A post about a video about a dialogue concerning intimacy

We recently provided one of our clients with a few principles for guiding their dialogue marketing efforts.

While most people seem to understand what the word 'dialogue' means, when you add the word 'marketing' to it, the term Dialogue Marketing seems somehow to enter a word nebulizer only to emerge in a thousand little definitions. I'll blame it on marketing. When the American Marketing Association defines marketing like this, you know anything it touches will come with a generous dose of ambiguity...

"Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders." [ref]

What I beleive differentiates dialogue marketing as a term and a practice is that it doesn't see the customer relationship as a thing to be managed, as much as it is a relationship to be engaged.

When one engages someone, it usually carries with it an obligation to understand the other person's wants, needs and priorities...understanding comes through a reciprocal dialogue about what each party can do for the other...and what each wants from the relationship. Sometimes the conversation ends up defining the relationship. The alternative, for marketers, is to talk to your self (kind of like blog posting ;).

Here's an oldie but goody on where a lot of marketing and advertising has been coming from in this discussion...(Thanks for the link Steph)

and here are three qualities and a definition of marketing that leverages dialogue:

1. A vehicle-neutral means of asking, listening and responding to the priorities, needs and wants of individual customers and prospects.

2. A means of identifying and matching an investment in marketing against a relationship's value...from both the marketer's and the individual's perspective.

3. Support for a business strategy that pursues customer intimacy above low price or innovation models.

A defintion: Marketing that engages individual customers and the organization in a reciprocal conversation.

What's in your definition?