Today marketing is all about conversations. Especially online marketing. Consumers are no longer content to be the passive recipients of a canned message delivered on a corporate Web site, no matter how much it's glitzed up with fancy graphics and animation. Consumers want to be involved. They want to ask questions, make suggestions, and share ideas. And they want a response.
This change in consumer mood explains the explosion of blogs -
over 70 million of them at last count. The change in mood explains a phenomenon perhaps more explosive even than blogs - the raging popularity of social networks such as
Facebook and
LinkedIn. Businesses should pay attention to LinkedIn in particular. It's a collaborative community of professionals exchanging ideas, tactics, strategies, job opportunities, and much more.
If your company's Web site is essentially an online billboard, you're not giving customers what they want. Here are a few ways you can make your site conversational.
Add a blog. Give customers an opportunity to talk to you about any topic on which you choose to write.
Add conversational pages. You don't necessarily need a full blown blog for customers to talk to you. In some cases commenting functionality can be added to a static Web page, creating a "mini blog", or what I call an "in-between blog".
Add an information center. Have a section of your Web site dedicated to announcements, press releases, personnel updates, industry links, and other time sensitive/useful information.
Add an RSS feed. Once you start doing the above, give customers the ability to subscribe to your Web site, so they don't have to come looking for all the new information you publish.
Write content in the first person. Which would you rather hear? "ABC Company delivers innovative solutions to the construction industry," or "We can solve your problems"? Make your site personal and engaging (and persuasive) by writing as if you were writing a letter to a single individual.
Add or enhance your contact form. Does your Web site make it easy for customers to get in touch with you? If so, do you encourage customers to use it? Do you make it easy for them to categorize a request or a question? Do you explain how and when you will respond, and who will do the responding? A robust contact form is no longer a frill, it's a must.
If you've invested in a search marketing program (a wise choice!), it's all the more reason to update and "conversationalize" your Web site. Once customers find you on the search engines, you'll want them to stick around and come back.
