The following comes from a white paper supplied by ExactTarget.com:

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Findings suggest that social media is not a prerequisite for consumers to consider your brand an effective communicator. Consumers’ expectations in this environment are fundamentally different from other direct marketing channels, and  provides two unique opportunities that traditional media does not:

1. Take time to listen to your consumers. Social media allows marketers to receive raw input—good and bad—from consumers, when they choose to initiate it. In this way, it is similar to a call center, where a company is responding to consumers instead of initiating conversation.

2. Engage in real-world dialogues and problem solving. This allows your brand to demonstrate its relational prowess in a public forum, which in turn can create raving fans. Your fans will be impressed by your ability to handle their issues—which social media allows brands to do in an unprecedented manner. When you show these public displays of affection, you create a platform for consumers to become advocates and advertisers for you.

Social media adds an entirely new dimension to the marketer-consumer relationship. Our advice? Explore new opportunities within this emerging channel while avoiding the temptation to employ traditional direct marketing tactics!

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© ExactTarget All rights reserved; Channel Preference Study from ExactTarget.com; research@exacttarget.com ; reprinted with permission

Bob Stone wrote one of the best marketing books of all time. It’s called “Successful Direct Marketing Methods” and it’s a classic that general marketers and direct marketers should read cover-to-cover.

(Okay, I admit it — I haven’t read it cover-to-cover, but I have read 87.3% of it.)

In this week’s 60 Second Marketer eNewsletter, we’re going to feature a video on seven of the key ideas from Bob Stone’s classic. I’ll give you a sneak peak of one of the key ideas right here:

• The most important order you’ll ever get from a customer isn’t the first order, it’s the second order. Why? Because a two-time buyer is at least twice as likely to return and buy again as a one-time buyer.

Whether you’re an eCommerce store, a bricks-and-mortar store or in the service industry, those are words to live by. You can check out all the secrets Bob Stone has to offer by buying his book on Amazon, or you can get seven of the best secrets by signing up for our eNewsletter and getting the 60 Second video on Friday.