You have seen the late night talk shows. Jay Leno, David Letterman and others who come center stage in front of their audience and deliver their routine. Their timing and comic mastery make the monologue a thing of beauty. The host does all the speaking and the audience does all the listening. The monologue is based on one sender of the message and everyone else being the recipients. That is the way mass media advertising also works. When an advertised message is as appealing as a your favorite comedian’s routine, then the odds are good that the message is going to get through all the clutter. Advertisers today have to worry about all of the clutter that exists from so many other advertised messages that are all competing for the consumers attention. Just a few decades ago an advertiser could reach well over ninety per cent of the entire television viewing audience of the United States simply by advertising on three national television networks. Today, there are hundreds of TV channels and many other media all competing for the American audience.

One of the big changes has been the move from communicating as a monologue to creating a dialogue. This blog is an example of creating a dialogue. Anyone reading this message has the opportunity to post a response to this posting (and I encourage you to do so). As consumers, we all have developed a preference for media that allow us to provide feedback. The top TV show in America is currently American Idol. The viewing public may use their cell phones to dial in their votes for the winner. More and more consumers want to have a say in how products and services are presented and delivered to them and marketers are finding that creating dialogues provides them with the information they need to best to serve their customers.

In the 1990’s it became in vogue to send out customer satisfaction surveys and ask customers “how are we doing?” Today, many companies routinely send surveys to interested audiences. JCK uses surveys to identify new trends affecting the jewelry industry. Getting feedback from your targeted audiences is extremely important for any business or organization that wants to continue to be relevant with their offerings to customers. At the same time, many consumers seem to be struggling with the hyper-saturation of media in their lives.

So how do you decide what media is the best means to communicate with your selected audiences? Today, it is imperative to understand the intended audiences’ media consumption habits. I know people who get their news from the internet and not from TV, radio or the newspaper as many others have for decades. I don’t mean to discount the reliance that many in the jewelry industry still have for TV, radio and newspapers for promotional purposes. But when you think about replacing the monologue approach to marketing by creating a dialogue with your customers what media do you use? The monologue marketing approach is still alive and well when it comes to TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, transit advertising, and even signage. However, if you wanted to expand your use of dialogue marketing and create more interaction with your various audiences would you use the internet, opt-in email, social networking (MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, etc.), blogging or other new forms of media? Tell us what you do to create more interactivity with customers? How have you replaced some of your Monologue Marketing with new Dialogue Marketing?

JCK