The Internet is a Place to Connect

Do More Mission Does More

I sometimes feel like a pinball when it comes to web surfing. My day is frequently spent bouncing from site to site.  Often, a friend or a business associate sends me a link. Other times, it is just a mindless meandering that leads me to a site that when asked, I couldn’t tell you how I got there.  Today, I found myself at a site called Do More Mission.  Do More Mission is all about helping non-profits do more by operating better, and focusing on making every scarce dollar contribute toward achieving their mission. Do More Mission’s founder Todd J. Sukol wrote a recent post about the epiphany he experienced when he discovered that the internet is a place, not a thing. WOW…that is big!  Todd discovered something that many in business, and even marketers don’t get…the web isn’t about doing, it is about connecting.

Today’s Marketing Mix

The traditional marketing mix focused simply on the Four P’s, namely:  Price, Promotion, Product, and Place (a weak “P” standing for distribution).  In B-school we were taught how to manipulate these elements to drive sales for a given item.  If sales slowed, we might run a promotion or lower the price.  If things got stale, maybe we tweaked the product or looked for new distribution outlets.  All of these were actions we controlled.  The marketer determined a plan and “did” something to drive sales.

Today, the marketing mix is still relevant, but only a single component of a more significant effort to influence consumers.  As I mentioned previously when discussing Jet Blue, companies don’t own their brands, their customers do.  They hold all of the power.  The customer has the ability through the multiple outlets available on the web to influence a product’s perception, and both positively and negatively impact sales.  For the marketer wed to the Four P’s, this amounts to heresy. No longer can they improve sales by simply “doing”, they now must figure out how to influence customers and prospects who will influence others to “do” something.  This is a seismic shift.

Where’s the Connection?

The big discovery for Todd at Do More Mission was that the web is “the ether in which we live and conduct our day.”  How prosaic, but true.  The web has advanced from simply being a tool to find information, buy plane tickets, or order a new book.  It has become the base station of our lives.  It is where we keep up with old friends, meet new business associates, express our feelings, and impact causes.  But, it is not simply a single person’s actions.  The power of the internet is in how by connecting with our network of friends, associates, and even strangers, the power of our influence becomes turbo charged.   The web simply is about connecting.  Digital marketing today is about facilitating this exchange.  The goal is to create the connections that bring people together to create a larger impact…what many call a community.  Ultimately, that is how we “Do More”.

Tags: digital marketing, Do More Mission, Todd J. Sukol