The traditional methods of getting a message across to potential customers are growing more and more ineffective with each passing day. Radio commercials are reaching fewer people since the onset of satellite radio and the iPod. Music lovers no longer have to wait for their favorite song to play. Radio stations can no longer hold listeners at bay, flooding them with advertisements, as they wait for their favorite song. People quickly turn the page with print ads, and TiVo has all but made tv commercials a thing of the past. I’m no longer held captive by Fox, or NBC, or even HBO. There are other ways to view their programming. Simple ways that not only spare me the boredom of commercials, but also save me time as well. And I don’t need TiVo to do it. All of us can avoid the interruption of traditional marketing.

Even online, advertising to your target audience is getting harder every day. Punching the monkey no longer works, banner ads are being ignored, and sites with popups are being totally avoided, or stopped by the latest browsers. Any smart internet browser knows that ads on the right side are transactional based, and that the information contained on those pages comes with a price. We stick to the left side.

Businesses are beginning to realize, and those that haven’t, should, that your customers need to be your new spokespeople. Some people call it buzz marketing, others call it word of mouth. It’s both of these and more. The main thing is community. A business needs a community of customers and potential customers.

Bodybuilding.com is a great example of a company putting their community to work. They have forums, podcasts, workout planners, nutrition guides, and recently they added a new feature called BodySpace, a place to track your progress, and BodyBlog, an area to share your workout routines and tips for other bodybuilders. But the bread & butter is their forums. Bodybuilders asking bodybuilders what works, what doesn’t, what they’ve tried, which products are the best. Polls, discussions, debates, all centered around products that the site sells. Bodybuilding has filled more than 3 million orders, has over 21 million forum posts, and gets around a quarter of a million visitors each day. Their forum has almost a million members. The specific thread in the forum involving supplements, the main products at BB.com, has over 5 million posts in it. If I’m curious about what the best protein powder is, I go to BB.com. If I find one that others have liked and recommend, I click over to the store and purchase it. It’s at my door in two days. I get the information about the type of product I’m seeking, a referral from someone that has a certain brand, and a simple way of finding and purchasing it, all in one location.

If you want to sell products, build a community around it. Let your community speak for you, be honest and transparent in your dealings and the community will respond with trust, and ultimately their business. There are countless threads in the forums about great prices, quick shipping times, easy returns and exchanges, and comments about how helpful the bb.com staff is. They do things right, and the community spreads the word.

What are you doing on your website to build community? Are you a search marketing firm? What are your visitors doing? Your site shouldn’t be just about selling services. It should be about conveying information, sharing insights, bringing together people in the industry, answering questions. In short, developing a community. People like to be heard, and a blog is a great way to do it. But most of the time you can only voice your opinion on the blog post. I’m sure some of your visitors have more to say than just how they feel about the subject and position of your blog post. Start a blog, but do more. Open your site up. Let visitors in. Build a community, and let them and their experience with your product do the talking.