Consumer generated media is fast becoming an undeniable driver of the New Media Marketplace. It’s an important factor in designing an effective marketing strategy in just about every industry and niche. And for those business arenas where it’s not yet a major determinant of marketing success, it’s just a matter of time. In this article we’ll look at three ways you can immediately position yourself to successfully market in this new arena (and it’s not the way you’ve been told by “marketing pros.”)

Consumer Generated Media is the combination of comments, reviews, critiques, and complaints generated by customers and devoured by prospective buyers in the New Media marketplace of blogs, forums, and social networks.

When you boil down Consumer Generated Media to it’s essence — it’s really just word of mouth. But now, powered by business blogs, podcasts, and other New Media tools, word of mouth marketing has been put on multi-media steroids.

Understanding the trends in the New Media Marketplace are what give you the competitive advantage

There is an irreversible transformation taking place in the marketplace of the new millennium. The consumer is in control. She has all the information, commentary, and comparisons she could want at her fingertips. If you’re not taking advantage of the online persuasion tools of the New Media Marketplace and adapting your marketing to interact with your audience — I can guarantee you that one or more of your competitors are.

Here’s a practical example from the auto industry to help drive this home for you

Marketing studies in the automotive industry reveal that the Internet is now inseparable from the purchase cycle. Nearly 75 percent of customers cite word-of-mouth recommendations as the most influential factor in their car buying discussion. More of that is shifting online every day. If you want to think of it another way, over $300 billion in global auto sales are directly influenced by the recommendations of others.

That’s some pretty serious power behind word of mouth. And this is where the Consumer Generated aspect of the New Media comes into the picture. Let’s dig a little deeper for more practical examples.

What car and truck buyers can teach us about marketing with blogs and the new social media.

In an ClickZ article Who’s Behind the Wheel Now? Pete Blackshaw outlines how auto shoppers increasingly rely on the digital trail of high-impact Consumer Generated Media.

* Consumer Generated Media (CGM) Impressions: The Web hosts over 100 million auto-related comments from consumers. This barely factors in the explosive growth of experience-rich blog commentary. A growing percentage of these public blog posts and comments are fortified with highly-persuasive multi-media imagery such as photos or videos

* CGM Reach: Comments act as de facto ad units. They’re served in a highly-targeted manner against nearly one billion auto-related searches every year.

* CGM Hot Spots: Millions of comments provide specifics on auto-related fraud, lawsuits, and safety problems.

* CGM Impact: A growing percentage of auto shoppers walk into showrooms with a stash of Internet commentary, blog reviews, Edmunds scorecards, and more to increase negotiation leverage. Data equals power.

What’s happening with the auto industry is an advanced view of the New Media Marketplace that all business owners, sales professionals, and marketers are going to have to deal with. It’s happening all around us right now!

You don’t have to be a corporate giant to capitalize on these trends. In fact, the good news is that small business owners have a big advantage when it comes to marketing with the New Media. An advantage that allows you to be quick and flexible, both of which can help you gain a firm leadership role in your niche.

So how do you begin adapting to the New Media Marketplace?

It’s quite simple really.

• You need to observe, listen to, and engage customers and prospects in your target audience.
• You must provide them with a convenient way to communicate with you and participate in your marketing. And this is where part of that big advantage for smaller business owners I just mentioned comes from.

In making the transition from ‘old school’ in your face marketing, you have two distinct advantages as a small business owner.

1. You’re already a lot closer to your clients and customers than big corporations can ever hope to be.

2. When it comes to improvements and adjustments, you can make them a lot faster than larger companies can.

These are BIG advantages held by small business owners, and they’re not to be taken lightly. Customer behavior, desires, and demands are changing in every industry large and small. It’s happening fast and the impacts are exponential.

That may seem a little overwhelming at first. But again there’s good news. When you learn to harness the power of RSS for research and innovation, you can quickly and efficiently mine the vast amount of data compiled by corporations to improve your marketing and business growth. (Check out this Busy Business Owner New Media video series for starters.)

Three things you can immediately do to put Consumer Generated Media and word of mouth to work for you

1. Position yourself as a trusted expert. That means positioning yourself and your company, interacting, and engaging in areas that people in your target audience visit for information or education related to your industry.

When they see you have a web presence (instead of a web site,) you’ll immediately establish more trust. This is something we’ve seen have significant impact on new sales and increased profits for many students of our business blog coaching course..

2. Make it easy for consumers to learn about you, your company, and what makes you a better choice than your competitors.

This may seem obvious, but sadly the way most business owners and marketers go about this is having a dull boring ‘corporate’ style web site. That’s a ‘World Wide Web’ approach. But we are now operating in the ‘World Live Web.’ (Describes the instant syndication, nearly instant indexing, and “exponential exposure with one click” nature of the New Media Marketplace.)

Sure, you do need a company web site. One that is user friendly and easy to navigate. But go the extra mile!

Make your web site a place where customers and prospects can find direct comparisons of your product/service benefits over your competitors right on your own web site. With blogs, podcasts, and social networking customers will find that info on their own anyway, so you might as well save them the time.

When done properly and linked to your business blog, this is another powerful ally in attracting new customers and prospects.

3. Open a dialog with your target audience and provide multiple channels for developing relationships.

Now the New Media Marketplace does have it’s own interconnected matrix of interactive tools. But the critical core is your business blog. This is where you need to start before jumping to any other New Media marketing strategies.

A blog for your business is low cost, easy to manage, and extremely effective in opening a dialog and getting valuable feedback. And that gives you a big advantage over your competitors. A business blog provides a less formal area (than your “regular” web site) where people can get to know you and your company.

Customers can interact with you at will. And you can generate a significant amount of trust with prospects and clients by communicating through words, audio, or even video that you can publish to the web in a snap.

Note: If you don’t yet have a business blog and would like to a proven system for developing a long-term marketing strategy for attracting more qualified clients, boosting traffic, and building trust with prospects using blogs and other New Media tools — check out the Marketing With Business Blogs multimedia course.

The most important thing you can remember if you want to successfully market with blogs and the New Media, is that consumer comments, opinion, and satisfaction are one with marketing. There is no separation and you can’t compete with Consumer Generated Media with traditional marketing methods alone — no matter how much money you put behind your efforts. (The auto industry has learned that the hard way, so learn from their mistakes for free.)

Get started adapting to the New Media Marketplace today!

As you practice the three simple strategies highlighted above, you’ll begin to develop a new and very important mindset. A mindset that will equip you to market, sell, and manage in a way that sets you head-and-shoulder above your competitors. Remember — today’s customer doesn’t want to be marketed to by you. They want to market with you.

You can do it on your own, or speed things up significantly with the help of a business blogging coach. No matter what path you choose — start adapting to the New Media Marketplace today! More trust, credibility, and profits await you than you can possibly imagine.

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Learn how to unleash the maximum marketing power of business blogs, podcasts, and RSS (in any industry, profession, or niche) with Marketing With Business Blogs™.

John-Paul is a published author and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. As a Business Coach he helps small business owners market, manage, and sell more with self-influence and persuasion. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].