The New 4 Ps of Marketing That Will Fire Up Your Business Shuttle!
Posted on May 23, 2007
Filed Under General, Internet Marketing
Everybody is fighting marketing on the web tooth and nail just because the new web, the so called web 2.0 environment, gives small and medium business owners the possibility to compete with the big whales.
Web 2.0? What kind of web is that? There are many definitions for it. People use this phrase more and more often these days. This is probably another way of saying that the web has evolved, become more independent, demanding, and peer seeking.
It doesn’t matter what you want to call it, it is more important what you want to do with it!
There is more and more user generated content that aims at enhancing communication and marketing on the web. Marketers are beginning to understand that the value of the information they present is much more important if it’s delivered outside of their environment, than if it’s isolated in a small single environment.
If you want to be regarded as a trusted marketer on the Internet, not as the next person trying to make money you will need to establish a powerful brand that will speak for itself. I will try to systemize the most used techniques for creating popular brands and techniques explaining how to spread the buzz around. You all have probably heard of them before, but not in the way that I am about to emphasize on them:
Peer
The way you reach for your customers and the way they find about you has changed. It is really important that you learn about this and start using the widespread social media tools and applications. Your business model has to adapt to the new ways of communication.
Back in time, the e-mail was considered as an effective marketing tool. A tool for proper communication. The e-mail is now gasping for its last breath and is definitely about to extinct as a marketing tool. An interesting way of marketing is the ability to spread information outside the applications and across devices.
You Tube, Flickr an so forth, are the tools for making good marketing and strategic surveys. Let’s say you have an idea, and you want to find out whether it is going to be appreciated by the publicity, what do you do? Simple! You record a video and you publish it on You Tube for example. That is how the people’s opinion will be your guide towards enhancing and improving that idea.
A significant example of that is the usage of Silverlight by the BBC - a Flash challenger has incorporated features common on video games and social-networking sites. The interface allows people to discover and share different media types, including audio and video files from the BBC’s Web site. The integration of this tool is aimed at attracting teenagers.
By using social media tools you have the greatest chance of reaching new audiences.
Participate
Social media gives to the entrepreneur one of the most significant marketing tools. The tool to participate and learn. By doing this you can enhance your business model. Not a long time ago web pages used to be static or like one-way streets. Now with the help of blogs, forums, social networks and so forth you have the ability to create a dialogue.
Aim at a bigger group of an online community, post a comment on their blog expressing your opinion on a specific topic or something. That way you will drive their attention towards your website and your brand. Everybody who is involved in this company will start participating in this dialogue. And do not worry about the things you post. You could say the biggest lie ever, which is a good tactic, and everybody from that company will post a comment or a message back. That way you get discovered by a great consumer audience. The bigger the target audience, the greater impact you make.
Find your target market and participate in such media in order to improve and make your brand more popular.
Plan
Start learning from your users and visitors. They are the ones that will create the most effective marketing plan for you. Unite your ideas with the ideas of your customers. Listen to what they have to say. Allow them to create and change the content on your site. Why? Because, they will help you to improve your brand.
Like, for example, a logo contest or a add new feature contest could drive the consumers’ interest to a higher point. Not only will they create and enhance your production or whatever it is that you are doing, but they will feel more important and satisfied. They will show you the way to go.
Present
Implement and integrate possibilities for spreading your brand over the web. Allow the users to post content from your site to other sites, forums, blogs and social networks. Make your content travel. If your visitors have the option to find, bookmark, edit and share your content on other sites your brand will evolve to the stage of a giant in the eyes of the customers.
For example, Burger King created a game for the Xbox 360 that featured the Burger King character. The company said it sold 3.2 million games in a six-week period, helping build its brand among game users.
Collect everything that your potential customers might find helpful. Spread the word about your brand by making news feeds for books, DVDs, and videos. Create news feeds for your blogs, comments, and web pages.
This system will help you to reinvent the way you think towards communication. Why do you need to reinvent your communications thinking? You can’t say something just once and count on it to be effective. These days are gone. The marketing stage is bigger than before, and you definitely want to be heard everywhere. The growth of the Internet and the trust it has, has gone beyond everybody’s expectations. A consequence from that is the web interaction and the peer-to-peer activities in which individuals who have dealt with a brand or a company become their strongest allies in the process of marketing. They are the tool for you to create a powerful buzz marketing. The credibility of the information that you serve by conducting a marketing campaign is also one of the driving forces on the web. Users seek help and opinion from people with the same values and ideas. Without that they consider the information less important. Word of mouth is more and more effective these days. But the word of mouth over the Internet is even more effective and faster.
The latest trend in the fast growing web is towards making communication more effectively through text and through video. Google is about to create a universal search. What does this mean? It means that they are going to combine the video search results with the main page search results. Static web pages and content are so out of date. That is why building an interactive web site creates a lot more credibility than the old school static sites. Valuable audio/video and text content is essential. Conversations are happening everywhere and you need to be right in the middle of that if you want to help your brand to be discovered!
Comments
Leave a Reply