Dialog Marketing

Dialogue marketing methods

There are number of different ways to implement dialogue marketing measures. All that matters is that the advertising offers a response element, in other words the customer must be able to respond to the advertising. The customer response also needs to be measurable. Clicking on an online ad, calling a special phone number, or writing an email to a specific address are some conceivable responses in this respect. Typical dialogue marketing strategies include:

• Fully or partially addressed mailshots
• Telephone marketing
• Customer magazines or brochures
• Couponing (online/offline)
• Sampling (sending or handing out product samples)
• Customer cards (loyalty or bonus programs)
• Email marketing (newsletters, mailings)
• Traditional advertisements with a response element
• Radio or TV commercials (where customers are persuaded to pick up the phone or visit a store)
• Online ads (banner ads, sponsored links)
• Social media marketing

Examples of common response elements

For a dialogue to be established, response elements, which encourage the customer to take a certain action, have to be integrated. For those to work, it must be easy for the customer to respond to them. Complicated redirects should therefore be avoided. Among other techniques, the following are used as response elements:

• Persuading the customer to call a phone number
• Money-back guarantee if the customer doesn’t like or is not satisfied with the product
• Early-bird offers
• Discounts offered in exchange for coupons

Offering customers extra added value, for example in the form of a promotional gift or free trial subscription, significantly lowers their inhibitions to respond.

Dialogue marketing and e-commerce

Owing to highly interactive online channels and the possibilities of extensive web analytics, dialogue marketing has evolved into the quintessential marketing strategy of e-commerce. Tracking tools can be used to collect and analyze the results of online dialogue marketing in detail. For instance, in the case of email newsletters, the appropriate software can register open rates, clicks on ad links, and even misdirected emails. As a result, the reading behavior and user activity of recipients can be clearly measured.

Web tracking analyses of online advertising formats (content or display ads) provide in-depth information on the success of advertising measures. Here, large advertising marketers bundle various websites into advertising networks, where ads are then placed by ad servers. That makes it possible to centrally determine what ads are being seen and clicked on by what customers and if they are otherwise interacting on the target website. The gathered data is mainly used to create anonymized user profiles and analyze user behavior (behavioral targeting).

Communication channels that allow customers to interact online in real time are another option when it comes to dialogue marketing. Accordingly, online stores often have a live chat feature to complement their traditional hotline. Dialogue marketing via social media is also proving effective in forming a more personal customer bond. Traditional direct marketing is increasingly making way for direct and informal customer communication, including through image or video posts.

Goals of dialogue marketing

Besides the goals of increasing brand awareness and thus sales, the customer relationship takes center stage in dialogue marketing. Personally interacting with customers and targeting them with suitable products leads to less waste coverage and a stronger customer bond. Such measures generate more attention than traditional advertising and therefore have a greater impact over the long term. Last but not least, another perk of dialogue marketing measures is that they can also be implemented with a smaller budget.