3 Big Brands Reinvent Themselves with Blogs

Text is on multiple pages. This article is worth a look as it includes some relevant examples and good advice... This is only first few paragraphs...

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/12540.asp

Published: November 27, 2006

By Tom Hespos
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Introduction

It would be easy to look at your latest online display ad report and come to the conclusion that many people simply don't want a deeper relationship with your company. However, the opposite is usually true. In the age of big box stores and marketing strategies that keep customers at a polite distance, people crave the type of business relationships of yesteryear, where they had special relationships with the companies from which they bought things. We crave "Mom and Pop-ness," but find few successful marketers that have the time or inclination to celebrate our enthusiasm for brands and products.

We want to hack the ivory tower, deliberately avoiding the mechanisms companies set up to keep us at arm's length. We feel special when our enthusiasm, criticism and importance to a company's business is acknowledged and celebrated. Some companies are realizing this, and they're setting up scalable ways of speaking directly to the market through the internet.

Along with these new programs comes the realization that this direct dialogue is critical. Customers expect it, and prospects are looking for it, too, particularly when they're in a business relationship they're unhappy with. When considering all the effort we put into database marketing -- looking in great detail at loyalists, switchers and other categories of customers -- such programs begin to look like no-brainers.

Here are some folks from the first wave, along with tips on how you can enter the marketing conversation the right way.