Connecting + Consumers + Brand = Building web strategy to create intense relationships

Consumers are key for companies. Key because they’re clients and best advocates of the brand. Traditional marketing and communication is meant to develop awareness and stimulate consumers to become customers through seeding value added to people buying the brand products. CRM is meant to increase loyalty by offering information and generating repeat business. In that process clients, prospects, consumers, and users are restricted to receivers role. When asked to contribute they’re always lead, and in a way not inviting to engage with the brand (answer a survey isn’t that much engaging). But as Trendwatching said, consumers are the global brain, and brand should do much more to leverage that community of theirs, that would definitly be a smart way to shorten decision making process, help out-of-the box thinking, and generate more proximity with people that can become their advocates if included in the ideation and service enhancement process. Here’s some ideas of how to leverage that untapped and smart resource.

Web offers to brand a vast conversation facilitator toolbox such as blogs, forums, twitter, digg-like platforms, social networks, and instant chats to develop an intense relationship with consumers. That’s what makes the difference between mass media and the Internet: the ability to create and maintain a continious point of contact and conversation. If well used, you can tap consumers insights regarding your products (users are always the better placed to deliver smart user experience, new ways of use, or hacking ideas of your products), listen to what they’re saying about the business area, competitors, brand image and reputation, identify new opportunities, and share and test anything you want with your customer community. And these are only examples of what a community can provides you with.

Many companies should do this, and the famous examples of Starbucks and Dell won’t challenge what I’ve said. Many great business ideas have been test crashed at Dell IdeaStorm, many others have found a reality thanks to that platform, and that would be the same at Starbucks Ideas. If such major companies do it, why not other brands? Aren’t them agile enough or willing to stay product-centric? If you really want to be product-centric, make the right development choices using your fans as validator and consultant, they’d be the best to tell you if consumers would be interested in what you’re developing (and if they’re telling you “not interested” think twice before trashing the idea, it can simply be a communication issue concerning your way of sharing/ shaping the idea).

And if you’ve got enough communication and marketing budget, look at online event sponsorship and advertising in specific communities of interest (just forget about socio-demo, that’s not accurate enough online) before willing to go mainstream and target mass media audiences. But when you’ll be famous, never forget to thanks your customers by paying for double pages in famous newspapers (like Firefox in Time Magazine) to empower your customers when saying “I’m their fan and ambassador”.

To read more on that topic:

• Review of the Internet news of the day
• Social Media + Consumer Opinion + Brand = opportunities brands have to join the conversation
• Review of the Internet news of the Day
• Reebok + Run Easy campaign = not advertising but engagement
• Word of Mouth + Leveraging = Giving value to sharing