The reason most corporations don’t ‘get’ the social web is quite simple – success requires a shift in marketing methodologies. Traditional marketing principles just don’t cut it in online communities. Amongst the most fundamental shifts in thinking, marketers need to recognise that:
- You don’t need to own the traffic, you just need to own the relationship
- You can’t control the conversation, all you can do is listen and respond
- One size does not fit all, and nor does one message
- Actually talking to your customers isn’t such a bad thing. You may even learn something from them.
James Duthie, Online Marketing Banter Blog, SocialDesire.com Guest Blogger article, How many businesses really ‘get’ the social web?
Don't Just Listen to Us
I practice what I preach. I believe in my approach to conversation marketing, but I don’t expect you to buy into my own marketing speak. I actively work to participate in the marketing industry’s market conversation and build relationships with the Influencers in my space.
Many of today's most influential marketing, sales and business experts are discussing the dimensioning returns from traditional marketing activities and the power of social media and Web 2.0 tools and communities. These people recognize the powerful role that globalization has played in business and how it has made it even more critical to not only listen to your customers but to hear and participate in the greater market conversation.
Join me in listening and participating in the conversation.
"Markets are nothing more than conversations. See these Magazines? They're a form of market conversation. We should already be in their stories. We are key to the subject, but we're missing in action after working in secret for years. Our only hope is to talk. Starting now."
Doc Searls, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, David Weinberger
The Cluetrain Manifesto
"Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy. Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade show booths, junk mail) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work."
Seth Godin, What Every Good Marketer Knows, Seth Godin's Blog
"Around the world, marketers estimate that 55% of their entire marketing spend failed to deliver results. That means over half the marketing budget does not contribute to the firm's top or bottom line. However, the estimated marketing wastage rate (MWR) drops to 45% for B2B marketers, where budgets are smaller, strategies more niche and campaigns are running via fewer media channels. The estimated MWR hits 65% for B2C marketers, where budgets are often larger and where teams have to take more innovative, riskier creative and media approaches to find new ways to differentiate their brands."
Brand Strategy, May 2008,Ten Trends in Effective Marketing
Forrester Report: The Social Technographics of Business Buyers
Social media give a voice to buyers who can now describe their experience and disappointment to a global audience. And, wow, are they saying a lot. Forrester surveyed more than 1,200 business technology buyers and found that they exceed all previous benchmarks for social participation. B2B marketers, eager to know how social media fits into the marketing mix, can use the Social Technographics® Profiles of business decision-makers to design marketing programs that not only capitalize on emerging social behaviors but also fundamentally change the nature of the marketing relationship between B2B buyers and sellers.