Marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson says a consumer has to be exposed to an ad 27 times before it has the desired effect. Direct mail is considered successful if it draws a 2 percent response. And the advent of a plethora of cable TV stations and, of course, the Internet dilute the effect even further. Interruption marketing, designed to capture attention for a moment, doesn't work like it used to. He calls permission marketers farmers, while interrupters are hunters who go for the immediate kill.
Agriculture wins big-time in the long run.
Godin's many years in the business world helped him form his marketing strategy. In 1982, he graduated from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, with degrees in computer science and philosophy, and received an MBA from Stanford University two years later. The key is to attach no strings. People avoid buying books because of a lack of time. In this case, they get it 45 seconds after asking.