The Affari Blog

The connectedness of the Web is transforming what’s inside and outside your business — your market and your employees. Through the Internet, the people in your markets are discovering and inventing new ways to converse. They’re talking about your business. They’re telling one another the truth, in very human voices.

There’s a new conversation between and among your market and your workers. It’s making them smarter and it’s enabling them to discover their human voices.

You have two choices. You can continue to lock yourself behind facile corporate words and happy talk brochures

Or you can join the conversation.

- Cluetrain Manifesto

Seven years ago Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger took the business world and stood it on its ear. Oh, to be sure, most of the rest of the world has yet to notice. They were, and perhaps still are, ahead of their time.

They realized then what the power of an ever-shrinking, increasingly interconnected world would mean to commerce and economics. Despite continued efforts at aggregation, segmentation, and differentiation, the marketplace consists not of amalgamated customers, but people. Lots and lots of individual human beings.

Conventional advertising and marketing, which has worked for so long, consisted of a company communicating outward to its customers. Buy our product! Shop here! Our stuff is best! We are the experts you seek!

And yet, study after study has found that most people trust word of mouth advertising far more than any other delivery system. If someone they know tells them to buy, they are more inclined to buy. This is why advertisers started using customer testimonials and celebrity endorsements decades ago.

They may watch your commercials on televison, but they ask their friends and family about making a purchase.  They may read your direct mail piece, but they remember hearing a colleague rave about a product.  They may see your billboard, but they know where their loved ones shop.

The model of one-to-many marketing needs to be replaced with a many-to-many model that understands the impat of “word of mouth.”  In the late 1990’s, some companies tried their hand at “network marketing,” and failed miserably.  The concept largely failed (outside of Amway and MaryKay) because of overzealous and unscrupulous marketers trying to make a quick buck.  But there is another model.

Oh, before we talk about that model, there is something else to consider. Kevin Roberts identified the future of branding through “Lovemarks.”

Lovemarks transcend brands. They deliver beyond your expectations of great performance. Like great brands, they sit on top of high levels of respect - but there the similarities end.

Lovemarks reach your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional connection that you just can’t live without. Ever.

Take a brand away and people will find a replacement. Take a Lovemark away and people will protest its absence. Lovemarks are a relationship, not a mere transaction. You don’t just buy Lovemarks, you embrace them passionately. That’s why you never want to let go.

Put simply, Lovemarks inspire

Blogs can help build the “intimate, emotional connection” needed to grow into a Lovemark.  They are also the perfect many-to-many model, because blogs allow customers to both reproduce your message in other places as well as provide feedback by responding directly to you.

There are two other benefits blogs have: they can get around spam filters that block email marketing campaigns; they can help raise your profile in search engines.  Many companies try using email newsletters or other email marketing campaigns.  Many spam filters often catch these kinds of messages, preventing you from reaching your customers - even if they requested to be added to your email list.  Throught RSS feeds, your customers will read your messages time and again, reinforcing your brand in their minds.

Moreover, a large number of customers use search engines to research purchases, especially major ones.  Your company may use paid search services offered by Google or Yahoo, but take a look at the regular search results.  Having a blog can take advantage search engines, and help raise your profile among these results.

Finally, blogs are cheap.  Really cheap.  There are a number of high-quality free services (you’re looking at one right now).  It takes time and effort, but blogs don’t have to eat into your bottom line.

There is a significant amount of infomation available on the Internet - if you want to take the time to search, read, and teach yourself (like I did).  On the other hand, there are a number of companies like Affari Edge that can help get you started and keep you going.

So, the question is: when will your business start to blog?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.