That technology can and often is dizzyingly dynamic is taken as a given nowadays but nothing seemingly moves faster than the terminology that goes with it. A relatively new entrant is Magnetic Marketing a term that encapsulates the technological process whereby the customer and the brand purveyor interact at the time of purchase; a point in time when the seller of goods/services has the undivided attention of the customer.
An article by Ron Callari at Inventorspot.com quotes Ms.Liana Evans at ClickZ, an interactive marketing website, as saying she firmly believes that "people love to share." The article notes that "It's an inherent trait that comes part and parcel of the human condition. Social Media has fed into that basic need and opened us all up to a multitude of distribution channels
to share in innovative ways, unheard of just a few short years ago."
Mr Callari says that "based on this paradigm, magnetic marketing allows the brand to come together with its customer at the one point in time when both are traversing the "same wave length." For instance, this does occur when a guest books a guestroom utilizing the hotel's online booking engine. During the confirmation process, if they received a message update about their hotel visit, they would be more inclined to share this info with their communities of followers on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn." An example of this marketing could be a room upgrade "when guests share their upcoming stay at the hotel with their friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn."
Another article by the same author in Inventorspot.com notes that magnetic marketing is already under way and an innovative web apps firm, Flip.to already is beta testing a version with a couple of customers. Tune Hotels in Southeast Asia and the UK as well as the James Hotels in Chicago and New York are two hotel companies
benefiting from Flip.to's online confirmation process. It is an automated service that integrates with a hotel's booking engine engine that prompts guests with incentives at time of booking to communicate with their social networks, immediately after placing a reservation.
Given a compulsive need for instant gratification amongst most customers, the possibilities from this technological feature seem considerable for hotels across the entire spectrum of the hotel industry. For instance some high end hotels that are also hi-tech are increasingly offering concierge services via the web in-room as well as from smart-phones. For restaurants (outside the hotel) the confirmation process can be an opportune time for ancillary purveyors like limo services to insert themselves into the transaction. The possibilties are, of course, nearly limitless.