When it comes to customer acquisition, it’s a well-known fact that businesses would rather retain customers than get new ones since the cost of customer acquisition can be quite high. With returning customers being 50% more likely to purchase products than new customers who are only 5% more likely, there’s a big case to be made for strengthening your customer engagement efforts.
While maintaining customer relationships is key to business growth, identifying and improving customer engagement can be daunting.
Conversational marketing software is becoming a sought-after tool to make your interactions with customers more effective and meaningful. You can use one-on-one, direct communication through multiple multiple channels to create a marketing campaign that engages and interacts with your customers.
What is conversational marketing?
Conversational marketing is a relatively new technique in customer management simply because it wasn’t possible before. With advancements in technology, however, businesses now have the opportunity of being accessible to customers whenever they need it.
Using AI technologies, businesses can interact with customers through multiple channels and deliver customer support faster and more efficiently. Today, customers encounter conversational marketing in the form of:
- Chatbots
- Live chats
- Messaging apps
- Online surveys and forms
- Voice assistants (similar to Siri or Alexa)
Conversational marketing involves a much deeper level of engagement and helps to move the customer through sales and marketing funnels using similar mechanisms to that of a real-time conversation.
For businesses considering adopting conversational marketing software, here are some ways that it can revolutionise how you engage with customers.
Conversations are focused on the customer
Think of a scenario where a customer walks into a store and finds themselves fighting for the attention of a salesperson to help them with a purchase—they’re most likely to leave with a bad impression of your business.
With conversational marketing, however, the most important person is the customer and the software is programmed to focus on them.
If a customer starts drafting a question over a mid-morning snack but can’t send it out, conversational marketing makes it possible to save the question and the customer can return to the message and send it out when it’s convenient for them. Since the text isn’t going anywhere, neither is the customer.
Having a friendly conversation about the business can also create boost customer engagement. They don’t feel like they’re getting a sales pitch and feel that your business genuinely cares about their problems. Because customer outreach is such a large part of a business, giving them that individual attention can be beneficial for your business.
Conversations happen in real time
Speed is an important element when engaging with customers. Online conversations make it easier for customers to get the answers they need when they need them.
Today, shoppers expect instant gratification with many wanting a response to their inquiry within 5 minutes. With AI messaging platforms and live chats, customers can get the instant interaction they prefer, enhancing their engagement and experience using your brand.
In addition, the quicker you respond to a customer’s question, the more likely they stay loyal to your business because they know that your brand is dependable.
Conversations can be quick
One of the most significant benefits of conversational marketing software is that it eliminates the need for website visitors to draft and send emails or complete lengthy forms and wait for a reply. It can also save a lot of valuable time for your customer service team to address customer inquiries.
You don’t have to leave your customer waiting on hold for 15 minutes while a customer service agent tries to help you. Why not just send an article link to a simple question that a customer may ask?
Conversational forms and marketing make it much easier for your customers to receive a response within minutes.
What’s better is that conversation forms provide customer support agents with the ability to track information without having to ask the customer to repeat their order details every time they speak to you.
Conversations transform into conversions
Conversational marketing campaigns can also help your sales agents generate more leads and boost conversions. For instance, you can use the information you have to develop surveys and sign-up forms by making them more personalised.
In addition, you can use this method of marketing to direct new customers to certain products and services or even upsell to existing customers. Your sales team has the resources to qualify leads faster and move customers through the sales funnel much more quickly.
One of the best things about conversational marketing is that you can achieve all this without using more customer service hours. The chatbots and smart forms can easily handle the bulk of the questions and leave more time for your customer agents to handle more complex problems and focus on boosting conversions.
Use conversational marketing software to connect with your customers
With businesses bombarding shoppers with multiple promotions, advertisements, and sales material, connecting with customers can be difficult. This is why businesses are looking for new ways to heighten the customer experience and create more meaningful engagement.
Fortunately, conversational marketing software can help your business do just that by enhancing your communication and interactions with personalisation.
Using chatbots, live chat, interactive forms, and more, conversational marketing is stepping up the way businesses interact with customers and the speed with which customer inquiries are answered, making a much more pleasant experience for customers who are likely to remain loyal to your brand.
If you’re ready to try out a conversational marketing strategy that’s right for you or you want to find out more about business automation tools that can benefit your business, schedule a consultation with one of our experts today.