When live chat first came out, it revolutionised service delivery. It was now easy for customers to get an agent and receive support and the customers felt heard. Because of this, they reported higher levels of satisfaction.
This is the power of a conversation. The great thing is that it is also being utilised in other areas of marketing.
But what is it?
What is conversational marketing?
Conversational marketing encompasses all methods used to engage with the customers in a dialogue or conversation. This can include live chat, SMS messaging, and live video call on social media.
Why conversational marketing?
Go above and beyond traditional marketing, such as online contact forms and email marketing.
It’s good to talk
Having a conversation with a potential customer is the best way to build a good rapport and relationship. With chat, you can better assess your customers’ pain points and which solutions they are looking for.
Using this data you can improve your offering, tailor your marketing campaigns, and create content that best appeals to your customers’ needs.
From conversation to conversion
Traditional methods of lead generation have one significant flaw—time lag. Often there is time between a potential customer filling out a form and someone coming back to them.
During this time, that potential customers could lose interest and switch over to a competitor.
With conversational marketing tools such as live chat, you can respond to customers as soon as they reach out. In fact, many customers will opt for such tools due to their quick response to any other means.
Helping the customer
No, we don’t mean offering support here. What we mean is that when it comes to online shopping, customers do not have access to a member of staff to help them through the shopping experience.
The downside is that if the customer has a bad experience, they are likely not to return to your online store.
With conversational marketing, a customer can ask questions and seek support and receive both within an instant. Where a customer is shopping after hours, chatbots allow them to still receive the assistance they need by mimicking the human touch.
How to make the most of conversational marketing
Install live chat
Live chat is the quickest way to utilise conversational marketing in your business. Often businesses will include chat boxes that offer fast assistance to customers while also providing them with the option of talking to a live agent.
Keep it personal
If you opt for chatbots, it is important to remember that customers prefer speaking to a live person. You can use this to tailor your chatbot messages to sound just like you when answering questions.
Ensure that the chatbot feels natural by altering the time and the responses to sound as if a live person is responding.
Combine conversation marketing with digital marketing
Although conversational marketing is a great way to offer a more personalised experience, do not neglect other digital marketing options for relationship building.
Whether that is your social media marketing or email marketing. They should complement your conversational marketing plans.
Final Thoughts
Conversational marketing opens new doors to lead generation and customer retention. It also offers opportunities for better understanding the customer. The information you gather through conversational marketing can help improve the bottom line.