How to Start a Chain Reaction

Marketing should not be tasked with "closing the sale" or "establishing awareness" for that matter. Marketing should lay the foundation for an ongoing conversation between the enterprise and its audiences. It begins as an invitation and follows with more questions and opportunities, always setting up the audience to feed more into the system. Stay away from announcements, campaigns, positioning statements, and promotions.

MediaPost Publications: Why 'Social Conversion' Is A Term You Should Know, 2008-Jun-18, by Justin Talerico of ion interactive

No matter how high your conversion rate is, it is probably limited to a single event. Big deal. Wouldn't you rather invest the same spend and get a string of events in return? Wouldn't you prefer to trade that expensive dinner for a relationship rather than a one-night stand? (Some of you social deviants answered "no" to that one, I know.) Take a fresh look at your online marketing and visualize it leading to not one event, but to many events strung together into a relationship.