What Is Conversational Marketing?
Having a conversation means that you are sharing your views and concepts. The keyword in that sentence is “sharing.” It has to be a two-way situation. An excellent example of a conversation is when at least two people have a back-and-forth talk, both offering give and take.
Marketing is the process of promoting and selling, including research and advertising (Dictionary.com). When you combine the two, you get conversational marketing, which is conversation created expressly to increase engagement, promote your products, sell your services, or disseminate your ideas through back-and-forth, give-and-take exchanges with your customers.
There are many ways you can use conversational marketing techniques and methods in your business. Let’s look at a few ideas and examples to get the idea clear so that you can get started.
You likely already do some of these things but maybe didn’t know it had a name. Adding as many conversational marketing approaches to your marketing efforts as you can will result in better customer relationships, reaching more people, and learning more about your audience – while also making more sales.
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Chatbots
You can see a great example of a chatbot right on a site that helps you create chatbots for your website. Check out the chatbot at Drift.com. It appears in the lower right corner if you’re on a computer, or your screen if you’re on your smartphone. The chatbot asks you a question to try to start the engagement. Once you start talking to the chatbot, it leads you toward signing up for their course, getting on their newsletter list, and so forth – all without you ever having to go fill out a form.
Live Customer Service
You can also use software that allows your customer service reps to do the same thing as discussed above with the chatbot. Sometimes using live customer service is preferable, such as during business hours or when the chatbot escalates the need for a real person. The two can work together to help you deliver top-notch customer care 24/7, 365 days a year. Look at Freshworks to find out how you can get the technology.
Interactive Lead Capture Tools
Using software and tools like Verse.io or Freshworks.com is a great way to make your lead capture more interactive and conversational. You want every action your customer or site visitor takes to be the catalyst to a response from the technology or a real person.
Live Streaming Video
A super-effective way to increase engagement and use conversational marketing is to practice doing live video streaming where you read the chat and answer the questions from the participants live at the time they’re being asked.
Live Text Chat Streams
Just like the live video streaming allows your visitors to talk to you or your representative live face to face during events or any given day, you can do live chat streams using SMS and direct messaging technology.
Using these tools and techniques to expand the touchpoints you have with your audience is really and truly a no-brainer. It’s more than likely your audience is using technology at home (like smartphones, home assistants, and so forth) that will make them even more receptive to voice and text live chats with bots or people, to help them get their answers and make decisions about your product or service.
