The greatest thing that has changed in marketing: how people buy and want to accomplish specific activities

Recently I was speaking with the managing partners of an 8 yr old realty firm and the topic of their main source of new business came up. Like most #smallbusiness owners they answered with, “referrals.”

But what I think we have to understand today is that a #referral comes in many forms: a testimonial, a review on google, a share on Facebook, a passing of a business card, etc.

This is essentially the greatest thing that has changed in #marketing: how people buy and want to accomplish specific activities.

Yes, there are all these other pieces of the puzzle (SEO, website design, email marketing, social media, advertising, etc.) we have to consider, but the first thing is how are ideal customers we want to engage making decisions about the companies they find, choose, and stay with?

A lot of the control that businesses used to have in the buying process has moved to the customer because they now have access to so much information online about companies, about our companies, about products, about services, and about ways to solve their problems.

Today’s customers are invisible until they’re ready to purchase. They don’t call up a company or ask for a brochure or wait for a sales call. They do their homework online and create their own brochure.