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Do Customer-Centric Communities Answer the Scalability Question?
 by Neil Rosen
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he number-one challenge for online marketers is the ability to acquire large numbersof new customers and prospects rapidly without jeopardizing email deliverability and/oremail reputation scores. Traditional methods used to acquire new online customers andprospects (such as banner advertising, co-registration, list appends, and even searchmarketing) all fall short when pushed beyond the inherent limitations of best practices.The all-important free-will opt-in sign-up process gets bastardized when companiespush to acquire bubble prospects (those needing inducements beyond free-will opt-in togive companies permission to use their email address), causing complaint rates toincrease, which in turn negatively impacts email deliverability and email reputationscores.
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ustomer-centric communities are used to acquire customers in a very different way,using the viral power of social networking, and focusing that power on targetedcommunities of people known to need a specific company’s products/services.
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his kind of community is unlike large social networks (such as Facebook andMyspace), which merely offer companies new ways to advertise—and offer advertisingagencies new ways to think about creative. Acquisition programs targeting large socialnetworks are subject to the same scalability limitations described above, whilecustomer-centric communities are not.
 A 
customer-centric community consists of a sponsored branded portal—that acts as thehome page of the community—and a tool suite that includes alerts, message boards,photo and file sharing, and other social-network-type functionality.
 
 
In addition, customer-centric communities enable individual members of thecommunity to create personal discussion groups made up of friends, family, and business associates. These discussion groups are the key to the unlimited scalability of the community, and by default create unlimited opportunities for companies to acquiretargeted new customers and prospects.
H
ere are three simple examples of customer-centric communities:1.
 
 A sporting goods company launches a customer-centric community in whichmembers invite friends and family to join discussion groups around their favoriteteam(s). As people in these discussion groups share team-related comments,photos, tickets, and other content, they do so within the branded portal of thesponsoring company. In addition, they participate in forums posted by thesponsoring company and interact with the company through feedback and otherlinks tied directly to the company’s website.2.
 
 A pet supply company launches a customer-centric community in whichmembers invite friends and family to join discussion groups where they can sharephotos and stories about their pets. As people in these discussion groups sharetheir photos and other content, they do so within the branded portal of thesponsoring company. In addition, they participate in forums posted by thesponsoring company and interact with the company through feedback and otherlinks tied directly to the company’s website.3.
 
 A company providing content and supplies to diabetics launches a customer-centric community in which members invite friends and family to join discussiongroups where they can share diabetic recipes with one another. As people in thesediscussion groups share recipes, they do so within the branded portal of thesponsoring company. In addition, they participate in forums posted by thesponsoring company and interact with the company through feedback and otherlinks tied directly to the company’s website.
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