Here's a follow up post by Doc Searles (co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto) about marketing. He just posted this morning, which was quite timely because I was just thinking about this. Yesterday three CIOs from technology suppliers spoke to MESA--ostensibly about CIO-stuff. Obviously all the slides had to be vetted by marketing so that the "approved" message goes out. Also so that they could take the opportunity in front of end users to push the marketing message. One guy was frank about it--at the end of the talk he said something like "I let marketing throw in a couple of slides" to which he spoke briefly on. Another guy had the marketing slides up front and he presented them as if they were part of his presentation. I wondered when the marketing was going to stop and information was going to start. (Reminded me of his boss a couple of years ago at a forum where he took twice his alloted time and delivered a marketing message instead of the topic.) The third CIO really didn't have much in the way of marketing. This isn't limited to people I cover, however. I've seen editors speak and deliver marketing messages about their magazines rather than cover the topic.
To all of you--READ THIS. Thanks.
Can marketing be conversational?. Not long after Cluetrain came out, Jakob Nielsen floored me by pointing out something that should have been obvious but proved easy to miss: that the authors [base "]defected[per thou] from marketing and took sides with markets against it. When we wrote we are not seat s or eyeballs or end users or consumers, and our reach exceeds your grasp. deal with it [sigma] the first person we was individuals seeking to escape marketing[base ']s grasp. The second person we were addressing was marketing itself. I think this is a very big reason why Cluetrain still resonates today. Marketing is hardly any less graspy and barely more conversational, except in a few places. Such as, presumably, the Conversational Marketing Summit.
In the weeks leading up to the Summit my friend Peter Hirshberg urged me to provide helpful input for a white paper he was writing with others, including Steve Hayden of Ogilvy, a legendary copywriter (Apple[base ']s [base "]1984″, among countless others). The white paper was to frame its thinking around Cluetrain, eight years after marketing began not to get its points.
Here[base ']s what I sent him, which now runs at the front of the White Paper (wanring: it[base ']s a .pdf)[sigma]
The framing for conversational marketing should be conversation, not marketing. Think about what you want in a conversation, and let that lead your marketing.
- The purpose of conversation is to create and improve understanding, not for one party to [base "]deliver messages[per thou] to the other. That would be rude.
- There is no [base "]audience[per thou] in a conversation. If we must label others in conversation, let[base ']s call them partners.
- People in productive conversation don[base ']t repeat what they[base ']re saying over and over. They learn from each other and move topics forward.
- Conversations are about talking, not announcing. They[base ']re about listening, not surveying. They[base ']re about paying attention, not getting attention. They[base ']re about talking, not announcing.
- [base "]Driving[per thou] is for cars and cattle, not conversation.
- Conversation is live. Its constantly moving and changing, flowing where the interests and ideas of the participants take it. Even when conversations take the form of email, what makes them live is current interest on both sides.
What this means for conversational marketing is that brands must be living things too. Not just emblems. Those that succeed will be as liveas open to the flow and diversion of ideasas the market conversations they participate in.
Live brands participate in market conversations in a manner that is:
- Real. Conversational marketing is carried out by human beings, writing and speaking in their own voices, for themselvesnot just for their employers.
- Constant. Conversational marketings heartbeat is the human one, not some media schedule. Brands need to work incessantly to be understood within the context of the market conversation and to earn and keep the respect of their conversational partners.
- Genuinely interested. Intellectual engagement cant be fakedat least for long. Current interest is what keeps conversations going, and its the key to sustained brand presence.
- Intent on learning. Every participant who stays with the conversation learns. Humans are distinguished by their unlimited capacity to learn. This should be no less true of brands than it is of individuals.
- Humble. The term [base "]branding[per thou] was born in the cattle industry and borrowed by advertising and mass media at the height of the Industrial Age. In those days the power to inform was concentrated in the hands of a few giant companies. Now it[base ']s in everybody[base ']s hands.
- Attentive. In the old days, brands wanted everybody else to pay attention to them. Now brands need to pay attention to everybody else.
- Personal. No individual outsources their conversation or their education. This is no less true of brands than of people. Because brands today are people. Smart brands reward individual employees for engaging in market converstions.
Can marketing be all those things? I¬[sgl dagger] have my doubts. So does this blog (not sure who the writer is), which offers a paragraph that makes me wince:
¬[sgl dagger][base ']There is no audience in a conversation.[base '] I agree with this, however there is an audience for a blog. Labeling people in a conversation a [OE]partner[base '] suggests equality. But as this applies to marketing it is the wrong suggestion. A partner doesn[base ']t try to get you to buy stuff you don[base ']t need/want. The implication that the blogosphere is a conversation; that we are all partners; therefore people marketing to us in this [OE]conversation[base '] are our partners is creepy. Another point to note is that there is a backchannel in the blogosphere. Many of us get emails requesting this that or the other get some exposure. Conversations are transparent to all participants.
I remember struggling with a term that wasn[base ']t [base "]audience[per thou] and was truly conversational. [base "]Partner[per thou] was the best I could come up with at the time. What else do you call someone you[base ']re in conversation with? Maybe one of you can come up with a better answer. In any case, point taken. In fact, it[base ']s a point I[base ']d make as well. The jury is out on whether marketing can be truly conversational. Peter and Steve believe it can. I[base ']d like to help them try, which is what I[base ']m doing here. If anybody can do it, they[base ']re the ones. But the jury is still out. That[base ']s the rest of us.
[Doc Searls Weblog]
9:17:27 AM 
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