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Dialogue marketing emerged in the early 2000s as companies engaged willing consumers in an ongoing dialogue to create lasting relationships. [1] For example, based on data, marketers invite groups of likely consumers to connect with the company. The engagement process provides value to both the consumer and the company. Marketers use these opportunities as data collection points. The companies use the data to further customize their marketing messages and personalize the experience for their consumers and market segments. In exchange for sharing opinions, buying patterns, etc., consumers receive perks such as discounts, tips, and free trials as well as appropriate messaging from the company. [2]
To succeed, dialogue marketing requires that businesses understand their unique value and how it impacts consumers, identify their key customers and prospective customers, develop the appropriate messages and methods to engage them, implement a plan to reach out and connect with the right consumers, and to foster relationships with them. Measurement is a key component of dialogue marketing as it helps businesses track and measure their marketing and sales successes and failures and refine their strategy based on the feedback received. Comprising four essential stages, dialogue marketing integrates advertising, public relations and marketing into one strategy. Vendors include advertising agencies, marketing and branding companies, digital printers, data specialists, social media experts and loyalty and referral program designers. [3]
Combining traditional methods of advertising with technological advancements such as Web 2.0, social media, personalized microsites, variable data printing and blogs, marketers have found that dialogue marketing is both an efficient and effective means of spending their marketing dollars. In focusing marketing efforts on those individuals who are already open to engagement and creating opportunities for them to connect on their terms, businesses increase brand loyalty, referrals, cross-sales and repeat business. [4]
Dialogue marketing can track its roots to permission marketing [5] and relationship marketing, and is similar to engagement marketing and double loop marketing. A direct reaction to traditional push marketing, the goal of dialogue marketing is to develop ongoing and long-lasting relationships with the right consumers.
Dialogue marketing is based on the premise that engaging consumers in relevant and personal conversations is more important than ever. As technology arms consumers with new ways to ignore messaging, disconnect from branding and disengage from the marketplace altogether; marketers believe that connecting on a personal level with consumers who do or will buy because the company resonates with them helps companies differentiate themselves and stand out as leaders in the marketplace.
Dialogue marketing is a four-stage process designed to help companies develop long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with customers and consumers.
Companies who know who they are and who their customers are find themselves better positioned to share and connect with their target audience. [1] Dialogue marketing helps businesses appreciate their self-worth and commit to establishing and developing relationships with those consumers and customers who appreciate their unique value.
With a clear understanding of themselves and their intended audience, companies are able to develop clear messages and determine effective methods of engagement. Their strategy and tactical efforts are driven by their particular brand and the wants, needs and personality of their target markets. Dialogue marketing provides companies with access to the necessary data and the tools and resources to strategize a successful plan that fits their mold.
Dialogue Marketing uses a combination of traditional and technological efforts to reach customers, invite them to connect, foster ongoing relationships and forge new ones. Dialogue marketers work with companies to design customized engagement plans and processes that are not only effective and efficient but sustainable and measurable.
Depending upon a company’s customer profile, dialogue marketers may use outreach methods such as magazine ads, television commercials or radio spots with an incentive attached to invite consumers to visit a microsite or fill out a survey.
Dialogue marketers use automated systems to gather, store and track consumer data, such as communications preferences, product and service interests, demographics, technographics and other details. In addition, the dialogue marketing process implements an automated nurturing program to personalize messages, send them at specific times and deliver them via a variety of means – from direct mail to email. The consumer’s response or lack of a response to specific messages triggers additional invitations, requests, reminders or suggestions designed with the individual in mind. The same nurturing system can be integrated with loyalty and referral programs as well as up-sell and cross-sell promotions that are both relevant and timely. [6]
The dialogue marketing system is designed to track, measure and analyze results, nailing down the ever-elusive connection between sales and marketing by determining what’s working and what’s not. With this data, businesses can quickly change messaging, shift market focus and re-brand their products to continually stay valuable, relevant and connected to the right consumers – the ones who buy from them.
