Listen, Learn, Deliver...

Internet marketing introduced many new methods of interacting with customers on a much more personal and cost effective level than in decades past.  While social media, mobile advertising, and user generated content have opened up many new avenues, three elements remain key in developing a successful online campaign.

Listen
The basic underlining concept of marketing is to identify a customer's needs or wants.  Without this principle, marketers, product designers, and engineers often miss the whole point of why their product or service exists in the first place - to alleviate the pain of a customer's unfulfilled need or want.  Yet, so many companies fall victim in failing to understand and implement this very important concept.  They fail to listen to their customers.  It becomes even more important with Internet marketing as we discover new ways to reach and interact with customers to provide near-instant satisfaction.

Learn
Many of these new fangled techniques developed in Internet marketing are still in their relative infancy...especially compared to traditional newspaper advertising.  The pace at which new technologies emerge is so fast that often marketers take too long trying to perfect a product offering causing them to ultimately miss a prime opportunity.  Thus it is essential to not be afraid to make mistakes along the way as long as we are able to learn from them and improve upon our flaws.  No one is perfect, it is a fact of life and it proves once again that we are all human.

Deliver
Once marketers listen to what their customers want and learn how to improve upon their existing strategies it becomes absolutely critical to deliver on the expectations they have set upon their target market.  Most will forgive a minor flaw, but a huge debacle is not only hard to solve; it becomes increasingly easier for unhappy customers to publicize the gaffe into the blogosphere and eventually into the main media.  No company wants to face such a public relations nightmare as it could potentially lead to huge negative repercussions.  Hence, the ability to deliver and execute on a product offering becomes even more important as it essentially separates the winners from the losers.