I’m a graduate student studying marketing, primarily marketing associated with offline businesses. That does not mean that many of the ideas from offline marketing do not apply directly to online marketing. In fact, I love understanding all of the ways the two overlap and coexist with one another.
Today I want to talk about social arbitrage, which is something that I wish more Internet marketers understood. Sure there are some marketers that can work long and hard just for themselves and become fairly profitable. But for the marketers truly wanting to grow a BUSINESS, providing value to others is essential and therein lies the power of social arbitrage.
Find out what types of problems other people are having and then determine how you, or your network of people can benefit others and solve those problems. Whether you’re providing information, testimonials (provided you really believe in the person/product), contacts, etc. the goal is to become indispensable to the people you help. In return they will be happy to help you advance your business. Alternatively, they’ll be happy to be your customer.
You cannot, let me repeat this, you CANNOT see your customer as a means to an end. If you are just trying to make that ONE sell at all costs then you might, but that person may never do business with you again. If you continually make a conscious effort to provide TONS of value with all of your products and treat each customer like a business relationship I can assure you that your customers will be more loyal.
Be interested in others people’s success… do not try and force them to be interested in your success and your BUSINESS will grow exponentially as a result.
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This blog started primarily as a marketing blog, but now I write much more about work/life, social psychology, health and happiness. I will also continue to explore top performers (authors, entrepreneurs, business leaders and more) and dissect what we can take away to be top performers in our own work and personal lives.
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Hi Ryan,
You’re absolutely right. The moment I stopped trying to sell & started helping people was ironically when I started making sales. Other marketers take note!
Keep up the good work!
John Szram
Hey Ryan, nice to see the new blog you’ve been working on.
And you are right with what your saying, exactly the same as John said. 😛
Keep taking action and you’ll get there…
Thanks
Mark