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Part 3 of my new whitepaper: Community Driven Marketing: The Power of the Raving Fan.
Here is Part 1. You can download the full PDF version here.
Community Driven Marketing: A New Twist on a Classic Dish
It is no secret that the best and most cost-effective way of getting new customers or clients for your business is through word-of-mouth. These referrals can come from any member of your community, which includes clients & customers, partners, vendors, employees, and shareholders.
That is not news.
But the fact that with Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and numerous other social tools and services, it is now possible with One Simple Click to quickly tell hundreds or thousands about your love (or hate) of a given product
Now, that IS news.
We live in a time where anyone (anyone!) can build a trusted network of thousands and communicate at a scale that was previously unknown and heretofore impossible. And do it at zero marginal cost.
Community Driven Marketing combines the most cost-effective customer acquisition and retention strategy with the immense reach and power of the individual.
Community Driven Marketing (CDM) is the process for identifying, cultivating, and activating Raving Fans who willingly and freely share your story with their trusted, highly-scalable, and permission-based social networks.
- First, you find people who are so passionate about your product or service that they will tell all of their friends and network about it for free.
- Then, you cultivate an authentic, two-way relationship with them.
- Last, you give them opportunities to tell your story on your behalf.
Ironically, the same social software tools which make CDM possible are seriously weakening the underlying foundations of traditional marketing.
For the past 50 years or so, marketing was based upon the assumption that your attention was relatively easy to obtain.
That is no longer the case. We are living in an Attention Economy. There are just so many channels that it is increasingly difficult to pay attention to any given one.
Furthermore, the Power of Permission is increasingly in your hands. Think Caller ID, Tivo/DVR, Do Not Call Registry, and Junk Mail Filters, just to name a few.
Instead of trying to fight these changes, CDM practitioners embrace the wonderful fact that each and every individual is a marketing and communications channel now.
Even better, for her network, the trust far exceeds that of a paid avenue. According to at least one study, 90% of people trust friends and acquaintances compared to just 4% of vendors and advertisers.
From a marketing perspective, nothing is better than having a Raving Fan who wants to talk about you and has a trusted network of people.
The Raving Fans sit at the core of the CDM Engine.
Comments
Community Action Hero David Yorka said on 3.15.2009 at 10:21 PM
Of all the "community" marketing jargon my favorite is Community-Driven Marketing. I appreciate what you include in this post -- resimplifying the description of the most potent marketing tool and complamenting your words/shapes/colors with links to rich content. (diggin the new whitepaper as well...)