Conversational Marketing: How a Messaging Strategy Can Grow Your Business

The world of e-commerce is not the easiest to operate in because of the speed at which trends are changing within the industry. Having a successful e-commerce business requires an application of a whole range of specific marketing solutions that can sometimes differ drastically from the traditional ones. Therefore, marketing specialists have to be extremely open-minded, always a step ahead trying to predict what the general public will like next. Actively attributing the current needs and wants of the customer is the bottom line of any for-profit organization as understanding demand creates a selling opportunity. This does not only bring you revenue, and subsequently, profit, but also allows your business to prosper and strengthen its unique selling point. All of the aforementioned are crucial for business growth.

One of the latest fundamental trends in marketing is conversational marketing, a strategy that has taken over millions of e-commerce enterprises after proving to be extremely successful. There are multiple cases of how the implementation of a messaging strategy has allowed businesses to not only maintain a competitive advantage but also to expand. However, there are also a few examples of how this tool has failed a business that did not manage to keep up with all the aspects of the strategy. This shows that despite being an innovative instrument for growing your business and boosting sales, it is nothing more than a tool, and you need to be extremely cautious to apply it correctly. This involves rigorous examination of the matter as well as basic coverage of the given concept.

What Is Conversational Marketing?

First of all, let’s clear the air and make sure we know exactly what we refer to when talking about conversational marketing. In fact, this is not that complicated and has been used in the selling realm since the beginning of the age. It is not particularly new, as conversation as a marketing tool has been universally used for a long time. The only difference is that now, in the world where the digital has taken over our lives, the conversation does not necessarily involve physically talking to anyone, but rather includes an online interaction. Essentially, conversational marketing is a marketing method that allows companies to engage leads to have one-to-one personal experiences with the customer via chatbots and chat operators. This provides 24/7 customer support, which enhances the user experience. Therefore it positively affects lead generation and subsequently sales.

The main tools used for conversational marketing are live chats and chatbots. As it can be easily deduced from the terms, the main difference between the two is the fact that live chats are managed by real people, chat operators, whereas chatbots are a result of technical advancement — inbuilt software that mimics conversations and allows to converse with visitors of the site.

Both have its advantages and downsides. For instance, live chats are great for ensuring the customer in need receives the attention they are looking for and get their problem solved in the most efficient way since they are trying to work it out with a real person who can understand even the most elaborate requests. This is something chatbots cannot do. Although these programs are very advanced, there are only so many things they are trained to understand and reply to. Sometimes it turns out that artificial intelligence cannot find mutual understanding with the customer behind the screen. However, usually, chatbots prove to be very effective as they undergo a continuous process of improvement, and learn more about the way a natural conversation should flow. Moreover, they are available to the customers at all times and do not require additional staff, which is a feature live chats cannot boast.

One way or another, a successful messaging strategy is known to bring fruitful results. And there are a couple of main reasons behind it.

HOW DOES CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING AFFECT BUSINESS GROWTH?

The main difference between conversational marketing and traditional marketing is that the latter one is very one-sided. This implies that the business is the only party doing all the talking through trying to attain as much information about its customers as possible via sales calls, sending emails, and requesting fill-in forms. However, in the modern world, where information is one of the greatest assets one has, people are often very reluctant to give it up. On the other hand, conversational marketing makes use of personalized conversations that give a feeling of exclusiveness and allow one-to-one communication with customers, so that both sides have a say. This is a great advantage to businesses as through such conversations customers reveal information that later allows companies to adjust their target and cover the greater audience. The final result of this is greater response rates and more rapid business growth since offering your customers products based on their needs is what creates higher conversion rates and generates more leads.

Advantages of Conversational Marketing

PERSONALIZATION

Customers will feel like the conversation they are having is specific and focused on them and the problem they are experiencing. Apart from this, you can also keep the logs of previous conversations so that the customer could refer to any earlier chats and save some time trying to look for the information they have already discussed.

IMMEDIACY OF REPLIES

With 24/7 chatbot support, potential customers will be able to receive help at all times instantly, without having to fill out long forms and wait for the team to contact them.

HIGH CONVERSIONS

Leads capturing and assigning them to salespeople.

How to Create a Successful Messaging Strategy?

Despite all the pros of conversational marketing, a business will only get a chance to benefit from them if the messaging strategy is designed and applied correctly. Just remember everything you find annoying about the website pop-ups, and the answer to what perfect conversational marketing strategy looks like should be pretty straightforward:

KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Do they prefer chatbots? Would they rather have a live chat? It makes a whole lot of difference!

SET APPROPRIATE TRIGGERS

Usually, potential customers need some time to look around the site before they are ready to engage. Therefore, set reasonable triggers that would start chatbots only after a certain amount of time or upon request instead of popping up immediately scaring away the website visitors.

PERSONALIZE

Make forms engaging and use them as an additional branding platform. If you add a touch of brand personality to the forms, you will maintain high brand awareness and show the customer you care about your image. 

Author’s Bio: Cheryl Hearts is a passionate journalist from Boston, Massachusetts. She decided to dedicate her life to writing because she thinks this way she can be the most useful for the community. After obtaining a Master’s degree in Journalism, Cheryl started running her own blog CherylHearts.com where she’s covering topics of great interest to society.