'Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers and benefits for the stakeholders.' - Philip Kotler

Marketing must always be consumer-based. You may have a product that you absolutely believe is the best product on the planet earth, yet if you have no customers you simply have a good idea.

The best online marketing takes place when a netrepreneur gains a better understanding of the consumer.

If you have an existing customer base and even 10% were willing to participate in an online forum based on your products or services you have a better chance of finding specific trends that may not be found in typical market trend reports.

Many business owners have discovered that diversification can add substantial return in the growth of their company. A forum can assist netrepreneurs in determining the direction of their growth and which products or services they may need to eliminate from their lineup.

Even the largest companies are acquiring smaller niche companies based on the notion that diversification often spurs company growth.

'If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think.' - David Ogilvy

A business forum board allows you to interact with customers in an informal setting while you allow them the opportunity to do most of the talking while you do most of the listening. Someone once said, 'We were given two ears and one mouth so we should probably listen twice as much as we talk.'

Your customers want to be able to sound off and a forum allows them to do so in the safety of numbers. Don't be fooled, not everything that is posted on a business forum will be positive, but even the negative posts allow you to work at publicly correcting a mistake allowing other customers and prospects to see that you do care about making things right while seeing cases in which you followed through with positive customer service.

'I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.' - David Ogilvy

Allow a forum to provide illumination and then take a few brave steps in the right direction.