Why Good Marketing Begins with Conversation
By Catherine Destasio
Two-way communication is necessary for building any healthy relationship. For business owners, open conversation is vital to understand customer needs and provide services and recommendations that solidify trust and confidence. It’s this understanding and intelligence that make good business owners even better, and make customer relationships strong.
These important conversations are probably commonplace in most in-person customer interactions, but when it comes to your marketing communications, does the conversation stop?
Often, when marketing totheir contacts, business owners rely exclusively on less effective,one-way communication channels like email. But some successful businesses have begun to leverage conversational marketing to more deeply engage clients, improve loyalty and increase revenue.
Conversational marketing is an emerging marketing channel that uses personalized, one-on-one conversations to learn about and remember client interests through automated technology. The result is better targeted messaging that drives higher response and conversion rates.
“If your marketing campaigns still rely exclusively on one-way channels like email, you’re missing opportunities to grow your business,” explain Bob Fabbio, CEO of eRelevance Corp., a technology-enabled marketing automation service.
How the Conversation Flows
Traditional marketing channels flow in one direction. If you only send emails, mail postcards, or buy online or print ads, you’re doing all the talking and learning very little. One-way communication wouldn’t work in a client consultation, and it isn’t effective marketing.
Conversational marketing uses personalized, two-way communication to identify and remember clients’ interests and deliver the information and special offers most relevant to—and desired by—them. When you know what your clients want, you can offer discounts, special events and information in your marketing campaigns that resonate, are more likely to convert and generate more business.
Conversational marketing is a channel especially well suited for businesses where trust is paramount and strong relationships already exist. It’s about listening—not just talking— to secure lasting connections.
An App for That
Conversational apps, or ChatBots,effectively bring the latest two-way communication channel to digital marketing. They create interactions that feel like personal, uninterrupted, real conversations.
The apps can identify clients’ interests in products and services—even glean their hobbies and personal interests to deepen connections—and engage them on topics of their choice, with appropriate responses throughout the conversation. Theseautomated conversations can progressively become more personalized,and they rememberand cue interests or other information from prior interactions.
The personalized client data collected can be used to enhance in-person interactions or to segment communications though other marketing channels.
Conversations Deliver Conversions
Leads from conversational channelstend to convert at higher rates than other digital marketingbecause it is the truest permission-based marketing. Peopleare choosing to engage in bi-directional interaction. These interactions build long-term value and stronger, longer, more loyal relationships.
Personalized information collected through conversations also enablesbusinesses to remain above the consumer marketing noise. When fighting for consumer mindshare, it’s easy for messages to get lost in the shuffle. A key to breaking through the clutter is by delivering personalization and relevance. In fact, 90 percent of marketers see individualization as the future of marketing—moving beyond segmentation to true one-to-one personalization in a real-time context (Teradata).
A Multi-channel Approach Is Still Necessary
The addition of aconversationalchannelshould be part of a fully integrated marketing program, not stand on its own. No single channel can reach everyone in this online, offline and digital world. Consumers expect choices and want to communicate on their terms
Conversational marketing through smart phone apps effectively supplements and reinforces other digital marketing efforts, including email, web and social.The beauty of conversational marketing is that it fits well into a multi-channel approach while delivering benefits other channels cannot.
Catherine Destasio is a writer and editor on a marketing website. She loves writing, reading motivational stories and spending the time with her family. You can follow her on Twitter.
