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Your Guide to Conversational Marketing

Get your digital marketing strategies in order as 2020 draws nearer. Stay up-to-date on the latest digital marketing trends and identify which ones could be great for your business.

Conversational marketing is predicted to be one of the biggest trends in digital marketing. It allows you to connect with consumers on a personal level, increasing your chances of improving your conversion rate.

In this blog post, we’re going to discuss what conversational marketing is and how you can get started.

Let’s begin.

What is Conversational Marketing?

At its core, conversational marketing is a more personalised approach to interacting with customers online. Instead of using canned responses, you tailor your responses based on each individual you’re speaking to.

Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean that you’ll have to create tailored responses for each customer–something that could cost you plenty of time and money.

Conversational marketing often involves using chatbots and message apps. You essentially create conversation flows in advance, predicting common users questions and concerns. Users then receive responses based on the answers they choose.

According to a recent survey, 79% of consumers are willing to use messaging apps to get customer service. People are now more willing to receive help in ways that are convenient for everyone involved.

Get to your ideal client.

As much as you’d like to think that your product or service caters to everyone, that usually isn’t the case.

You need to create an ideal client profile, and all your marketing strategies will depend on the said profile.

This is important, because different things appeal to different people. If your ideal client is a thirty-something family man, you can say that your product or service can help him spend more time with his family.

If your ideal client is a twenty-something freelancer, you can say that your product or service will help her find more clients.

For the first one, you may need to use more formal language. For the second type of ideal client, you can use more informal language and even slang to connect with him further.

You will need to use a different tone, image, and colours for each.

Start by asking yourself the following questions:

• How old is your ideal client?
• Where does he live?
• What are his strengths?
• What are his areas of improvement?
• Where does he spend his time online and offline?

If you’re having difficulty answering the above questions, you can survey with Surveymonkey. It’s a free tool that lets you create online surveys.

Once you’ve created your survey, you can share the link on your social media profiles and newsletter.

Brainstorm conversation flows.

Now that you’ve gotten to know your ideal client, you can identify what kind of questions he’ll ask.

The most crucial part of conversational marketing is creating user flows. You have to anticipate common user issues and concerns and ensure you’re accurately addressing each one.

You can start by taking a look at all the products and services you offer. Try to answer all possible questions regarding pricing, the scope of support, and other important details.

Think of the most common issues users encounter with your product or service. Do they have problems getting started? Are there issues you usually need to troubleshoot?

Let’s say your product is scheduling software. If users haven’t purchased it yet, they will most likely ask questions about pricing, ease-of-use, and what type of equipment is required to use the software.

If users have already purchased it, they may have difficulty installing it. Once they’ve installed it, you may need to walk them through the entire process of inputting schedules.

The list goes on and on.

Once you start brainstorming, you may discover that there’s plenty of ground you need to cover.

In the previous section, we recommended that you create a Surveymonkey survey to get to know your customers better. You can also create another survey specifically for common customer concerns.

You can ask which aspects of your product or service they like best and which ones they have difficulty with. Having that type of data could do wonders for your digital marketing strategies and business overall.

Test everything.

Conversational marketing doesn’t end with creating conversation flows and using a chatbot.

You also have to test everything.

Most chatbots record all conversations, so you will have a clear record of each customer interaction. Set aside time to study these conversations, and identify any issues.

How do users sound when talking to your chatbot? Do they sound satisfied or frustrated? Are there questions that your chatbot was unable to answer?

The answers to these questions could help you refine your conversation flows and provide better customer service.

For example, you may notice that one issue keeps cropping up. However, you failed to create a conversation flow for this specific issue. The client keeps referring users to your customer hotline instead.

Upon discovering this, it becomes clear to you that you need to create an additional conversation flow.

Conclusion

Conversational marketing is here to stay. Make sure you learn about and start implementing it, so you don’t get left behind by the competition.

Begin by getting to know your target audience. Once you’ve gotten to know them, you can begin addressing common issues and concerns with conversational marketing.

Cornerstone Digital is a web development company in Sydney. We’d like to help you prepare your 2020 digital marketing strategy. Call us on (02) 8211 0668 or email us at info@cornerstone-digital.com.au.

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Darlyn Herradura

A self-professed book and digital marketing nerd, Darlyn Herradura focuses on building trust between customers and businesses with the written word. She understands that creating valuable content is the best way to get found online and happily spends her time doing that.