Enhance Your Conversational Marketing

Does it feel like you are greeted by a bot or a chat window whenever you visit a website?  You are not alone, and there is good reason for the rise in conversational marketing.  Many organizations find it to be a powerful tool to help improve customer experience, qualify leads faster, and build robust customer profiles. The reason it is powerful is because the customer controls when, how, and where they communicate with your business.  So how do you optimize those interactions to realize the power and value of conversational marketing?  Here are some tips to follow.

Be Creative

Delight customers with fun and engaging conversations – make them feel like they are chatting with a friend, not a business.  To do this, avoid overly formal language, and if appropriate, use emojis, gifs or other rich media formats.  Invite customers to respond to questions and follow up with quick replies to help share the most relevant content.

Be Personal

Conversational marketing helps you build a personal relationship between your brand and your customer.  Call them by name and respond to customers with engaging content that acknowledges their particular choice or preferences.  Also, keep an eye on your conversation flows to ensure responses are recommending the right next step to keep customers moving forward on their journey.

Be Mindful

Set the right expectation upfront.  Make it clear in your CTA that a conversation will start with a bot vs a human.  Plan ahead for those moments when more clarification is needed. If confused by a customers’ question or response, respond in a fun way, and offer options to keep them engaged.  Having multiple fallback responses can help this exchange feel more natural. Don’t forget that chat bots can be a springboard for person-to-person conversations.  As a conversation progresses, route customers to a live chat operator to provide additional support.

Keep Learning

Conversations will evolve as more interactions occur and you learn more about your customer’s journey.   As you understand what customers respond to, you can make adjustments to optimize the entire experience and drive more conversions.  Track the stages to monitor engagement and drop-off rates within the conversations.  Test changes to the order of profiling questions to understand the impact. Leverage the data from conversations across other touchpoints to improve your overall marketing efforts.  Every small adjustment can add up to big improvements.

Following these tips can help improve conversion rates and avoid message fatigue.  Just like other channels, stay focused on the quality of the experience.  People always have, and always will, expect conversations to be helpful, personal, and empathetic. It’s just now that there is technology to have those conversations at scale.

These are a few best practices you can use in your conversational marketing strategy.  As you’re planning your initiatives, Relationship One is here to help.  Contact us anytime.