Conversational Marketing with, ya know, Face-to-Face Conversations

October 6, 2007

Word of mouth marketing has become truly personal. Recently, CBS profiled BuzzAgent, a company using the unique tactic of unpaid “agents” who “market” products to their personal contacts. Friends, family, business contacts are all up for grabs.

(Sorry I couldn’t embed the link, CBS does not allow YouTube to show embed code) Here is the location on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWWoRcN-BK0

What made this really compelling to me is how personal this is. The agents are literally just talking with their friends and family to get their thoughts on a product or service. The agents report back the good, bad and ugly to BuzzAgent who then passes this along to the company. The agent and contacts receive free products and coupons to thank them, yes, the agents are remarkably unpaid.

I know I could talk with my very opinionated friends and get true, honest feedback on any product. What company doesn’t want that? This is really the way to know your customer, through true, trusted conversations.

This is cool because it truly touches the customer, how many companies REALLY talk to their customers–sure, we say we know our customer, we say we reach them, but do we really?

This is bold because it takes it from cold impersonal “business” conversation to a warm, intimate conversation with a friend, a “hey whaddaya think conversation.” We all love to offer our opinion (at least most of us do), so this is truly getting to the conversation.

It rocks because it’s taking marketing where it should be, into the actualy lives of an individual from a trusted person, not a “trusted brand” which is so impersonal.

What you can do:

• Engage with other bloggers
• Give products or services to people who trust you (personal relationships) for their honest feedback
• Start a conversation with one of your customers, is there someone you have a close relationship with that you can talk to?

Posted in Be Bold, Conversation Marketing, Buzz Marketing by Laura Cunningham