The Web is all about interaction… and interaction forces experience. More than anything else customers are experiencing through their interactivity. Will their experience be fun, frustrating or confusing? As a marketer, the answer is up to you.

Here’s how another company is using video to create experiential marketing that results in customer acquisition and retention. It’s a great example of a best practice in social marketing or what’s being called “consumer empowerment.”

Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine.com agrees. The sense of empowerment that consumers receive when participating in a “crowdsourcing” model feeds on what marketers should be taking notice of (and applying!).

Let’s look at how one big company does this: Progressive auto insurance. Watch the video above for this and more examples of how pioneering marketers are taking charge by giving customers unrestricted control over CHOICE — creating powerful bonds that drive brand loyalty.

The key to success in today’s digital, multichannel shopping world is a bold, new mindset. This foundation is rooted in new, non-traditional concepts. In fact, some say these concepts are NOT marketing at all.

Bottom line: This customer-centric framework is being forced by a hyper-connected, always-on interactive ecosystem. Success in this brave new world is about recognizing and ACTING on this shift.

And, yes, sooner or later you’ll need to get in the game at some level! Click the video to learn more.

Attention Web Marketers:
Intercepting customers during buying processes is no longer enough!

Fundamental elements of the customer/marketer relationship are changing. The Web is inherently interactive and, yes, increasingly social. How customers interact via the Web with your brand is proving to be experiential. Sounds trite but it’s not to be under-stated!

As customer behaviors emerge new marketing practices are needed. Multi-channel retail customer acquisition and retention cannot survive on strategies like affiliate and search marketing alone. What are these new strategies? Some call it “conversational” marketing. Whatever name you give it, this emerging practice area is all about joining in with customers - listening to them and interacting on a more intimate level.

How can marketers accomplish this and what social marketing strategy should be tried and tested first? Watch the above video for answers and stay tuned for Part 3 where we really get revved up with specific case studies and best practices from leading social marketers!

Selling on the web is quickly becoming less about marketers’ supply meeting up with customers’ demand, and more about customers themselves actively bringing their demand toward supply. In fact, they’re creating supply in many cases. And successful marketers are creating experiences for customers — not merely selling to them.

People now have access to so much content — and have so many ways to gather news and information — that the likelihood of your corporate message penetrating the clutter is virtually nil.

Instead, if you engage the audience in a conversation and learn what the social community is looking for and concerned about, you might be able to persuade them to hear your message.

In the words of David Weinberger at the 2007 New Communications Forum Lecture:

“There is no market for your message”.

Given the web’s increasingly social nature, today’s customers are bypassing ‘interceptive’ strategies like search and, yes, affiliate marketing. Tune in to the above video and find out what to do about it!