Conversational Marketing: Steroid For Today’s Marketers
Today’s consumer expects immediate and accurate information in response to their inquiries. If your response time is in the double digits (we are talking minutes, here), you are taking too long to answer your customers and web visitors. The most essential component to the success of any marketing effort is creating authentic experiences with customers that bring them value.
Using the power of conversational marketing, your teams can more effectively move buyers through marketing and sales funnels. By providing real-time conversation, no objection or questions goes unanswered – and this is where the real power lies within conversational marketing.
Far Beyond B2C
It is common for consumers and marketers alike to associate conversational marketing strategies and tactics, such as chatbots, with B2C marketing. However, conversational marketing is an essential tool for B2B marketers, as well. Chatbots and other forms of conversational marketing benefit the seller just as much as the buyer.
For example, 82% of B2B website visitors will not produce a legitimate prospect. As marketers move their prospects down the funnel, it is essential to ensure that marketing and sales teams are both able to use their time wisely. After all, time spent on a prospect that is not qualified or likely to convert is time spent away from those who will.
Companies and businesses of all sizes that operate in the B2B space must recognize the qualifying capabilities of conversational marketing. As digital marketing continues to evolve constantly, conversational marketing continues to be a successful approach to finding the gems among the rubble.
The Power Of Personalization
Lead capture forms and lengthy funnels are no longer viable options for converting your leads. This shouldn’t come as a shock as companies in every industry begin to recognize that more time equals a larger opportunity for your prospect to abandon their buying journey. Conversational marketing bridges that gap of time by building valuable relationships with prospective buyers. Most importantly, these relationships feel much more personal from the initial point of contact.
We often assume that businesses and their leaders expect more direct and straightforward forms of communication that tend to lack a personal touch. However, the data would suggest that this is simply no longer the case. In today’s market, 86% of B2B buyers are willing to pay more money for a great customer service experience – which starts with immediate personalization.
Conversational Marketing & Account-Based Marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a standard of most B2B companies, regardless of the industry. One of the most effective ways for your account executives and representatives to maintain their top clients is through a combination of personalization and previously captured data.
High-value accounts should not be met with generic templates and outreach. These businesses comprise a significant portion of your revenue and must receive the white-glove treatment. Rather than maintaining these relationships with ready-made marketing tactics, conversational marketing tools provide a greater sense of customization.
By enabling chatbots to use a business’s name or even the name of an individual, your team can provide a seamless and convenient experience for your company’s customers. Even though these businesses are already active buyers, rendering the need to qualify them useless, chatbots still offer many other important services to personalize their experience.
For example, upon visiting your website, a current customer can use the chatbot to seamlessly connect with the person in charge of their account. This removes a significant amount of frustration and inconvenience from the process. These processes are what give your team’s marketing strategy an unparalleled boost.
Conversational Marketing & The Experience Economy
As marketers continue to learn more about their current and potential buyers, one thing remains clear. There are few things more important to a buyer than the experience. Conversational marketing addresses this critical market change. Most of the services or products that your company offers can be provided by your competitors.
If there is a singular factor that continues to set businesses apart from their competition, it is their customer service and the experience they provide to their customers – this is what buyers are willing to pay more for. Conversational marketing, when properly applied, uses conversations to build engagement and trust with your prospects and customers.
One of the key considerations marketing teams will have to make regarding their conversational marketing strategy is when the ultimate transition should occur. This ultimate transition refers to when a customer or prospects stops interacting with a bot and begins talking to a human and vice versa.
A Crucial Balance
Finding the right balance for your company is where the magic happens by creating a valuable and enjoyable customer experience. This is the point in which you and your team must determine which communication functions are better suited for a bot or live chat and which ones require a human connection. Consider your own interactions with the companies that you interact within your personal life.
Some functions such as setting appointments, paying bills, and inquiries about general information are best left to automatic yet personalized responses. This allows customers to take care of certain things quickly and conveniently – read: without spending too much time talking to a representative on the phone.
However, other functions require communication between two or more humans. For example, questions, account changes, and other more complicated or intricate communications are better handled between two or more people. So, understanding how your customers and prospects want to interact with your company is the key to ensuring that your conversational marketing strategy is applied properly and effectively.
The Bottom Line
Effective marketing strategies require constant evolution and adaptation. Marketing teams that fail to notice the potential of new and emerging tactics and trends will lose out to their competitors and risk losing their clients and prospects.
With this in mind, it is clear that conversational marketing tactics and strategies are essential for those companies who prioritize the experience and personalization of their communication with both customers and prospects. Today’s market moves fast, and those operating within it expect immediate and effective connections. Therefore, conversational marketing is the key to unlocking seamless and productive communication between your company and its prospects and customers. Are you in?
The author is Sayantan Dasgupta, Director-Demand Generation, Gramener
