What is Conversational Marketing?

The advent of the internet drastically changed how we market products. The internet allowed people to interact directly with an ad and make a purchase without getting off the couch. And that was game-changing - to be sure.

With the recent developments in AI-powered voice tech, another marketing revolution is underway: conversational marketing. Conversational marketing has the potential to connect brands with their audience naturally and organically, creating more engaging customer experiences that translate to higher sales volumes.

In this post, we're going to look at what conversational marketing is and how it can benefit your brand.

Defining Conversational Marketing

In a nutshell, conversational marketing is the process of communicating with customers (whether potential or current) through conversational channels such as chatbots, live chat, social media, and messaging apps. Using conversational marketing, you can connect your brand with customers on a more personal level, fostering relationships that can lead to conversions and sales.

Conversational marketing works a lot like traditional online marketing, but it has the benefit of being able to skip quite a few steps. Conventional online marketing looks something like this:

Form > Email > Customer Relationship Management (CRM) > Qualify > Contact > Sale

So, the user visits a website and is interested in the product or service. They fill out a form to obtain more information. Exchanges of questions and answers happen over email. The brand's CRM system processes the customer's information. Once the customer is qualified, a representative calls them (or otherwise contacts them) in the hopes of making a sale.

It's a strategy that works and that has value. However, it can take days or even weeks to reach the point where you're directly engaging with your customers. Let's now look at the conversational marketing model:

Qualify > Conversations > Sale

Notice the fewer steps? 

That's possible because your chatbot is directly engaging with the customer from the get-go with conversational marketing. And as the customer asks their questions and answers the chatbot's questions, the AI component of the chatbot makes inferences in real-time. It qualifies the customer as the conversation flows. After a few minutes of back and forth between the customer and the chatbot, the qualified customer can be transferred to a representative to potentially close the deal.

Conversational marketing is effective because it's more personal, brings you closer to your customers, and dramatically speeds up the conversion process (making a sale).

Let's look at some of the main benefits of conversational marketing.

A Bionic Sales Funnel

With conversational marketing, your first line of contact qualifies leads for your sales team from the onset. Customers don't need to click buttons and fill out forms. Conversational marketing enables you to move your customers through your marketing and sales funnel more effectively. 

It dramatically shortens the time it takes for your customers to complete the funnel and provides them with a user experience with much fewer friction points. Cutting down on time and friction maximizes the potential for a sale and fosters brand loyalty (and even advocacy). Your customers have a better chance of returning for more and referring your brand to their friends and family. 

Understand Your Customers Better

Another benefit of conversational marketing is that customers can tell you precisely what they want in their own words. You won't need to troll through massive sets of website analytics to figure it out. Your customers will naturally make it clear how they want to interact with your brand - you just need to listen.

Chat interfaces gather vast amounts of data by default - that's how they work. That data can be used to optimize and enhance everything from customer interactions to the products or services on offer. It can even be used to offer special promotions to select customers (those most likely to be enticed by the offer). Simply put, by collecting customer data, you'll better understand how your customers interact with your brand and can use those insights to inform your future business decisions.

More Effective Lead Generation

Human beings like having conversations. And conversations shouldn't feel like sales pitches. Hence, having customers interact with your brand through conversations is probably the most intuitive and effective way to build a relationship with your company. Conversations also provide you with the opportunity to optimize your user experience. The more fluid and natural your chatbot's conversation flows, the more comfortable your customers will share their interests, intents, and desired outcomes. And those insights are key to lead generation. 

Conversational marketing is one of the best ways to drive lead generation. It can easily reach new audiences because it uses many different channels (social networks, chatbots, messaging apps, etc.) rather than sticking to a centralized approach where everything needs to happen on your website. And because the qualification process occurs as soon as the conversation starts, the number of valuable leads is likely to rise quickly. 

The best way to learn about something (or someone) is to ask the right questions.

Wapping UpGWrapping Upeneration

So that was a bird's eye view of conversational marketing. It's powerful and cutting edge. And it works. Marketing sometimes shapes consumer behavior, and other times it needs to adapt to consumer behavior. While not a scientific analysis, I think this is a case where marketing needed to adapt. 

The mobile revolution has changed how people communicate, shop, and learn. Billboards just don't cut it anymore - and by "billboards," I mean traditional marketing. You need to reach your customers where they are. You need to integrate into their world - not the other way around. Conversational marketing is the best way to do that today.

The future is vocal.

Modev

Modev was founded in 2008 on the simple belief that human connection is vital in the era of digital transformation. Modev believes markets are made. From mobile to voice, Modev has helped develop ecosystems for new waves of technology. Today, Modev produces market-leading events such as VOICE Global, presented by Google Assistant, VOICE Summit the most important voice-tech conference globally, and the Webby award-winning VOICE Talks internet talk show. Modev staff, better known as "Modevators," include community building and transformation experts worldwide. To learn more about Modev, and the breadth of events and ecosystem services offered live, virtually, locally, and nationally - visit modev.com.