I just read a post from Mitch Joel about Ignoring Social Media - it’s forced me to start formalizing my thoughts on what I’ve been calling Open Marketing. Open Marketing is about sharing. Telling anyone who wants to know; who you are, what you’re doing, where you do it and most importantly why you do it. This applies equally to individuals and organizations.
I have a basic example that might help explain. Let’s start with the simple telephone. It’s been around forever and very little has changed, right? That shouldn’t be the case - not when it comes to this great new age of connectivity. When you try to call an organization, you typically are forced to call the main line. It’s often the only line that is promoted, making it difficult to find what or who you want. In many organizations hiding the phone list is standard operation. Pre-internet, you couldn’t easily distribute your phone list, even if you wanted to. As easy as it is today, most companies still choose not to do it.
Let’s look at some specifics. Say you want to buy some online advertising is Canada. You pick three major players; Sympatico/MSN, Yahoo and Canoe. You logon to their respective “Advertise with Us” pages and what do you get? In the case of Sympatico/MSN you get a single toll free number and a contact form (makes me feel so warm and fuzzy). Yahoo isn’t any better - they have the toll free number and a general email address. To my surprise Canoe actually has a list of all their advertising departments, management and staff with their direct emails and telephone numbers. When I worked there this wasn’t always the case. That’s a great start but why stop there?
How can an industry that lives and breaths online be missing the opportunity to engage their prospective customers on these pages? What do these people look like? What are their passions? Are they on LinkedIn? Do I have some kind of relationship that will make it easier for me to connect with them? If I can connect with them then I’m much more likely to do business with them.
Put simply, Open Marketing is about sharing information, as much and with as many people as possible. Organizations of all kinds need to start opening up to the possibility of letting their customers in.
Open Marketing...Linking Local
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