“We want to be more customer focused”. It’s the intention of every major company, but they often fail to deliver. Today, the web is forcing companies not only to live up to their claims, but to actually follow where customers are leading.

The web is empowering customers to take control of the communication process. There are thousands of customers who are using the web to express their views, feelings about companies and products.

They do this through personal blogs - where people would review their favourite brand of MP3 players, ice cream or fishing equipment - or through organised customer forums like tripadvisor.com, where you can rate the hotel you went to during the last holiday, or epinions where you can rank and review products. Or on Amazon, where your can rate books and CDs.

Insight

Customers are taking over. Marketers should closely follow what is being said about their company, products and competitors. Instead of trying to control what people will say, you need to join the conversation.

How to apply

1. Encourage people in your company to start a blog on your products – giving customers real, authentic insights on these products (if you don’t do it, some else will)
2. Respond constructively to criticism about your products and services on forums – show that you listen and that you care.
3. Create your own platforms to gather comments on your products – call this C&D (connect and develop). Make your customers part of your virtual R&D team so that they can help make it better
4. Find blogs of fans of your products and point to them on your site, show them that you appreciate them and that they matter to you
5. Let go and don’t be afraid of loosing control of the process: you have already lost it – this is about adapting to the new rules of the game
6. You’ve reached the next level of marketing when - instead of creating messages for your target audience - you start creating stories together.
7. Use the things you have learned on the blogs and forums to adapt your message, language and learn from the ones you sell to.
8. Co-create content with your audience, let them be a part of the campaign.

Ultimately it is your customer who holds the key to the success of your next campaign. Think about ways of ensuring that he will want to promote your products to his peers. How can facilitate this? What information does he need, what mechanism can you create to help?

Sources & References

Among the audience, New Media Survey – The Economist 20 April 2006
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6794156
Attentio Attentio is monitoring and analysing social media such as blogs and discussion forums.
http://www.attentio.com/
Technorati. Search engine for blogs. “Who’s saying what. Right now.”
http://www.technorati.com/
How to Build Traffic Virally: 3 Buzzworthy Tips
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.cfm?ident=27530
ClueTrain Manifesto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluetrain_Manifesto
“The authors assert that the Internet is unlike the ordinary media used in mass marketing as it enables people to have "human to human" conversations, which have the potential to transform traditional business practices radically.”

Business Blog Consulting is a site devoted to demonstrating how effective weblogs can be for communicating with customers and marketing to new customer prospects
http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/

For Immediate Release: twice weekly podcast commentary on public relations and technology by Shel Holz and Neville Hobson. Impressive: they recently did their 179th show.
http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/

Podleaders – Thought Leaders podcast, hosted by Tom Raftery
http://www.podleaders.com/

ZN eMarketing Agency can help you identify opportunities in with the chaos of the social media: blogs, wikis, forums, personal ezines
http://www.zn.be

Insight 4

Insight 6