Interactive Marketing - The Customer First Technique

What Is Interactive Marketing?
The concept of interactive marketing began with a technique of interaction between customer and vendor in a conversational format. Sales scripting became a viable part of this method of attracting a solid customer base. Formerly, sales had a "retail" style format with the customer approaching the seller regarding a product or service. This gradually evolved to customer visits by sales staff to introduce their offerings. In interactive marketing, the approach is one-to-one. This marketing technique employs a conversational style. By using active listening as the mechanism of gathering customer information, it was easier to maintain closer contact with the client. Cold sales calls involve contacting a sales prospect and creating a profile of the communication for future use.

Information Gathering In Interactive Marketing
One of the most valuable assets of interactive marketing is not just the ability to collect data on each sales prospect, but also to compare this information to advantage. For instance, by collecting prospect information, it's possible to determine which products or services are highlighted and which may require additional polishing to make them more saleable. But, the most important part of collecting this information lies in the ability to leave a "door open" so that additional contact is possible. In interactive marketing, solid information can lead to profitable sales. This is true of businesses online and off.

An Interactive Marketing Plan
Begin an interactive marketing plan with a proposed script used to introduce products or services. The next step is to formulate a customer profile form either in a database, spreadsheet or other applications which allow customer information to be sorted within search ranges. There are several contact and relational databases available for this purpose. Keep information up-to-date to maintain accuracy. Have sales staff use their customer profile forms to make notes as they speak to their prospects. This can also be done with a micro-cassette recorder. Then, transfer to the computer application. Query your information by state, product, service and orders to create viable reports from which management determines the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.

Interactive Marketing Online
Although it was not originally created for online businesses, interactive marketing has its place in the online business world of the internet. For this medium, interactive marketing may mean setting up a blog or website that allows the sales prospect to fill in information about their particular interest in your product or service.