Imperative 4: Engage Customers With Conversations

The days of one-way monologues at customers are long-gone. Marketers today must engage customers with conversations, solicit and act on customer feedback, and deliver experiences that are personalized, just-in-time, and relevant.

How are marketers doing this today? Download the Imperative 4 white paper now to find out.

We'd also love to hear your stories below:

Great video! Looking forward to reading the whitepaper.

Posted by: Sheila Johnston (Visit ) on 09/29/2010

B2B marketers seem to be slowly embracing social media more -- the ability to seek real-time feedback from customers can be so powerful, we as marketers need to ensure we set up the right infrastructure to capture and disseminate that feedback!

Posted by: Raimie Simon (Visit ) on 09/29/2010

I couldn't agree more with the sentiments captured on this site. Marketing is broken at so many companies, and marketers need to band together to spark change!

Posted by: Susan Riley (Visit ) on 09/29/2010

I enjoyed the whitepaper a great deal. Thank you for this content, I look forward to the future Imperatives!

Posted by: Jonathan Culp (Visit ) on 09/29/2010

Focusing on rich and authoritative content is a must for us. There is no point in putting links in influential blogs if consumers would not be able to gain insights from our content. We hire excellent project-based writers who collaborate with our marketing people to do first-rate content writing.

Posted by: Pam Iterman on 10/06/2010

A company should be open to suggestions and be able to convert these suggestions into product improvement. We are in the business of selling healthy snacks and we do engage in conversations with customers and prospects through LinkedIn and other relevant forums. We value the product development insights that we get daily from our numerous clients. Not taking action would be a grave mistake.

Posted by: M-Square on 10/06/2010

I am with you on that point. We always emphasize to our clients that no amount of listening and continuous communication will make a sale if in the first place, consumers do not have the need for a product or service.

Posted by: Richard Funton on 10/06/2010

First there should be a real need for your product. Once a product need is established, only then can social media marketing help promote your product. Network marketing is just a stepping stone to making your products reach the vast market. The most critical however is having a great product that stands out with or without SMM.

Posted by: TODD on 10/06/2010

We still rely on the traditional word of mouth as a means of getting noticed. Marketing through internet just supplements what we already gained through years of tried and tested traditional marketing. We sell largely based on social demand.

Posted by: Oliver Flare on 10/06/2010

Our partnership use Youtube channels and a facebook fanpage for our beverage products. These plus traditional marketing techniques help us collect social information. By closely reviewing and analyzing these collected data, we are able to determine possible areas of distribution for our beverage products.

Posted by: Anthony on 10/06/2010

Apart from listening through web forums, I believe we are here to equally support and educate our consumers. We market computers, laptops, and offer repair services. We get feedback from our customers through our blogs and other sites. On the other hand, they too should be able to get timely feedback from us in terms of customer support and help with each service or product that we have successfully marketed. If we give these, trust and loyalty will always follow.

Posted by: Berkeley on 10/06/2010

We had SMM to back us up when we were introducing a new line of cosmetic brand. Apart from doing our usual advertising in print, we engaged in posting video and image content on youtube and facebook sites. Joining forums was another. For us, these were one of the sure ways of introducing our fabulous cosmetic line last fall.

Posted by: Elton Clan on 10/06/2010

Our employers give importance to making us employees feel good about the company. That is why during online conversations and sharing with clients, we almost always carry over that good feeling onto our clients. One cannot ignore the importance of spreading good company vibes to consumers. It does have a multiplier effect. Maybe that is one of the reasons why our HR has always been engaging company front-liners in feel-good seminars and briefings.

Posted by: The staff on 10/06/2010

At times we do not want to read negative comments. However, these are feelers from customers that should not be ignored. Whenever we do coaching, we instill in our participants to handle negative comments in a constructive manner. We teach them not to be content with knowing the surface, but should put extra effort in drilling deep down into those customer sentiments and find out where they are coming from.

Posted by: WEISS on 10/06/2010

At times we do not want to read negative comments. However, these are feelers from customers that should not be ignored. Whenever we do coaching, we instill in our participants to handle negative comments in a constructive manner. We teach them not to be content with knowing the surface, but should put extra effort in drilling deep down into those customer sentiments and find out where they are coming from.

Posted by: WEISS on 10/06/2010

Again in any form of media, having a good PR with employees and customers will do wonders for the company. Whenever there is a good tweet about our product or service, we jump in right away and say the two words that will tell our customers how grateful we are. Sometimes, a sincere online Thank You is enough.

