it.

Whether it is the TV commercial that breaks into our favorite program, or the telemarketing phone call that disrupts a family dinner, traditional advertising is based on the hope of snatching our attention away from whatever we are doing. Seth Godin calls this Interruption Marketing, and, as companies are discovering, it no longer works.

Instead of annoying potential customers by interrupting their most coveted commodity -- time -- Permission Marketing offers consumers incentives to accept advertising voluntarily. Now this internet pioneer introduces a fundamentally different way of thinking about advertising products and services. In his groundbreaking audiobook, Godin describes the four tests of Permission Marketing:

* Does every single marketing effort you create encourage a learning relationship with your customers? Does it invite customers to "raise their hands" and start communicating?
* Do you have a permission database? Do you track the number of people who have given you permission to communicate with them?
* If consumers gave you permission to talk to them, would you have anything to say? Have you developed a marketing curriculum to teach people about your products?
* Once people become customers, do you work to deepen your permission to communicate with those people?

And in numerous informative case studies, including American Airlines frequent-flier program, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!, Godin demonstrates how marketers are already profiting from this key new approach in all forms of media.

Selected Reviews

Dry as the Sahara

by Anonymous
  • Book Rating: 2/5

Bunch for Marketing Jibber

by Anonymous
  • Book Rating: 2/5

More...

Read All 7

Reviews (7)

Dry as the Sahara

Written by Anonymous from Woodstock, GA on August 14th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 2/5

Overall, most of the information in this book has been out in the business literature landscape for several years. It's pretty dated, and the reading is hardly what you call high energy. There are better business listens out there, but if you're bound and determined to develop a permission-based marketing campaign, muddle through it.

Bunch for Marketing Jibber

Written by Anonymous on May 20th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 2/5

I first heard Seth Godin speak on permission marketing on a Google video (talking to Google employees) and had high hopes for this book. After reading 60% of this book (that as far as I could make it) he just another marketer out of touch with the consumer (ok, maybe less out of touch then the most marketers). I should mention this normally a topic I despise so maybe I am a little biased.

Permission Marketing

Written by Richard Z on December 4th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

Excellent analysis of how to more effectively "ask permission" to potential customers. I never thought of how many different ways there was to actually get a "slam dunk" sale! Seth really explains, in detail, how most of the most effective marketing today is "permission" based...that is....we ask for it! We actually want to be sold to...as long as it is what we want, or need. But what really is a "need?" Isn't it really what the marketers create as a "necessity" to "make our lives easier, more fulfilled, etc...?" Again, this really is a great realization of how to effectively market products, ideas, and create a movement.

Permission Marketing

Written by Charlie on June 30th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

A good refresher on word-of-mouth, loyalty, and viral campaigns but, as noted, it does feel like dated and somewhat second nature by now. Would love to hear a revised version or addendum based on strategies and tactics that have worked via the Internet in the last five years.

Godin always has some good points

Written by DC Beltway Commuter from Annapolis, MD on March 15th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

Seth Godin always has some good points. This book continues the trend, although it is a bit dated now. I can't fault the book for times changing, but a lot of the concepts he presents are somewhat commonplace now. It is interesting, though, to see the reasoning behind the way things are done.

Good topic, but no real revelations

Written by Dave Jackson on March 1st, 2005

  • Book Rating: 2/5

While the topic of permission marketing is one every marketer should understand, you can get alot of this on the Internet. Nothing really new here. He does cover the topic well. I was told how GREAT this guy was, so maybe my expectations were too high, but the book barely held my attention.

Permission Marketing [abr] - by Seth Godin

Written by Anonymous on February 7th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

This is a good book for anyone in marketing that is responsible for lead generation or maintaining an account base. The examples are a bit dated (many from 1999-2000), but the points made are timeless and especially relevant in today's Internet-based marketing. I've already recommended it to several of my colleagues.

Selected Reviews

Dry as the Sahara

by Anonymous
  • Book Rating: 2/5

Bunch for Marketing Jibber

by Anonymous
  • Book Rating: 2/5

More...

Read All 7

Author Details

Author Details

Godin, Seth

"SETH GODIN is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change.

Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work. Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year, a Fortune Best Business Book and it spent four months on the Business Week bestseller list. It also appeared on the New York Times business book bestseller list.

Unleashing the Ideavirus is the most popular ebook ever written. More than 1,000,000 people downloaded the digital version of this book about how ideas spread. Featured in USA Today, The New York Times, The Industry Standard and Wired Online, Ideavirus hit #4 on the Amazon Japan bestseller list, and #5 in the USA.

The Big Red Fez, Godin's take on web design, was the #1 ebook (worldwide) on Amazon for almost a year before it was published in paperback in 2002. The Miami Herald called it one of the best business books of the year.

Survival is Not Enough has made bestseller lists in Germany, the UK and the United States. With a foreword by Charles Darwin, this breakthrough book redefines what change means to anyone who works for a living. Tom Peters called it a, ""landmark."" The book was first excerpted in Fast Company, where Godin is a contributing editor.

Purple Cow, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. It's all about how companies can transform themselves by becoming remarkable.

Free Prize Inside, Godin's latest book, is already an Amazon Top 50 bestseller. It describes how every single person in your organization is in the marketing department... and shows you how to make something happen.

Seth is a renowned speaker as well. He was recently chosen as one of 21 Speakers for the Next Century by Successful Meetings and is consistently rated among the very best speakers by the audiences he addresses.

Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry?s leading interactive direct marketing company, which Yahoo! acquired in late 1998.

He holds an MBA from Stanford, and was called ""the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age"" by Business Week."