Here are Five things that you need to be testing or doing now:
1) Loosen Your Grip
Find some area of your business, products, or brand that you can loosen your grip on. The most powerful force in business today is democratization. By ceding some control to your customers you will gain far more insight, buzz, and loyalty more that you will risk. Connect with your customers via dialog and collaboration. Let them create your next commercial. Look to Amazon's user reviews and Apple's iMix for inspiration.
2) Be Social
It is no accident or teenage fad, social is a force. LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and others are for real. Can you allow customers and prospects to share, discuss, explore, and contribute to your brand? Can you leverage what is happening already in those spaces? See the Microsoft Student Group on Facebook.
3) Speed Up
While still developing, real time or instant marketing is coming on fast. Email is slow by today's standard. I have to notice and open an email. IM, mobile, micro blogging, and other touch points are compressing time. If it's hot, get it out there right away. Check out Dell on Twitter.
4) Get off the Page
User experiences based on clicking from one HTML page to another are going away. Broadband is here in a big way, already in 48% of homes. Your website and digital marketing experiences need to be rich. Customers should be in an experience that moves smoothly and that transitions and updates seamlessly. Check out Kayak's great shopping interface.
5) Do It
Get yourself and staff involved in this stuff. You need collaborative workspaces for your teams. Thought leaders need to have blogs. Play around with Twitter, start a social network of your own with Ning. Only by living with these things will you be able to understand their value, challenges, and be able to implement them to your advantage.
J
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