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Read a fascinating little blurb
from Forrester Research here
about the changing nature a corporate advertising, communications, pr, the whole
ball of wax. It was only a snippet of a message that Forrester will deliver in
full to a corporate conference audience later but it was enough to start you
thinking early in the morning. Plainly stated, consumers are tuning out
traditional advertising, which I equate to using a megaphone, like television,
print, radio and, the grand prize goes to..., billboards in favor of
conversations among themselves.
The ubiquitous internet strikes again. Consumers read what other consumers
say and their take away is that they have the unvarnished truth from one
person's perspective. Consumer behavior now follows business behavior, when you
think about it. Businesses, at least 80% of them, buy because other businesses
have already purchased, and in the background there is the hum of a million
conversations about value, pricing, total cost, benefits, etc..
The interesting thing though is that while consumers are now picking up on
the way that business purchases, the consumer has actually leapfrogged the
business market. The consumer's preferred medium for purchasing collaboration is
the internet. Many businesses, on the other hand, continue to use more
traditional mediums for purchasing information, like Chambers of Commerce and
industry trade groups. They have not opened up to the electronic community. As a
result they fail to take advantage of a wider knowledge base both in purchasing
and in selling.
Businesses that sell to consumers have started to reap benefit from following
the online collaboration around their products and services. They hear in the
hum of these conversations the satisfaction or problems their product creates.
They may find it uncomfortable to turn the megaphone around and
put it to their ear, but it's enormously less expensive and more informative to
listen.
For businesses that sell to business the case is clear: If you want to be a
part of a wider conversation in your marketplace you'll have to get it started,
and then be ready to respond when the hum of conversations increases, as it
will. |
