Being able to connect with your brand’s customers is vital for the success of your marketing effort. And for that, many techniques have been developed. One of the newest approaches is conversational marketing. But what is it exactly? Find out and discover how Virtua Solutions can help get more from it.
How Does Conversational Marketing Work Anyway?
In a traditional marketing approach, the attempt to connect with customers is often one way. You talk about your product and wait to see whether the customer will purchase your goods or service. On the other side of the equation, the customer does respond to the marketing but will often have to wait for your response so that they can take their actions.
Image from Collidu.
In conversational marketing, both parties initiate a two-way interaction from the start. That allows for faster engagement since there is no waiting time for each side to respond. The conversation also happens in real-time, letting you deliver a response that matches the customer’s needs at that moment.
Why Go For Conversational Marketing
As you can see, conversational marketing upends the traditional way companies do their marketing engagement. That is why you might wonder whether it is worth the effort. Here are some of the main reasons that should convince you.
Providing Additional Support For Traditional Marketing
You might think that conversational marketing is here to replace traditional marketing. But it won’t. The former will give the letter a significant boost. That is because it gives them more options for engaging your brand.
This option also helps them better take control of the engagement. For instance, they can start from a two-way channel and then switch to a one-way channel based on their preference. That allows your marketing team to tune its strategy to the customer better.
Bringing The Customer Front And Center
Image from Emarsys.
The main focus of traditional marketing is to convince the customer to purchase as quickly as possible. While this still works, it has its limitations. On the other hand, conversational marketing brings the customer front and center. That helps create a better experience for them and convinces them to continue.
Making Conversational Marketing Work
So, you might wonder: Where do you actually begin with conversational marketing? As it is, there are multiple approaches to that. However, all of these can be summarized into three main stages.
Image from Drift.
Engage
The two-way conversation begins when you first encounter the customer. As such, you want to bring it to a more personal level as early as possible. This is where live chat becomes a more appropriate means of communication.
By making live chat a primary means of communication as early as possible in the journey, you encourage customers to initiate the conversation. On the other hand, you also get to steer the conversation in your desired direction by responding early in the appropriate manner.
Image from Connection Model.
Of course, the challenge with chatbots is keeping them up. After all, customers want quick responses to continue conversing. Chatbots are particularly useful here since they can quickly respond to initial customer questions. They also work anytime, letting you connect with more audiences.
However, you would still want human agents to work alongside your chatbots. Human agents can take over the conversation and continue to talk with customers. They can also handle more nuanced conversations that provide better insights about customers.
Virtua Solutions can help you with both aspects. With chatbots, we can provide backend support that ensures these tools are working. We then pair that with a team of highly skilled marketing and customer success agents customers can talk further about more advanced topics.
Understand Leads
Key to an effective conversational marketing effort is understanding what your leads want as soon as possible. How fast? Studies show that you should respond within the first five minutes after contact to have the best chance of capturing a lead.
Image from Bot Nation AI.
The challenge lies in knowing how to respond to them within that short time. You need a good amount of historical data to help you. Virtua Solutions’ customer analytics team will give your marketing team all the information they need.
Using this information, you can plan the initial conversation, asking questions pointing toward a specific marketing goal. Note that you should consider different marketing goals within the same discussion to better pinpoint the best response to the customer. This strategy should apply to both your chatbots and human marketing agents.
Recommend The Next Step
The third stage of the conversational marketing effort is recommending the next course of action to the customer. Here, it isn’t just about directing customers to the product page. You also want to guide them to their next steps after that.
Image from Pipedrive.
For that, your customers need to get to the right sales representatives who can help them. Take advantage of tools like intelligent routing. These tools direct customers automatically to a specific sales representative based on certain criteria. Additionally, they can point customers not yet ready for face-to-face engagements to other resources.
To make this automatic rerouting more effective, ensure that these next stops are ready to continue the conversation with the customer. Continuing our marketing support, we can do that work for you. Our team will ensure that all your customer resources are up-to-date and accessible. Meanwhile, our agents are always ready to connect with your main marketing team and engage customers as needed.
Keep The Conversation Going And The Customers Coming
Conversation marketing is not a one-time thing. Once you are done talking to the customer and they are off with your product, you need to get ready for their return and a new convo. Virtua Solutions can help you be prepared. Contact us today and let’s get ready to talk with customers MORE.