Permission Marketing: How to Earn Customer Trust With Ease

Nobody likes being a member of a captive audience.

We all know what it’s like to receive an email we didn’t sign up for from a company we’ve never heard of. As marketers, it’s our responsibility to ethically handle the personal information and data we receive from consumers.

Marketing and consumer data are very valuable, and knowing how to handle that information has become a business necessity. This information can give you incredible insights, but only so long as you have the trust of your consumers.

To establish trust between your brand and a potential customer, there's a reliable technique known as permission marketing.

You can automate workflows using marketing automation software to ensure that campaigns are triggered only after a customer has granted permission.

Permission marketing is especially important in today’s world, where privacy regulations (like GDPR or CCPA) require explicit consent from consumers for marketing communications, ensuring compliance and fostering trust.

Why is there a need for permission marketing?

Seth Godin coined the concept of permission marketing in his 1999 book. And even today, many digital marketing best practices involve the use of consumer data. As marketers rely more heavily on landing pages, sign-up forms, RSS feeds, and opt-in emails, a strategy needs to ensure that the data collected from leads, prospects, and customers is only used as the customer asked.

Permission marketing makes it easy to differentiate between what you should and shouldn’t send consumers by asking them to sit in the driver's seat. Allowing them to opt-in to your marketing funnel is a guaranteed way to reach customers when they are ready to talk to you.

This strategy allows customers to tell you what they want you to receive from your company and eliminates the guesswork. These factors make permission marketing perfect for creating a personalized marketing experience for your customers.

Types of permission marketing

In his book, Godin discusses using his permission marketing method to turn strangers into friends and friends into customers. He divides permission marketing interactions into two separate categories: express-permission marketing and implied-permission marketing.

Many marketers make the false assumption that once a prospect gives you their email address, it’s fair game. Permission marketing is built on explicit customer permission. Some may say it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, but when it comes to permission marketing, it’s always best to check first.

Express-permission marketing

Express-permission marketing refers to any situation where a consumer opts into receiving marketing communications from a company. The trick with express-permission marketing is limiting your marketing activities solely to what the consumer opted in to.

Under express-permission marketing, if a consumer signs up for your free monthly webinar, you would only send them emails regarding that specific webinar. Taking that person's email address or phone number from the webinar sign-up and then using it to sign them up for your monthly newsletter without their permission would be in violation of express-permission marketing.

Implied-permission marketing

Implied-permission marketing refers to any situation where a consumer has an existing relationship with a company (current customer, frequent visitor, brand partner), and communication with that consumer is implied.

In this situation, the business has a pre-existing relationship with the consumer, and therefore, marketing communications can be more frequent. That’s not to say that you should open the floodgates and spam your customers with marketing content. Keep your focus on the quality of what you’re sending your customers.

Non-permission based marketing

Non-permission based marketing refers to any situation where a consumer did NOT opt in to receiving marketing communications from a business. This often happens when companies engage in practices like buying email lists or exploiting things like conference attendee email lists.

While some consumers might still recognize your brand or find value in your offering, this is a poor strategy to employ. Sending unsolicited marketing emails and offers to consumers who didn’t sign up for them can result in privacy violations, social media backlash, and negative online reviews. Permission marketing allows you to instead build brand trust and authority by nurturing your long-term relationship with consumers over time.

Focus on delivering what was promised to a prospective customer instead of assuming you have the right to sell them more. This approach helps build trust between your brand and new consumers.

Examples of permission marketing

These examples showcase how permission marketing fosters a more personalized and respectful relationship with customers, ultimately driving better engagement and long-term loyalty.

Loyalty programs

Brands offer exclusive perks or discounts for customers who sign up for their loyalty program. By opting in, customers receive personalized offers and updates, such as reward points notifications or special birthday discounts.

For example, Starbucks Rewards allows members to opt-in to receive notifications about exclusive deals, seasonal promotions, and early access to products based on their buying patterns and location.

Social media opt-ins

Businesses can use social media platforms to encourage users to follow their page or subscribe to updates. The content shared is based on the interests of the followers, such as product announcements, events, and user-generated content that aligns with the audience’s preferences.

For instance, a beauty brand might use Instagram to offer a special discount code for users who sign up for updates through a link in their bio. Followers will then receive updates about new products, tutorials, and influencer collaborations tailored to their beauty interests.

Push notifications for apps

Mobile apps often ask users for permission to send push notifications. For example, a retail app might ask permission to send sale alerts or updates about items left in the shopping cart. These notifications are personalized and sent based on the user’s activity within the app.

For example, a fitness app may ask for permission to send daily workout reminders and goal updates. By opting in, users get tailored notifications that match their fitness routine, making the communication relevant and motivating.

Content marketing through gated offers

A company may offer free gated content, such as an eBook or a webinar, in exchange for the user’s email or contact information. This allows the company to follow up with additional relevant offers or educational materials, always respecting the user's opt-in permissions.

