Better Digital Customer Conversations

Today's changing marketplace increasingly gives consumers control over their brand relationships, including the terms of engagement. Emboldened and empowered by technology, consumers voice their preferences to you, the marketer. They tell you - implicitly and explicitly -- where, when, what, and how often they are willing to engage with your brand. Perceptive marketers are listening to and capitalizing on what their customers and prospects are saying as well as to what they're not saying, but doing. These marketers are combining off- and on-line real-time behavior information to produce a customer profile that is both higher in resolution and accuracy. This, in turn, leads to greater precision in 1-to-1 marketing communications and new approaches to executing and measuring the campaigns that present them to consumers. Marketers are moving away from transactionbased direct-to-consumer marketing campaign tactics (e.g., volume email blasts) to interactive ones that are more conversational and continuous. Many of the brand interactions occur via digital media, as they support a bi-directional flow of information. It's like marketing to a consumer audience that comprises hundreds of thousands of segments - i.e., "segments of one." And, it is highly automated. If you intend to use conversational marketing tactics for richer, more mutually rewarding brand engagements with your customers, here's some interactive best practice tips you should know. Marketers recognize that following tips like these help mitigate risk while shortening time needed to develop their own interactive marketing competency. You will, too.