The Gift Of Marketing

We’ve become wary of others online.

We’re pressured to ‘like’ the post and opt-in for the upgrade. We will definitely be retargeted with ads.

We don’t like that.

Have we asked too much for the ‘like’ or the ‘share’? Have we incentivized and further incentivized people into no longer wanting to tell their friends, wary of our intentions?

Yes. Yes we have.

It’s rare to receive an email from a friend telling me about a great product they’ve seen or post they’ve read, that was written manually and unprompted from that friend. Normally, it’s an automated thing, coercing me into seeing what my buddy did on a social network.

“Permission marketing” is losing its permission

And yet, when Basecamp announces that they won’t track us or push us, we like that. We want to share it with our friends. Or when Jay Abraham releases his “50 Shade of Jay” series of insights and expertise for free, no opt-in required, without any expectation of us to repay the favor, we like that. We want to share it with our friends.

Sometimes, we need to ask for permission to send something to someone. Sometimes, something is worth opting in for – perhaps to be notified of something important, or to help someone get in touch with us or serve us more fully.

But many other times, we don’t need to ask for permission anymore: we can simply give gifts. We can choose to leave them on the doorstep, and walk away.

We like that. We want to share it with our friends.