Another example is American Express' annual hardcover desk calendar, which is a multi-billion dollar succession program. The first calendar is offered to cardholders free of charge in exchange for being allowed to send it in each year (the "infusion" rate).
Customers subscribe to the calendar because the "lure" is so enticing and because they trust American Express. Every year, customers look forward to the arrival of the calendar (after all, you have to take notes somewhere). It is essential to them (they signed up for it). The end result is high returns for American Express with very low risk.
To the shame of American Express, when faced with competitors offering cheaper cards with better benefits, the company was unable to counter them with more sophisticated permissive marketing techniques. Instead, they are exploiting the already existing permission.
Now their proposals can not be called personal and substantial. The company is losing prestige, and this is reflected in its connections, which become less privileged and effective. Any brand manager can sell one more item and make a profit using their permission base. But little by little, the organization as a whole incurs losses as the asset they so carefully created is exchanged for short-term profits.
There are people who eat a pound of ice cream every night
Here is an example of how a company - a manufacturer of elite ice cream varieties used permissive marketing to maintain market share and create a profitable business.
It turns out that only 600-800 thousand people are among the active consumers of this very expensive and high-calorie product. These are people who love to sit on the couch with a half-kilogram package of delicious ice cream. Most of these food lovers buy a hundred half-kilogram packs a year.
Reaching this audience and maintaining its loyalty is a difficult and costly task. Every time a company runs a distracting ad on TV or in a magazine, it reaches a hundred occasional consumers for one serious ice cream drinker. Complicating matters, the incentives the company offers to occasional shoppers are too costly.
This manufacturing company, working with a leading direct marketer, has decided to build a large consumer license base. By collecting bits and pieces of information about customers who participated in previous promotions, they created a list of prospective customers.
The results were amazing - 24% of recipients signed up for the ice cream lovers club! For print direct mail, this is an incredibly high response rate. They hit the bull's-eye by offering customers a dialogue. Consumers filled out a questionnaire, indicating their habits, having children and favorite types of ice cream. In addition, they agreed to receive regular updates from the firm about recipes, new products, and other information.
It was a chance to keep customers loyal to their favorite brand. And the coupons that accompanied each dialogue with the client also played their role.
Today this club has more than 100 thousand members (almost 15% of all regular customers). And frequent communication with customers, and recipes, and courtesies, and increasing levels of trust - all these techniques lead to the construction of a marketing "fortress" that will become a reliable obstacle to competitors.
Some magazines do not need kiosks
Can a magazine use permission to improve its effectiveness?
Remedy magazine targets the growing market of consumers aged 50+. The magazine pays special attention to issues of health and well-being. Instead of producing a traditional magazine, the publishers decided to turn it into a permissive marketing tool.
You can't pay to subscribe to Remedy. It is distributed free of charge. In doing so, all 2.2 million subscribers filled out a detailed two-page health questionnaire, including detailed information about their medications, savings accounts, and even mouthwash and eye drops.
Remedy is meticulous in its compliance policies. They do not rent or trade information. But they use the data to make the magazine more valuable, and they also place advertisements that are specifically relevant to the consumer.
35% of people who received one free copy of the magazine in the mail fill out a survey to be able to receive it further. They've given Remedy permission and are ready to pay attention to it.
After two years of receiving the magazine, people are becoming more convinced that Remedy is doing its job with integrity. They know the company respects their permission and respond by giving him more personal information. They are not even deterred by a huge four-page questionnaire that follows
