The conversational marketing model is not really new at all, vis a vis Seth Godin and many others, but it is a major change: When we buy, we discuss the choices with friends and, as Godin points out, we have a lot more friends because of social media. If I’m buying an LED monitor, I’ll ask my 400 Twitter followers about their choices. If I’m going to try out a new restaurant I may ask my 170 Facebook friends if they’ve eaten there (I’ll go to Facebook because more of them are locals, a key conversational marketing distinction).

Forget everything you know about marketing

As a marketer this means that everything you know from the past is bullshit. Advertising, publicity, brand promotion, logos, graphic design, copywriting, hype, market research (the directed kind), everything. There are no logos in social media. No one really cares what a blog looks like as long as the info is interesting. Those people who fill their Twitter page backgrounds with pitches and links don’t get followed by me. Facebook is entirely about conversation, even photos and games are designed to encourage comment streams.

Marketing was a guessing game

Am I being glib with the ‘bullshit’ distinction? No, because its true- we never really knew ahead of time what marketing strategies and tactics would actually work. This was always the not very well-hidden ’secret’ of marketing: Marketers, in spite of all their creativity, focus groups, panels and strategic brand management, never actually know why some things work and others don’t. Until now.

The market tells us what to make and how to improve it, so listen up. Go beta.

To be a conversational marketer you have to be a part of the conversation, a participant. That means you start on the sidelines and listen to learn what others want, need, wish for and dislike. Then you go back to our company or client and you tell them so they can make those products. In the meantime you identify influencers and you share beta prototypes with them, emphasizing that these are beta because they still require the market to test them, to kick the tires, break the interface, find the bugs and suggest changes. Google, for example, excels at the beta release model, in fact they don’t take most products out of beta- they continuously improve based on input and how customers use the products.

Transparency is your only choice

During this stage you enter the conversation, making it totally clear that you are on the product team, and you convey the input back to your design team and your customer experience team. You also set them up to start listening and conversing. That’s the entire conversational marketing model.
No ads. No logo or branding. A simple name that’s memorable. No radio, TV, outdoor or banners. No girls in bikinis handing out freebies to drunken idiots.

Are we really abandoning creative? No, we’re substituting discipline.

Can you do videos and white papers? You can do anything you want as long as it adds to the conversation in a positive manner. If an ad gets you talking about the product with others then it may be valuable. However, that ad must have been conceived within the context of an existing conversation. Here’s an example:
Apple is running an iPhone ad on the back cover of New Yorker. It targets small business users and consists of an interface shot with application icons. There are call-outs to each icon that feature a quick description of the app and its small business value. I read the entire ad because I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with friends about using an iPhone to run my business from any location. Apple knows that conversation is going on and they made that ad specifically for me (and the thousands of mes out there participating in that conversation). It is a highly targeted, value-adding ad that supports the conversation.

I’d suggest that anyone in the marketing business think this through. It is not a change you have any control over. You can’t slow it down or influence it. You can learn from it and enhance it.
Join the conversation.