Tom Feltenstein

In our digital age, marketers must continue to make personal connections with their customers, even though technology can seduce us into distancing ourselves from one another.  If used properly, technology allows us to engage in a more dynamic dialogue with our customers, and to stop interrupting them.  It lets us be available to our customer whenever she needs us, in the way that she needs us, and in the language that she understands.

While my philosophy is very “local,” the basic tenets apply globally towards any industry, including high-tech.  We’ve all got to figure out a way to break through the clutter and to allow our customers to invite us in to speak to them. The days of shouting and interrupting customers are over. Use technology as a tactic to touch your customer and speak to them in a way they understand.

The 21^st century neighborhood is wherever you customers congregate – individuals with similar interests, with similar needs and desires, attitudes, beliefs and values. You can find them in your own block or across an ocean. You can invite them to participate in your blogs and on your Facebook pages. You can find them in churches, schools, libraries, fund raising events, your local chamber of commerce, or in chat groups, phone books, forums… and through other companies who have already found them. But most importantly, and most effectively – you can find them through your present customers.

I’ve always said that your business works the same way your brain works. The single largest detriment is that we fall in love with our product or service. Just for a month I invite you to fall in love with your customer. Look at your business as if you were a customer, think of the interests, values, needs and priorities of your customers – and then you’ll begin to find them. Use your technology to listen to your customers and to find out how you can best fulfill their needs. Devote your life and your enterprise to making their life better, richer, fuller, happier, more meaningful – and the marketing strategies and tactics will begin to unfold from their own lips.