What is dialogue marketing?

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Although dialogue marketing is considered a branch of direct marketing, its use as a term is only just beginning. While classic direct marketing is primarily distinguished by personal contact with the customer, dialogue marketing places greater emphasis on the reciprocal exchange of information between the supplier and the consumer.

Dialogue Marketing Definition
Dialogue marketing is the generic term that refers to all marketing activities in which communication media are used to establish an interactive relationship with individuals. Its objective is to obtain an individual and measurable response from the recipient.

By focusing on the individual customer, dialogue marketing reflects the historical development of commerce in general, from mass marketing to niche marketing . Today, even target groups have been reduced to individual consumers (e.g., so-called personas ). Instead of launching advertising campaigns to the entire customer database, retailers seek to address them through personalized, dialogue-oriented media.

With the growing importance of online communication channels for marketing, restaurants email database sales and customer service strategies, customer dialogue has become the core of business planning, ceasing to be a speciality and becoming a generic term that today extends to traditional direct marketing activities such as direct mail advertising and customer acquisition via telephone. This change of focus has also been reflected in the descriptions of the services of some advertising agencies, as well as in some job offers. For its part, traditional direct marketing has not managed to adapt to the constant and rapid development of modern media.

How does dialogue marketing work?
As part of dialogue marketing, advertisers and sales specialists focus on the interests and needs of potential customers, thus offering them personalized products and services that serve as a bridge to strengthen the mutual relationship. Here, advertising channels that come to the fore are those with interactive potential that allow measuring customer response, such as a call to a customer service line, clicking on an online ad or scanning a QR code with a mobile phone camera.

In dialogue marketing, the degree of interaction differs considerably depending on the medium. While advertising materials such as coupons or loyalty programs only induce dialogue in a broader sense, the concept of “dialogue” is literal when contacting customers by phone or at a convention.

Some of the tools of dialogue marketing are:

Sending advertising
Email Marketing (newsletter and emails)
Telemarketing (inbound/outbound)
Gift card, customer and bonus programs
Magazines, brochures and mail order catalogues
Coupons (online/offline)
Search Engine Advertising (SEA)
Online ads (content/display advertising)
Classic ads with responsive elements
Television or radio ads with response elements
Social media profiles
Company and product websites
Fairs and conventions
Free samples to attract customers
To start a dialogue with customers, it is advisable to make it easy for them to respond to your advertising strategies. This is why traditional response elements are service hotlines or pre-filled written responses, ideally. It is also common for dialogue marketing to use financial incentives to obtain customer feedback. The most well-known classic sales strategies are:

Discounts with coupon delivery
Money back guarantee if the customer is not satisfied
Early Bird Offers
“Recommend to a friend”
Response elements make it possible to measure both positive and negative feedback from the customer, allowing for quick adjustments. Thus, for example, guaranteeing a refund if the customer is not satisfied is a clear signal that, in addition to increasing customer confidence in the brand, will provide information about whether a product is successful or requires the implementation of improvements. Another obvious example is that of the satisfied customer who recommends a product to his friends and converts them into customers, emphasizing trust in the company.