Posted by: Lake Tahoe on 10/06/2010

I am a practicing vet and I am currently doing radio shows that offer advice to pet owners. I am a fan of youtube ever since it came out. It has helped me promote my shows and I have had a good number of followers accross different states and even countries. Years ago, I did not even imagine that I would be able to help - globally. Youtube did bring positive changes to my career and life as well.

Posted by: Dr. D on 10/06/2010

Even with the current recession, marketing campaigns using various media platforms (facebook, youtube, tweeter, etc.) will continue to grow. Our company has also suffered some financial setbacks with the current state of our economy but we never curtailed online campaigns in our marketing plans and programs.

Posted by: Mary Dalton on 10/06/2010

If I may add, it is really frustrating to see great blog sites that have been left unattended. Some have been orphaned at a very early stage. I think as a potential client, it is a great turn-off to be landing on a site that has gone stale when initially it had the potential of becoming an interesting site worthy of wide readership and patronage.

Posted by: d.j. on 10/06/2010

Keeping our readers tuned in to our blogs is a daily challenge. It is important that we maintain our blogs by keeping the entries up-to-date and interesting to stir curiosity and maintain or achieve wide readership. That is why we a pay a high price to experts who help maintain and re-furbish our sites.

Posted by: G. F. Yee on 10/06/2010

Timely service and response is very critical in our business. That is why we make sure that we operate at least 16 hours of the day across selected time zones. We make sure that our teams are available whenever any client from different time zones are in need of online support or help with our product/service.

Posted by: Albert III on 10/06/2010

This is a fast-changing world of media. A few years ago, facebook and twitter were just products of someones ideas. Now, more than a hundred million people are into facebook and twitter. Our company is of course taking advantage of these social network venues by engaging in meaningulf and helpful conversations with clients. However, we make it a point to be honest and transparent in dealing with our online clients because we value customer trust.

Posted by: Lyric on 10/06/2010

We have become quite dependent on social media platforms like facebook and twitter. Much of our activity as a marketing arm has somehow been revolving around the use of marketing online tools. I have no doubt that this SMM revolution is just the beginning. We should all prepare for the next big thing in marketing online.

Posted by: kane doug on 10/06/2010

We had SMM to back us up when we were introducing a new line of cosmetic brand. Apart from doing our usual advertising in print, we engaged in posting video and image content on youtube and facebook sites. Joining forums was another. For us, these were one of the sure ways of introducing our fabulous cosmetic line last fall.

Posted by: Elton Clan on 10/06/2010

We had SMM to back us up when we were introducing a new line of cosmetic brand. Apart from doing our usual advertising in print, we engaged in posting video and image content on youtube and facebook sites. Joining forums was another. For us, these were one of the sure ways of introducing our fabulous cosmetic line last fall.

Posted by: Elton Clan on 10/06/2010

Engaging in conversation with our customers has never been a problem. We try to accept criticisms with positivity. We have had our share of detractors who tweet and blog, but who does not. We just select the constructive ones and act on it by reviewing where we went wrong. We do not converse just for the sake of getting a conversation rolling about our service. We want to fix the problem if any, and that is more important to us.

Posted by: Lemrick on 10/06/2010

To drive sales, we have used soft conversions. Our sites includes a sign up for free trials of our weight losing gadgets. We also created a forum that discusses use of the gadget, health benefits, delivery services, and many interesting topics related to our product.

Posted by: B.M. on 10/06/2010

Stirring public interest to try our new cosmetic surgery business based in California was a challenge. There were already a lot of providers in this field but we were optimistic that we would get the attention we want. We employed persuasive and headline grabbing press releases to attract the crowd that we wanted to capture. Posting in frequently visited and relevant blog sites did boost awareness on the safety of our procedures.

Posted by: Troy Jr. on 10/06/2010

We had SMM to back us up when we were introducing a new line of cosmetic brand. Apart from doing our usual advertising in print, we engaged in posting video and image content on youtube and facebook sites. Joining forums was another. For us, these were one of the sure ways of introducing our fabulous cosmetic line last fall.

Posted by: Elton Clan on 10/06/2010

Blogs have been our source of information about our clients and it is how we connect to them and to potential ones too. At first we were weary about going into blogs because of the potential damage to our business in case there are blog attacks. But we were not daunted by it, instead we look at it as a challenge to do better. Moreover, there are ways to tracking down these bloggers who are observed to be becoming too influential in a negative sense.

