Owen Frager is Chief Officer of the Frager Creative Group, one of the nation's first virtual communications agencies serving Fortune 500 brands.

There's a lot more to interactive digital marketing than eye-catching banner ads, discount packages, and clever domain names.

Marketing gives personality and differentiates for advantage. Marketing creates relationships with customers that go deeper than anything you sell or make.

And of course, facilitates those relationships and drives word of mouth.

2012 is the year to stand out in a me-too online world.

The Seven-Step Recipe for 21st Century Marketing :

1.     People don't buy brands. They join brands.

is about relevance and consumer involvement. Your challenge is to create a sense of identity or belonging while fulfilling people's expectations of what they will get in exchange for allowing you into their lives.

2.     What's currently relevant is constantly changing.

Fortunately the Web offers the unique ability to reach and bring together like-minded customers from all over the world.

3.     You can market to one and all.

Any one prospect can be multiple customers: Business services decision-maker, luxury products consumer, grandparent, community leader. Green. Black. Gay.

4.     You can change to be what your customers need.

On the Web you have the unprecedented opportunity to put on a different face to different communities or market segments.

5.     Connecting people to each other connects them to you.

On the Web people search out and share marketing messages they fast forward through on TV. Combining traditional media with the power of the Web, you can turn transactions into relationships and transform into something that people want to be a part of for the rest of their lives – and one generation to the next.

6.     Money can be made without selling anything.

The position is still open on today's most pressing issues. The socially responsible corporation, Web site or portal that creates a shared sense of common purpose will offer a legacy in providing everyone a place to record how the future is better for our having been here.

7.     Digital is how it all happens.

But digital marketing only delivers its promise when integrated into a larger marketing mix. It takes new thinking to take full advantage of the Internet's potential.

a.    Cross-promotion that shares costs and extends budgets.

b.    Redirection of advertising dollars to collaborative efforts that raise awareness and .

c.     as themes, products, promotional vehicles, and monetized resources.

Remember, the new model is collaboration, not competition.

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