Of all the paradigm changes that the Internet has brought us, the biggest change turns out to be what I consider a correction and natural evolution of previous paradigms: ** the ability to interact. **
Marketing and Communication (including advertising and sales here) was no longer based on “monologists” who imposed communication in a sense, from brand to consumer, to become something more natural, something more aligned with the very nature of communication: ** the dialogue**.
Marketing stopped being about “telling a story and selling” and became about “listen, tell, listen and sell”.
The “Conversational Marketing” (insist on foreignism because “conversational” does not sound good to me) is fully linked to “participation” (participation marketing) would be a good translation).
In the admirable new world of this Marketing 2.0 (yes, there is also a 2.0 here, which includes “Conversational” and “Social Networking”), there are some good practices to take into account and can make the difference between success and mediocrity:
- *Communication is done in both directions!
The “Marketing Conversational” (despite not sounding good... I surrender to Portuguese) does not mean “advertising generated by consumers”, however good they are! Nor does it mean creating “Blogs” because everyone talks about it and because it seems to be the 2.0 attitude! Blogs are just monologues with some people commenting.
This new marketing concerns the ability to involve the customer in an ongoing dialogue (remember always the words “dialogue” and “participation”).
Today’s customer expects to have something to say about his products and services, about how they “fit” in their lives, how they are designed and packaged, where they can be bought, and also how they can be advertised.
This new client ( Remember “Customer 2.0′′? ) wants to help companies make decisions and not just make announcements!
** Listening is not important... it's everything!**
When we shut up and heard the customer/market, we discovered very critical knowledge. Fantastic, really!
And that's not an opinion! That's a statement. There are sufficient studies that prove that “hearing” can increase loyalty and loyalty, trust, and even the willingness to recommend a brand/company to known people.
With this paradigm and all the changes in markets and trends, Marketeers have to “stick” to the voice of their customers to be able to keep up.
By “hearing” the customer Dove has created one of the best campaigns in recent years. The campaign “ Campaign for Real Beauty ” celebrates the woman such as she eats: with curves, wrinkles, fallen skin and mainly... inner beauty. This campaign began with an attempt to “hear” how women truly felt about their bodies and how they defined “beautiful”. The result was the creation of one of the most admired campaigns in recent years, taking full advantage of what Dove “heard” and “ Word of Mouse” (WoM) “.
- When the “less” is more!*
One of the most efficient ways to give the customer the floor and create a “Conversational Marketing” platform is through the use of online communities.
But we should not want to get to EVERY community. Although it is a global world, personalization and dialogue are not created between masses. The creation of medium-sized communities (400... 500 participants) creates much more active involvement than a large community. The “dialogue” requires attention!
The more intimate and exclusive the community, the greater the participation. It is important that participants feel special, that they are “heard”... that they are considered part of the brand/company!
How do you start? Easier said than done! One does not start by creating a community of thousands of users, a Blog or discussion Forum, with a satisfaction survey and call it “conversation”.
Evaluate the level of involvement by passivity
The way to measure “Conversational Marketing” is not the analysis of how many people visited your site, Blog, etc.. It's a lot more than that. It's to analyze how actively people participated.
Only 1% of large social media users create original content, while another 10% create comments or react to content. The remaining 89% are passive.
The more involved people are the more they contribute to creating original content!
- It's all about common interests and not about “products”*
People want to “talk” about common interests and passions and not just about products or services.
Therefore, when trying to involve them in a community or through other techniques of “Conversational Marketing”, it is important to focus dialogue on the things they value most.
By listening to passionate conversations on product-related topics, you will hear new ideas on how to develop innovative products, campaigns and ways to create loyal customers willing to promote their products.
Using again the example of Dove (Dove Evolution) campaign: Dove was not limited to “hearing” what women wanted or liked in skin products. More than that, through the “dialogue” came to hear what was really worrying them: self-esteem, their bodies and frustrations towards the cosmetics industry.
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- About “Conversational Marketing”**
The term Conversational Marketing” is not new. Its origin dates back to 1999 and the launch of the " ClueTrain Manifesto “, which basically stated that “all markets are conversations” and that companies need to learn to speak with a human voice. Of course, the definition is not very different from Relational Marketing, whose focus is on creating long-term relationships with customers rather than sporadic transaction. These “relations” develop from “conversations”, making this new Marketing discipline an evolution of the previous one.
In fact, in my opinion, this “Marketing Conversational” is the same “Marketing of Collaboration” that Philip Kotler advocated as the evolution of “Relational Marketing”, and which was already based on the partnership and permanent dialogue between organizations and client, which centralizes the new power. And as Kotler defended, through social networks, with the creation of customer communities and blogs, this contact can be maintained.