Entrepreneurs, marketing managers and all of those people associated with product development, sales & marketing and anything that comes close to anything to do with the customer buying the product – Beware! Your advertisements aren’t going to work any more. Am I kidding? Find out the truth!

Advertisements had a charm in those halcyon days when consumers used to flock to buy stuff. It isn’t happening any more thanks to bombardment of thousands of messages on to a rather learned, sophisticated, forum-thronging and community-opinion centric consumers. Popular media is slowly taking a back-seat and that should already get some marketing managers looking for alternative jobs and force small business entrepreneurs to think well and way out of the box.

So what works?

1.    Ensure that you have a great product that delivers value: There is no escaping this. If you thought you could just slap some product or service and go about selling it all off, it isn’t going to happen and you will crumble sooner than it takes you to make a product. Once this step is in place, good things must be happening to you immediately if you follow the next few steps well.
2.    Get people talking about it: The self-expression and the community power has now taken a firm identity of its own and Buzz-marketing, people’s opinions, corporate blogs, forums, social marketing etc have people talking about products and services all the time. Your goal should be to ensure that they speak highly of your product or service. If you make it here, half of your work is done.
3.    Pay attention to user generated content: So it isn’t casual reading and enjoying all the attention. You got to take note of whatever is being said there and work to wipe out those little bugs that might be plaguing your product or service. If you have a corporate blog, throw it open for the public to comment on it and see what they have to say.
4.    Make changes as long as god himself loves it:  Simply said, aim to be perfect and when you see that you aren’t—apologize. Make up for it. Go out of your way and don’t come back until the consumer forgives you.
5.    Repeat: Eventually, you’d see that some things work very effectively while some don’t. Perhaps you should pay attention to young adults and not old folks. Whatever it is, document it and then repeat it consistently.

See what comes of it – Success should be round the corner and it wouldn’t be because of your fancy billion dollar ad on The New York Times.

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