Advertising is dead. 

It's been resurrected as Review and Referral: REVIEWRAL

In a culture that has seen a global financial crisis as severe as any since the Depression, international terrorism, Enron, Derivatives, Madoff and a host of natural tragedies it's no surprise skepticism and distrust have taken root culturally; globally.  

That makes the recent Nielsen Survey findings, the largest of it's kind (25,000 on line  consumers, representing 50 countries) even more powerful. Nielsen found that 90% of on line consumers (1.6 Billion people are on line globally) trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions.

As the marketplace has become increasingly volatile we have become inundated with information. The average consumer is subject to as many as 3,000 marketing messages a day. Its no wonder we are leaning on our 'friends' and social connections to help us navigate through the chaos and the clutter; to help us make good purchasing decisions, in less time.

Go on line and search a company, chances are you will pull up one of many on line review sites such Yelp, Citysearch, Mytripadvisor, Sleepinairports, Beautymakeupalley, Avvo. Most every industry has some sort of review site where consumers post their opinions of products and services. Sites such as Yelp, CitySearch and Mytripadvisor have as many as 25M unique visitors a month!

In the old days we bombarded the client with our messages, back then people had a tendency to listen, the clutter wasn't nearly as deep and the trust, well there was som.

The game has changed.

Web 2.0 has ushered in Marketing 2.0. Marketing 2.0 killed Advertising as we knew it. In it's place is Reviewral. Continue  pushing your messages out- in a non-permission style; bombarding people and expect to be treated as if you've just given your client a  pet rock instead of the product or service you promised.

So what Now?

Well ,first things first if this is new to you. Immediately start listening. If you haven't been a customer service freak before you better become one or do yourself a favor and get out of business: FAST!  

Go to Google Search, Google Alerts, Twitter Search and Technorati and find out what consumers are saying about your brand, company and competitors. Review your companies customer service feedback. Do you have 24/7 feedback? Is it easy for your clients to tell you what they love and what they don't? Where is your client on line? Are you engaged with them where they are? Are you responding quickly to unfavorable online reviews, what is your internal quality control, training and operations plan for improving the experience of all clients? Is your compensation tied to growth of your clients, satisfaction of your tribe?

Advertising is dead- along with it narcissistic, push, message bombardment has been buried.

 Your clients and their friends now run your REVIEWRAL program and by the way their empowered with web 2.0 technologies AND 1.6 billion people are listening to what they have to say- hoping it will  save them time, money and help them make the right purchasing decisions.

Reviewral: The New Advertising.

Pam Hoelzle  Doing Good,Well: Growing Business & Social Ventures

pam hoelzle @comcast.net

pamhoelzle  on twitter