OK. I’ve stepped in it now. I agreed to give the “keynote” for a local marketing seminar.
My assignment is to speak for 45 minutes. My subject is “what is interactive marketing?”
I could really use your help…if you get a chance, please shoot me a note that answers the keynote question from your perspective…
WHAT IS INTERACTIVE MARKETING? (Read Wikipedia definition here)
Even if you send a few bullet points, or thought starters or perhaps a few ideas of what it is NOT…
I expect I’ll get very different answers from all of you…and I plan to use a few excerpts from your comments as part of my intro…just to make it clear that this question is nearly impossible to answer “correctly”. Or perhaps that’s not true. Maybe you KNOW what is interactive marketing?
Either way, please do me the favor…write me back… 10 – 250 words is all I’m asking for…please?!
A bit more background…The event organizer wants to focus on ways to get, keep and grow customer relationships online.
Other speakers that day will address:
- Search marketing
- User experience
- Email, blogs, social media
- Strategic planning
- Engaging the user
- Measuring success
So there seems to be a focus on practical tactics leading to measurable results.
Help?
Interactive Marketing is the dialogue between consumers and producers conducted in a way to benefit both groups.
In more traditional business models, marketing is situated between the two with the goal of matching available products with consumer desires. That process starts with the product as the constraint (as in, “You must sell this.”) and ends when a correct target demographic has been located.
Interactive marketing serves as advocate for both consumers and producers, shaping both to find an optimal business relationship. The constraint is no longer the product but rather the depth of the conversation. Discovering what different consumer groups need can generate more useful products, and those products in turn may permit a new user group to form around it.
I think interactive marketing also includes open API development by the community of users. It is not simply that potential customers are invited to speak their mind. They are also empowered to create their own improvements.
Pat-
The Internet now opens up new doors to marketing that previously did not exist, and Interactive Marketing is in its infancy. Interactive Marketing allows an individual fan to directly interact with their favorite team, their favorite players, fellow fans and sponsors, as you have previously mentioned, but it includes so much more. Interactive marketing allows a team, a player or an organization to create and sell products and to distribute inside information to fans based on their personal preferences. Interactive marketing allows teams to accumulate data on fan preferences and tailor their promotional packages and information feeds on a personalized basis. No longer are the fans solely recipients of product sales and news updates – fans can interact with teams and players and determine what and how they interact, whether it is in product or ticket purchases, or how they give and receive information. And last but not least, Interactive Marketing can occur on a global scale. It’s a very exciting times to be in marketing.
I’ve recently published a book entitled “Electronic Fan Relationship Management” that may be of interest. Here’s a link:http://www.GlobalSportsFans.com.
By the way, congratulations on the win last night.
Dr Bob
Interactive marketing is about helping organizations leverage the communications opportunities created by technology. People use technology to get and share information — i.e. they use a phone to do more than just talk (they also buy things, make donations, find directions, take/send pictures and video), they play games for more than just entertainment (to learn and build community), etc. Technology has created new ways for people to create, absorb and share information — and interactive marketing is the process of helping them do that, particularly when it comes to products, organizations, issues/causes.
Hi Pat,
I didn’t have any great thoughts but I knew Chris Brogan (http://chrisbrogan.com/) might. Shorter that Chris Baggott’s comment but has similar key idea: “traditional” marketing often infers the bullhorn where as interactive marketing infers exchange of information and leveraging that new info to gain value (ideally for both parties).
Sincerely,
John Blue
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Christopher Brogan
Date: Sep 8, 2007 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: interesting thoughts on interactive marketing Fwd: What is “interactive’ marketing?
Hi John et al–
The value of social networks and social media on interactive marketing is in how the organization chooses to execute the relationship. Marketing often infers the bullhorn approach of shouting out the value of a product to the most possible potential customers.
I view the social media uses of interactive marketing to be a means for organizations to reach passionate users or energetic advocates, and to empower them to do even more promoting and evangelizing. The tools are a way to reach individuals and small groups, establish relationships, and build a value exchange between the organization and the passionate people.
Hope this helps.
[...] Good friend, Pat Coyle, asks, “What is Interactive Marketing?“. [...]
FYI, John Wall and Christopher Penn talk about interactive marketing
on their show “Marketing Over Coffee”. John contributed some content
to Chris Baggott’s book “Email Marketing By the Numbers by Chris
Baggott” and Chris works for the Student Loan Network, marketing loans
to college students.
http://www.marketingovercoffee.com/2007/09/12/navel-gazing-and-evangelists-pimping-your-stuff/
Sincerely,
John Blue