When internet turns into reality
31/3 2010
From a brand & marketing perspective Internet is mature. Most companies are very good at using Internet to communicate their products, offerings and believes. This is all great, but that is not where the true potential of the internet lies, the true potential lies in building relationship and trust so that more business can be done with internet as the source.
Internet is not only marketing
Internet today is not only marketing, it is a place that now days is very much like the real world. Most of what we do in a company to reach new potential customers are based on the old cornerstones relationship and trust. That part of the internet from a company perspective have not been utilized in full spectrum yet, not at all actually, it is probably only a few percentage that is utilized from a business perspective.
If caring about your business network is all about human interaction in the real world? You need to re-think. A third cornerstone in the business equation has entered the arena. It is actually something as boring as technology platforms. How come that they are as important as the other two? If you are a great relationship / trust builder in the real world, you now days can do the same online, but then you need to know how to leverage the platforms available online to utilize the true potential to achieve success online. When these three cornerstones work together, great things can happen.
Suit or pyjamas?
Today persons are more and more active online, both as private persons and as professionals……but how do we know when someone sits in a suit in an office or at home in the pyjamas, who cares! Today we all as individuals are the biggest part of the brand. Small nisch companies can dominate markets only because they have great people working for them. They communicate what they care about and what their thoughts on the topic are. They build relationships with potential customers and they collect input to new products and update their business processes according to the business demand from the market.
Is this a new phenomena? No, of course not. It has been done for decades. The new thing is that everyone is as important as the top management when it comes to communication. Executives have done this with their top customers for many years, today everyone can do this, you as a company can have the entire staff act as salespersons and marketeers, not only the ones with that title on their business cards. We buy stuff from people we trust and have relationship with.
Claim your land
This is a huge opportunity for companies that have been in a traditional market. You and many of your competitors have been using the same way to communicate your products and offerings, but now you can really show your competitors why they should choose your product. The difference is in many cases you.
The internet is an undiscovered world for most companies today. We talk a lot about Internet, but honestly not that much have been done in regards to extending processes, building relationship and start to attract new leads to generate further more business to our company.
In the sense there is a lot of land to claim. If we compare claiming land today with how Tom Cruise did in the movie “Far & Away“, where he rides out in the fields and puts a flag in the ground to claim his land (called Land Run). Today there is a great opportunity to do just this online. There are so much land that is not claimed by anyone. The best way to do this is to build trust and relationship within the area you are interested in claiming.
….so let’s go out there and claim your land and build new relationships.
Fredrik Stenbeck
Fredrik Stenbeck is founder & CEO of Silverbakk as well as SiXX, an online communication strategy company.
Blogs: Next Generation Internet
Twitter: @stenbeck
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