This is a quick spot, because life has been happening all around me recently. My big news is I am newly married again. Paradoxically, the title is mercenary and has nothing to do with my emotional state. Interested?
The Share-the-Love vision comes from a friend of mine, and in her case she wanted to see something like an ‘business orchestra’ model.
Where the cellists don’t attempt to blow trumpets. A community based ‘business ecology’ where the flautist wasn’t given a kettle drum to play!
What would your orchestra sound like if the talented people were not playing their instruments? How would your favourite band or singing group sound if they randomly swapped instruments or parts?
Share-the-Love … works like this. You love playing rhythm guitar. Your buddy loves to drum, and she knows someone who has a great voice and another dude who plays double-base. Cool, because if they all like similar sounding music and have fun together, we have the core to start a pretty wicked musical combo. Now think businesses, think about your business idea!
You or your product(s) are ‘great rhythm guitar players’, in your field or product category. You may even write great songs, and harmonies. Are you an accountant or bookkeeper? Are you a marketing person, a paralegals or even a business manager too? Would you be a great ‘rhythm guitarist’ if you spent your relaxation playing guitar, or if you read a business magazine? ‘Hullow!’
Share-the-Love …is like this. You love what you do; share that. You don’t like bookkeeping; then find a bookkeeper who loves keeping the books. Share your love of what you do with the bookkeeper who loves what she/he does!
Do unto others what that other would have you do; unto them.
[... As always, do for betterment, not for harm.]
Money? Yes, I’m saying the ‘money’ is a number you give mr or ms bookkeeper that says “I love what you do, $50 an hour.” As a quick spot, I won’t expand this now. Let it soak in, and bounce around a bit. I’d really LOVE a bit of conversation in the comments. Because this is just a ‘seed‘.
What do I get for my $50 of love? A free Thursday night to read my daughter a bedtime story, instead of trying to figure out how to balance that wretched Accounts Payable (for example). In the words of a famous promotion; $100 to get the books done; quality time with daughter — Priceless.
One final thing, because mbimarketing is about your marketing. Your product is your supply-chain as much as it is your service or tangible package. The Beatles sold “love, fun and individuality” they never sold records.
How do you decide who to share your love with? Choose people who love or (rather) admire what you do, and love what they do. Share-the-Love with people who will in turn Share-the-Love.
Let it bounce around. I reckon I have over a million reasons this makes sense; it always did. Some how culturally we lost track of it; kill or be killed doesn’t include your ‘team mates’ and ‘potential team mates’.
Your aim ought to be creating a Champion Team. (Not a team of champions). Be there for each other :: Share-the-Love.
Here’s some sound advice from Jimmy Wales, of wikipedia fame, on wiki based marketing for communities. These points are important to you for all forms of imarketing. How do you foster your customer loyalty? Once you offer more than a ‘good deal‘ you are creating a customer relationship.
Give yourself a leg-up, and tell me what you can take away from Jim’s talk . . .
What about you? Is your web site’s community or forums supporting your services and products? Or have you understood that customer support makes you more money?
A thing to remember is that serving your customer over the counter, is also an “interactive marketing“, without a bias to electronic means (imarketing). Good basics, make good business.
People are always excited to find something that they believe in.
~ Jimmy Wales(AdAge, 24-Feb-20092)
There’s a lot of push and hype about e-marketing. Every time a new mode is added to the internet, and other media as well, you’ll get a surge and a new tune played by the e-marketing band. What is e-marketing? Is e-marketing different? And what about i-marketing?
emarketing
Between you and me, I like the old saying, “there nothing new under the Sun“. The term, “e-marketing” refers to internet (electronic) marketing or marketing on the world wide web (WWW). It doesn’t mean neon signs, which were ‘electronic’ before computers. So the ‘e-‘ can be misleading if you take it literally. E-marketing refers to marketing on the internet (also called, web marketing, online marketing, customer relationship management (CRM, ECRM)) and is evolving as a field.
imarketing
The ‘i-marketing‘ term is new, or newer. If you look about you still find lots and lots of retro references to “internet marketing” as imarketing. I believe you’ll see the imarketing come to mean “interactive marketing“. Imarketing significantly overlaps with emarketing and will go way past what you can do with the internet, PDA or a mobile phone.
Vision
The vision? Let’s begin with digital TV and digital radio. You can buy a car i-radio now and listen to podcasts or your home-town station from the autobahn. Provided your home town station is on the web. Interactive media, or “i-media“, like the internet, digital TV, digital radio, your mobile and ipods, etc
Hopefully this gives YOU more input and control over your media load. I’m sure you’ll see a lot of push and hype. I had a list of cool pages to show you. BUT, right now look at Matt’s eloquent post below:
Hello and welcome to the new mbi blog. The column talks about applying marketing principles to the world. “Why marketing?“
Whatever your ambition, the outcome depends on the consistent elements in the connection between you and everyone else — That’s a “market“: where an exchange between two or more people happens. People in the arts, non-profit, open source, and government also make exchanges.
As background, marketing’s “Four P-s” are only a handy aide memoir for each P. For instance: the things you can directly change in any exchange.
Cost … What the other surrenders to accept your offer [Price].
There are other things that you can influence indirectly. In my experience the indirect things are less critical than people of little substance tend to want to think. Just keep it real man.
Comments are welcome on the technology of marketing in practice.
