The best marketing language and messaging comes from your customers.

This means that time spent talking to customers is a wise investment.

Talking to customers, not surveying them.

A survey is fine — better than no communication at all, certainly — but a conversation is infinitely more valuable and helpful to your marketing.

How wide is the gap?

I’d argue that having 30 minute conversations with just 50 of your customers and prospective customers would generate more marketing-changing details than surveying 1,000 people from the same groups.

Why?

• The communication flows in on direction (the customer is answering questions).
• Further, the communication is fixed. Only questions which are written can be asked, and only in the order they are written in.
• With conversations, you can follow up, probe, dig, and adjust your questions based on the customer’s responses.
• In a conversation, you can react to tone of voice, hesitation, anger, energy, enthusiasm. In a survey, you only have A, B, C, and D.

Conversation are not surveys.

Conversations are infinitely more valuable.

So, are you getting on the phone with customers and prospects to discuss their thoughts, feelings and uses of your products and services?