When advertising online, or offline for that matter, good targeting is getting more and more important. If you sell cars you want to spend your ad-dollars on sites where car-buying people might see it. Then come the question of attention, will the possible buyer pay attention to your ad?

When it comes to Peer-2-Peer marketing – things are different. First of all, who would sign up to advertise for cars in communications with their friends, family and colleges? No, other things are better suited for this model – like supporting non-profits and backing grassroots campaigns.

When you look at P-2-P marketing from this point of view the targeting is stunningly effective! First of all, this kind of marketing is by definition a push-marketing process. You literally force a message onto your peers as you communicate other, ordinary things. The initial studies we have made are showing attention-rates 10 times higher than the average targeted pull-advertising counterpart (i.e. banners). Additionally we see a very positive attitude to the messages distributed P-2-P.

That may of course originate from that the messages we work with are universally good-hearted and easy to like. But I think that we generally tend to like what our peers like. Think about it, fashion works that way, the music industry too. And if you let your mind exercise that statement for a minute you’ll find that most things that matter in our society are networked and endorsed Peer-2-Peer.

It strikes me that we are only just now beginning to learn how to sustainably leverage P-2-P marketing and advocacy possibilities on the Internet. That is certainly an important part of the future of online marketing. And I am lucky enough to lead the company that has developed the world’s most integrated, easy-to-use P-2-P marketing tool.
At least that’s what I think!

Posted on July 27th, 2008 by Linus
Filed under: Advocacy, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Internet, Media, Politics, Technology