Perhaps the buyer will allow himself to be involved in the process out of interest in a particular product or product category. Or maybe you just offer the buyer some kind of reward or benefit in exchange for their consent.
In the pre-interactive age, this idea might seem crazy and unfeasible, it could be considered an empty dream of a marketer with an overly rich imagination. But the age of interactivity has already arrived. He came suddenly, imperceptibly and changed the rules of the game.
New technology affects business in two ways. On the one hand, thanks to consumers' quick and simplified access to information, many marketers are finding that their products are no longer classic value-added products, but are becoming mass products that can be easily copied, stolen at the cost of lower profits. On the Internet, you can buy a new General Motors car for about $50 cheaper than dealers offer. You can also buy 1,000 shares of General Motors for a total commission of up to $7.95. This is great news for consumers, but for businesses, it comes at the cost of a hard hit to profits, making it increasingly difficult to maintain brand loyalty.
At the same time, interactivity enables businesses to engage their customers in personal dialogue and work on establishing long-term relationships with each person personally. This strategy can do more than just protect your business from being copied over the Internet. It can also provide consumers with a useful service, the value of which can be much higher than the ability to scrupulously compare the latest prices.
Business owners have used the practice of engaging the consumer in dialogue since time immemorial, before there was assembly line production, mass distribution and advertising in the media. In ancient times, the selling process was more soulful, softer and based on the voluntary participation of the consumer. But with the advent of mass production, everything changed. The modern economy is characterized by conveyor production of standardized products, their mass distribution on a global scale. In addition, an institution of intermediaries has emerged in the form of mass media that distribute standard advertising messages. Under such conditions, it becomes immeasurably more profitable to convey the same advertising slogan to all consumers at once using radio and television, instead of incurring the costs of involving each individual consumer in a separate dialogue.
However, today, thanks to interactive technology, it has once again become cost-effective to engage in personal conversations with vast numbers of consumers, each one individually.
Interactive technology means that marketers can, at low cost, engage consumers in personal relationships fueled by two-way "conversations" either through mouse clicks or through microphone on a computer, or by filling out questionnaires. The essence of the method is that the consumer can be repeatedly involved in the marketing process. Marketing in the interactive world is a collaboration where the marketer helps the consumer to buy and the consumer helps the marketer to sell.
If you do it right, the result of engaging the consumer in communication is his loyalty. The more a customer is engaged in communication, i.e. the more he or she discusses with you the services or products offered, the more likely the consumer will remain loyal to your brand and will not cooperate with one of your competitors.
It would seem that so much effort is applied only to sell goods for an extra twenty-five cents. It really is. But there is no effective alternative, since the economy of mass production has essentially outlived itself. And this is not news to you if you have thought about what your life as a consumer in the current economy is like.
The consumer universe is filled with new offers, advertising discounts on goods, money-back guarantees if the product does not fit , and ubiquitous services. This is the mass production economic system in its absolute terms - businessmen are trying to find more customers for an ever-growing range of more and more specialized innovations. To realize this huge inventory, marketers around the world are grabbing every square inch of advertising space, every extra second of time, and plastering all the nooks and crannies with sales messages in the hope that you'll notice them. Thus, your life as a consumer is filled to overflowing with a never-before-seen array of offers, messages, and choices, all of which call for you to make decisions, even if the advertisement is only momentarily in your field of vision. Believe me, your attention is constantly being sought. Every moment is seen as an opportunity to distract you from business.
Marketers want advertising to be constantly in front of you. They must do this in order to survive. The only problem is t
