Council Post: Conversational Marketing Is The New Direct Marketing

Marketing has changed drastically over the last decade, fueled by the evolution of technology and the demands of more discerning, sophisticated and impatient consumers. Yet, despite consumers' evolving preferences for how they access products, services and information, I would argue that most brands lag behind their customers' desires and needs -- they continue to rely on high-frequency, one-way communications while striving to instill urgency to drive conversions. This seems particularly true within the world of direct marketing that is heavily reliant on one-way channels where brands push the latest sales offers in tightly packaged, largely text-based campaigns, hoping to move the needle a few percentage points. As a long-time direct marketer and a humble student of the great David Ogilvy, I have always felt that it's somehow arrogant to believe that we could compel, persuade or influence a consumer by speaking at them -- employing one-way interactions without thinking they might want to say something back. According to one company's research, the SMS marketing conversion rate on Black Friday 2020 was 3.5%, which was awesome and significantly above 2019.