I recently had a great discussion with my delegates at a recent seminar I held. One of those challenging ones that shifts’ everyone’s thinking. As a group we talked about how we often fear customer rejection when, in fact, what we should really fear is customer indifference. A topic I’m inclined to get on my soapbox about!

In it’s most simplistic terms, there are two types of marketing…old school, traditional. It’s all about communications where we assume people are listening, we are comfortable telling the prospective customer, existing client, colleague, supplier how good we are. Commuication is all one way. Worst of all, your competitors are doing it too! And the practical examples of this; advertising in the local rag, glossy magazines, direct mail or dead tree media as it’s now called! Even basic websites are starting to fall into this category, where return on investment is disappearing quickly, if it ever existed at all?

The second is what I call conversational marketing, engaging with the market place, the customer. It’s about ideas generation, exploring future products and services together, provoking a positive, interactive reaction from customers whether old or new. Creating a marketing campaign that fires their imagination which in turn fires yours. Sounds far more vibrant, far more dynamic doesn’t it? Oh a little exciting too!

What do I mean by this? Well rather than allowing your customers indifference to your business being maintained, it’s about starting to think creatively about marketing campaigns that your customer finds appealing, where ideas not service are at the forefront. I’m talking about online marketing, viral marketing on the web, YouTube, a product/service with a true and I mean true differential advantage! Something where you revolutionise the customer experience in your industry! Or you package your offering in a new way like Radiohead did with their (only if your brand is well established) new album in late 2007, which allowed customers to chose what price they paid.

Radical stuff? Frightening? Uncomfortable? Expensive? Well, try this…imagine the way in which you have marketed in the past is denied to you. You can do anything with your previous budget. How would you engage in ‘marketing conversation’ with customers using non traditional marketing?