Chris Barrows, The Business Coach cites a portion of Naked Conversations Chapter 3 where Yossi Vardi tells the story of how his son and three friends founded Mirabilis, whose product ICQ became AOL Instant Messenger. He uses it to frame a talk on Conversational Marketing
In comments, Beverly Hamilton [link is to her promotional website--not a blog] braids conversational and viral marketing as one and the same thing. Lots of people do this and it always makes me a bit nervous, even though I'm going against conventional jargon.
The two have many similarities. They both leverage word of mouth in the hope of low cost, high return product or service adoption. But it seems to me that they are separated from each other at inception.
Lets look at the generics first:
I've also had quite a few conversations in my life and blogging has increased both the quantity and quality of them. Many conversations have enriched me. others have entertained me, redirected me, led me to valuable information, saved me money, warned me out of dangerous waters or urban neighborhoods. Some have hurt my feelings, inspired me...Quite a few are very forgettable but only one a mugger in New York City in 1968 threatened my health.
I've had a few viruses in my day and all of them threatened my health. While people invite me to join a conversation, virus carriers attack me, often surreptitiously. In a few cases, they laid me down for several days with fever and other nasty side effects. Worse, I inadvertently infested people I loved. When I was done with these viral intrusions I was weakened by the experience. I could extend this observation into computer viruses as well, but let's leave that aside for now.
Instead, let's look at conversational v. viral marketing. While they often appear in the same manner, they really are quite different or so it seems to me.
A viral marketing campaign may start on a whiteboard. They want to take something and push it out one-directionally. They hope to infect customers with something; to inject an additive into word of mouth engines. In almost all cases, the objective is money or getting someone elected. If they give you something, viral marketers are measuring that in terms of cost of goods sold.
By contrast a Conversational Marketer's objective is to establish a mutually beneficial dialog. They also want an ROI but they understand that it is easier and faster to achieve this by being generous in conversation, by establishing credibility, transparency and trust. They understand they can make more money from better products and services by listening to customers and prospects some of whom may enter the conversation passionately filled with rage. By listen to the enraged and the impassioned, conversational marketers figure out how to adjust course and give people what they want, rather than try to persuade them to buy something they don't want.
If you have not yet figured out why I post nearly 1000 times a year, let me explain that I am a conversational marketer. I'd love it if every reader buys my book, hires me to consult or pays a conference producer because I'm speaking at their event. But if you don't do that, then it's nice when you just come here leave comments here, or pick up what I'm talking about on your own blog or at your water cooler or in your car pool or over your backyard fence. Yes, I'm marketing myself, and I'm trying to build a personal brand. To do this, I try to be generous as often as I can.
But the only virus I want to spread is enthusiasm for the emerging social media.
