The other day I saw a 30 minute feature on Bowlmor, the bowling alley company, on Bloomberg Enterprise.

The CEO (a native of DC area, so you know he must be good ), said “hey, we’re not in the bowling business, we’re in the cost-effective creation of customers as evangelists business.”

In other words, “create Raving Fans.”

Then, it dawned on me…

if the CEO of a bowling alley (not to be disrespectful, of course, because the guy clearly knows what he’s doing) is saying “it’s all about Raving Fans,” then it’s pretty clear to me that the mindset has shifted sufficiently to the point where this is now conventional wisdom.

Five years ago when I was thinking about marketing and centered on the role of Raving Fans as the only/best future of marketing, that wasn’t the case.

Now, our behaviors in many respects, haven’t caught up with this reality (as evidenced by the cold call I got the other day to attend a webinar) because inertia is a powerful force.

Still, I think we’ve arrived at a point that the competitive advantage as it relates to Community Driven Marketing isn’t in the fact that you are doing it and someone else isn’t because pretty soon, everyone is going to be doing it.

The advantage will be in how well you execute it. How well you grow the fans.