Interactive communication is a direct form of marketing communication which is targetting the acquiring and maintaining of a durable, lasting realtionship with the consumer in a very personal way. In order to achieve this relationship the consumer’s personal data is being kept in an archive, mostly a digital database, that’ll serve as a basis for further actions.
The interactive communication is taken place between an organisation or a brand on the one side, and a consumer on the other side. Between those two players, a small market of demand and offer is being set up.
Very often the term CRM – customer related marketing – is being used for this form of communication.
Components of Interactive Marketing are :
* Direct Mail
* Telemarketing
* Direct Response TV
* e-Mail
* SMS (txt on cells)
* Websites
Interactive marketing means communicating with your consumers on a personal scale, one to one. For e-mail, that includes sending a peronalized message to the consumer’s mailbox, thus advertising the product you want to market. Just as any other element in the marcom-mix, Interactive marketing tries to get the attention of its recipients, with just one major difference from spam : interactive marketing is trying to create a long-term relationship between the consumer and the product, in order to build a profitable relationship for both.
One way or the other, people tend to be confused when it comes to separating IM from spam. In fact, you can’t really tell the difference when the mail arrives. It’s the intention of the sender that determines whether or not you’re being spammed. Spam isn’t targeting a long-term relationship, and the spam is being sent ad hoc to ‘any’ email address available to the advertiser, while the IM-marketer is using a relevant and decent database to contact the consumer.
Another very remarkable difference, but invisible to the consumer, is that when using IM, every possible signal for the consumer is being added to his record. So the database from IM marketeers is significantly more extended than the endless mailing lists of spammers.
Now to reproduce this tomorrow, while filling in my exam. :) Stay tuned