Conversational marketing is real-time messaging with your customers, target audience, and potential leads. Instead of waiting for an email, phone call, or letter in the mail, your customers can contact you in the messaging app of their choice and get real-time responses to their questions or needs.
Conversational marketing is customer-centric and allows you to offer 24/7 accessibility to your company and products or services that can rival even the largest corporations. Instead of letting your SMB get left behind, you can integrate conversational marketing into your current practices to increase your outreach and broaden your audience.
With conversational marketing, your brand awareness will flourish, and your conversion rates will surge.
What are the benefits of conversational marketing?
The most significant benefit of conversational marketing is that the conversations you have with customers are based in real-time and on the customer's time. This means that not only are you sending and receiving messages as they happen, but you're conversing with the customer whenever they are available, not you.
This might mean that you start talking with a customer at 8 am about a product that isn't working correctly, and you don't finish that conversation until the customer is relaxing after work. Conversational marketing lets you receive messages from your customers at times that are most convenient for them. Your customer doesn't have to worry about operating hours, even if that means chatting with a bot.
Many customers aren't interested in the hassle of dialing a 1-800 number and going through several layers of menu prompts before they get their answer. Instead, you can set up a chatbot service in a messaging app that lets the customer get straight to the point, receive links to related and helpful knowledge base articles, and set up a convenient time to talk with a live agent. All while messaging your business on their own time.
2. Conversations are grounded in context.
One helpful feature of conversational marketing is the power of context. That same customer who messaged you at 8 am about the product that isn't working can now put their phone down, go to work, and pick up the conversation right where they left it at the end of the day. The customer doesn't have to worry about whether the new agent they're talking with is up to speed on what is happening. The messages are all saved and ready for the agent to pull from and use.
The conversation stays fluid, and your customer can order a replacement part without explaining what happened to the product a second time, even though hours have passed. You can have a better, more in-depth understanding of your customer's needs or wants without having to start at the beginning every time the customer contacts you.
Context is the key to smoother conversations, capturing new leads faster, and reaching better solutions.
3. Conversations happen wherever the customer needs them.
You can include real-time conversations as part of your marketing campaigns in almost any messaging app — whichever app is most convenient for your client base and for capturing new leads. You might talk to new prospects through Facebook Messenger, help a current customer on Slack, or discuss technical details over WhatsApp.
Your campaign can meet the customer wherever it's most convenient for them. There are countless application options for conversations that happen when and how the customer decides. Not all of your clients are okay with phone calls and emails — some of them want to meet with you over their favorite messaging app. The beauty of conversational marketing is that you can open your business to new connections with your target audience or customer base
4. More in-depth conversations.
Through your conversational marketing campaigns, you can go in-depth with your leads, learn more about what your customers want, and gain a better understanding of how people view your company and your products or services.
When your customer can message you anywhere and anytime, they are more likely to have more extended, better conversations with you. Instead of a rushed phone call while they're commuting to work, you can chat with them throughout their day, whenever they have a moment of free time.
Chatbots are also excellent tools for learning how and when a potential lead likes to receive messages. Your engagement will increase, and you'll see an increase in your conversion rates, too.
5. Make your company more accessible.
SMBs typically don't have the resources or workforce to keep up with large corporations. Your SMB might miss out on connecting and communicating with customers and leads because you can't hire as many people as a corporation can. The solution is conversational marketing and using chatbots.
Chatbots integrate with your chosen messaging apps and help your customers reach solutions without having to wait for an open customer service agent or sales rep. Most customers can get what they need from a chatbot without waiting in a call or chat queue for an excessive length of time.
Chatbots also help free your reps from having too many conversations at once. Customers don't care that your sales rep is talking to five people at one time — customers only care about their conversation. With chatbots, your company is accessible 24/7, even if it's out of business hours, and your customers don't have to wait in line to be heard.
Sources:
https://www.drift.com/conversational-marketing/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/conversational-marketing
https://www.ngdata.com/what-is-conversational-marketing/
