A Discussion on Permission-Based Marketing With Adam Robinson

So, you know, the highest level is—our product is so controversial, and I thought it was really important to legitimize it in every way possible. We do that a lot with faces, right? From prospecting to sales calls, it’s all video. Like, in the Zoom era, even if the customer’s video is turned off, ours is on. We have all these pre-recorded sales enablement podcasts. If you go to our website, it’s just filled with faces.

Another thing I thought would really help was writing a book about it. Because what’s more legit than that? There’s this company Drift, which if you’re in marketing, you’ve probably heard of. I just loved everything they did.

And I think it’s incredible. I try to do a lot of things like their brand. One thing they did was write a book super early on—about this idea of conversational marketing. They tried to create a category. That’s something I thought was important last November. We were going to call it email-based retargeting, but the ads just started working so well, and we got so busy, I got distracted. Now I’ve got a marketing guy helping, so we’re going to focus back on that.

Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing in 1999. In the book, he says the consumer of the future will be so sophisticated that the TV industrial complex—which he defines as interruption marketing—would die. And instead, all marketing would be permission-based. You’d get permission, slowly build trust, and eventually convert someone. Very gentlemanly.

Google started a year earlier in 1998, and Facebook probably launched around 2000 or 2001. And Seth was just wrong. Like, completely wrong. Not only did permission not become the only way, but interruption marketing evolved. Facebook and Google built trillion-dollar businesses on new ways of interrupting people.

A trillion. I’m sure Seth’s doing fine, but he totally missed that. The idea just didn’t hold up.

Exactly. It’s just one part of the marketing puzzle. You need your email list, yes, and people who’ve given you permission—but advertising will always involve interruption. Forever. We’ll keep getting better at targeting, sure, and the media will change, but the core idea won’t. If you’re using a free service, you’re going to get advertised to.

Yeah. And there’s this weird thing I’ve noticed—this sacredness to the inbox. Like, it’s the one place where if you send something without permission, you’re a criminal. Since our product is a non-permission-based email tool—and our podcast has the same name—I thought it was clever to call the book Permission (Sh)Marketing.

The book’s out now. And if you hold the cover up, Seth’s book is orange, with a bald dude looking up at the title. Mine is the exact same color, but it’s a guy with hair looking up at the title. Just kind of playful.

The book explains where the product came from, how the tech works, different ways to succeed with it. I didn’t want to be an author—I just wanted a brand like Drift’s. Everything they did was so cool. And I really believed in the category creation concept—like Jack Trout and Positioning. I wanted to plant a flag and say, “This is my space.”

So I wrote it. Probably wrote 40 blog posts in the first eight weeks. Couple a day. Just covering every part of this thing people don’t understand. Like, the other small companies weren’t explaining it. You’re not going to use this product unless you understand what it is.

I’d ask them, “How is this CAN-SPAM compliant?” And their answers were just… not good. Like, “It just is.” Our answer is better. We send people to the FTC website that explains CAN-SPAM—it’s an opt-out law, not opt-in. The reason people think otherwise is because email services and Gmail have marketed it that way.

It’s not a lie. Damn right. And this is a whole other conversation, but email marketing is about engagement now. That’s what matters. They don’t care if you got opt-ins or not—they care about open rates, click rates, complaint rates. You can get emails from completely non-opt-in sources, and if the metrics are solid, it helps your deliverability.

Exactly. Spam traps, low engagement, and old lists—that’s what kills you. But if you’re buying fresh, clean data—like what we provide—there are no spam traps. It can’t hurt you.

You know, I’ve thought about that. I probably would have said—figure out how to start building tech companies sooner. But it was kind of a blessing and a curse. I made a bunch of money trading, had savings, and I just burned through it getting into this lifestyle business. It worked, eventually.

I don’t even know what the better path would’ve been. Starting companies—yeah, maybe. But to do that well, you probably need to be either a salesperson, an engineer, or a really good marketer.

Although it’s wonderful not having investors—I mean, my first journey with that really thing, that’s exactly the path that ruins your life. You take investment money, it’s like, quick pop to three and a half million in revenue or something, and then it just stops. And the investors are like, “Here’s more money, go try.” You know what I mean? And it’s scary. So I kind of got to chill for a little while, which was nice.

And part of it was amazing, because I wouldn’t work, you know? Once you’ve got this thing cruising and you’re trying to find new things, it’s not like you’re grinding 12 hours a day. You’re thinking about it all the time, yeah, but you’ve got money coming in. It’s not much work, right? It’s work when it starts working and you’re building the business. But yeah, that is totally unacceptable activity if you have investors. You can’t go travel for two years out of a suitcase.

So yeah, I mean, but it’s not like it was a comforting thing either, because you also know this thing’s gonna die. You need to be growing at 50 or 100 percent. With tech companies, you see the writing on the wall. It’s like you’re managing this runoff asset.

Yeah. It’s a weird—you know. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t have investors.

So, I’m sure a lot of entrepreneurs say this—I just think what Elon Musk is doing, regardless of where that stock’s trading, how he’s losing it on Twitter, it’s just so unbelievable.

Anytime I think about a problem I have, I’m like, this motherfucker made electric cars out of nothing. And now he’s got solar chargers all over America, and he’s sending rockets to Mars and the moon.

Like, I think I can figure this one out if that guy…

And another thing about him that I think he understands better than a lot of other super geniuses like him is the power of having these stories to tell.

Most importantly, to the people that work for you—but also the press, your customers, your employees. These incredibly bold visions—that’s what people want to hear. Bezos is trying to solve a similar problem, trying to move heavy industry into space, but it’s so much less sexy than “Occupy Mars.” Something about Elon’s understanding of the narrative.

But where else could we go?

Yeah. I think, you know, I always hear stories about my great-grandparents coming to Kansas and settling this freezing and hot land, carrying limestone posts around. I’d just love to know—did you guys fight Indians?

Yeah. So I’d love to talk to my great-grandparents. And then I think the third one, right now, just because I’m so obsessed with their brand, would be David Cancel. I might even be able to do that if I tried hard enough, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I’m on LinkedIn—Adam Robinson, GetEmails. That’s a good way. You could also just email me: adam@getemails.com. I mean, that’s sort of everybody’s email address. I’m not worried about getting spam from your audience. So email’s probably where you’ll get a response.

I’m not really—despite doing a ton of social media advertising—I’m not really on social. It’s funny that I made seven years ago…

But there was a time a couple years ago when I was worried about it. I was like, “Am I just never going to be relevant?” But then you realize, like, I can still pay to use this thing. You know, you’re paying one way or the other, right? You either pay with constant attention, or you just pay dollars.

Yeah, 500 per month. Forever.

I’m leaning into this one. That’s right. It’s just—this is going to be the marketing budget. It’s done. Sort of cogs expand with the growth, so we don’t have to—you guys don’t have to spend.

Thank you.