Navigating Economic Prosperity in the Era of Platform Dominance
In today's digital world, businesses are navigating complex and often hostile ecosystems, dominated by tech giants like Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Apple. However, a key strategy for survival and thriving in these environments is to focus on building and nurturing direct relationships with customers.
SaaS ventures, for instance, use app stores for distribution and sales, but they also prioritise direct customer success and constant iteration to justify their pricing and counteract platform fees. Direct relationships, such as email addresses and phone numbers, serve as an anchor that steadies a business against platform volatility.
Similarly, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands utilise platforms like Instagram for awareness, newsletters and SMS for retention, and balance their reach between Amazon and Shopify for independence. Diversification tactics, such as spreading distribution and experimenting with emerging channels, are also crucial.
Content creators follow a similar pattern, using platforms like YouTube and TikTok for growth, Substack or ConvertKit for email subscribers, Patreon for monetization, but maintaining a website as their control hub. By leveraging these platforms for top-of-funnel discovery but funneling traffic into their owned assets, they can avoid over-dependence.
The 'relationship tips' principle suggests that if platforms extract 70% of the value, your offering must deliver 170% to still win. This principle emphasises the need for businesses to deliver exceptional value to their customers, ensuring that users seek them out directly, reducing reliance on platform algorithms.
Managing multiple platforms is a layer of complexity in survival strategies, but it also reduces single-point failure. Balancing automation with personalisation is another complexity, but creating communities deepens stickiness in business.
In Europe, businesses can find support in reducing dependency on these tech giants. In Germany, for example, local business networks like XING and specialized performance marketing agencies such as Media Beats GmbH help SMBs, startups, and mid-sized companies build direct customer relationships and optimise independent, measurable marketing strategies beyond Big Tech platforms.
In conclusion, businesses can survive and thrive within hostile ecosystems by owning customer relationships, diversifying platforms, balancing dependence, and delivering exceptional value. Treating direct customer connection as the true north is crucial for businesses to endure in this digital age.
