Your Guide To Conversational Marketing

Wouldn’t you agree that having a live conversation with a business is often so much easier than submitting Contact Us forms, staying on hold for hours, or hoping for a callback? 

This is especially true when you have just one or two simple questions or requests that you know could be resolved in minutes. 

Hence, implementing Conversational Marketing should be a strategy you consider for your business growth. 

Let’s dive into conversational marketing, its benefits, and how to implement it in your business. 

What Is Conversational Marketing? 

Conversational marketing is an inbound marketing strategy that focuses on customer engagement by creating real-time dialogues between businesses and consumers. 

Tools like chatbots, messaging apps, live chat, and AI-driven platforms create immediate and personalized interactions with people, helping businesses respond to inquiries, nurture leads, answer questions, and gather insights.

Let’s explore some key components and benefits of conversational marketing.

Components

• Real-Time Conversations On Customer Time: The conversations should happen immediately, without a wait.
  
  Typically, marketing relies on one-way communication blasts, like emails, ads, and commercials, but with conversational marketing, a real-time dialogue is created between the business and the customer on customer time.
  
  Customers appreciate 24/7 availability, fast responses, and the ability to pick up where the conversation left off at a time that is convenient for them, so optimizing for those would do your business good.  
  
  
• Personalization: We live in a world of quite advanced technologies, and by using the data and the AI they provide, businesses can customize conversations based on the needs, behaviors, and individual preferences of the consumer.
  
  
• Chatbots, AI, and Multiple Channels: AI-powered chatbots that take over mundane tasks, like answering FAQs, recommending products or services, providing instant responses, and qualifying potential leads, while you and your team respond and maintain conversations on other channels, like Messenger, WhatsApp, and others.
  
  

Benefits

• Conversations Provide Context: Without context, you do not have access to details and previously shared information from your customer. And if you can’t access that, how else will you know what your customer needs, wants, and expects?
  
  Unless, of course, you always take detailed notes in your CRM or piece of paper every time you speak to someone…
  
  But wouldn’t it be easier to have the system pull up a chat record each time the customer contacts you? Imagine how much time you and the client could save!
  
  
• Scalable Conversations: Each conversation through a chatbot or a chat channel happens on customer time, meaning these are the hottest leads you can get. The person is already on your website and is already interested.
  
  You can use AI bots to automate lead qualification and nurturing or do it yourself. For the deal to close, it’s a matter of asking the correct questions and offering helpful solutions.
  
  Use the real-time conversation to your advantage and guide your customers through your sales funnel.
  
  
• Improved Customer Experience: People like getting things done when it is convenient for them, and with conversational marketing, you have just the tools to let them do it.
  
  People can ask questions, get service and product suggestions, sign up for your newsletter, free e-book, or subscription, resolve their problems, or return to an existing chat whenever they choose.
  
  This improves the customer experience, which in return improves your business’s reputation, gains your business engagement, and increases your revenue.
  
  

Pro Tips For Conversational Marketing

Now that you are aware of the key components of conversational marketing and the benefits it offers, let’s explore some pro tips for successfully implementing it in your digital business.

• Personalize User Experience: Different customers have different needs.
  
  You can tailor your conversations based on previous data from the same customer, such as location, behavior, and past purchases or interactions, or tailor them based on their stage of the customer journey – whether they are a returning customer or a new lead.
  
  
• Implement AI And Chatbots: Automating tasks, questions, and at least part of your sales funnel will help reduce your workload and save your sanity. 😵‍💫
  
  Conversational marketing is mostly tailored toward the customers’ availability, which may not always (if ever) align with yours. Automate what you can, and have a smooth handoff to a human agent (or yourself) when necessary.
  
  
• Be Responsive: Whether you are the one handling inquiries or the AI chatbot, the response time should be under 1 minute, if not immediate.
  
  Your follow-ups should also be prompt with relevant information, personalized offers or discounts, or appropriate content.
  
  
• Engage Through Multiple Channels: Give customers the freedom to choose where and how they’d like to interact with you, whether through website chat, social media chats, emails, or other.
  
  These channels can be integrated and automated with most CRMs, making it easier for you and your team to interact with customers and collect necessary records and information.
  
  Speaking of integration and automation, Zapier is a phenomenal tool for that!
  
  
• Ask The Right Questions And Provide Value: The right questions will help you qualify your leads and help your customer determine whether your company is the right fit. Be careful not to ask too many questions, as that can overwhelm the customer, and you risk losing them.
  
  Your responses should always provide value tailored to your customers’ needs, such as resources and information, recommendations, discounts, and special offers.
  
  
• Create Clear CTAs: Every conversation your business has with a potential or existing customer must have a clear goal and call to action (CTA).
  
  The CTAs can include downloading an ebook or PDF, scheduling a consultation or demo, signing up for a free trial, or making a purchase.
  
  Keep in mind that not everyone is ready to buy, so less intrusive or free options could be more suitable for these situations. 
  
  

Closing Remarks 

Implementing conversational marketing in your business can grow the number of your inbound leads, increase customer engagement, and improve customer experience.

When set up properly, conversational marketing provides a seamless and smooth experience for both your business and your customers. 

With the help of AI chatbots, you can automate multiple tasks, such as qualifying and nurturing leads, collecting detailed data about your current or potential customers, responding to questions and inquiries, and even guiding your clients through your sales funnel from start to finish, depending on your product or service. 

With that being said, we look forward to sharing useful and actionable marketing tips, tactics, and strategies with you weekly… That is, of course, if you are subscribed to  Vavoza Insider!

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– Steph