Tasner M. Marketing in the Moment. The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First 2010
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• Mobile site: In addition to www.Amazon.com, the com-
pany operates a site that can be better viewed from a
cellphone browser than can the regular site (a sub-
sidiary of Amazon also owns a mobile marketing firm).
• Virtual reality worlds: Amazon has a presence on
Second Life and many other VR worlds.
Company: Zappos
Web site: www.Zappos.com
Zappos is an e-commerce site that focuses on shoes, but it
has many additional product offerings, from clothing and
bags to accessories and sunglasses. It has gained a lot of for-
ward momentum and awareness recently after the company
went from zero to $1 billion in sales in nine years. Not only
are people and businesses talking about its sales, but they
also are really excited about the company’s culture and
service. Zappos prides itself on its unique culture and its
commitment and dedication to customer service. The com-
pany loves doing things that are not considered the norm.
For example, there is free shipping, a 365-day return policy,
and 24/7 customer service. Furthermore, if they don’t have a
product in stock, the call-center agent will locate the product
on a competitor’s site for you!
On a final note, the buzzword around Zappos is happiness!
Their vision is delivering happiness to customers, employees,
and vendors.
Why It’s a Web 3.0 Company
Business side:
• This company is constantly on the leading edge in their
marketplace.
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• They do things differently! Reread their vision state-
ment. I have never read a vision like that before.
• They aren’t afraid to spend money to test things out or
on training.
• Customer-service reps are rewarded for spending more
time on the phone with customers.
• They encourage individuality.
Marketing side:
• At Zappos, testing is the name of the game. They have
tested pretty much any and every type of marketing
form on the planet to see what works and what doesn’t.
• They have had such great marketing success that they
have a subscription service, Zappos Insights, that
allows you to learn more from them.
• Twitter is being leveraged constantly. They have a mas-
sive Twitter following, and employees are encouraged
to use Twitter to communicate. Not only do they use it,
but they treat their Twitter followers like raving fans
and give many Twitter-only specials.
• They use open-source technology rather than propri-
etary technology to save on IT costs.
• They are rolling out a www.Zappos.com mobile site.
• They maintain an internal Wiki for employees to col-
laborate on.
• They have developed various mobile Web apps.
• They track everything.
Company: Zappos
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Company: Salesforce.com
Web site: www.Salesforce.com
You already know about Salesforce.com because we dis-
cussed it in the chapter on collaboration. The company
prides itself on two things: applications for customer-
relationship management and their Force.com platform. In
my opinion, they have also defined and shaped the software
as a service industry.
They are best known for their Web-based CRM system that
allows you to track and manage prospects, customers,
employees, contracts, and beyond. Essentially anything that
relates to your company can be stored and developed in
Salesforce.com. We use it to manage all of our leads and
customers. Using their AppExchange, we have continued to
deck out our Salesforce.com experience to make it further
suit our business.
Switching gears, they recently released Force.com. Force.com
is among the easiest places to build out business applica-
tions and even Web sites. It’s a simplified programming
model in a cloud-based environment. For marketers, this
may not mean much. Rephrased in English for the rest of us,
it’s a place to build open-source types of programs to be
leveraged.
Why It’s a Web 3.0 Company
Business side:
• Salesforce.com is constantly on the leading edge in the
technology marketplace. Attend one of their
Dreamforce conferences, and you will be even further
blown out of your seat as to where this company is
headed! They always announce the latest and greatest
changes to the platform, allow for on-the-spot
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customization, and host various breakout sessions to
help you use their tool. This information is only the tip
of the iceberg.
• They understand that the growing model is Web-based,
and they view software as a service.
• Collaboration is king. Their users can collaborate with
one another, across companies, with the Salesforce.com
team of employees, programmers, and developers alike.
There is very little closed communication across the
company. Free-flowing information and ideas have
helped keep this company growing strong.
• The AppExchange has thousands of applications that
others have developed for use with their platform.
• They allow developers to run free. They call it enterprise
cloud computing. It’s built on their Force.com platform.
Build an application and share it with the world!
• Salesforce.com can be run on virtually any device. They
understood far sooner than most that things were
changing.
Marketing side:
• They have been leveraging all the marketing tactics
we’ve talked about in the book, many of them for
years. Need I say more?
Company: Cisco
Web site: www.cisco.com
Founded in 1984, Cisco stands as one of the largest multi-
national tech companies in the world. Its model has
revolved around putting customers first and then establish-
ing partnerships with those customers to identify their needs
and offer solutions.
