This piece in The Economic Times today made an interesting read. It says:
“BLOG POSTS are now finding their way into the marketing strategies of motorcycle makers.What started as platforms to share passions and frustrations of bikers are now being tracked by corporates to fine-tune their offerings. Instead of tedious market surveys and data crunching, companies now get reviews within hours of product launch, courtesy blogs.”
Delighted to note that marketers are beginning to understand the value of blogs & social media and are using them for immediate, true feedback instead? of commissioned research that’s not just time-consuming but also expensive (and often inaccurate?)
I just changed my car for a new one and relied heavily on blog posts, forum discussions, word-of-mouth (company brochures helped me decide the colour, nothing more 
).
In my opinion, however, the loop will not be complete until we put the customer in the center and then surround him/her with peer reviews, expert opinion and marketer’s inputs (the last bit is TOTALLY missing today). It is the logical next step and we are hoping to participate in that space.
I was with a marketer friend last week and tried to partly address concerns/ reservations she had about competition using a marketer’s blog to malign the brand. A couple of points we spoke about, a couple I am adding now:
- The blogosphere is quite fair and transparent and real users, if happy with your brand, will counter any biased/ malicious campaign with true feedback.
- Competition is anyway not going to wait for you to set-up your blog before they start their campaign to malign, if that was the intent
- Out-of-the-ordinary negative comments that go against what is the majority view, may not cut ice with the customer, s/he is intelligent enough to make an educated decision
Exciting times ahead.
