The man Business Week calls "the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age" explains "Permission Marketing" — the groundbreaking concept that enables marketers to shape their message so that consumers will willingly accept it.<P>Whether it is the TV commercial that breaks into our favorite program, or the telemarketing phone call that disrupts a family dinner, traditional advertising is based on the hope of snatching our attention away from whatever we are doing. Seth Godin calls this Interruption Marketing, and, as companies are discovering, it no longer works.<P>Instead of annoying potential customers by interrupting their most coveted commodity — time — Permission Marketing offers consumers incentives to accept advertising voluntarily. Now this Internet pioneer introduces a fundamentally different way of thinking about advertising products and services. By reaching out only to those individuals who have signaled an interest in learning more about a product, Permission Marketing enables companies to develop long-term relationships with customers, create trust, build brand awareness — and greatly improve the chances of making a sale.<P>In his groundbreaking book, Godin describes the four tests of Permission Marketing: <P>1. Does every single marketing effort you create encourage a learning relationship with your customers? Does it invite customers to "raise their hands" and start communicating?<P>2. Do you have a permission database? Do you track the number of people who have given you permission to communicate with them?<P>3. If consumers gave you permission to talk to them, would you have anything to say? Have you developed a marketing curriculum to teach people about yourproducts?<P>4. Once people become customers, do you work to deepen your permission to communicate with those people?<P>And in numerous informative case studies, including American Airlines' frequent-flier program, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!, Godin demonstrates how marketers are a

Mark KwammeCEO, CKS GroupPermission Marketing is a testament to Godin's profound grasp of digital marketing. "Interruption Marketers" everywhere would do well to read this book.

William C. TaylorFounding Editor, Fast CompanyGodin and his colleagues are working to persuade some of the most powerful companies in the world to reinvent how they relate to their customers. His argument is as stark as it is radical: Advertising just doesn't work as well as it used to — in part because there's so much of it, in part because people have learned to ignore it, in part because the rise of the Net means that companies can go beyond it.

Lester WundermanChairman-Emeritus of Wunderman Cato Johnson, the largest direct-marketing firm in the world; author of Being Direct.Advertisers are going to have to learn how to deliver messages with frequency and low cost if they are to cope with the increasing competition for the consumer's attention. Seth Godin's Permission Marketing is a big idea.

Robert TercekSenior Vice-President, Sony Pictures EntertainmentThe principles of Permission Marketing are incredibly valuable to everyone involved in media today.

Eric HippeauChaiman, Ziff-Davis, Inc.Finally, here's a measurable method for marketing in a world filled with clutter.

Seth Godin is Vice-President of Direct Marketing for Yahoo! He founded Yoyodyne, the first company to create promotions and direct-mail campaigns on-line, and helped build the company into the on-line Permission Marketing pioneer before selling it to Yahoo! in 1998. Yoyodyne clients included AT&T, Carter-Wallace, H&R Block, Sprint, Columbia Record Club, and hundreds of other companies.

Godin graduated from Tufts University in 1982 with a degree in computer science and philosophy, and he earned his MBA in marketing from Stanford Business School. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software, where he led the team that developed the first generation of multimedia products, working with such forward-thinking authors as Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Crichton. He is a recipient of the 1998 Momentum Award, honoring outstanding Internet industry accomplishments. His e-mail address is Seth@permission.com.