Company: Cisco
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In addition, it offers hard products, solutions, software titles,
and services to a wide array of customers and partners
around the world. Its collaborators understand all the criti-
cal elements of everlasting success.
Cisco became the leader in networking and has transformed
how people connect, communicate, and collaborate. If you
ever hear the phrase “Welcome to the Human Network,”
think of Cisco, because they enable everyone to be
connected!
Why It’s a Web 3.0 Company
Business side:
• Like all the others, Cisco stays on the leading edge. As
we speak, its programmers are building a smart and
efficient energy grid.
• It has learned to adapt and capture new markets,
called market transitions.
• Check out their list of product, service, and software
lines—it’s a mile long!
• They have a great partnership model. They know they
need partners to succeed. They have thousands of part-
ners and strategic alliances throughout the world.
• It is the worldwide leader in networking. Need I say
more?
Marketing side:
• They regularly conduct virtual shows.
• They have a tool called My Cisco because they know
engagement has always been a critical success factor.
The My Cisco link lets you organize bookmarks, keep
track of product and service announcements, support
documents, and collaborate with the Cisco team,
whether you’re a new visitor or a long-time partner.
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• Live video conferences are the norm.
• They use Twitter, forums, blogs, social networks, and
beyond.
• Many of their products have virtual stores generating
revenue.
• They are a major player in the mobile market.
There you have it: four of the most cutting-edge companies
that understand innovation not only from a business sense,
but also from a marketing sense. These companies were
talking about Web 3.0 and the next wave before most of the
competition. Watch their moves, and learn from their mar-
keting. Even though they are huge companies, they still act
quite entrepreneurial, so don’t be discouraged if you are a
small company, thinking, “What could I possibly learn from
a billion-dollar business?” The answer: everything. They
didn’t begin as billion-dollar companies. Like the rest of us,
the developers started with next to nothing and built an
empire—and you can, too.
Company: Cisco
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11
Your Action Plan: Putting It All
Together and Taking Action
Now you’re armed with all the tools to kick your marketing
and business strategies up a notch. The final step is, of
course, putting it all together.
What I’ve noticed after both attending and speaking at hun-
dreds of conferences throughout the world is that people get
very excited about the material, but a month or two later
will be at the exact same place as they were they heard the
new material. Don’t let that happen to you.
To set a clear action plan and some goals, you need to know
where you currently are (remember the 360-degree review
you did in the beginning?), as well as where your competi-
tors are. To do this, I’m going to use the ever-popular SWOT
analysis. A SWOT analysis is a strategic approach to looking
at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of
a project, a business, or something of that nature. It is
meant to help you quickly see things in a logical chart so
you can plan accordingly. To make things easier to under-
stand, I’m going to use a company I once owned as a case
study.
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To Do
How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis:
Step 1: Grab a piece of paper and fold it in half.
Fold in half again so you have four squares. You can also
do this virtually, if you would like.
Step 2: Label the four squares Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats.
Step 3: List your thoughts and ideas about your market-
ing in the different columns.
Make sure you don’t leave anything out.
• Strengths: Where are things excelling? What are
you good at? What’s going well?
• Weaknesses: Where are things not going so well?
What needs work?
• Opportunities: In what areas do you see poten-
tial growth? What areas should be explored?
• Threats: Where are the obstacles you may run
into? What are the possible issues and areas to
watch out for?
Here are some marketing-specific questions to ask your-
self to better complete this activity:
• What Web 2.0 and 3.0 tactics are you using/
not using?
• What sites are you on/not on?
• Do you track everything?
• What type of analytical information are you get-
ting back?
• How is the presentation of your materials?
• What feedback did you get from your customer
surveys?
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• What is the marketplace asking of you?
• How is your Web site?
• What type of interaction takes place in your mar-
keting?
• How are you generating leads?
This list can go on forever.The idea is to ask the tough
questions and then get real with the responses.You
want a good mix of strengths, weaknesses, opportuni-
ties, and threats.
Case Study
Simply Soy, Inc., is a small, family-owned company that
focuses on selling higher-end homemade soy candles
and gift baskets.They started by selling solely through
word of mouth and eventually expanded onto the Web.
They quickly realized there were quite a few players on
the Web already, and they would need to do things a bit
differently to capture some market share. I recom-
mended that they conduct a SWOT analysis before
ramping up their Web marketing.
Simply Soy SWOT Analysis of Web Presence
Strengths:
• Pay-per-click going well
• Good reviews and feedback
• SEO is off to a great start
• Solid social networking
Weaknesses:
• Web site needs work; doesn’t look professional
• Traffic is low
• Bounce rate is relatively high (not quality traffic)
• Branding
Your Action Plan
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