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The Beginner's Guide to Conversational Marketing

There are many ways for a business to market its services and products, and the type of marketing that they choose may depend on several different factors.

One factor that determines what type of marketing a business chooses is the target audience. It must be determined that a certain type of marketing will reach more people involved in a certain market. Conversational marketing is one of the leading marketing strategies in many industries.

Most businesses opt for conversational marketing, either alone or in combination with other marketing channels. This new and high-tech way of reaching customers is extremely smart and effective. In fact, it's an absolutely ingenious way to allow website visitors to control the entire process.

A study showed that 9 out of 10 consumers would like the option to use messaging to contact a business.

If you're only able to invest in one inbound marketing strategy, then conversational marketing should be it. There are many facets of conversational marketing, as it has the ability to build your business in a number of unique ways.

Many sales teams would agree that conversational marketing is superior to many other strategies, but again, it can also be combined with other strategies in order to make your marketing campaign even more effective.

What is conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing is a dynamic and cutting-edge type of marketing that utilizes the real-time dialogue with website visitors in order to create a unique and enticing customer experience.

Not only does conversational marketing make customers feel more comfortable as they're walking through the buying process, but it also assists with the building of customer relationships. Once a relationship is built, a prospective customer is more likely to continue on their customer journey.

How conversational marketing will grow your business?

Conversational marketing grows your business in a number of ways. First of all, this marketing strategy is so smooth and seems so natural that the customer often isn't even aware that there is a marketing ploy being used.

A conversational marketing strategy encourages a feeling of comfort in website visitors, and when a website visitors welcome throughout their customer journey, they're more likely to purchase the product or service being offered.

Secondly, and most importantly, conversational marketing grows your business by managing customer inquiries and reaching new and existing customers by email, social media, and in other manners. It can be challenging for actual employees to perform this type of marketing because it can be time-consuming, but artificial intelligence can perform numerous tasks simultaneously.

The key elements of conversational marketing

There are many key elements of a conversational marketing strategy that must be used simultaneously in order for this marketing strategy to be successful.

These elements are: allowing the customer to choose the pace, knowing the whereabouts of your target audience, managing context is important, encouraging customer feedback is essential, making forms attention-grabbing and eye-catching, as well as increasing your branding efforts.

Allowing the customer to choose the pace

Conversational marketing strategies are quite successful because it focuses on the customer's dialog as well as their stated needs and desires. When you allow the customer to set the pace with a conversational approach, the customer feels in control and doesn't feel pressured.

No one wants to feel pressured, and since the customer feels as if he or she is controlling the situation, then they will be significantly more likely to purchase your product or service.

Knowing the whereabouts of your target audience

Identifying your target audience is a very important aspect of any marketing strategy, but the work doesn't stop there. You need to know the whereabouts of your target audience. What exactly does it mean to know your audience's whereabouts?

It means that you must track where your potential customers are spending time on the internet, determine how they prefer communicating, either via email, chatbots or by some other method, and also, you must determine if your target audience uses their cellphones when engaging with brands.

Making forms attention-grabbing and eye-catching

By creating forms on your website that are attention-grabbing and eye-catching, you increase your chances of success in the end. Drab, boring forms in the past almost always meant that customers would leave the website after having lost interest.

However, if you incorporate colorful and interactive chatbots on your site or mobile apps, you can walk prospective customers step-by-step throughout the signup or checkout process, which greatly increases your chances of having a more favorable outcome.

Encouraging customer feedback is essential

Customer feedback is extremely important for attracting new customers, yet regardless of how much you ask, some customers will never leave feedback. However, with most customers, as long as you gently encourage them, they will leave feedback.

As long as you present the feedback request in a personalized conversation and not through an impersonal email or mailed form, then your customers will be more willing to take the time to leave feedback. Even negative feedback can help you to attract future customers, although you don't want an abundance of negative feedback.

Managing context is important

Customer relationship-building technology is becoming more and more advanced, which makes managing past and current customer conversations easier. For instance, it can be very frustrating for a customer to have to repeat what was said during a previous conversation.

However, thanks to modern technology, these conversations can be recorded and retrieved whenever necessary, so it won't be necessary for customers to repeat themselves. This dynamic technology can help you to retain many customers who might otherwise go elsewhere due to increased frustration levels.

The benefits and drawbacks of conversational marketing

As with every type of marketing, there are benefits and drawbacks to implementing a conversational strategy. Here is an overview of these benefits and drawbacks, so you can capitalize on the advantages and work around the weaknesses.

Advantages of a conversational marketing strategy

Instant gratification without the need to wait

People are busy, and many lack the time or patience to wait for things and they want them now. Fortunately, conversational marketing can provide this because instead of waiting for someone to respond to an email or even a voice message, customers can receive instant replies via social networking websites.

Increased convenience

Whether your website visitors or potential customers are on the road for business or are simply doing business in other ways, the availability of chatboxes to make paying a balance or seeking information save time. This way, they can quickly handle what they need to handle without the need to log in or create an account, increasing overall customer satisfaction.

Improved problem-solving abilities

Unfortunately, there can be many problems that arise when conducting business online, but with the increased intelligence and problem-solving abilities of the latest conversational marketing algorithms, many of these problems can be quickly solved.

Disadvantages of conversational marketing

These algorithms can't always replace people

Despite the super intelligence of these AI programs, there is a chance that customers could misinterpret what a chatbox is saying, which could anger or offend them.

It is also important not to use conversational marketing as your only means of customer interactions because, unfortunately, these chatboxes can't handle everything that real-life people can handle.

AI systems might fail to engage customers

Although conversational marketing is a cutting-edge and effective way to market your product or service while managing any existing or potential customers, it may not work for 100% of businesses. It could be difficult for the system to properly engage customers, and without proper customer engagement, then your intentions could backfire, and your business could lose qualified leads.

How is conversation marketing implemented?

There are many ways in which a successful conversational marketing strategy is implemented. How it's implemented will depend on several different factors, including your target audience, your goals, and your products/services.

Conversational marketing examples include chatbots, email marketing, and conversational advertisements.

Chatbots in conversational marketing

If it is your goal to offer 24/7 online customer service, then chatbots can be used to engage in meaningful conversation after hours. This is a definite benefit because, again, when customers want something, they want it instantly. They may not want to wait for business hours in order for real customer support agents to become available.

Email marketing and sales funnels

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach current and future customers. This is why conversational marketing is so helpful because it can send relevant leads to customers via email. The AI that you use can also request feedback from your customers because it can't be stressed enough about how important feedback is.

Social media conversational marketing strategy

Companies that aren't taking advantage of social media in their marketing strategies are severely limiting themselves. Social media are extremely popular because the average person uses them for everything, which means that this is where you need to reach them.

Customers are able to engage in a two-way conversation and have meaningful interactions with the brand of their choice through the social media platform that they prefer.

Incorporate conversational marketing into your business strategy

So, if you're ready to take your marketing strategy to the next level, then you should consider incorporating conversational marketing into your plans. Not only can this type of marketing increase your customer base and improve customer relationships, but it can provide you and your employees with much-needed time off while the AI handles things.

The key to making conversational marketing work is to choose the proper partner. Mailchimp has an immense amount of experience helping companies to grow significantly, so you should contact them today to get started.

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