Customer-generated Marketing Strategy

Nowadays, the Internet can provide a solution for a marketing strategy. It gives a new tool to the writers and readers/customers that publishers should be aware of. Authors can demand more because they now have more options and can easily circumvent the traditional way of getting into publishing. In addition, customers are able to influence book sales by good or bad publicity within the network. According to Hoffman and Fodor, online marketing is customer-generated; it is no longer a marketer domain. There is a rule of 4c’s: connection, creation, consumption and control. The role of the customer has changed; they are not only a passive buyer of the product but an active member of the brand. They can comment on the goods, recommend it to a friend and share their thoughts about it. It is a dynamic world where mangers have to actively manage their social media campaign and what the most important they have to listen and respond for customers’ needs and suggestions. If the company can develop 3 objectives: brand awareness, brand engagement and word-of-mouth marketing, it can achieve its goals in the new Internet environment. The main obstacle is the traditional approach towards social media. People want to have results immediately and the usual way of doing so would be to see how successful they were financially whereas it should be assessed in a customer investment category: how often customers visit social platforms and how much time they devote to do so.