The future of marketing

In my former life (pre-SAMBA) I was a marketing manager for a start-up technology company. The common theme was, “Do more with less.” Less money, people, technology and time! This was 4 years ago when social networking platforms and tools were just taking off. If I had the same tools available today, the first thing I would do is build an online community. Then shape my strategy for sales, marketing R&D, and support to utilize my community:

Sales – Customers are inundated with marketing messages. It is proven that word of mouth marketing and recommendations have much larger success rate. An online community will serve as your volunteer salesforce.

Marketing – Integrated marketing is expensive and hard to break through the clutter. Posting a message to your top customers through a community platform is free and towards highly qualified leads.

Research and Development – The solution to a problem cannot always be found in-house. Crowdsource your idea, solution, advertising, packaging, etc with your online community.

Support – Hiring a person to answer questions is expensive. Having a community driven online support team is free.

The future of marketing is strategically building and leveraging online communities. For examples of how companies are utilizing their online communities visit my Squidoo Lenses on Tribe Communication Tools: Etsy and HAIR the Broadway Musical.

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