5. Forget Advertising: Learn Customer-Driven Communication

All businesses are starting to feel like small town businesses when every one of their customers can talk to every other one. The biggest national brands are facing technology that lets customers thousands of miles apart act like they are in the same small town, exchanging their views on the brands’ best and worst points. Companies that were used to controlling the message find that customers are paying more attention to friends’ voices than corporate marketing. One bad customer experience can now touch thousands or millions of other customers.

Today, things are a lot like a small town, where all the customers know each other and share news and gossip about local companies. Small town ...

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