Think small. The new art of marketing.

When you’re a big business, or even a good size small to medium business, you typically want to reach a broader audience and most often use mass marketing techniques. You know social media doesn’t scale and need to fill that lead pipeline or bring lots of people to your doorstep – online or bricks and mortar. But you likely see diminishing returns in your advertising, right?

In a world of a million channels, mass simply isn’t as effective as it once was. People have infinite choices and personalize their media consumption. The masses aren’t massing together in tidy, reachable chunks.

So what do you do?

Micromarketing is the path forward. Greg Verdino does an excellent job showing how businesses big and small are using one on one interaction to generate business. He makes a point early on to say that while you the reader might not be exactly like one of the businesses featured, the techniques are transferrable to your own – and provides both B2C and B2B examples.

Chapter by chapter he takes you through the concept of micromarketing, bringing it all together in the end with a nice worksheet to get you started.

Here are some key takeaways:

You get better results by doing lots and lots of little things. It’s about finding the few people who’ll help you spread the word by sharing their experiences with your brand. Even Wal-mart has embraced this with their 11 moms profiled in the book.

We’re moving from awareness to attention. Attention is the holy grail of marketing today. And you can’t get that from using mass techniques.

Think about interactions rather than interruptions. If you’re not relevant, people tune you out in a snap. In fact, they don’t even hear you.

You have to conduct business in real time. Not when it’s convenient for you. Skip the recorded customer service messages and lengthy delays. Find ways to speed the process and you’re likely to delight your customers – and they’ll spread the word.

Do the right small things. You still have to be strategic in your approach. Spraying the market with disjointed one-on-one interactions isn’t going to scale or deliver results. You need to find a way for those little things to add up to something bigger.

The key to micro marketing is about finding ways to engage your customers and prospects in a meaningful way, giving them both a platform and reason to share your story. Panasonic did this very well by giving select families a suite of HD equipment, then a blogging platform to talk about how it’s changed their life with their Living in HD Community. Unscripted. Unfiltered. Ford did the same with the Fiesta with the Fiesta movement to reach a very cynical audience.

This approach works whether you have a budget or not. In fact, not having a budget – or the means – can sometimes results in the biggest results as he shows in the example of Lauren Luke – a single mom turned entrepreneur.

The concepts here are critical to success as marketer going forward. Even if you’re using mass techniques (and they certainly have a big role) – I believe micro marketing cannot be ignored. It does, however, require a mass marketer to rethink how they market and that can be the toughest hurdle to cross. Do yourself a favor – read this book and internalize the key points. It’s a definite keeper.