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Wednesday 15 October 2014

Exploring Neo-Marketing in the New Era of On-line Communications

Exploring new marketing options for an era that features the burgeoning potential of social media and Internet realities.

Albert Einstein: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”.

Introduction
In the “good old days”, much of marketing consisted of the Small Business boss saying “Just design and print 500,000 one page flyers, along with colourful brochures and some doorknob hangers. Then, get the stuff out to where customers seem to be”. In rare cases, the boss would arrange a press conference followed by a printed press releases which were also widely distributed.

Printed paper was the key component. The stuff had to be legible, multi-coloured and slick. On reflection, it didn’t much matter that more than 90% of this material went directly into trash cans. As to results, a 2% return was considered acceptable, and the paper flow continued. Somewhere in the 2% were actual sales. That was all that mattered...... the sales.
Changing the Game
But now, with the advent of social media, the Internet, and changed methods of communication and distribution, there is an implicit and compelling need for small business to change it’s marketing philosophy. The bland and the impersonal, must be replaced by more focused, more efficient, and more respectful marketing.  
The Neo-Marketing Model features radical change. It’s very essence is the two-way Internet-based communication with clients and customers builds relationships. It is direct and it is personal. It includes more focused and more economical downward “telling” for known customers/clients. It generates an informed counter-flow of “listening” and an upward stream of information from a knowledgeable client/customer base. The resultant dialogue is rich in shared information from two perspectives: the seller and the buyer. There is a more meaningfully connection. Shared and caring contact, about new and modified products and services or whatever builds your relationship.
Thus, the upward/downward capacity encourages this rich flow, and it can stimulate and reinforce rich dialogue both inside and the outside of the organization.... Now that’s marketing.
But wait! There’s more!
Just as marketing is crucial to business success, so is community engagement.  Meaningful community engagement techniques are available now so that Small Business can monitor the likes, the dislikes, the opinions, the trends and the demographics of its customer and contact base. The big data.
This is the kind of monitoring that was impossible when using the “scatter-gun” approaches in the “Good Old Days”. New kinds of information flows can feature “Opt-in” options.  This allows and encourages opinion-based participation back and forth, up and down. And, this information can be readily analyzed to show results from a range of perspectives. 
As noted earlier, 2% returns were the historical yield rates. In comparison, Opt-In rates using current technology can push these numbers “off the chart”. 
In addition, Opt-In allows customers and contacts to become more engaged, more loyal, and more involved. This kind of relationship marketing can mean the difference between educated decisions and blind ones for any organization.
Albert Einstein:
“We cannot solve problems by using 
the same kind of  thinking we used to create them”.
Clearly there is a need for new approaches to marketing.  Enlightened managers must move away from outdated, Email based "blast" contact communication and marketing methods. These approaches include:
  • Dynamic up-to-date access to customer base;
  • Visual analytics that show at a glance the current profiles of customers both individually and collectively;
  • Capacity for Polling on current community issues
  • Public forums that share views and experience
  • Appropriate use of social media that is based on valid awareness of its strengths and weakness
  • Bottom up designed community engagement with the resultant two-way communication producing a wealth of beneficial information.

    Neo-Marketing. It’s time has come.
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