A Fundamental Aspect of Modern Marketing

First, here's something that is fast becoming the most fundamental aspects of marketing to get right, especially if you want to build a truly sustainable high quality organisation (of any size) in the modern age:


Ensure the ethics and philosophy of your organisation are good and sound. This might seem a bit tangential to marketing and business, and rather difficult to measure, nevertheless...

Price is no longer the king, if it ever was. Value no longer rules, if ever it did. Quality of service and product is not the deciding factor.

Today what truly matters is ethical and philosophical quality - from the bottom to the top - in every respect - across every dimension of the organisation.

Modern consumers, business buyers, staff and suppliers too, are today more interested than ever before in corporate integrity, which is defined by the organisation's ethics and philosophy.


Good sound ethics and philosophy enable and encourage people to make 'right and good' decisions, and to do right and good things. It's about humanity and morality; care and compassion; being good and fair.


Profit is okay, but not greed; reward is fine, but not avarice; trade is obviously essential, but exploitation is not.

People naturally identify and align with these philosophical values. The best staff, suppliers, and customers naturally gravitate towards organisations with strong philosophical qualities.

Putting a good clear ethical philosophy in place, and communicating it wide and far lets people know that your organisation always strives to do the the right thing. It's powerful because it appeals to people's deepest feelings. Corporate integrity, based on right and good ethical philosophy, transcends all else.

And so, strong ethics and good philosophy are the fundamentals on which all good organisations and businesses are now built.

People might not ask or talk about this much: the terminology is after all not fashionable 'marketing-speak', nor does it correlate obviously to financial performance, but be assured; everyone is becoming more aware of the deeper responsibilities of corporations and businesses in relation to humanity, and morality, the natural world, the weak and the poor, and the future of the planet.

Witness the antagonism growing towards certain multi-nationals. People don't rail against successful corporations - they rail against corporations which put profit ahead of people; growth ahead of of society and communities; technology and production ahead of the natural world; market domination ahead of compassion for humankind. None of this is right and good, and these organisations are on borrowed time.


People increasingly prefer to buy from, deal with, and work for, ethical, right-minded organisations. And whether an organisation is ethical and right-minded is becoming increasingly transparent for all to see.

So be one.

Aside from which - when you get your philosophy right, everything else naturally anchors to it. Strategies, processes, attitudes, relationships, trading arrangements, all sorts of difficult decisions - even directors salaries and share options dare we suggest.

And it need not be complicated. The ultimate corporate reference point is: "Is it right and good?... How does this (idea, initiative, decision, etc) stack up against our ethical philosophy?"

Organisations are complex things, and they become more and more complicated every day. A good ethical philosophy provides everyone with a natural, reliable reference point, for the tiniest detail up to the biggest strategic decision.

So as you start to write your marketing plan, be it for a new start-up, a huge corporation, or a little department within one, make sure you put a 'right and good' ethical philosophy in place before you do anything else, and watch everything grow from there.

Developing Successful Viral Marketing Ideas

A successful viral marketing campaign can increase exposure for your company and product while increasing the number of links to your site. One of the hardest parts is coming up with the idea. Let's explore a few different ways to develop those ideas.


Demographics: Gathering Points

Where do your customers congregate on the Web? Just as in real life, people of similar demographics tend to gather in similar places. Of course, there's always an exception.

Put together a list of sites that fit your customers' demographics. Then research what the most popular items were for the past year. This could be anything, including specific topics, photo collections, cartoons, interviews, tools, interactive games, and contests. It all depends on your customers taste.

After all, what's most popular to a teenage gamer probably won't be the most popular to a retired executive traveling the world. Remember, it's not the mass appeal and size of a viral campaign that matters -- it's the final results.

Once this list has been compiled, have a group meeting to brainstorm ways to put a spin on one of those ideas for your viral campaign.

Research Social Media Sites

I'm not a fan of reinventing the wheel. Save time and resources by having someone research several social media sites, such as YouTube and StumbleUpon, to discover what the big success stories were for industries related to yours. Then put a spin on it to tailor it to your industry.

Sell women's clothing? Look at jewelry or cosmetics. Sell merchant account services? Find out what the business loan sites are doing. Represent a hotel or resort? Uncover tour operator strategies. Or examine what hotels are doing in different geographic areas.

Fun with Customers

For the daring and progressive companies, create a cartoon or video poking fun at customers. Everyone loves a good laugh and it's one of the most successful forms of viral marketing. Find out what makes your clients unique. Something they'll be able to laugh about without getting offended.

Need something more conservative? Turn it around and make fun of your industry with a parody.

Viral Contest

Is your company bold and ambitious? Perhaps you're a start-up company trying to get noticed.

Create a contest for others to develop a viral campaign for your company. This can be done in a couple different formats depending on your company's needs and appetite for risk.

It could be as simple as them coming up with the idea, then you implementing it. Or the contest can be for them to launch a full campaign. The one with the greatest success wins (make sure to have specific metrics to judge who wins).

Spend the initial time thinking through your viral marketing idea. Sometimes the hardest part is coming up with the idea. The extra time spent will help ensure it has a better chance of going viral.

Finally, make sure your company has the resources to pull it off. This includes staff, time, and financial resources. Too often, companies start a campaign only to realize they don't have the internal resources to make it happen