Posts Tagged ‘conversational marketing’

What Is Conversational Marketing?

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

“Conversational marketing” is a term that has been around for about as long as the Internet. The concept goes back further, however. The idea is based on the concept that markets are conversations.

The “markets are conversations” concept was discussed in a book published in 1999, “The Cluetrain Manifesto.” According to its authors, markets have always been conversations, except for that period in the 20th century dominated by mass media. During that time, marketers would promote their products by “shouting” at consumers, who had no way to talk back to the peddlers. With the advent of the Internet, however, that changed.

Today, not only can consumers talk back, but they can walk away. There is always someone else in the conversation who can meet their need. And it isn’t all about price. It’s about the conversation.

Conversational marketing is all about using the tools at your disposal to engage with your audience and that requires being able to speak their language. I mean language in the vernacular sense, not in the cultural barrier sense.

When you talk about your company, your products, or your services with your prospective audience, are you respecting them? Are you shouting or listening? Conversations are a two-way street. If you don’t treat them as such, then you will lose in the age of conversational marketing.

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Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 3 Comments »

How To Increase Twitter Followers With One Simple Website Tweak

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

If you’ve been struggling to get more Twitter followers then there is one thing you can do to ensure you get your heart’s desire. It’s easy to implement and the pay off is very good. But before I tell you what it is, examine yourself to see why you want more Twitter followers.

If you want more Twitter followers because everyone seems to want more then you are doing it for the wrong reason. More followers does not translate into more close sales.

If you want more Twitter followers because you think it will mean more sales, more revenue or more (fill in the blank) then you are doing it for the wrong reason. There’s no direct one-to-one correlation.

So what is a good reason to want more Twitter followers?

The best reason I can think of for wanting more Twitter followers is to increase and expand your reach. Period. But understand this, adding more Twitter followers may not increase the number of people you actually get your message in front of. If all of your Twitter followers are also subscribers to your e-mail list then you’re only reaching the same people through a different medium. The key then is to offer then something they aren’t getting in their e-mail.

Twitter is a conversation stream, not a marketing stream. Don’t spend your time sending endless advertising messages. Get to know your followers and have a conversation with them. That’s how you make Twitter work for you.

Now, how can you add more Twitter followers just by tweaking your website? Put a simple icon on your site with a link that invites your visitors to follow you on Twitter. A strong call to action will increase your Twitter followers. But you’ve got to make sure you are giving something of value or they won’t stay your followers for long.

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Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments »

Are You Talking “At” Or “To” Your Customer?

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Cynthia Boris asks a very good question:

Should companies attempt to emulate the tweeting habits of the consumer in order to fit in? Or should there be a clear dividing line between corporate behavior and personal behavior in social marketing?

This question really gets to the heart of Twitter and social media. Individuals, whether consumers or small business owners, tend to start and join conversations. On the other hand, corporate brands that use social media do not engage on that level. The tweets tend to be more one way. Is that a good thing?

I don’t know that I’d say corporate tweets should try to “emulate” consumer tweeting behavior, but I would say that there should be some level of personalization involved in the Twitter marketing. Just because you tweet about corporate brands, Macaroni & Cheese and the latest gizmo doesn’t mean you can’t get on a personal level with your audience. Even large corporations are run by humans. I think we should give all business marketers our permission to be human. Don’t you?

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Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »

Conversational Marketing: Are You Yelling Or Whispering?

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Online marketing, and particularly social media marketing, amounts to nothing more than a conversation to which you play host. If you’re a smart marketer you will invite the whole world into your living room for a chat. But what do you do when you get them there?

Some companies start a conversation only to shout at their audience. They’ll drone on all day and all night about how wonderful they are, how good their products are and how much community service they are performing, but they fail to listen. Listening to your audience is one of the most important tasks with online marketing. But to listen you have to stop talking, and you have to most certainly stop shouting.

Other companies do nothing more than whisper. They show up to the conversation then don’t say much. Their audience is doing the talking while they sit back and listen.

A true conversation is interactive. It requires listening, but it also requires that you engage with your audience through your own verbal cues. You have to talk. Be careful, though. What you say and how you say it are equally important. Remember, BP CEO Tony Hayward angered a lot of people when he talked about getting his life back.

