While reworking our company presentation I’ve been thinking of all the different “types” of marketing. And this morning I read through a new piece by Laura Ramos at Forrester, B2B Marketers: Tap Into Social Networking Sites to Energize Community Marketing. Then I read Seth Godin’s blog today, Find Your Voice, and something clicked. As a marketing graduate student I recall studying the many forms of marketing communications and ways to promote products, generate awareness, increase leads, make announcements, yadda, yadda, yadda. But now, as an experienced marketing professional with a marketing agency launch and co-founder of a non-profit education company under my belt, it’s time to focus on helping others to find their own voice.
At Idiom Strategies we provide conversation marketing services and guide clients on joining the market conversation. We didn’t coin the phrase Conversation Marketing, but rather adopted it because it fit our approach better than anything else. Today, as I heard the gears in my mind click into place, I realized that the term Conversation Marketing is even more fitting for what we do than I had thought–it is exactly about finding your own voice and listening to the voices of others.
A conversation is dynamic by nature. Older forms of marketing are static by nature (print ads, online banner ads, sponsorship at conferences, marketing brochures, commercials, radio spots, etc.) Sure, there are new forms of interactive marketing, especially online, that try to engage the viewer by clicking something or typing in specific info, etc. But that is so one-directional. As Seth’s blog post points out, “Avoid obvious mistakes, don’t follow obvious successes.” Just because one type of marketing campaign worked for one company doesn’t mean it will work for another, even in the same industry. So stop trying to take on the best practices that successful marketers have laid out and use your own voice to join the market conversation.
Conversation is an art form, not a science. There’s no hard and fast rules for success nor formulas to follow that can help you reach your goals. But there are basics to learn to help you find your own voice. What does that mean? Research different marketing strategies and tactics. Understand why people buy things and listen to the market conversation to know so you know what people really want or need and why they want or need these things. Ask them what would help them fulfill their needs and wants best. Introduce your ideas and experiences in a real voice, not “messages” writen by someone else. Once you do this, these things being the ABCs of marketing, then consider how to have a conversation with your audiences.
