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By Nathan Paluck

On the Internet, businesses need to scrap old ways of marketing, says Christian Baldarrago, a specialist in e-commerce. “They cannot sell straight to customers,” he says. “You cannot do that in Web 2.0. What you have to sell is value, information.”

Baldarrago's goal is to teach Latin American businesses how to use the web. This Wednesday evening he leads Peru Web 2.0, a conference at the Miraflores Park Hotel. (It will be conducted in Spanish.)

Last week LivinginPeru.com talked to Baldarrago about doing business with Web 2.0, a term used to describe the increasingly interactive and collaborative Internet experience: social networks, blogs, live video, wikis and mobile applications. Baldarrago says that in Latin America both entrepreneurs and corporations are struggling to navigate this new realm. 

“Entrepreneurs don’t have the tools most of the time, or they cannot afford big consulting companies,” Baldarrago said. “They don’t know how to do different strategies and they are kind of lost.”

“And the corporate guys are just afraid. They are afraid for their brands, they are afraid they don’t have control; they feel that the internet is a little informal here. That it’s for kids, but it’s not for respected brands.”

Corporations in Latin America are afraid of the internet?

Yeah, most of them are afraid. And they lie to themselves. They say “the Internet is just a bunch of young guys. They are informal, they are unprofessional.”

The [corporations] don’t know how to control their brand, because online marketing is a lot different from regular marketing. Regular marketing was about pushing a message, through radio or TV. But internet marketing is not about pushing a message, it’s about giving a message, leaving a message, and the message has to grow by itself, by users, by a community, by clients. That’s why they are afraid – they feel they don’t have control and power over their brands like you used to have with regular marketing.

Baldarrago, 27, previously worked as an e-business advisor for the Organization of American States and taught e-commerce to small businesses in Peru for the US embassy. He has recently been speaking at conferences in South America. “My goal is to give the kind of training and information that is at the same level in the United States,” Baldarrago says, who is half Colombian, half Peruvian and grew up between New York and Cali, Colombia.

Can you give a specific example of that type of fear?
I’ll give you an example from here in Peru. D’onofrio, in a big advertisement on TV, said “on this day you can buy one ice cream for one sol.” And they sell the ice cream in little carts here. So a lot of people went to the streets to look for these guys. And [the sellers] said it’s not really one ice cream for one sol. If you buy five, you pay five soles. People got together on Facebook — and it was a big time group — and they created a campaign against that campaign. And D’onofrio lost control. If you have consumers online, you have to be honest.

You feel that the Internet helps keep companies more accountable?
Yes. It’s like [consumers] can love you or they can kill you. They do both.

How would you advise small companies that never considered using the Internet to enter this online world?

For example, a local distributor of mangos. You distribute mangos to supermarkets in Lima, but you want to go global. You will go to the Internet first to do online branding, to locally position your brand. You will do forums, polls, blogs: talking about mangos, how can you drink mango in the summer, how are mangoes good for health. You can do a lot of things to communicate and position yourself as a leader.

They would do that from blogs and their website?

You can have a blog on a website; you can have a Facebook account, Twitter. You can make online marketing campaigns that you display in video portals, in different forums, blogs and social networks. But more important than the channels is the way you are going to communicate. You try being a leader on the subject. It’s not about selling mangos, it’s about being an expert on fruit in Peru.

Three new online tools and trends “You have to be selective and know what’s productive," Baldarrago says. “I see a lot of tools everyday on the Internet and fall in love with them. That doesn’t mean they are going to be good for my business.” He gives three recommendations here. “And the most important thing is that in Peru, if you do this stuff, you will be the innovator,” he says. 1. Live Blogging Do an article live, while people can comment. “If I am a journalist, for example, I have one blog post a day. But on every Saturday, I’m blogging live. It will be like a TV program.” See scribblelive.com. 2. Make your own niche social network. Don’t just join Facebook. Be Facebook. “In Peru, for example, a social network for gastronomy. All the people studying to be chefs here would be potential users of that community. The restaurant owners, the chefs, all the people involved in this industry. See kickapps.com. 3. Make a mobile version of your website. Use appbreeder.com to create an iPhone-friendly version of your site.

Positioning yourself as an expert.

And as a reference. …

The strategy for the new media market is like this: Businesses have to learn that they cannot sell straight to customers. You cannot do that in Web 2.0. What you have to sell is value, information. If you’re in tourist services, sell all the wonderful things that can be done in the destination – all the things to eat, to visit, why they will leave content. You can position yourself as giving the best information and being the best resource for people to fly to your place.

When you give good information, you are going to another level. If you give good information, you will get attention. They will say “Well, I’m not going to go this time, but I like that they are giving information, and I will keep visiting, because maybe they will sell a package that I’m really into.”

After the attention, comes the conversation. These guys will participate in your site. You will not respond with a straightforward reply with a package for Cusco. You will respond with “What are you looking for? We are planning to have this…” You have made a relationship.

Then you make the negotiation. Those are the four steps.     

Tell us about the conference on Wednesday.

My target market Latin America. It is for business people at the high level and also entrepreneurs.

When there is a manager, for example, in order to do internet strategies they usually do three things. They go to a freelancer. Or they will go to the systems department and say “Oh, you are engineers, now you have to do marketing online.” Or they will go to an expensive consulting company and they will hire them to do a campaign that is not well done, that is not Web 2.0. What I want [these managers] to know is how to make online strategies. Just as they would go to a seminar for management, or innovation or for human resources, they need to know [online strategies]. I want the heads [of companies] to know how to do online strategies. And this goes for businesspeople, for politicians, for everyone that wants to use the Internet professionally.

Visit Christian Baldarrago’s website for more information. Click here for details on the conference Peru Web 2.0 (in Spanish).

tags : internet Facebook websites online tools blogs

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1 Comments

# Mauricio Flores says :
10 March, 2010 [ 09:03 ]

Excellent!
I am looking forward for the presentation tonight.
Congratulations

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