Social Media Marketing: Two Keys To An Economic Advantage

Media and marketing is changed forever in this “new normal”.  Driven by technology, new web 2.0 applications and consumer behavior, we must adjust our marketing strategies quickly to survive and hopefully thrive.  Make no mistake, this is an unusual period of disruption where opportunities are great and businesses are won and lost.

Why? Simply put, the new marketing world offers huge economic advantages to those businesses that embrace and implement these new strategies.  As businesses move from “renting eyeballs” to building channels or platforms that are based on relationships with customers, they develop huge marketing leverage in two significant ways:

1. Costs per lead will go down significantly as you are able to implement social media and web 2.0 based marketing programs because most of these new sites are no or low cost to participate.  Your biggest costs will be time, commitment and the cost of creating relevant, valuable content.  But you will also have a more trusting, authoritative (subject matter) relationship with your customer that will pay huge dividends.
2. With this new “relationship” you will have an opporutnity to know your customers much better that you ever have.  In fact, if you work the relationship right, you will find out other products and services you can sell your to your customers that meet needs they have in your niche.  Imagine if you can increase the average lifetime value of your customers from one purchase to two or three.  The net increase in margins to your bottom line will be significant.

This is not a magic bullet…no easy button here.  But if you are able to thoughtfully and strategically put in place a new marketing plan incorporating social media and web 2.0 applications, you can gain a huge economic opportunity on your competition. That means better margins to re-invest in your business, to continue to dominate your market.

Welcome to the new normal!