It's been a recurring theme for me over many years: marketing is not a sermon, it's a conversation. The one-way history of marketing communication was constrained by capabilities - and that constraint became embedded in a kind of arrogance: "I have something to tell you." And in a one-way world, consumers seemed happy to play along.

The rise of the Internet, increasing use of social networks and ubiquity of mobile devices means that all media in the digital world are interactive and bi-directional. We now have the technology to listen – and respond accordingly. There is no more "offline". All that’s left is to change the way we think (and communicate) as marketers.

Google is a poster child for this thinking: their success is in no small part predicated on their ability to listen to the voice(s) of the crowd. Search results on an aggregate and a personal level become increasingly relevant as Google watches the patterns of linking and clicking, deriving insight and intelligence from the masses of data they gather.

The same principle underpins the success of AdWords: relevance is as critical a metric as cost-per-click in getting your ads into prime position – and responded to. And in their canny recognition of the mutual value of relevance, Google offers its AdWords customers (and by extension anyone else who cares to use it) free access to powerful Web analytics tools to mine further insights and drive higher value – to the advertiser, the consumer … and, of course, to Google. Genius.

So where does that leave the rest of your marketing communications? My firm belief is that the future of measurement and messaging are fundamentally intertwined. With tools ranging from free to "enterprise grade", there is no excuse for any marketer not to have access to reams of data that would make our marketing forebears salivate with envy.

But having data is not enough: you need to be able to interrogate it to learn – and then act.

For example, put yourself in the position of an online retailer: which of these do you think are better indicators of likely purchase?

a. A declared preference (e.g. on a welcome programme)

b. Past purchase patterns

c. Average behaviour across your whole store (e.g. "Top Sellers")

d. Recommendations based on other customers (people who

    bought this also liked this…)

e. Recently browsed products by specific customer

All of these have merit - but recent browsing has come out a clear winner in recent work we’ve done with Matches Fashion. I’ll be discussing this in more detail during my talk at Internet World - High-end fashion retailer Matches as a case study to illustrate how web analytics and email marketing work brilliantly together - on Wednesday, April 28, 2010.

One of the first lessons of selling is that you have two ears and one mouth: you should use them in that proportion. Conversational marketing must embrace the same pithy truism. Measurement is the proxy for your ears; messaging for your mouth.

To ignore the insights you can mine from your customers’ online (and offline) journeys is to shut your ears to the conversation … and render yourself irrelevant.

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About the Author 

Mike Weston is VP UK & EMEA Sales for Lyris. He's a leading figure and a regular speaker on the London digital marketing scene, with a particular focus on customer communication tools including email marketing and social media marketing.

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