Personalized marketing, also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing, is a marketing strategy by which companies leverage data analysis and digital technology to deliver individualized messages and product offerings to current or prospective customers. Advancements in data collection methods, analytics, digital electronics, and digital economics, have enabled marketers to deploy more effective real-time and prolonged customer experience personalization tactics.
Database marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing.
Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response marketing. In contrast to direct marketing, advertising is more of a mass-message nature.
Marketing communications refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination. Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate a message to their desired market, or the market in general. It is also in charge of the internal communications of the organization. Marketing communication tools include advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sponsorship, communication, public relations, social media, customer journey and promotion.
Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Email marketing strategies commonly seek to achieve one or more of three primary objectives: build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. The term usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant's relationship with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing third-party ads.
Advertising management is how a company carefully plans and controls its advertising to reach its ideal customers and convince them to buy.
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and concepts into one large media base. Advertising campaigns utilize diverse media channels over a particular time frame and target identified audiences.
In marketing and consumer behaviour, brand loyalty describes a consumer's persistent positive feelings towards a familiar brand and their dedication to purchasing the brand's products and/or services repeatedly regardless of deficiencies, a competitor's actions, or changes in the market environment. It can also be demonstrated with other behaviors such as positive word-of-mouth advocacy. Corporate brand loyalty is where an individual buys products from the same manufacturer repeatedly and without wavering, rather than from other suppliers. Loyalty implies dedication and should not be confused with habit, its less-than-emotional engagement and commitment. Businesses whose financial and ethical values rest in large part on their brand loyalty are said to use the loyalty business model.
The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.
Engagement marketing is a marketing strategy that directly engages consumers and invites and encourages them to participate in the evolution of a brand or a brand experience. Rather than looking at consumers as passive receivers of messages, engagement marketers believe that consumers should be actively involved in the production and co-creation of marketing programs, developing a relationship with the brand.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to marketing:
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. It has significantly transformed the way brands and businesses utilize technology for marketing since the 1990s and 2000s. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callbacks, and on-hold mobile ringtones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.
A touchpoint can be defined as any way consumers can interact with a business organization, whether person-to-person, through a website, an app or any form of communication. When consumers connect with these touchpoints they can consider their perceptions of the business and form an opinion.
Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer and an organization through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen, customer engagement is "a customer’s motivationally driven, volitional investment of operant resources, and operand resources into brand interactions," which applies to online and offline engagement.
A target market, also known as serviceable obtainable market (SOM), is a group of customers within a business's serviceable available market at which a business aims its marketing efforts and resources. A target market is a subset of the total market for a product or service.
Brand networking is the engagement of a social networking service around a brand by providing consumers with a platform of relevant content, elements of participation, and a currency, score, or ranking. Brand networking creates communities that serve as interactive destinations to encourage brand participation online and off. This evolved level of user participation with the brand facilitates strong relationships with consumers, leverages sales, and generates fan equity.
The purchase funnel, or purchasing funnel, is a consumer-focused marketing model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey toward the purchase of a good or service.
Virtual engagement is a metric to determine the level of affinity between a company and its customers.
Emotional branding is a term used within marketing communication that refers to the practice of building brands that appeal directly to a consumer's emotional state, needs and aspirations. Emotional branding is successful when it triggers an emotional response in the consumer, that is, a desire for the advertised brand that cannot fully be rationalized. Emotional brands have a significant impact when the consumer experiences a strong and lasting attachment to the brand comparable to a feeling of bonding, companionship or love. Examples of emotional branding include the nostalgic attachment to the Kodak brand of film, bonding with the Jim Beam bourbon brand, and love for the McDonald's brand.
Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations automate repetitive tasks and consolidate multi-channel interactions, tracking and web analytics, lead scoring, campaign management and reporting into one system. It often integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platform (CDP) software.