The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age

With clear analysis and practical frameworks, this book provides step-by-step guidance businesses can use to prosper in the new era of digital media "An incredibly useful and valuable guidebook to the new consumer economy. Buy it. Learn from it. Succeed with it."—Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do "This is the stuff that every business and nonprofit needs to embrace if they're going to succeed in a changing world."—Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR With clear analysis and practical frameworks, this book provides a strategic guide that any business or nonprofit can use to succeed in the digital age. Marketing expert David Rogers examines how digital technologies—from smartphones to social networks—connect us in frameworks that transform our relationships to business and each other. To thrive today, organizations need new strategies—strategies designed for customer networks. Rogers offers five strategies that any business can use to create new value: ACCESS—be faster, be easier, be everywhere, be always on ENGAGE—become a source of valued content CUSTOMIZE—make your offering adaptable to your customer's needs CONNECT—become a part of your customers' conversations COLLABORATE—involve your customers at every stage of your enterprise Rogers explains these five strategies with over 100 cases from every type and size of business—from shoes to news, and software to healthcare. In The Network Is Your Customer, he shows: How Apple harnessed a host of collaborators to write apps for its iPhone How IBM designed a videogame to help sell its enterprise software How Ford Motors inspired an online community to build brand awareness for its new Fiesta ...and countless other cases from consumer, b2b, and nonprofit categories.  The book outlines a process for planning and implementing a customer network strategy to match your customers, your business, and your objectives—whether you need to drive sales, to enhance innovation, to reduce costs, to gain customer insight, or to build breakthrough products and services. Because today, whatever your goals and whatever your business, the network is your customer.

About the Author :
David L. Rogers is executive director of BRITE and faculty director of the Digital Marketing Strategy executive program at Columbia Business School.

Review :
"Level-headed advice for companies contemplating a leap into the digital arena."—Kirkus “You are holding an incredibly useful and valuable guidebook to the new customer economy. Buy it. Learn from it. Succeed with it.”—Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do “This is the stuff that every business and nonprofit needs to embrace if they’re to succeed in a changing world.”—Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR “I call it Listenomics. Others call it The Relationship Era. You can think of it as salvation. What David Rogers details in this compelling book is that the very forces that are destroying mass marketing—i.e., the digital revolution—also power the bright and bold future of commerce.”—Bob Garfield, host of NPR's On The Media, editor for Ad Age, author of The Chaos Scenario “The Network Is Your Customer shows in real terms how networks have changed our lives, as customers as well as citizens. The book explains how marketing and customer service demand constant engagement and commitment to customers, and it shows you how any business can meet that challenge for better returns.”—Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist “You don't have to be a company like Google to benefit from the world going digital. With dozens of revealing case studies, Rogers shows how large and small businesses in every industry are tapping into the power of networks to drive their bottom line.”—Penry Price, Vice President, Google