As Godin establishes, Permission Marketing is the alternative to Interrumption Marketing, the way most products are advertised (traditional advertising methods such as tv and radio commercials).  ”Interrumption Marketing –says Godin– is the enemy of anyone trying to save time. By constantly interrumting what we are doing at any given moment, the marketer who interumpts us not only tends to fail at selling his product, but wastes our most coveted commodity, time. In the long run, therefore, Interruption Marketing is doomed as a mass marketing tool. The cost to the consumer is just too high.”

The alternative, therefore, is Permission Marketing, which offers the consumer an opportunity to volunteer to be marketed to. As the author admits, the techniques associated with Permission Marketing aren’t new. They have been around for years, but it becomes relevant as the Internet allows more personal interactions with potential customers. Remember the motto of Permission Marketing: “turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers”.

The problem now is that e-mail marketing and, to that end, even Web based marketing, has fallen into the same category as Interruption Marketing. Thus, if you happen to get your mail from a corporate server, there are at least 10 different firewalls which (if working properly) will prevent you from getting unsolicited mail..and even the one you really want (a mail from your son’s hotmail account) won’t reach you. On the other hand, activex controls and other features added to Windows and Explorer as security improvements, won’t let some of the online ads reach you. Anyway, pop-ups, banners, flash messages and all sorts of advertising crossing your screen when reading a Web page, have become an usolicited and annoying kind of marketing. Almost nobody clicks on a banner (unless there is money, drugs or sex involved).

Godin has not come with an alternative yet. I checked the site of this bestselling author and the new material does not deal directly with e-mail or online marketing. “The Purple Cow” (published in 2002) is the closest book around marketing, but judging from the review, it is more about being different as a company than strategic marketing. If you happen to know how to skip firewalls and controls and get your email massege through, let me know.