Conversational Marketing - Staying Relevant
February 4th, 2006
I’m reading Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, and though I usually have low expectations about the latest books on marketing trends, I have been pleasantly surprised. Rather than try to sum up the book or offer critical comments, I’ll focus on one comment that was especially insightful.
Commenting on the emergence of conversational blog marketing in contrast to broadcast media, the authors say, “… you and every other marketer faces a choice: You can make something worth talking about or you can become invisible.” Hmm. This is worth pondering.
The days of bully pulpit broadcast marketing seem to be waning. What these men are proposing is that unless an idea or product has value that excites people and drives them to share it with friends, it is likely to be ignored.
Conversational marketing is contrary to conventional marketing wisdom - most things that work well are under-used and contrarian. Big money advertising is all about sanitized and perfect portrayals of products and services. Conversational marketing is about discovering the strengths and weaknesses of a product from customers, not imposing an agenda.
All this benefits the small player. Anyone with clever ideas and a drive to communicate them has the potential to use blog marketing successfully.
It seems that the emerging culture of the blogosphere has a keen nose for quality and will happily spread ideas and products that it views as authentic and valuable.
There is no doubt that this model has worked well for emerging technologies like Skype, Firefox, and others. However, I think it will also work for artisans, artists, producers, and small business owners who can talk passionately about what they do and why they do it.
Even if blogging is not a rousing success for every small business in terms of sales, it is most definitely the most reliable way to raise Google search engine results. Scoble and Israel say that for the time being, blogging often is “the shortest, cheapest, fastest, and easiest route to a prominent Google ranking.”
By discussing the key points that make a product or service worth adopting and embracing the criticism and praise that returns through blog posts and comments, small business may find a new marketing channel wide open in front of them that requires some time, thought, and a very little money.
Entry Filed under: Book & Software Reviews, Internet Marketing
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