Permission Marketing. Can online media increase permission levels?

Encouraging registrations has not been crucial for online newspapers. Still today, our reasons to register most online newspapers are not so attractive. As a result, registration volume is low and newspapers’ permission levels –i.e. permission levels on their audience- are low. Ft.com may be an example of a good attempt trying to gain permission from its readers and they claimed in march 08 having 7,1MM registered users what is peanuts compared with some social networking websites, and, the comparison could be even harder in terms of user activation even it is high compared with most newspapers.

Online media and, particularly, online newspapers, would like to increase the relationship with their audience and that is one reason for a moving towards social application usages of their platform, and, sometimes, even to trying building up social networks themselves. There are, of course, other reasons, like locking in users, engagement increase, or the feasibility of a more powerful targeting. So, knowing who is behind the screen is interesting for the advertiser, and so it is for the content supplier, but online media did not find the path for doing it.

How can online media increase permission levels without damaging audience growth? Maybe some people believe that increasing permission levels is not that relevant, but from my view it is a key challenge and we have to respond on how we are going to engage audience so they are happy not just to enjoy our contents, but to belong and contribute.