What is conversational marketing to you? Some call it data driven marketing, others interactive, social, etc., but aren’t they all just the centering around the same subject?
It’s called conversational marketing because it goes in to a dialogue with the prospect on the product and interactively tries to convince that the product is the right one from a prospect point-of-view. Conventional marketing will try to convince you to “do this”.
Imagine that you browsed the web page of an mobile operator for the new iPhone. You go away again since you’re not sure. After a week or so you go in again. Price still too high so you subscribe to their Newsletter hoping for an eventual offer. Later you are logged into Facebook and sees an advert for a cheap subscription from the same operator you check it out, and browse between several until you find your favorite, but nothing really matched your criteria, but you did read a bit extra on one of them. Later you get your first newsletter and read about the new iPhone. You click it, but still sees the iPhone is still the same price. It is pricy. Now the conversational marketing kicks in. You clicked a link, which identifies you – still anonymous – but you’re now prospect A. The we page automatically rearranges the main offer on the page giving you the iPhone + the subscription you checked to a discounted price. You’re not sure yet. Seems too good. So you close the browser down. Immediately you get an mail saying that we saw you actually look at the offer, but didn’t go for it, so “… You didn’t accept our great offer. This offer was tailored to you. If you still want it, it will still be valid for the next two hours. Sure you don’t want it right away?“. You don’t buy it. Still a lot of money. After an hour you think oh well… You go to the web page. First thing you see directly on the main page saying “Welcome back… Click here to resume your offer weren’t to you!”
This is of course a simplified version. In real life you should try to combine at least text messages, mails, letters, web, customer care, stores, etc, so you have the entire cross channel thing going for you!
Carsten’s blog 