Marketing as a Conversation, Part 2

When you start looking at marketing as a conversation, it raises a number of questions. Who should you be targeting? What should your message be? How do you motivate people to engage with you? What marketing tools and technologies should you use in this conversation?

The process of answering these questions takes much of the mystery and complexity out of marketing. More important, it helps to resolve perhaps the biggest mistake that most small businesses make - trying to market their product or service to the whole world rather than carefully targeting their audiences. No business can be all things to all people. Answering these marketing conversation questions enables you to deliver a targeted, focused message that makes the best use of your time and marketing dollars.

Approaching marketing as a conversation also resolves another common marketing blunder - talking at your customers rather than with them.

Conversation implies a two-way dialog. You talk while the other person listens. Then they talk while you listen. If you discover a mutual interest, the conversation continues. That's why social media is such a great marketing tool. When used properly, social media can make it easy and cost-effective to engage prospects and customers in two-way dialog.

During this two-way dialog, listening is by far the more important part of the process. Today's customers don't want to be sold; they want someone to help them make the right buying decision. They want someone who will educate them about the questions they should be asking in order to make the best buying decisions. They want someone who will act as a trusted partner rather than just a vendor. In order to become a trusted partner, you must listen closely to your customers, and listen well.

When you hold the right conversations with the right people, marketing becomes much easier and lot more effective. That's an outcome that every small business would like to see.