A market of one, defined by Business dictionary, is "Level of customization and customer service at which a customer feels that he or she is an exclusive or preferred customer of the firm."
We have all seen this concept in action- When I first created a google account, I remember being spooked by an ad for a language school in Madrid popping up just as I was writing an email to a friend about my upcoming trip there. It creeped me out. I felt like someone was watching me and reading all my emails. However, with time, I got used to it, and it doesn't phase me anymore. The argument behind customized advertising is that it offers the customer what he or she might actually be interested in. A related concept is "inbound marketing," a term coined by the firm Hubspot. Hubspot is a marketing services company that uses inbound marketing,which is a term used to describe marketing strategies that attempt to "pull" prospective customers towards a business through the use of Web 2.0 tools such as search engine optimization, social media, and blogging. The intention is to create content that is compelling enough to draw customers to the business, rather than pushing content onto a mass audience in which most people are not interested in the products or services advertised. It is interesting to note what kind of customers Hubspot has. Their largest volume of customers is comprised of small to medium business owners, while the other kind of customer is the large firm that combines inbound with traditional marketing. (Inbound Marketing and Web 2.0, Harvard Business School) This begs the question- is social media necessary for businesses to build their brands?
As noted in E-Marketing for Sensible Folk, there are many advantages and disadvantages to social media. It can help spread a brand, but it can also lead to over exposure and resource commitments that may not pay off. Remember the story about Boeing and Harry? Boeing has started tweeting and using social media, and it unclear what a B2B aircraft maker is doing with all this social media.
I think that social media can be very effective for small businesses, which normally have niche products. Social media is an excellent way for these types of businesses to target the right audience without spending resources on traditional marketing that most probably will not reach the target market as efficiently. As noted on Hubspot's website, "The internet disproportionately favors small businesses since it enables them to position their niche goods to people shopping for that particular niche good regardless of the numbers of degrees of separation from their rolodex." For large corporations with abundant resources, online social media serves as a complement to traditional media. The most important thing for any business considering social media is that it is a commitment that can only be effective if resources are put into developing it. A static facebook page or boring tweets can hurt the brand's image rather than helping it. Any business considering social media must be willing to devote resources to create compelling content, which is no easy task, and analyze what the cost/benefit relationship to determine if social media is right for them.
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