Posted by: Win2 on 10/05/2010

I surely agree. Even the applicable laws we have on copywriting, publishing, rights of publishers, etc. may have to undergo some shake-up too because of this social media marketing revolution. I see laws applicable to these being revised or updated so that it may cover social media issues or conflicts.

Posted by: Leslie Egan on 10/05/2010

The revolution will continue to change the way we do business, even the way we write. For example, when writing a book about e-commerce and social networks one has to be aware of what is new in social media. The speed with which new networks are mushrooming will leave us constantly tweaking our writings on the subject. It may no longer be unusual to find endless notes just to update a statement.

Posted by: Trivia on 10/05/2010

I think people who are joining the bandwagon of promoting services through the internet may have to realize that going full blast requires attention and preparation. A careful assessment of your specific goals and objective will have to be given serious thought. Another area of consideration is your company's budget, how much and where to source it. Otherwise, your social media marketing efforts may prove to be futile or may not be implemented at all.

Posted by: m. viccaro on 10/05/2010

Our business is in providing training and coaching. So far we have been using LinkedIn to promote our service. Youtube is also another channel for our affiliate business and sister company.

Posted by: P. Delton on 10/05/2010

Tweeting and blogging has been part of our daily marketing activity. We follow a schedule and do not do sporadic posting. Even the simplest tweet and blog needs a plan of action. We want to be efficient, so we always follow a plan and by doing so, our staff stay committed to that schedule or task at hand. Easier too for us to measure performance because expectations from marketing staff have been clearly laid out.

Posted by: gauntley on 10/05/2010

Monitoring campaign performance is must in our service firm. We have sought help from consultants to put in place a Google Alert system for us. I believe this will aid us in promoting product awareness which we badly need right now. We are not in a hurry though because we are very much aware that this will take months or even years before a desired result is achieved.

Posted by: ashton d. on 10/05/2010

We are constantly fine-tuning our marketing strategies. We do back-linking activities but if after a good number of months we do not gain any headway, we make it a point to review were we failed and make the necessary adjustments like transferring to new media sites or improving our campaign content.

Posted by: carter and elery on 10/05/2010

Relationships between customers and service providers are definitely evolving and one of the drivers of change is definitely the social web. We in our company go to great lengths to use community forums to find out more about our clients needs. We found out from customer feedbacks that friends, family and people with whom they have common interests have a big influence on a customers buying preferences or product loyalty.

Posted by: karylle on 10/05/2010

Last week we had a very interesting discussion with prospective business process outsourcing experts. We do not have enough time to train and select people to market and advertise our products online so we had opted to outsource it. Though we are going to outsource it, we do intend to stay involved so we are maintaining an in-house expert who will review, analyze and report on the results of the contractors marketing efforts.

Posted by: Brother F on 10/04/2010

We have been using facebook and you tube to generate traffic to our business website. Just last quarter, we completed a 30-second video of our product. So far, there have been positive effects on our image and market presence. We are also planning to hold promotional campaigns that will culminate before the year ends. Indeed social media networking has helped us disseminate promos and events that are as effective as traditional advertising but more cost effective.

Posted by: Lark, Suzanne on 10/04/2010

They say it is the new Word of Mouth advertising. Moreover, advertising through youtube, facebook, tweeter, and a host of others will surely generate leads for your business because of the millions of people who frequent these sites. I expect an influx of more social media channels in the next year that will challenge existing ones. Meanwhile, the name of the game for existing channels would be innovation.

Posted by: Crux Ltd on 10/04/2010

Despite budget cuts, we actually foresee an increase in budget allocation for marketing. About 8 to 10 percent of our marketing budget is projected to be spent on social media marketing. Our core business is retailing lingerie and women love to talk about our product and ask so many questions about material, size, color, texture - everything under the sun. It is very important for us to collect these data and come up with better products.

Posted by: Eve on 10/04/2010

Our company has since allocated budgets for improving our workforce, especially those who are the companys front-liners involved in handling customer interaction online. It is crucial to our business (ours is a health and fitness company) that our representatives online are pleasant, friendly, and easy to deal with. To ensure this, we do spend on trainings on effective customer relations and marketing techniques.

Posted by: Dustin Ely on 10/04/2010

Social media covers all areas of marketing. It markets personalities too. During election campaigns, these are tools that cannot be ignored. These personalities have directly or indirectly used this type of media to get their message across. What could be a better way to gain a huge amount of following? It is social media marketing and networking.

