CwF plus RtB equals Serious Money

CwF + RtB = $$$$

This video spells out the somewhat cryptic title as meaning Connect with Fans and give them a Reason to Buy to Make Serious Money through an explanation with examples by Mike Masnick. A suitable subtitle might be The Essence Of Marketing Reduced To A Simple Formula.

It really doesn’t get any more straightforward than this. While the formula tells you what to do, it does not tell you how to do it.

The examples Mike Masnick gives here, and in an earlier video where he used Trevor Reznik of Nine Inch Nails fame as an example, indicates that giving away valuable free stuff is one way how to do it. This is the same advice widely offered for Internet marketing in general.

NARM (the National Association of Recording Merchandisers) 2009 Keynote Interview presents Eliot Van Buskirk (WIRED) interviewing Ian Rogers (Topspin Media). A long time innovator in the online media scene, he feels that real progress is most likely on the creative side rather than on the consumer side and hence his move from Yahoo to Topspin.

Seth Godwin coined the phrase Permission Marketing over 10 years ago. It is just one more attempt to explain something that should never require explaining.

Intentional system controls implemented by monopolies preserve artificial scarcity. Monopolies maintain their control in part by paying politicians to legislate barriers to entry into monopolized industries.

Globalization and the Internet make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to maintain some monopolies. With this freedom from monopoly controlled markets, consumers can choose who to give their money to.

Without monopolies everything in the market eventually becomes a commodity distinguished only by private label branding. The private label brands survive only by becoming recognized and trusted by consumers.

Only when private label brands cannot be trusted do consumers default to making buying decisions based on the lowest price. Any place you go you will find many people who would prefer to give their business to someone they know and trust even if that means paying more.

People only know and trust their friends. If you want loyal customers who will buy your offerings time after time, even if they are more expensive, then you need to make them your friends.

Of course, because they are your friends, you will want to offer value added products. You will see more limited and signed editions, lots of additional posters, patches and such, as well as the unique opportunities to spend more time with the artists.

In industries with low barriers to entry, such as music and marketing, financial survival depends upon becoming friends with potential customers before you ask them for money. No one views an attempt to sell them something first as an invitation to friendship.

Since making friends seems to have become a lost art, especially in the United States, here is the number one way to make someone your friend. The number one way to make someone your friend is to give them something they value for free.

Do someone a favor, that is, help them out or solve a problem without setting a price and demanding payment. This is how people socialized for thousands of years but recently more and more of these social norms have been monetized.

The monetization of social norms, pricing and demanding payment for what was once freely shared, represents theft from the common wealth of all people. This theft from the common wealth of all people started over 10,000 years ago and has grown by fits and starts ever since.

Recently this practice of theft from the common wealth of all people through privatization has accelerated, especially in the United States. I can identify this dysfunctional practice as sociopathic at best but that serves little purpose now that it has permeated nearly every facet of modern life including all areas of public service.

Thoughtful feeling people feel repelled by this nearly ubiquitous trend, as well they should. Thoughtful feeling people instinctually avoid giving money to artificial monopolies by seeking out friends who can meet their needs, often even if their needs are more poorly met.

Celebrity status merely indicates that someone has more friends than they can personally directly respond to. It has become customary to call these friends, fans.

Make no mistake, every fan feels a personal connection to the celebrity. This feeling is the same as what someone feels for a friend, for someone who has helped them out far beyond any compensation that may have been offered.

The perceived need to obtain financial compensation for every act of aid and human kindness has become the single greatest impediment to business growth. Monopolies may be in the position to demand such payment anyway but they are not making friends and no one feels any trust or loyalty towards them.

So unless you run a monopoly, start making friends if you want your business to survive and prosper.