Interruption Marketing.

Ever sit down to dinner with the family and get an annoying phone call from someone trying to sell you something? They know you are eating, they know you are home, but they really truly believe that by getting you to put down your fork, put your napkin on the table and have a conversation with them, that they will be selling you that magazine subscription.

How about this one: you are in a meeting with a client at your office.  Your employees are tending to other needs (working), the phone is ringing and you have to grab it to make it stop.  You get Barbara on the end who is just looking to speak to the manager. She has an important message that MUST be heard RIGHT NOW. You bite, Barbara goes on a pre-recorded rant read off of a notecard that will save YOUR company money NOW.

Even better: You are in the middle of balancing those budgets, you are digging through your emails to find the email from Jim with the final numbers and you are sifting through thousands of JUNK emails trying to sell you restaurant specials, golf packages, vacation condo rental specials, partnership opportunities from the fine folks in India, the Nigerian lottery, etc.

The point is this: you didn’t give ANY of these people permission to interrupt your life.  You are busy, you shop when you want, you dine on what you want, you work when you want. Putting any message in any-one’s face that didn’t ask to get is interruption marketing. Have you ever bought anything from a telemarketer? Ever bought a new roof from a fax that you got in your office? Ever bit on the Nigerian lottery?  True marketing requires permission. Permission to email, permission to speak, permission to call and discuss. When you give permission, you agree to listen.