Marketing is a contest for people's attention. Thirty years ago, people gave you their attention if you simply asked for it. You'd interrupt their TV program, and they'd listen to what you had to say. You'd put a billboard on the highway, and they'd look at it. That's not true anymore. This year, the average consumer will see or hear 1 million interruption marketing messages - that's almost 3,000 per day. No human being can pay attention to 3,000 messages every day.

The way 99% of real estate agents currently sell a home or get a listing is through interruption marketing. They interrupt people with unanticipated, impersonal ads, fliers, billboards, park benches, or signs and hope that they'll buy or list a home. And, sometimes it works.

If people see your ad in a magazine but don't call you to buy a house, or get a piece of direct mail and don't respond, you assume that they've rejected your offer and then it's simple economics. If you send 100 people a postcard and only 2 of them become clients, the cost of asking the other 98 why they didn't is exactly the same as the cost of contacting them in the first place. So, you move on to the next batch of prospects or neighborhood assuming you got 98 "NO's".

Another problem with interruption marketing is that it fights for people's attention by interrupting them. A 30-second spot interrupts a television show. A cold-call interrupts a family dinner. A print ad interrupts this book. The interruption model is extremely effective when there's not an abundance of interruptions. However, there's too much going on in our lives for us to tolerate being interrupted anymore, so our natural response is to ignore the interruptions.

You need to plan on a method that takes people from where they are to where you want them to go. That's where permission marketing comes to the rescue.

Permission marketing is built around rational calculations by both parties. Look at it from the customer's perspective: People have money to spend on homes, but they lack the time needed to evaluate the homes and build trust in the agents that buy and sell them.

The first rule of permission marketing is that it's based on selfishness: Clients will grant an agent permission to communicate only if they know what's in it for them.

The second rule is that your permission marketing campaign needs to provide the prospect with invaluable information about the current real estate market (as specifically as possible…even drill down to their specific area of interest). It will also help them to gain trust in you as a professional (indirectly...without telling them outright how good you are).

You have to automate the process of turning attention into permission, permission into learning, and learning into trust. That's how you get them to take action.

You need to reward your prospects, explicitly or implicitly, for paying attention to your messages.

That's why the Internet and email are such a powerful marketing medium. It changes everything. You can use email to communicate with people automatically, frequently, quickly, and unobtrusively - so long as they've given you permission to do that.

Email is the simple engine that drives a good permission marketing machine!

NOTE: Frequent email communication WITHOUT permission is called SPAM, and it's illegal (sounds like interruption marketing). Be sure to practice safe permission marketing. The penalties for abusing email are severe.