In a couple of months the weather will warm up and people will go to the ice shops to buy a sundae – ice cream, whipped cream, and toppings. If you love ice cream, you are looking forwards to buying at least one sundae. What if instead of ice cream, the shop put in meatballs? not the results you were looking for – Seth Godin in his book Meatball Sundae published by Portfolio Books, NY, 2007 saw many companies and organizations were producing meatball sundaes in their marketing execution. The reason is all the wonderful attributes of the web are added, except the organization had not changed to use and embrace what the web brings and does not bring to the marketing abilities.

Marketing is we make what we sell. Markets spread ideas, tell stories people want to hear and believe. Translate emotion into action to close the sale and make things people want to buy. The best available medium to reach the right people at the right time is used.

The new marketing or use of the internet means it favors some approaches over others. However, new marketing also demands better products, better services and better organizations. It also means in a world of choice, few will pick good enough. Avoid compromise.

Hopefully you will see companies capitalizing on the trends for the book is now almost 10 years old, but likely you will see companies still trying to figure it out.

Trend 1  Direct Communication and Commerce between Producers and Consumers

Organizations hear more directly from consumers. They gain a permission to market directly to them and they can create products for their customers. (the good part)

The need to change in organizations mean a retailer understands making a customer wait leads to lost opportunities. Inbound communications from consumers demand speed in answering and consumers have been trained to expect that they should be able to work directly with the person who can make something happen and that should happen almost immediately.

If someone sent an email to your president? what would happen to it?  Is it a missed opportunity to start the conversation?

A typical direct mail campaign earns 1% response rate. For every 100 letters one response.

A typical email campaign can get 20 or 30% the response rate.

Therefore the challenge is to see customer interaction as a profit center.

The marketing should start at the reachable then do your best to build the group ever larger by serving them and tell stories which appeal to them.

Trend 2  Amplification of the Voice of the Consumer and Independent Authorities

In a market where everyone is a critic, the need to create products that appeal and satisfy critics becomes urgent.

Consider the 1%. Not the richest 1% but 1% of the community are the givers. If you listen to talk radio only 1% are the callers, however you do not know who they are? You do not know who are the customers and who are the prospects, the ones who need to, love to and want to post their experiences. You have to assume every interaction is an interaction with a critic.

Every business has its 1%. Every business has a group so motivated, so satisfied, and so connected that they want to tell the rest of the world about you and what you do. As a marketer your challenge is to give these people a megaphone to spread the news.

Trend 3   Need for an Authentic Story as the Number of Sources Increases

Consumers hear about organizations from many sources. You have to get your story straight – say one thing, do another fails because you will be caught, someone will notice and bring it to the attention of the web.

Spread stories not facts – as long as the organization from top down lives and believes their story ( a unique story and a story that resonates with their customers) it is easy to spread the story.

Trend 4 Extremely Short Attention Spans due to Clutter

With the amount of choice we are offered, we tend not to spend too much time at one thing. This means the personality of your product on the shelf matters. It means every interaction with a consumer is a make or break proposition. You do not get the chance for a learning curve. You do not get the opportunity to have the user overcome initial discomfort.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, often times these companies were making money under the old marketing environment. The old method allowed them to do make good things including being profitable and paying dividends however the organization is likely the hardest to change, to see what is happening through the use of the internet. There are many examples of not doing in right or writing off campaigns that were not successful. If they are not doing it right, then looking for alternatives is your challenge.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.