What Is Conversational Marketing? Definition and Tips

Let’s be honest: Modern marketing is broken. 

Most brands spend hours of their time and hundreds of dollars chasing down new leads. That’s a recipe for wasted energy on a lead pipeline that does nothing for you. 

It’s time to identify your unicorns: You need to yield 80% of your results from 5% of your effort. And that means going all in on conversational marketing.

With conversational marketing, brands move users through their funnel with the power of one-on-one conversations. Instead of pushing ads or spammy emails at shoppers, conversational marketing sends personalized and friendly messages that consumers want to engage with. 

Not sure if it’s right for you? Learn how conversational marketing works and check out these four examples to start your campaigns on the right foot. 

What is conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing is all about making shoppers feel special by giving them a one-on-one, personalized experience. But if you have thousands of followers or hundreds of customers, it probably sounds impossible to answer all of those messages by yourself. 

That’s why businesses use conversational marketing tools to fill in the gaps. In fact, 45% of businesses use chat tools like a bot to save time (and preserve their sanity). After all, you don’t want to reply to 500 messages yourself, do you? 

Two-way conversations are the future of marketing. And with the right technology, you can give customers the personalized experience they crave, putting conversational marketing to work for your brand. 

4 conversational marketing examples 

Most customers expect a personalized experience. They don’t really care if you have a full inbox and a marketing team that’s stressed to the max: Customers still want you to get in touch with them ASAP. 

Fortunately, conversational marketing tools can help you balance customer expectations without driving your team into the ground.

Why would a company use conversational marketing?

Here are 4 examples of how conversational marketing benefits your biz:

1. Increase audience engagement
2. Bring in more leads
3. Make more sales
4. Offer better customer support

1. Increase audience engagement

Need more engagement from your followers? Conversational marketing is here to help. Conversations can turn passive social media followers and website visitors into engaged brand advocates. 

For example, if you’re sharing pointers on Facebook, add more advice and suggestions in the comments section. This encourages users to scroll through the comments to score even more juicy tips. 

Everyone’s favorite marketer, Neil Patel, took a similar approach on Instagram. He teased the tips to his followers, but only revealed them if the user commented with the “magic word.” When you give people a reason to engage, like a freebie, they’re much more likely to engage with you.

Conversational marketing makes omnichannel engagement a breeze, too. If you need to chat with customers on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, SMS, or webchat, conversational marketing bots handle the hard work for you. With a solution like Customers.ai, everything is in a unified inbox so you can manage every customer conversation in one place. 

2. Bring in more leads

Engagement is great, but leads are what you’re after, right? Conversational marketing creates one-on-one messages with engaged users to collect data. This not only saves you a ton of time but it also means you’re talking to leads who are already interested. It’s no surprise that brands with automated lead management like this see a 10% increase in revenue. 

For example, let’s say you’re talking to a lead on webchat. You want to source first-party data from them, so you implement a multichannel contact center to manage the webchat experience and dynamically redirect them to further engage via social media. Additionally, you collect their contact information to proactively reach out through SMS, email, or even a phone call. This way, you can interact with leads on an ongoing basis instead of in the limited time they’re using webchat.  In this case, an Airtable alternative can help to organize and manage data collected through webchat interactions, streamlining your lead engagement efforts.

3. Make more sales

Conversational marketing bots help you sell more products. Brands see a lift in revenue, customer retention, and average order values with conversational marketing. If you invest in ongoing customer conversations with relevant offers and personalized messages, you’ll see the difference in your bottom line. 

4. Offer better customer support

Everyone wants to score more sales, but a purchase isn’t the end of your relationship with a customer. You have to differentiate your brand by offering amazing customer support, both to leads and to repeat shoppers. 

Whether you’re an agency, an Instagram influencer, or a B2C brand, users need to get in touch with you right away—in fact, 82% of consumers expect an immediate response.

Use a unified conversational marketing tool like Customers.ai to talk with customers where they are. With just one inbox for you to check, you don’t have to switch between customer conversations. That means fewer customer messages will fall through the cracks, and you can offer shoppers the immediacy they’re looking for. 

You can also use a conversational marketing bot to answer common customer questions. Instead of answering thousands of messages yourself, just set up keyword-based responses for frequently asked questions. 

Need help? Get a conversational marketing bot

So what is conversational marketing? An instant conversation with a future customer.

Customers don’t just want to hear about your product or service; they care about the experience of engaging with you. Install a conversational marketing bot on your website, eCommerce shop, or social media to give users exactly what they want. When in doubt, consult these four conversational marketing examples to crack the code on conversational marketing for your own brand. 

Need help scaling up your conversations? We’ve got you. Customers.ai helps you talk to thousands of users without losing a wink of sleep.

Sign up for a free trial now to see Customers.ai in action.