In most areas of consumer marketing, trial is a big deal. For non-web consumables or durables, you have to buy to try, but the Internet is a different beast. Freemium is the expectation, not the exception, meaning that trial is mandatory as part of the use experience.

As a result, marketers and product managers have to focus on the out of the box experience for web AND consumer products. The early buyers have become highly important influencers by relaying the purchase experience to others via Amazon or epinions. The early adopter purchase process is quickly evolving to into a funded marketing event that is a viral marketing opportunity, good or bad.

This isn’t new, but this puts even more focus on early buyers and a great experience. Some examples to follow…

Working at a manufacturer, times couldn’t be more intriguing given distribution and education paths are sorting out the credible from the also rans. In fact, Google is helping that process with cleaning up content farms.

How we learn, communicate and consume are changing. What a great time to be a marketer.

This post goes way beyond investing from my perspective. Tom highlights something far too many companies are falling in the trap of: fast following. The river is getting so easy to follow. Specifically, the data flow is so robust that tracking the latest news is becoming a widely followed business model. As Mauldin would say, when there’s too many people on one side of a trade, the trade is going to fall apart as a bubble at some point. The river is increasingly a bubble.

What isn’t a river? A cave where people develop independent from the rush of the river trends.

Both the cave and the flow are important, but as important is realizing just how many folks are lined up on each side.

The hunt for income dollars are coming in all areas. As we’ve covered, distressing times are when business models are broken [Hint: Amazon quietly gets into private labels after buying and selling, then charging a commission for its marketplace, now house brands...]

Here’s my bet: Stock market lifts and better #s compared to LY’s melt down will lead to a slightly positive holiday, but capped by unemployment and the lack of credit.

In fact, many companies and industries are digging into themselves to find what makes them unique and whether that means anything in this new market. Consumers have changed what they are buying and companies are having to shift gears to line up with those new needs and expectations. For the nimble and lower engineering development companies, shifting product and service programs can be done on the fly. For higher tech companies, shifting gears will take months if not years.

What has happened is a downshift to value based products and consumption, v. premium products and upselling. Having a role in value retail is showing me that the market is hot in sectors. Family Dollar and WalMart can thrive, while Abercrombie hopes teens can get jobs this summer so they can continue to buy $80+ jeans.

Get the word out with your customers that you’re on your toes (and still in business). Use SEO to get found for free. Find the products that you can add on to previous sales. At a time when everybody is struggling to justify buying anything, those that are trusted are going to survive.

First, The Conference Board posts a month survey of consumer sentiment:

The trend line where the US consumer stands is more important than the single points each month. While not perfect, retail sales and consumer shopping tie into this pretty well.

I’ve also learned over time who to trust when it comes to where the stock market and the consumer divide. Even though the consumer feels better when the stock market goes up, it isn’t the only factor in driving up confidence, thus consumer behavior. Top of the list is Mauldin primarily because he doesn’t post every day, provides analysis instead of reposting of news and is not truly main stream.

I’m believing more and more that the 24×7 news cycle is creating momentum swings faster. We’re getting to the same end point, but are facing a lot more churn in the process. Turn all the noise off, watch the long term trends and stay sane.

While many older parts of the US are not as well penetrated as younger ones, what we’re starting to see is the likes of Facebook gain the benefit of network effects and is likely the gateway to deeper use of such tools. The adoption of these tools will create a chance for business models to shift to the much written about referral based, pull demand from consumers instead of push marketing to the masses. In short, conversations, positive experiences and then sales instead of a shotgun and a falling bird.

“Intel has weathered difficult times in the past, and we know what needs to be done to drive our success moving forward,” Paul S. Otellini, chief executive at Intel, said in a statement.

Most companies focus on both strategic and financial goals. This year is different and all but the most basic financial goals (=positive cash flow) are out the window. For managers, we’ve reached a time to focus on the strategic, non-financial targets like picking the right fields of play, ROMI, innovation relevance, organizational alignment and market share.

In a product marketing class we took in undergrad, we played a simulation game each week that was supposed to replicate a market with consumers that had shifting preferences over time. All of our teams were given comparative advantages and then had to determine where we fit today in the market, and had to read the tea leaves of only a handful of data points to understand where consumers’ interest would be for the future weeks and make changes accordingly. The game proved to be educational in its interactivity as well as the point it relayed: things change and companies have to think ahead to be where consumers shifting preferences will be. Sort of throwing the ball to where the receiver will be, not where he is.

A great example was Porsche’s choice of getting into the SUV market with its Cayenne. Generally regarded as a huge bet on the company’s future, the Cayenne has been a very profitable move by a savvy company in touch with what its clientele wanted. While its 911 sports car was a icon, it had spent too many years trying to create a ‘mini-911′ which never seemed to carry the same weight. In the past 15 years, the company saw SUV’s grow wildly and put its own spin on one. While not revolutionary in design, it offered those interested in a Porsche a chance to get one in the right flavor.

What happens to the other SUV manufacturers as Porsche enters is where the real problem develops. Customers’ choices increase, volume at each legacy player decreases and old less desirable lines die. Chrysler started the minivan category and Ford owns the truck category with its F-series yet both companies are not profitable. In time, competitors new and old can shift to meet consumers’ preferences and hone offerings.  In fact, automobiles are no different than any category in Wal*Mart. Why are so many auto companies in trouble? Over time other players targeted all the right features of the best products while very little new technology (read: alt energy vehicles) emerged.

Avoiding strategy decay requires looking through the crystal ball and charting a course. Here are some general areas to consider when placing time into the marketing strategy mix:

1. Innovation over time is unpredictable, but measuring innovative successes has greatly improved making ‘fast following’ or copying features/products a profitable venture with a far lower cost structure. Additionally, as fast following becomes a norm in society, rules protecting unique properties have been weakened to allow consumers access to more manufacturer options.

2. Optimized business models for fast following strip away needless innovation and hone product offerings by all companies to the most successful options. Value chain leaders integrate or contractually lock up fast followers stripping costs out of identifying consumer preferences and integrating them into the product mix.

3. Traditional innovators unable to sustain multi-year investments must move downstream into being fast followers (being locked up or bought) or upstream into core technology developers that are harder to replicate. [Note that Apple continues to buy small technology companies to ensure its edge on core technologies over its suppliers.]

4. Supply chains are adapting into mass market, large scale ‘best product mix at lowest cost’ v. ‘newest technology / design at premium or value-for-features price’. In automobiles, think BMW and Porsche v. GM and Kia. In grocery, think Whole Foods and Harris Teeter v. Wal*Mart and Kroger. [Along this case, I'd note that Hulu v. YouTube is sorting this out where Hulu is the lowest cost distribution point for content producers like NBC while YouTube will need to differentiate by being a value-for-features option (begs the question: what are those features?)]

The next two years will mark a very difficult time across the board. Consumers will push for value and a purpose forcing companies to think about where they fit. Only a few like Apple are lucky enough to have its consumers next gen versions of its products for them.