For years, marketers have spent most of their strategic planning time figuring out what to SAY to their prospects, prospects who have long perfected the art of ignoring these messages. In the meantime, a select few have pulled ahead by shifting their attention to what they can DO for their customers. American Express has the extraordinary OPEN program for small business, Samsung has their charging stations for road warriors and closer to home, HSBC has their BankCab that delights their customers with free rides all over NYC. DOs can be little gems like ZipCar’s car finder iPhone App or Southwest Airline’s DING desktop widget. What are you DOING for your customers?

One nifty by–product of DO marketing is that your customers will start talking about your brand and even want to be identified as a fan. In the old days, this meant they would don your hat or t–shirts and casually recommend your brand in a conversation. Today many brands are building formidable fan bases via social media and empowering these fans to go forth and propagandize. Jack Daniels’ encouraged its email friends to “share a toast” last fall and in the process gained over 400,000 fans on Facebook. Now its daily folksy Facebook updates generate over 1000 thumbs up and often 500 or more related comments.

With extensive fan bases to draw from and new “mobile social” platforms, marketers can now engage their fans well beyond their desktops. Foursquare, Loopt and Google Latitude all represent interesting opportunities for marketers to reach out and touch their fans in a highly personalized and timely manner. These tools all create the opportunity for customized micro–events that could make prospects feel a part of something special. For example, liquor brands should have a field day partnering with Foursquare and/or Loopt to spur ongoing and inventive experience.

All these virtual interactions are well and good, but there is still no substitute for well–timed, well–executed physical interaction. Physical interactions tend to create deeper relationships and even stronger word–of–mouth. The social mobile technologies I mentioned can help marketers gather people with extraordinary commonalities at a moments notice. Think MeetUp meets Flash Mob. It is easy to imagine a kitchen appliance company gathering left handed vegan cooks for an “equal rights” march through Bloomingdales that turns into a party to celebrate a new “leftist” friendly product line.

Little luxuries are particularly welcome in this economy and can be delivered on an increasingly personal basis thanks to advancing technology. For example, GPS mash–ups can enable everything from customized messaging to personalized walking tours. This messaging could be educational—like where to get the best shot of a landmark to what wine will match the food you’re about to order. Concierge service in unexpected places, free transport in unique vehicles and exotic food samples for passersby are three more examples of enhancing your efforts to convert prospects to customers and customer to brand evangelists.