Online marketing is conversational marketing. Become good at carrying the conversation – talking when appropriate and listening the rest of the time. If you can get that down then you’ll succeed.

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Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »

Why Conversational Marketing Is The Best Kind Of Business Writing

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Business writing is different to other types of writing. Even between technical and non-technical types of writing, there are some differences. Writing marketing content for businesses requires a special eye and ear. You have to know what makes people tick, what motivates them. What kind of words trigger an emotional response, and what can you do to elicit the type of response that you want from your readers.

Those are all special kinds of knowledge. If you know what motivates people to act a certain way and you can create the circumstances to get them to act that way then you have power. And that’s the kind of power that anyone who writes for business should have.

One special kind of business writing is blogging. When you write a blog post, you are not writing a technical document. It’s a special type of “conversational marketing”. But it is business writing.

Online writing, or marketing, has several different methods of conversational marketing. This kind of business writing is unique in that it isn’t stuffy or overly sophisticated. It’s conversational. And it connects with people because readers get a sense that a real person – someone just like themselves – are writing it. If you write content that makes you sound like an average, run-of-the-mill person who wants to do business with someone and build their trust then you write for business online. It just takes a little discipline.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

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Posted in Business Writing | 2 Comments »

Who Is Social Media About Anyway?

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

How do you approach social media? Do you approach it from a “me” point of view or an “us” point of view? Your clients want to be a part of your business, not on the outside looking in.

This is the way business is in the 21st century. It isn’t about you talking to your audience. It is about you and your audience engaging in conversation. When you start a blog or engage in a social networking atmosphere, do you plan what you are going to say then let your audience respond or are you more about talking to your audience and cutting them out of the dialogue? You might try some tactics to get your readers involved in the discussion. If you lack comments on your blog or you aren’t getting any feedback on social networks, try a few of these tactics and see what happens:

  • Start off with a question. People love to give their opinion. Ask what they think about a particular topic.
  • Link to an interesting news story and offer a short commentary on why you think it’s important. If the story is an interesting one and grabs people’s attention then it could be a great conversation starter.
  • Compliment someone. On their blog or their social media profile. Let people know you like what they are doing.
  • Issue a challenge. Start a contest or ask people to respond to a challenge that you give.
  • Take a survey. Ask a question and give something to people who respond. This is a great way to perform market research.

There are many ways to start a conversation. Get people involved and they will respond to you positively. That’s what social media is about.

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Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »

Conversational Marketing: Are You Mingling?

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

From Brian Clark:

I’d say most people do not want to converse with companies, and if a bunch of people desire to tell a corporation something, it likely has a public relations disaster brewing.

But the people who do want to interact with your company are important despite their relative tiny numbers. You can glean potential buying objections from their questions, and consider changing practices based on complaints (but be careful there—the vocal minority often fails to reflect the views of the rest of the audience).

Brilliant insight, but what are we to make of it?

Brian Clark’s insights into social media marketing are important for a number of reasons:

  1. He’s Brian Clark – If you don’t know who he is then you do read many blogs. Copyblogger is one of the most popular blogs online, meaning he is a social media maven.
  2. Social Media Marketing is still new – There are no rules yet, which means they are still in development; that means there can hardly be said to be right and wrong ways of doing it (effective and ineffective, yes)
  3. The future is bright – The best social media marketers have yet to arrive
  4. The conversation is just getting started – Conversational marketing is really nothing new, but not all conversations have been going for any length of time

Seth Godin is the most prominent person to have discussed conversational marketing at any length. Back when the Web was in its commercial infancy it seemed that conversational marketing was on its way in and traditional marketing was outbound. But as Brian Clark says, you can’t change human nature.

Not everyone will engage with you about your products and services. They don’t want to talk, the just want to use. If you have a product worth buying, they’ll buy it. And they’ll happily (and quietly) use it. Some people will never let you know what they think until something goes wrong. Id’ imagine that Coca Cola didn’t hear much from many of its customers until it changed its formula – then all you-know-what broke loose!

The take away from this: Listen to those few voices who are telling you what they think about it all, but don’t take their opinions as gospel. They don’t talk for all of your customers. And sometimes you have to go out into the marketplace and mingle.

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Posted in Market Research, Small Business Internet Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »