Get best of the week

Crowd marketing as a tool for enhancing business vitality

Small business is the basis of the prosperity of any society. The German economist Ernest Schumacher spoke about the “two million villages” of the world - the configuration of the population of the earth, when there is no need to accumulate large resources in large cities, where it becomes more and more difficult to live comfortably. And if there are two million villages, then for their prosperity at least a billion entrepreneurs live in them, given the population of the Earth in 2020 (or, as I like to say, in 7528 from the creation of the world in a star temple).

Small businesses in their quest for efficiency today suffer from two main problems: the first is a large amount of idle, fake information about effective approaches to attracting a client, the second is the lack of sufficient time to understand where the fake information is and where is the working tool.

In this article, we will highlight an approach that will help solve both of these problems.

image

The problem of fast packaging


In a dynamically changing world, the key advantage of the enterprise is the speed of packaging new market hypotheses. When every day brings news about the market, the speed of adaptation and the accuracy of "getting into the customer's need" as a result of this adaptation affects the company's income more than anything else.

Tens of millions of enterprises in the world do not have this required speed and accuracy of getting into customer needs. Although, if they had such, it would mean much more resilient to any shocks global entrepreneurship and billions of happy and prosperous families, of which entrepreneurs are a part.

In practice, an entrepreneur simply thinks for too long what direction to change his proposal to choose, then packs up the proposal for too long, then tests it too slowly, and as a result incurs losses. In periods of constant change, such enterprises chronically fall into the category of “dogs” according to the classification of the BCG matrix — somewhat like making ends meet small shops whose owners have long gone out of enthusiasm in their eyes, have no vision for future development and constant problems with cash.
It's time to change that.

Crowd marketing technology


The collective mind as a technology for making and making decisions over tens of thousands of years of human history has shown itself to be an effective tool for cognitive activity. The Slavs lived according to “copyrights” - a system in which each decision was adopted unanimously or not at all. Each ancient state had an extensive deliberative body, and almost every village in the world has its own public opinion. It existed, exists and will exist primarily because such an organization of mental activity brings undeniable benefits to mankind.

Entrepreneurs of the 21st century according to the Christian calendar or the 76th according to Old Russian live and conduct activities in horizontally distributed communities, held together by a variety of electronic social networks, but no less - simply by extensive personal networks, which any, for example, Russian entrepreneur today has up to several thousand .

This resource is the basis for the technology proposed in this article as a tool for rapid hypothesis packaging.

We called this tool “crowdfunding”, from the English expression crowd marketing, although the term was introduced by a Russian researcher and today English-speaking entrepreneurs themselves would have found it difficult to explain how crowd marketing can work.

The technology of crowd marketing is intended for entrepreneurs who need to quickly form, package and test a new market hypothesis, due to market changes, where by hypothesis we mean a ready-made offer to the end consumer that can satisfy his demand, but may not satisfy.

The finished hypothesis should consist of the following components:

  • The target audience;
  • Product (including product, price, shipping method and promotion);
  • Key meanings inherent in packaging;
  • External design;
  • Primary testing method (a method of communication with a client and a sufficient number of initial touches, for example, sending out 1000 letters or communication on the street with 50 people).

Crowdfunding technology consists of 4 steps:

  1. Formation of a “partner ring” or “people's trade council” for accelerated development of a hypothesis.
  2. Group creative process for the formation of the essence of the hypothesis.
  3. Formation of a hypothesis testing base.
  4. Compensation to participants.

The idea of ​​a “partnership ring” for ensuring business sustainability came to the author 4 years ago, was described in the book “Blessed Place” (2020) and was partially implemented at the Greenbusiness company that worked in Russia then.

The affiliate ring or the People’s Trade Council is a consultation of specialists whom you find on personal connections and ask for participation in a crowd marketing project.
For the effective work of the affiliate ring, it is necessary that your ranks include:

  • a person with strong skills in collecting and analyzing information;
  • , , ;
  • ;
  • ;
  • .

The last of the participants is especially important, otherwise your crowd marketing session runs the risk of stretching forever and ending in nothing. It is important to observe the rule that one member of the People’s Trade Council can fulfill no more than 2 of the available roles. The involvement of all council members is recommended based on personal recommendations on a barter or free basis.

The basis of crowd-marketing technology - the actual crowd-marketing session - is a certain period of time when the assembled people's trade council actually creates a new hypothesis.

During the KM session, the following algorithm of work is applied:

  1. a description of the current situation with highlighting the problem;
  2. a clear definition of the main entrepreneurial contradiction (for example, that it’s impossible to sell cheaply because of costs, but they don’t take expensively; or that attracting a good customer is too long for the business to be profitable, and if you speed up the attraction, “the wrong customers” come) ;
  3. formation of a new hypothesis, including:

    • target audience;
    • product (including goods, price, delivery method and promotion);
    • key meanings inherent in the package;
    • external design;
    • primary testing method (a method of communication with a client and a sufficient number of initial touches, for example, sending out 1000 letters or communication on the street with 50 people).
  4. graphic and physical design of the hypothesis;
  5. organization of a testing base (customer base for electronic communication or another way to test a hypothesis).

The following rules should be followed during the CM session:

  1. , 5 - 40 , . 1 ( ) 20 .
  2. : « – , , »; , «», «», « », « ». «», «, ».
  3. . , .
  4. «/ » ( , – « »).
  5. , , , . .
  6. When the hypothesis is visualized in the allotted time, a draft prototype of the graphic solution is created, which is finalized after the test. The time for visual design can be increased up to 90 minutes while ensuring the productivity of the designer. Members of the trading council may, with the permission of the designer, help or participate in the design.
  7. When applying, it is necessary to show the design to at least 3 representatives of the target audience and take feedback from them.
  8. Light music and aromatherapy are recommended to stimulate creative decisions.

Quality control of marketing decisions in crowd marketing


Quality control of the formed hypothesis in today's realities is easy to implement.

  • , . « ». 3 5.
  • , : , ( )? , ( )? , ( )? .
  • After collecting and analyzing the opinions of experts, the corresponding components of the hypothesis are refined (for example, a product or external design).
  • Experts who respond to the request as a thank you can offer the product or service for free, as well as public thanks for the help.

The social system of quality control of entrepreneurial hypotheses developed by the crowdfunding method will work even faster if a wide public organization of experts on entrepreneurship and trade and a corresponding premium for active professionals participating in it at the national level are created in society.

Such a thing is the task of the near future for the nations of the entire free world.

Posted by: Andrey Mayboroda

More articles:


All Articles