Imagine you walk into a physical store. You talk to a polite employee of the business, describe your needs in your own words, and he presents you with the products, trying to see together what suits you best. If you go back to the same store, the clerk will ask you if you were happy with what you bought on a previous visit. Knowing the your purchasing needs, will suggest something similar. They may even let you know that they have a special offer on something you wanted to buy, or have just received new products that may be of interest to you. The service you receive will be a very important criterion when evaluating the business.
If we transfer this example to the digital world, then we can understand what Conversational Marketing is. It is about direct, two-way and personalised communication between a business and its customers. This communication can be by phone, video call or chat, social media, or even through a forum or review site. The key in each case is the interaction.
The Benefits of Conversational Marketing
The other digital marketing tools your business uses are probably one-sided. Banners, paid ads, email and SMS marketing, and retargeting all promote products and services, but they can't work both ways.
With Conversational Marketing you give voice to your customers, learn their preferences, answer questions as they arise and improve the service you provide. In this way you win wavering customers, strengthen the loyalty of your existing customers, create lifelong customers, and ultimately increase your business profits.
Rise of Conversational Marketing
The current situation with the pandemic and the containment measures have dramatically changed the way we look for products and buy. At the same time, there is a greater need for human contact and service in an environment where everything is done digitally.
We see that most purchases are now made online and to a large extent via mobile phone. It is therefore necessary for your business to be able to answer consumers' questions directly, at the time of the sale.
Your potential customer may want to know if the products they see on the site are readily available, or to ask about product features, warranty, shipping costs or to find out if there is another, similar product. If these questions are answered immediately, it is more likely to proceed immediately to purchase.
For more immediacy you can even integrate services video chat & voice calls in your customer service. Your customers' use of these services will be higher if they are making complex and expensive purchases, such as a mobile phone, computer or car, rather than buying consumables.
Live chat and Chatbots
By incorporating live chat into your business's Conversational Marketing strategy, you definitely win on the human factor of customer communication. But this can cost you time and money, especially if the company's mailbox is full and not everything can be answered in time. Besides, most questions are repetitive and can be answered automatically. In this case, chatbots help you save time and money.
The chatbot will be able, for example, to start the dialogue with answers to users' frequently asked questions (FAQs), and acting as a first line of help. Then and through the dialogue, it will emerge whether the customer has been covered by the answers and guidance received, otherwise a representative of your company will take over.
Although the chatbox gives the impression of a more impersonal communication, it does not have to lack the personalization in texts and style, depending on the situation. For example, if the customer has just viewed a product page, the bot can ask if they have any questions about that product or suggest a comparison with similar products.
instant messaging
Much can be said about the amount of time the average user spends on their mobile phone. The truth, however, is that if your potential customers are connected to their mobile devices, that's where your business' Conversational Marketing should be.
The role of the various messaging applications, such as WhatsApp, Viber, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, especially when combined with artificial intelligence technologies such as chatboxes. Users are more likely to open messages sent through the apps and interact with your business because they are now much more familiar with this way of communicating. So you can keep an open communication channel with your customers, regularly sending personalised messages based on their interests and what you've learned about them in previous conversations.
In this communication, make sure you adopt a personal style that differentiates your brand, making the conversation more personal and more enjoyable for your customers. You can even use emojis, gifs or images if it fits with the style of the business.
Still, a sure avantage for your business is to integrate the ordering possibility via IM, DM etc. thus ensuring fast conversions.
Use of feedback
Through a Conversational Marketing strategy you are going to get rich feedback from your customers, in relation to the needs them, the degree of satisfaction them, possible problems on your site, and bugs that need fixing. The key is to use this data to improve your product or services. Again, analytics tools and AI can help you understand the data and draw conclusions, especially when the data comes from multiple channels.
In conclusion, this procedure needs to be Dynamic, as consumer needs evolve and change. Through the feedback you receive, you will be able to pick out these needs as they manifest themselves, to respond to them, gaining a competitive advantage over the competition.