I just finished a terrific book that I’m pretty excited about. The author, Lois Kelly, has been able to put into words and practice something I’ve been trying to get a fix on for quite awhile — how to help companies have meaningful, interesting discussions about their companies with their customers. She calls it conversational marketing. And she really nails it.

Go get Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing, by Lois Kelly. Study it, highlight it, underline it, tag the pages, and implement the practices. As with many great marketing concepts, the idea behind conversational marketing is so simple it’s brilliant. The author quotes John Battelle, founder of Wired and The Industry Standard, who says this about conversational marketing: “it sounds so obvious, but in fact it requires an entirely new approach to marketing.”

What’s different about it?
Traditional marketing and communications don’t really help people talk. They inform, promote, direct, and describe, but they don’t help jump-start conversations that get people to say (and I love this phrase Lois uses to test if a subject is conversational),

“Gee, that’s interesting, tell me more.”

How many times has a prospective customer said that to you when you’ve given them your opening line about your company or product? Not very many, huh? Do their eyes glaze over instead? How much would it be worth to you to actually have people say, “That’s interesting. Tell me more,” regularly, not just when you’re talking to people, but also when anyone in your company is talking to people? And how great would it be to have a meaningful, effortless conversation follow this, where you’re able to keep their interest with relevant ideas that help them to better understand your value?

Having interesting things to talk about is valuable
If you’ve ever tried to get your sales reps to hone an elevator speech, or tried to arm non-sales people with a description they can use when asked about the company, you know what I’m talking about. It can come off as stilted, prepared, salesy, and not at all interesting. And if the listener’s eyes go into a far-off stare, most likely you and your people just talk faster about your products and services, as if talking faster will make them suddenly wake up and listen. At least it’ll get the ordeal over with sooner.

We always knew that marketing was about having a conversation, a relationship with customers, right? Some of us have just had difficulty keeping the conversation interesting for our customers. Kelly contends that

“Studies have found that the more customers participate in meaningful conversations and interactions with companies, the more likely they are to purchase a product or service and recommend it to others. For marketers, this suggests that we need to find ways to involve customers in more conversations that are meaningful to them.”

Make meaning
Surveys say that people don’t trust companies, and that the only way to gain back trust is to communicate in new ways, according to Kelly. In addition to traditional marketing and communications, create conversational marketing approaches, and have something interesting to talk about. One way to do this is with meaning making — meaning making helps make sense of an idea, an option, or concept, and shows people how it relates to what they already know. When they don’t see meaning, customers tend to become skeptical and indifferent.

The author jam packs her book with tips for making meaning, using emotion — the most powerful ingredient for understanding — and uncovering talk-worthy ideas, including the three steps for real, relevant, and repeatable conversations.

The three steps for real, relevant, and repeatable conversations
1. Research in new ways, listening more closely and seeing new patterns
2. Create conversation themes based on points of view.
3. Make it someone’s job and hold them accountable.

Have a point of view
The point of view section alone is well worth the price of admission and could be your big “aha!” Having a point of view and talking about it can add real legs to conversations about your company, and has the added benefit of revealing something about the company’s authenticity. The better your customers know your company’s personality, they better they can connect for the long term — without being able to “know” the company, they’ll consider your product to be a commodity.

So why isn’t everyone doing this?
If conversational marketing is so effective, why aren’t more companies doing it? The author offers the following reasons:
1. No one is in charge of it
2. Reluctance to state a point of view — in the attempt to please everyone, the message is plain and boring
3. Executives suffer from executive attention disorder, and tire of talking about the same thing, usually before people understand the idea or point of view
4. No communications professionals are involved
5. The company has a muddled strategy

I could go on and on, and then maybe you wouldn’t bother to get the book — but trust me, there’s lots more about how to uncover your own point (or points) of view and create interesting conversations. This is one book I plan on referring to a lot in my own work, and it just may find its way to a few of my clients as gifts.

Thank you, Lois Kelly, for a really great lesson in conversational marketing. That’s interesting.

[tags]conversational marketing, Lois Kelly, point of view, meaning making, conversation themes, interesting conversations[/tags]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 12:14 am and is filed under Capturing Attention, Marketing Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.