Seth Godin writes about four scales of market, ranging from one person to everyone, with smart companies addressing a small group of leading edge users who’ll then go off and do the heavy marketing lifting for them. He highlights 37Signals as an example. He’s right. I’ve just started using Campfire and immediately sold it on to my boss who adored it. Campfire is a basically a chatroom but one which I’d describe as having a degree of usability and connectivity that I associate with Web 2.0. Everyone who touches it falls in love. But I’d take Seth’s notion further – the whole of Enterprise 2.0 depends on marketing to the few who’ll then charge off and market to the many (I spent a good chunk of Friday afternoon selling PBwiki to our organisation). Free of charge.
And what’s more, these evangelists will go up against the kind of corporate resistance that would send the most hardened of new business people screaming back to primary carers. Of course, building something that the right kind of person will instantly fall in love with…well, that’s another story.
Filed under: Enterprise 2.0, Seth Godin, Web 2.0, marketing
