Conversation Marketing

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

This morning as I was driving to work, I listened to John Jantsch's conversation with Paul Gillin on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast.  They were discussing Paul's book, The New Influencers.  A couple of key points that Paul made really struck me.

First is the distinction between "interruption marketing" versus "conversation marketing."  Interruption marketing seeks to interrupt people from something that they are doing (driving down the highway, watching TV, listening to music) to get them to pay attention to an essentially unrelated marketing message.  Conversation marketing seeks to engage people by providing them targeted information about something that they are interested in as part of an activity that they choose to do.  Paul argued that conversation marketing can work by drawing in people who set trends (influencers) and getting them to talk about products or services, but the thing that really struck me about the whole idea of conversation marketing was the notion that for this to work, there must truly be a conversation.  This means that the person doing the marketing must draw people (ideally influencers) into a real conversation very early on in the lifecycle of the product or service and really listen to and value their feedback by building that feedback into the product or service.  This is a leap that traditional marketers are often afraid to make, but it can be hugely effective and it is much more human and genuine than seeking to interrupt as many people as possible.

The second point that really struck a chord with me was Paul's suggestion to focus on strategy rather than particular technologies.  This struck me because he used an analogy to building a house that was very similar to one we use with clients.  Paul said lots of companies pick a social media technology like blogging and then try to figure out what to do with it.  In building a house, though,  no one buys a sack of concrete, then says "what are we going to do with this concrete?" They key is to focus on what you want to get done, then choose appropriate technology.  Similarly, we sometimes meet with clients who say "we need a new Website" without really knowing what they want or why they need it.  We like to say to those clients "Look, you would not say to a building contractor just that you need a new building.  You would say you need more office space, or a new restaurant location or a factory --- something that you needed to further your business goals.  Let's start by figuring out what you want to get done as a business, and then figure out what needs to be built."  
Posted by: Mark Reichard at 7:48 AM
Tags: E-marketing Strategy, Social media

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