What is Double Loop Marketing™ Anyway?

Double Loop Marketing™ is the name given to an innovative marketing methodology developed by Christian Sarkar, an independent online-marketing consultant.

Learn about the double loop blogging model here >>

Double Loop Marketing™ is described in some detail in the recent book:
Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture
by David Kline and Dan Burstein.

The following is an unedited excerpt:

One innovative approach to marketing via blogs has been pioneered by online marketing expert Christian Sarkar (www.christiansarkar.com).

Called "Double Loop Marketing," it is based upon the notion that in today's blog-rich world, marketing must of necessity be people and knowledge-driven rather than product driven.

Sarkar's "Double Loop" approach requires a company to first develop "mind share by building a company sponsored blog or blog-like community site that offers genuinely-useful information and advice to consumers" in the subject-matter areas most relevant to their products. This is the first loop of the firm's interaction with customers. Only after such a blog achieves credibility among its community of blog readers can the company, in the second loop of customer interaction, try to convert that "mind share" into "wallet share." In other words, first community, then commerce.

This approach can yield surprising results -- often 10 times the number of qualified sales leads generated by conventional advertising and marketing approaches, according to Sarkar. He cites the example of a large database software company that spent $120,000 on a campaign advertising in various independent blogs and media online outlets that in the end generated only 250 qualified leads.

After it sponsored a blog-like community site that captured significant mind share in the community of database software users, engineers and vendors, a mere $20,000 spent on advertising returned 11,000 qualified leads.

How would such an approach work in the mass-market world of consumer products? Sarkar outlines how “double loop marketing” applies to Procter & Gamble.

What if P&G wants to launch a new infant car seat to compete against industry leaders Graco and Evenflo? Let's assume also that P&G's new car seat is of excellent quality and offers performance or safety features superior to those from competitors -- just for argument's sake, let's say that it features a child-safe mini-airbag that inflates in an accident. In addition to all its traditional advertising and promotional efforts, how can P&G use blogs to ensure a more successful
product launch?

The first thing P&G should do -- and they should do it 3-6 months before before the launch date of its new infant seat -- is to map out the "online ecosystem" of parenting and child-rearing blogs. P&G marketers should ask:

• Which hubs have the most traffic and are the most influential in their Google search engine result rankings?
• Of these "hub" parenting blogs, which appeal most to parents of infants and toddlers rather than older children or teens.
• What are the most popular keywords used on search engines that drive parents to these sites?
• Are there any unmet information needs of parents on these blogs?

Without this first critical mapping step, Sarkar finds that most companies fly blind, and end up building sites to win awards, not customers.

Armed with a clear picture of the competitive landscape in parenting and child-related blogs, P&G can then start to build a company-sponsored community blog of its own that provides genuine thought leadership and information/advice on the parenting topic most relevant to its new product's key selling point -- i.e., child safety issues.

Let's call this community blog "KidSafety.com." While the site may feature an unintrusive ad or sponsorship logo from P&G, it absolutely must not promote its products in the content of the site, either directly or indirectly, or the credibility of the site will be destroyed.

Sarkar warns that most companies don’t have the patience to build brand equity for the site. In their haste to produce results, they usually embed their commercial messages into the content - poisoning the water, and destroying the true informational value of the site.

This kind of “PR-pollution” kills the site instantly.

Instead, "KidSafety.com" will offer the best, most unbiased and trustworthy information on child safety issues available anywhere. Although it will be very blog-like in its atmosphere and may even feature blogs authored by noted child-rearing and safety experts, "KidSafety.com" will organize its content around topic areas -- "Child-Proofing Your Home," "Safe Toys for Toddlers," "Pool and Backyard Safety" and the like -- rather than in reverse chronological order of postings, as most blogs do. This is a shortcoming of current blog design, notes Sarkar.

Blogs today are ego-driven and author-centric, not reader-centric. If "KidSafety.com" truly offers parents the kind and quality of useful information parents can't find useful, it will draw attention from other blogs and from the media, and will attract a community of hundreds of thousands of loyal readers.

Sarkar insists that only once this has been achieved can P&G then begin to convert these readers into customers by placing valuable offers for more information about its new infant car seat -- as well as downloadable reports
from unbiased experts such as Consumer Reports on the safety and performance of the seat -- in a discrete sidebar on the community site.

Once readers become customers, P&G can then cross-sell "Pampers" or other P&G baby products as well as provide customer service for these products.

Of course, none of this works if the car seat isn't truly a quality product. Most companies with inferior products and service, in fact, will find that the
blogosphere is utterly useless to them -- or worse -- and will would be well advised to keep trying to hoodwink customers in their usual manner until
driven out of the marketplace.

So don’t even think about stepping into the blogging waters if you can’t
swim, advises Sarkar.

Learn more about Double Loop Marketing™ and Christian Sarkar at www.christiansarkar.com.