I’m tired… it’s raining… it’s Debi’s birthday today… and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in 40 minutes.

So, we’re not going to get as far today as I would have liked (or planned to).

That stated: Today’s post may be brief but it’s vital nonetheless.

Why? Because we’re going to spend a few minutes taking the question I posed on Friday even further.

Just to jog your memory, here it is again…

“what you would do differently if you really saw…
your prospects as your best sales-channel?”

The implications of such a simple question are profound.

In fact, you can view what I’ve been doing on this blog for the past few weeks as the beginning of my answer.  But it’s only a start.

Tomorrow, I’ll go into greater detail about what I mean by that.

But for today – I’m going to give you a hint – it’s a quote from my friend Joseph Jaffe.

It’s from his newest book, Flip The Funnel:  How To Use Existing Customers To Gain New Ones.

On page 221, it reads…

“Web sites are not ends unto themselves; they are simply a means to an end.  You don’t want your customers to move into your stores – you want them to buy into whatever you’re selling and take it with them into their own homes, where they consume it, share it, and tell their friends and families that they enjoyed it.  So why would you expect something different from the Web?  Consumers’ digital homes are their Facebook profiles, blogs, and custom-created communities.  That’s where they “live” in the digital world, and that’s where we need to be invited to hang out from time to time, not the other way around.”

There’s a very deep (and profitable) thought buried between the lines of what Joseph wrote.

I’ll expand on it tomorrow – But I’d love to know what it means to you… (so tell me in the comments)

To help Joseph’s quote mentally marinate I am reprinting pages 56-60 from The Attention Age Doctrine 2 here:

Six Places Your Prospects Meet to Talk About You

1. Blogs and Forums: There’s almost a 100% chance that there are some influential blogs in your niche.

It’s more than likely that these blogs have high ranking on a lot of long-tail keywords that you would desperately like to rank highly for.

That’s just the half of it too – because in addition to having a lot of the traffic that you want, they also have something else. Do you know what that is?

Trustability.

That’s right:  The public has begun to trust bloggers more than traditional media or even legislators.  Hmmm….. they got the eyeballs and they got the trust – you definitely want to participate in that channel.

But it doesn’t end there -  it only starts there.

2. “Expert” Sites: Today’s interconnectedness also allows for everyone to be a recognized expert in something.

Don’t believe me?  How about this: Encyclopedia Britannica has a fraction the entries as Wikipedia. Which has only been around for a few years (Britannica has been around for more than a century) and already has multiple the number of entries.

More experts – more distinctions right?

Do you know what the experts in your niche are saying about your products – about your company, about your category of products or your section of the marketplace?

You should. If you haven’t explored the world of expert opinion, I strongly suggest you do it sooner rather than later and get educated quick.

And before we leave Wikipedia, let me tell you about another site: ProductWiki.com.

It’s similar to Wikipedia in that it relies on its community of users to create content for its site.  However instead of providing information on topics – contributors are supposed to write neutral product descriptions and reviews to provide people who are researching a purchase decision the information they need to make an informed purchase.

It’s the future my friend. It’s only a matter of time until whenever and whoever is about to make a purchase decision will instantly see what the world has to say about it first.

3. Broadcasting Sites: Check out these eye-opening stats from the Wall Street Journal:

• According to comScore, almost 70% of the online population has watched online video and the average consumer watches 73 minutes of online video a month.
• YouTube has grown from roughly 58,000 monthly visitors in August 2005 to more than 20 million in August 2006.

And here’s some more interesting stats from my favorite online research provider e-marketer:

• 123 million Americans will view online video at least once a month in 2007.
• 26% watch funny videos at least once a week.
• 66% of video viewers have watched online video ads and 44% have taken an action on what they had seen.
• 76% users tell a friend about a video they have seen.

And here’s the most recent research from the public company comScore for July of 2007 (NASDAQ:SCOR):

• Nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of three hours of online video during the month.
• Americans viewed more than 9 billion videos online:
  • Google Sites once again ranking as the top U.S. video property with nearly 2.5 billion videos viewed (27.0 percent share of videos), 2.4 billion of which occurred at YouTube.com.
  • Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 390 million (4.3 percent).
  • Fox Interactive Media came in 3rd with 298 million (3.3 percent).
  • Viacom Digital came in fourth with 281 million (3.1 percent).
• Online viewers watched an average of more than three hours of online video during the month (181 minutes).
• The average online video duration was 2.7 minutes.
• Nearly three out of four (74.2 percent) U.S. Internet users viewed video online.
• The average online video viewer consumed 68 videos, or more than two per day.

Doesn’t that sort of distribution just make you salivate as a marketer?

I mean, it’s absolutely incredible – and it’s only continuing to grow.  And here’s the thing, your prospects and customers are already broadcasting and receiving.

Once again, it’s just another reason to treat your prospects as your best marketing channel instead of the old way of thinking about them as targets for your sales messages.

4. Networking Sites: Remember high school — where everybody knew everybody?

Well, the Internet is quickly starting to feel the same way!

The rise of social networking sites has been unreal.

In fact, it seems social networking sites are quickly becoming the best way to find people who can answer questions, help your business grow, and put you in touch with people who previously might have been beyond your reach.

What does this mean for your business?

Well, it means everyone all of sudden knows a lot more people to talk to.  It’s the main reason why word-of-mouth marketing has become a buzzword with business owners, advertisers, and professional marketers.

Everyday people just like you and me are now having real and tangible effects on the discussions in our marketplace.

And as you can see, this trend shows no end in sight, which means we better get used to it and adopt to this new world.

That’s one of the reasons I’m writing this doctrine.

You need to know this before it’s too late.

5. Product Review Sites: Would you buy this book?

A lot of people have. And you know what… they’re not that happy with what they got.

Mr. Trudeau is a great example that we haven’t yet arrived at a fully democratized marketplace.  His use of infomercials stimulates impulse purchases by the thousands.

But mark my words – this will  eventually catch up with Trudeau and every other marketer who relies on impulse purchase.

Each and every day, more and more people use cell phones to cruise the Web.  And over time, you’ll see that new sites and new software will enable you to instantly bring up a score of some sort that will give an overall probability of the prospect being happy with the purchase.

Amazon’s been doing it for years – and the data supports the fact that it makes a big difference.

My best guess is well before 2010 (remember:  I wrote this in 2007) there will be the group collective scoring system I am referring to. And the company that dominates that market will become a billion dollar company overnight.

Lastly, let’s look at one more way your prospects are controlling which messages get eyeballs and which ones don’t…

6. Social Bookmarking Sites: Digg and other social bookmarking sites aggregate, categorize and review news stories and articles.

Digg for example has hundreds of thousands of members trolling the Internet each day looking for stories – and they nominate stories they believe fellow members of the Digg community will find interesting and useful.

Any Digg reader can vote -  giving a story a thumbs up or thumbs down on any submitted item.  A real-time scoring system determines which stories should move up all the way to the front page and which ones should get buried.

This means that your e-zine articles, blog posts – pretty much anything you write for online distribution — will be reviewed by real people (not software) to determine if it’s worthy of others’ attention.

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