Posted by: Zenon on 10/04/2010

More and more companies are taking a pro-active stance as regards providing total consumer satisfaction. People in marketing can definitely attest to this. Changes are going to happen and the decision to take advantage of these social media tools to communicate a product or service is imperative. It is not the season for complacency and passivity.

Posted by: Indi on 10/04/2010

It cannot be denied that social media tools has helped many in terms of easy access to goods and services. I believe that the marketing revolution has made our lives as consumers more convenient. In my opinion, consumers have been shaping social media tools and the many related innovations.

Posted by: Flanders on 10/04/2010

We want to be clear about who we are, and what we represent. This need was provided by our websites. Also, conversations through prospective customers through Myspace has helped us a lot in making our presence felt. Marketing has never been this easy and relaxed.

Posted by: Custer T. on 10/04/2010

Just a few months ago, we opted to use facebook to house our products' fan page. Early next year, we plan to create a new website that will showcase services that are affiliated with our products. We are a small business to begin with but our plans to go big in the next few years are already in place. Of course, social media marketing will play continue to play an important role in our ventures.

Posted by: F.R. Oliver on 10/04/2010

It would be a grave mistake for a marketing strategist to overlook the benefits of social media. For us in the health care industry, we use social media as a tool to monitor our performance. Our reputation as a health provider is one of our priorities. We make sure we have people 24/7 working for us to monitor customer feedback and resolution of service issues.

Posted by: Endo LW on 10/03/2010

I design and sell costumes. So far I have had good reviews through different social media channels. About a third of these reviews are comments on how fast and reliable my customer service staff are in replying to inquiries about my costumes (from type of fabrics, clothing care down to appropriate size, return policies, etc). I think the decision to add online customer service did a great boost to my product sales.

Posted by: Denzel Diaz on 10/03/2010

We have set-up a micro-blogging account with twitter. Though our brand already has a strong market presence we still want to further strengthen our name. Our goal is to try to capture other niches and get a strong foothold on these before our competitors do.

Posted by: C. Atkins on 10/03/2010

Conversing with our customers through social media sites makes us real to them. There is an element of being up-close and personal whenever employees and customers interact through the web. Being aware of how important employee-to-customer connection is to our product/service, we make it a point to invest on in-house employee seminars on handling customers and building customer rapport.

Posted by: dunn m-2010 on 10/03/2010

We did not have any background in using the web as a marketing tool for our restaurant business. But a year ago, a young frequent customer asked for our website and was surprised to hear that we didn't have one. That became a trigger for us to seek help and set up a site for our restaurant specials, events, even menus. I would say that at the onset, there wasn't much difference. But in time, we were able to build up our customer base and improve service through customer feedback. On hindsight, I am glad that we did take that question seriously, otherwise we might have been left behind.

Posted by: Felisimo Trivali on 10/03/2010

Initially my partners and I thought that it cannot happen, but selling our artworks using the internet to promote our gallery shows across the country was indeed encouraging. Gone are the days of advertising gallery shows through print media. We have been in this business for more than a decade and social media marketing through the web has taken our art business to unexpected new heights.

Posted by: Diether, Miami Fl on 10/03/2010

One of the advantages of having a product discussed online is that it sparks more threads of conversation. A lot of buyers want to be heard, a great many also want to react and express opinion or empathize. Having tweeter or facebook within reach, they can now choose to discuss a very good purchase or simply complain about a bad service. Manufacturers/service providers should not take these for granted.

Posted by: France G. on 10/03/2010

Leveraging on social media marketing has been one of the strategies of many companies nowadays. We are in the business of retail and wholesale and we acknowledge the fact that serious efforts to market our products online did have very positive effects on our ROI for the last two years. Knowing our customers' preferences and spending habits are vital information to our company.

Posted by: Delaware on 10/03/2010

For 2011, our marketing group expects an increase in our over-all budget for marketing. A big chunk of this budget is going to be allocated to social media marketing. Indeed the so called "Marketing Revolution" has had huge impact on our corporate plans and programs.

Posted by: Ellen Chuck on 10/03/2010

With the popularity of social media marketing channels, we started to hire social media marketers who take care of market research. Part of their job description is listening to what our customers have to say about our product/service through online conversations. Many years ago, we never thought that such a position in our plantilla would exist. Now, we are hiring more professionals to fill in these positions.

Posted by: Diane - HR on 10/03/2010