Conversational Marketing

I wrote a paper in which I highlighted what I think are the three things that make interactive marketing so great.  If you have any interest, you can download the paper from the Actuan home page.  The one that is most appropriate here is the ability to have a sustained two-way dialog.

I attended an NYC American Marketing Assocation seminar last week where Lois Kelly, the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing was the guest speaker.  Should you hear Lois is going to be presenting at an event, make it your business to be there.  She explains conversational marketing and word-of-mouth marketing in a way that can open the eyes of even the most seen-it-all-before person.

Lois’ point in the presentation and in her book is that even with all of these new media technologies at our disposal, many marketers still only aim for one-way communications.  We fail to truly understand how to tell our customers about our products and services in a way that makes sense to them.  Moreover, we fail to enable a dialog with our customers that allows us to learn from them.

Blogs, forums, wikis and other interactive technologies are great for enabling conversational marketing, but they’re only a first step.  Take a look at Lois’ book and if you can, catch her in-person.  You’ll be glad you did.