You’ve got exciting news to share with a friend. You dial them up, eagerly anticipating their answer, only to hear the dreaded recording that will halt your conversation in its tracks: 

“Leave a message after the beep.” 

Ah, the days of landlines and answering machines — a concept some of you might not even remember.

Thanks to messaging applications like WhatsApp, Slack, and Facebook Messenger, communicating with friends, family, and co-workers is quicker and easier than ever. It’s how most of us have conversations when we’re not face-to-face. Zuckerberg himself stated the future is not social media — it’s messaging services.

Yet, despite new iterations in technology over the past decade, many brands still rely exclusively on slow, one-way communication channels to push their customers through their sales funnels. 

My question is: Why?

There’s a better way to engage with your target customer.

A way that’s fast, immediate, and personalised — precisely what people want and expect from their favourite brands. It’s called conversational marketing, and it’s a game-changer if you’re ready to elevate both your user’s experience and your bottom line. 

Let’s take a closer look at what conversational marketing means and the direct benefits a conversational marketing strategy can have for your business.

What is conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing means having personalised, real-time conversations with your customers. Instead of asking potential buyers to fill out a form or wait for an email, your brand uses targeted messaging to engage with people immediately. 

Your customers are happier because they get instant communication with your brand. Your business wins as you gain insights on prospects and close leads more quickly. 

Conversational marketing doesn’t mean throwing out your sales funnel. Think of it more as a compliment to your existing marketing channels — a way to ask qualifying questions and quickly build meaningful relationships, in turn expediting your sales process.

There are two ways to tackle conversational marketing. The first is Live Chat. Live Chat is impractical for most businesses as it requires an actual human to be available for your website visitors 24/7. 

The other option is Chatbots. These sophisticated AI programs use natural language and pre-programmed responses to automate conversational marketing. Chatbots marketing allows you to engage with people anytime they land on your website. Actively send targeted messages to users based on their actions on your page or wait for web visitors to initiate the conversation. Either way, you gain insights on your leads more quickly and, in turn, build brand allegiance by providing more accurate recommendations, content, and support.

The benefits of conversational marketing

It’s worth taking a deeper look at the robust benefits of conversational marketing, so let’s do just that. Here are three powerful reasons to create a conversational marketing strategy today:

1. Conversational marketing improves your customer’s experience

You already know your customers want instant communication with your brand. Conversational marketing enables you to provide personalised support to your leads, no matter what time of day they land on your website. 

But here’s the thing. It’s not just the speed at which you communicate with your customers — it’s also the medium. 

The average person spends three to five hours a day looking at their phone. For most, our mobile devices are the primary way we access the internet. It’s why mobile-first marketing is crucial to your business’s success — and why conversational marketing is such a powerful way to improve user experience. 

Which would you prefer? Scrolling through a website and filling out a form on your phone, or quickly getting the personalised support you need via a convenient messaging app?

2. Conversational marketing delivers valuable insights on your customer

Stop guessing what your customers want. With conversational marketing, you hear directly from your audience. Provide more personalised responses and create lifelong brand champions. 

Listening to your customers is also a potent way to collect consumer data. With conversational marketing, you get to hear from your target audience in their own words. That’s critical information that can inform your growth marketing strategy. 

Say you recently finished a major website redesign. Thanks to your bots marketing, you learn customers regularly have difficulty navigating to a specific page on your site. You’re able to provide immediate support.

Through this process, you also gain valuable insight into how users interact with your new design. This helps you make necessary tweaks that might otherwise cost thousands of dollars down the line.

3. Conversational marketing helps you close more leads more quickly

You already know your customers expect lightning-fast response times. But conversational marketing doesn’t just help you communicate more quickly; it also helps you do so more effectively. 

The right conversational marketing strategy qualifies leads and provides context to your sales team, allowing them to offer the right solutions at the right times. That means more leads, a shorter sales cycle, and compounding returns. 

How to use a conversational marketing strategy in your business

Now that the benefits of a conversational marketing strategy are obvious, let’s quickly review a few ways you can immediately implement conversational marketing in your business.

1. In conjunction with lead forms

You don’t have to delete all the lead forms on your website overnight. However, many businesses find web chats have lower bounce rates and higher conversions than traditional lead forms.  

2. To answer FAQs

Even if you have an FAQ page, why wait around hoping a potential buyer will find the answer to their question when you can provide the same solution in a personalised manner instantly? Save time, improve customer satisfaction, and qualify leads when you utilise an FAQ-based chatbot.

3. To schedule sales calls

Connect potential customers to your sales team immediately. Chatbots marketing lets you schedule meetings with prospects in real-time. 

Conversational marketing is an innovative, easy way to grow your business. Use it in conjunction with your current marketing and sales funnel, and you’ll accelerate towards your profit goals. 

Need support integrating conversational marketing into your existing marketing channels? Not sure if your current marketing plan is performing up to par? 

Schedule a free consultation with our team to learn how we can help you grow your business today.