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I also agree with the E-Consultantcy suggestion that conversation must be backed up by action.

Chris concludes that he want “to help more companies embrace the spirit of conversation with markets and to move beyond marketing”

Moving beyond marketing means having conversation and action that work together. Lip service agreeing to customer-orientation won’t cut it.

To succeed, you must cut across the organization both broad and deep.

Organizational structures with separate silos for product development, sales, support and marketing are one of the impediments to the adoption of such “conversational marketing.” How do you make all these groups part of the conversations with customers and motivate their actions toward them?

What might an ideal organizational structure (and the internal conversations and actions) look like where this kind of marketing focus takes place not in a marketing department but is the top priority across every function?

Breaking down silos is a well-discussed but persistent problem. Same for customer-orientation. Could “conversational marketing” bring something new to our understanding of these problems?

I think Chris is right that “marketing” is the problem, but in a bigger sense than he meant. We don’t want to solve a marketing problem. We want to solve business and organization problems. We’ll have to become something more than marketing consultants to do it.

Of course a merchant is in business to make money — that’s the point of being a merchant. But the good ones have always done it by paying attention to their customers’ needs. Doesn’t matter if you’re a fancy restaurateur, a social-media consultant, or a fruit vendor in a souk — the basic principles still apply, because the SAME basic activity is going one: a merchant trying to make a living by meeting the needs of a base of customers.

I intentionally use the word “merchant” in place of “marketer” because I think that, all too often, we come to focus on the codified rules of the discipline of marketing (some of which are good, some of which are bad), instead of the enduring aspect of what good marketing does — i.e. good marketing carries out the timeless intentions of the good merchant.