In the last century, we have seen marketing changing rapidly. From the radio’s invention to the advent of the internet, a gradual transition took place from giant billboards to personalized messages and ads that can be delivered to our smartphones. Another evolution that is taking place in online personalized marketing that is changing the way brands are doing their content marketing, and sales strategies is Conversational Marketing.
Conversational marketing ads are the surprisingly personal touch that provides customers and prospects find refreshing against the more generic campaigns. Today brands are no longer built based on the quality and need of the products alone; the buyer experience now also plays a huge role in purchase decisions and brand loyalty.
Whether you are selling a commodity or any other product, it is important that you keep your customer’s convenience and satisfaction into account. Historically every new technological development in marketing has raised the expectations of customers; conversational marketing is no different. One of the key components of conversational marketing is Chatbots. These new agents now cater to the needs of customers and answer their questions through conversations.
There are some people who think that Chatbots on an e-commerce site or mobile app is counterintuitive to personalization. However, the research supports the fact that Chatbots have a better impact on personalization. By providing immediate answers to customers and prospects, these bots lead them to product demo and sales faster that closes a deal quickly.
What Is Conversational Marketing?
Conversational marketing is a concept that is very new for many marketing and brands. Simply put, it is an automated conversation with customers and prospects on your website or mobile app that provides them with a more personalized and individualized experience, and in return, you get detailed information about them.
For the automated conversation, you use the chatbots. According to the Chatbots Magazine, a chatbot is “a service, powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence, that you interact with via a chat interface.”
Once a chatbot is programmed, it can be used for a number of applications apart from live chatting. These Chatbots offer 24/7 engagement for customers and get you leads easily. Usually, a chatbot allows customers to initiate a conversation with a click. You can also program a chatbot to start a conversation by asking the visitor a question. Based on the reply from the visitor a different question is promptly asked. Conversational marketing is extremely powerful as it can walk a prospect through your sales funnel simply by real-time conversations.
An individualized conversation is what makes your customers root for your brand and appreciate your commitment for their satisfaction and convenience.
How Conversational Marketing Works
Conversational marketing is inclined to the brands but must be designed with customer needs in mind. If your chatbots are just designed to pry for information, then it won’t feel like a real conversation, and your customers will go elsewhere.
It is natural for people to expect their conversations to be helpful and sympathetic. Here the only differences they are speaking with your website or app, but the underlying rule of empathy still exists. Conversational marketing offers you help to assist your customers to browse products or access information through emulated human customer service experience.
With conversational marketing, brains can easily break down the wall between marketing, sales, and support. You are not only selling your customers’ products but also providing them with support. Your customers can ask for the help they need exactly when they need it. As the experience with this form of marketing is not generic, your customers will want to return again and again.
Benefits of Conversational Marketing
conversational marketing is aimed at increasing conversion rates, create efficient support, and ultimately strengthen the bond between the brand and its customers. Here are some of the best benefits of one-on-one conversations:
Encouraged human purchasing experience
When a customer lands on your website and is greeted, he or she feels encouraged to start a conversation. This makes your e-commerce site less generic and impersonal and more customer-centric. This makes your customers feel acknowledged and appreciated, which is good for business.
More information about customers
Your conventional lead forms can only collect contact information for customers, but with conversational marketing, you can get a lot more information such as what products and features interests them, why they came to your website, their needs, and what do they want to do next. All the information you learn can be used to make your brand better.
Increased conversions and stronger sales pipeline
It is not uncommon for visitors to ignore lead conversion forms. With chatbots, they are encouraged to have conversations. Furthermore, a chatbot can answer customers’ queries any time even when salespeople are not around. The immediate response time leaves customers more satisfied, strengthening the sales pipeline.
A continual flow of market research
Getting your customers talking with a chatbot gets you a lot more information than simply filling forms. Over time the collected data can provide you with very insightful information about growing trends and opportunities. This makes your brand more agile, and you are better able to make use of your customers’ interests. In contrary to traditional marketing, conversational marketing is a two-way process that is much more suitable for the ad-adverse public.
Informed sales recommendations
A chatbot is more than capable of setting up meetings, customer support, or product demo through connected calendars automatically. They can easily take customers to representatives who can close the deal, but more importantly, they can directly recommend products and services based on the interest of the customers.
Are you making use of conversational marketing well enough?
The chatbot industry is gaining acceptance throughout industries. Conversational marketing is benefiting from advancement in AI technology. This is making it easier for brands and marketing companies to get in better touch with customers and prospects through meaningful conversations.
This industry is expected to grow by $80 billion by 2025. As customer experience is becoming increasingly important to drive sales, the one-way communication models are no longer feasible. If you want to improve your marketing success, conversational marketing is the right strategy.
