Communication creates communities.
When connecting with customers, businesses must remember that communication is dialogue, not monologue. It’s a two-way street that requires input from both parties. And conversational marketing is one such powerful solution that can drive this interaction flawlessly, even on a large scale.
Conversational marketing is a real-time dialogue-driven approach businesses use to shorten the sales cycle, learn about customers, and create a human buying experience. It engages an audience with a feedback-oriented strategy that increases customer loyalty, customer base, engagement, and revenue.
With conversational marketing software, businesses personalize the buyer journey, identify interested buyers on different platforms, address their concerns, and direct them to the right sales rep or product page to finalize the purchase.
Conversational marketing is all about bringing together human practices with technology. Feedback is the backbone of this approach. It fuels the process and helps companies to tailor their marketing strategy to customer needs.
At the heart of every good marketing strategy is communication. Technology has helped conversational marketing land a secure spot as a reliable marketing strategy for websites, social media, and email.
One of conversational marketing's main drivers is artificial intelligence (AI). AI in customer service is expansive, but most marketers are familiar with chatbot software.
Chatbots, also known as virtual assistants, digital employees, and intelligent assistants, have become increasingly common. If you're browsing a website for a new suitcase, a chatbot can help answer your questions instantly. This is precisely why so many companies are using them now.
For example, Away has a chatbot on its website’s homepage, ready to chat if a potential customer has questions.
On the other hand, a company can only know how to improve its product or service with the feedback of its consumers. Companies can tune into what consumers say by checking their social media accounts.
When a marketing team posts on social media, they should keep up with their analytics (such as Facebook Analytics, Instagram Insights, and Twitter Analytics) to keep tabs on their audience's buying habits and interests.
Social media has become the norm when it comes to marketing. Potential customers are online daily, and even though they may not be intentionally shopping, a chatbot increases the chance that they’ll enquire about your product.
Bots are more than just glorified customer service representatives. They serve as the first point of contact for customers. Bots can either go above and beyond to delight a potential buyer or (when done wrong) they can deter them from purchasing altogether.
People associate customer service with a formulaic question-and-answer conversation that usually doesn’t satisfy the customer and the business. AI technology can reinvent how we communicate and collect valuable data that can help improve future customer engagement.
Creating a conversational marketing strategy depends entirely on your business goals. A good place to start is by identifying the kind of problems you wish to solve for your customers.
You may think, “Conversational marketing sounds a lot like my marketing strategy.” You check your analytics, post on social platforms consistently, and engage with your audience.
While these are all elements of conversational marketing, there are a few key reasons it’s different.
Good customer marketing will provide value, give customers what they want, and meet them where they are. If most of your customer base lives on Facebook, set up a chatbot within Facebook Messenger to answer customer questions. It’s easier for a customer to send a quick message rather than search for your company’s number or email address to establish contact.
People are busy. Business owners adopt conversational marketing because they understand that conversations between them and potential customers should happen on their schedule.
A customer may browse your website for a bouquet at 7 am before they drop their daughter off at school and respond to your chatbot's question at 4 pm. Chatbots need to be responsive, but it's equally important to let the customer decide how constant the conversation will be.
Any advanced marketing strategy you execute should be scalable. Although human interaction was the way to sell for decades, technology has taken over and made it almost too easy to avoid. This is why conversations online can scale your company quicker than the traditional sales strategy.
Nowadays, businesses don’t have to worry about how many salespeople they hire to sell their products or services. With the benefits of conversational marketing, that worry has vanished.
Conversational marketing is ideal for connecting with your customers. A successful strategy will make your customers feel valued and appreciated, resulting in higher sales and retention rates.
Here are some examples of conversational marketing that are commonly used across industries.
Although not typically considered a marketing role, providing live support plays a significant role in your customer's experience with your company. A high level of assistance is critical to the conversational marketing strategy.
Consider delighting your buyers by integrating 24-hour helplines, price matching, or a designated Twitter "help" account. In short, if your customer service is excellent, your sales will be better.
You may be selling off the shelves, but consider taking a follow-up and ensuring an excellent post-sale experience. That is something that will set you apart wholly!
The most common practice is sending follow-up emails asking how they like their product/service and if they have questions. It may seem like a small thing (which is why you should be doing it), but it can increase the chance they’ll buy from you again.
Many companies use customer success software to check in on buyers and ensure they get the most out of their purchases.
Email marketing may not be the first type of conversational marketing you think of, but it can be helpful. It’s no secret that some companies have gotten emails all wrong. They resort to sending out newsletter after newsletter that doesn’t grab the customer’s attention.
No one wants to open an email from a company that boasts about their fantastic product and only tries to sell you on it. Being creative with your email newsletter strategy and finding new ways of customer interaction makes the difference between an audience and a group of brand loyalists.
Consider adding a survey within your email to ask them how they like a product or implement the bad, ok, and great smiley emoticons they can click. The easier you make it to communicate, the more the consumers will reciprocate.
An ideal use of conversational marketing is personalizing your customer experience. For instance, if you are a brand dealing in hair care products, you can offer your customers a quiz to understand their hair type and needs to suggest to them the most suitable product.
Similarly, beauty brands can create a realistic virtual try-on experience for makeup products by asking questions about skin type.
Social media is one of the best ways to discover interested buyers. Grabbing your customers right on the first touchpoint is a tactic many companies use.
A guided conversation panel built into your social media messenger can allow customers to shop in the most customizable fashion. It will help them find the right product for their needs and create a unique experience for your brand.
of B2B customers expect companies to have a deep understanding of their needs and provide personalized experiences.
Source: Salesforce
When done right, conversational marketing can help businesses establish themselves in a highly competitive marketplace. Take a look at some of its benefits below:
Conversational marketing is one of the best ways to learn what your customers like and dislike. You hear from them directly, allowing you to gain valuable insights at a large scale, which can then be used to improve your products, processes, customer interactions, and content.
With conversational marketing, businesses can reach their audiences on different channels and give them a faster way to contact you. Providing authentic experiences with a human touch, constantly aiming to improve, will help build robust customer relationships.
Marketing and sales work together with conversational marketing. This integration allows for higher conversions, which means customers can move down the sales funnel faster. For instance, chatbots can send qualified leads to sales agents directly or book meetings in real-time.
Enabling one-on-one interactions with your customers gives them direct access to your information panel through interactive mediums. The more personalized your experience is, the more likely customers will engage with your communication channels.
Paul Lalonde
Product Expert, Zendesk
Inbound marketing is about creating value for your customers through personalized support, blog writing, or interacting with them on social media.
There are many similarities between the core ideas of conversational marketing and inbound marketing. Conversational marketing is also part of the inbound marketing umbrella, similar to blogging or email marketing.
Conversations play a substantial role throughout the customer lifecycle. Inbound marketing enables companies to attract potential customers whom they can engage with and delight by using conversational marketing. It gives control to the audience, allowing them to interact with your brand in a way they prefer.
So, practicing conversational marketing as a part of your inbound marketing strategy is the way to go.
We’ve come a long way from cave drawings, letters, telegrams, and carrier pigeons. It’s the easiest it’s ever been to communicate, and your company should be taking advantage of it. Fostering a good relationship with your customers is one of the most effective ways to understand where they are, what they want, and how you can meet their needs.
As chatbots evolve, experiment with the different ways you can implement conversational marketing. Lead your customers to the purchase, delight them with automated assistants, and become a brand that listens to its audience.
Live chat is another great conversational marketing method to communicate with your customers. Check out the best live chat software on the market now!
This article was originally published in 2019. It has been updated with new information.
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