Conversational marketing
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Conversational Marketing arose as a current buzz phrase after the [Cluetrain Manifesto], the first thesis of which is 'All markets are conversations'.
Conversational Marketing is the engagement of social media by a corporation to promote their product or brand. It differs from traditional forms of "customer touch" because the company may enter into an online dialogue which is stored publicly in a forum or blog. The company may also take the conversation offline. As of September 2007, it seems to be a Buzzword in marketing and Customer relationship management. The idea is to break down the common assumption that marketing involves the broadcasting of information from a marketer to an audience, and replace it with something more interactive. As said above, this idea has appeared in Cluetrain Manifesto. Online PR guru Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, writes in 2004 that,
"Conversational Marketing is nothing new. It’s basically the concept that people respond better to lowered voices spoken in credible tones than they do to the aggressive in-your-face marketing speak as is evidences in everything from TV ads to the pap-lingo of so many website. If common sense prevailed, marketers would understand that simply conversing with customers, prospects, partners, investors and employees is more effective. People listen better and longer when you just talk to them and listen back. All too often professional marketers lose their credibility by hyperbole, hubris and amplification. It seems to me self evident that just talking with people is more effective than shouting and repeating yourself as if your audience was comprised of deaf idiots."
But Conversational Marketing is more than that. The internet makes it possible to actually watch customer behavior, and respond accordingly, in a far shorter timespan than in other media. Internet Marketing can now truly be a conversation, where organizations invite customers to learn about them, observe whether they get a positive response, and adjust accordingly.
One book and blog on this aspect of the topic is [Conversation Marketing].
Another resource is the [Conversational Marketing Credo] written by brand strategist Liz Pabon. While Conversational Marketing is not new, far too many marketers are unable to make the shift from in-your-face, over-the-top messaging (which does little to create brand affinity) to the more intimate, open and sometimes transparent conversational method of marketing.
While a number of companies are engaging more in conversational marketing through new web channels i.e. Microsoft, HP and Dell, it is not certain that this is a scalable system for companies with a justifiable ROI. In the past marketing has been "to many" and PR strategies focus on most influential journalists, so how can companies converse with all of their stakeholders? Perhaps in answer to this new services are emerging where companies can receive updates from an intermediary (PR agency, marketing bureau) to identify the conversations that are most noteworthy, contain significant criticism or originate from an influential commentator.