For example, a SaaS company offers a free whitepaper about industry trends. After the user opts in and downloads it, the company sends related content like case studies and invites to webinars on similar topics, always ensuring the user can opt out if they wish.

Benefits of permission marketing

A well-developed permission marketing strategy has a few downsides. Permission marketing offers many upsides, including helping your content distribution strategy and covering your bases when it comes to data collection and compliance. Any marketing team that relies heavily on marketing automation, email marketing efforts, or the use of consumer data can benefit from permission marketing.

The biggest advantage that permission marketing is that it eliminates the guesswork regarding what prospects want to receive from your team. People enter the marketing funnel already interested in what your company is offering. It’s just a matter of continuing to deliver value at every stage of the buyer's journey. This leads to higher engagement rates, low costs, and more quality relationships with customers.

Challenges of permission marketing

Nearly every challenge you’ll face with your permission marketing program involves handling the data. Permission marketing requires the right resource management software and at least one team member to maintain and handle the processes.

Because of the amount of consumer data handled during the permission marketing process, many teams choose to have marketing operations teams handle this process. This allows your company to limit the number of people accessing sensitive information and appoint a single point person to manage all marketing data for the entire marketing organization.

Permission marketing best practices

It’s no wonder that marketers find it tricky to get consumers to hand over things like email addresses and personal information. Permission marketing is an easy solution to this problem that easily integrates into your existing marketing campaigns.

Redesigning your processes need not take months—all you need is a little common sense and a few easy-to-follow steps.

Clearly state your privacy policy on your website

The first step in gaining consumer confidence in your business is to openly and publicly state your privacy policy. Global privacy laws make it clear that if you collect personal information from your website visitors, you need to post a privacy policy on your site, mobile app, and all other applicable communications.

A privacy policy is both a legal safeguard for your business and an express agreement with consumers about how your business will use their information. Try and make your privacy policy conversational enough that consumers understand what you’re telling them.

Make it easy to opt in (and opt out) of communications

There will come a time when people are tired of receiving emails from your business – don’t punish them for that. Permission marketing is all about consumer choice. Provide customers with an easy-to-locate unsubscribe option in the footer of all of your email communications.

The harder you make it to find the unsubscribe button, the harder it is to get that person back on your email list later. Focus instead on finding out why that person left. This will help you create a smarter content marketing and email strategy for people who still receive your newsletter. It also shows the person who unsubscribed that you’re willing to take feedback.

When a consumer tells you something is no longer relevant to them, stop trying to force it on them. Instead, find a better way to deliver the same content in a format that fits the consumer better. Some people prefer white papers; some prefer emails. Permission marketing is about finding the right way to make that connection with prospects.

Understand what motivates your target audience

A new email address does not give you permission to spam your audience with useless junk. There is still a battle for the inbox happening every time your team sends out an email. That's why it's important to track customer behavior when choosing the marketing techniques you use to reach them.

People are ruthless when it comes to keeping their inboxes exclusive. Delivering highly personalized content is the best way to stay long enough to make an impact. That means always delivering only the most relevant messaging to leads and prospects. If they have a bad experience with your brand and then continue to receive communications bragging about how awesome your brand is, you could lose them forever.

One trap that’s easy to fall into is sending customers content that’s unrelated to their interests. It can be a hard pill to swallow, especially if you think you have something special you can offer them. However, spamming contacts with these unrelated offerings could cause them to opt-out. If a customer signs up for a weekly newsletter about beginner marketing tips, they’re probably not interested in your email series about product announcements.

Be mindful of data privacy regulations

Consumers know personal consumer data is more valuable than anything. That’s why so many have become protective of their information. Some even create fake email addresses to communicate with brands or sign up for access to websites.

Global privacy laws are catching up to technology, creating very strict rules for how companies are expected to handle consumer data. The United States and the European Union (EU) have some of the toughest data protection laws in the world. With some of the most expensive data breaches of our time costing in the hundreds of millions, you can’t afford to be lazy.

Nearly all of these laws were put into place to address the issues of implied permission. Many of them state that implied consent is no longer sufficient and that companies must make it explicitly clear what users are signing up for, and customers must be able to withdraw this consent at any time.

Depending on your industry, your marketing team may have additional data compliance expectations. Always do some research before building your permission marketing strategy.

Keep it personal; keep it relevant.

At the end of the day, the key to a successful permission marketing strategy is to communicate openly with your customers. Allow them to guide the conversation and spend your time finding the best ways to bring value to their inboxes. There’s plenty of room in marketing to lead the customer, but this is a situation where letting the customer lead pays off in the end.

Interested in learning more about creating a personalized experience for your prospects? Discover how implementing permission-based email marketing can win customers.

This article was originally published in 2020. It has been updated with new information.