5 Steps to Marketing in the World of the Web

A business contact of mine, Tom Hayes, released a book last year entitled Jump Point. He also sent me a copy of an article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal regarding the crucial question facing the industry today: How to leverage the social networking phenomenon into actual profits?

Hayes said, “There isn’t a smart company today that isn’t implementing some kind of online community, wiki or blog strategy.” But where should we be moving? Here are Hayes’ five steps to marketing in the world of the web, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, and more.

1. From loyalty to attention

Before you can win consumer loyalty, you have to capture and reward consumer attention.
Example: Virgin Mobile gives a minute of free phone time for every minute of advertising a customer accepts

2. From crowds to clouds

Once you get that attention-once you generate heavy traffic to your site, gather a large league of “friends” on MySpace, or span a dedicated following on Twitter.

3. From places to spaces

Consumers are increasingly organizing themselves into new communities-not just the big generic social communities, but myriad idiosyncratic slices of narrow, passionate interest. When efficiently targeted, they can be highly responsive, lucrative, and loyal.

4. From memes to bemes

In the Age of Broadcast, good advertising could occasionally manufacture memes of tremendous social impact. Now we call them bemes. Bemes are sent by members of social communities to each other and typically contain a reward or exclusive offer, which, when redeemed, also results in a reward coupon for the sender.

5. From silos to simultaneity

Too many retailers today persist in believing that online shopping is merely a virtual extension of real world shopping. That is a big mistake. Rather, online and offline need to coexist, and we need to rethink how they relate.