Today, you can do essentially the same without ever leaving your office or house – by implementing conversational marketing techniques. You’ll use chatbots, instant messaging, and other technology along with your website and social media platforms to talk directly to your customers one-on-one, creating a very powerful high-converting lead generating system.

Let’s look at some examples of companies using conversational marketing successfully.

1-800-Flowers

1-800-Flowers says that over 70 per cent of their orders come from chatbots. Their chatbots feel like a live person and make the customer very comfortable and feel safe ordering, without them ever talking to a real person. People love ordering this way instead of filling out a form.

eBay

If you’ve ever used eBay.com, you’ll know that they have an awesome chatbot service that uses the Google Assistant platform, making the chatbot’s service available through systems like Google Home. Customers can use voice search to find products and are sent right to the seller that has those products.

Resistbot

This is an example of how chatbots can be used in politics, but even if you’re not into politics, this service is an amazing example of all the things a chatbot can do for your company. This is especially true if your company provides information, courses, or digital products and services.

For example, the user can use the chatbot to send letters to political leaders, letters to the editor, and more. Regardless of the side you’re on, as this is not important in this discussion, you can test this out for yourself by sending a text to 50409 (US only).

HelloFresh.com

Freddy Freshbot is there to serve customers of HelloFresh via Facebook Messenger.

This bot offers answers, recipes, and other types of support through the chat interface. There are also clickable buttons with topics and a FAQ. The awesome fact is that Freddy helps customers 24/7.

Universal Studios

This chatbot is awesome because it’s a great example of a company using conversational marketing to sell an experience and not a physical product. The bot has a great personality and feels very human-like, including demonstrating a good sense of humor. The bot can be used to book reservations, buy tickets, and get information while at the park by asking it questions like how long the wait is for a specific ride.

As you see, chatbots are very powerful. However, a chatbot only works as well as the person who sets it up. You may need to study how to do this and brainstorm the information you’ll enter into the chatbot so that it can interact with your audience in a conversational way and boost your sign-ups, sales, and conversions.

When you think about online marketing, especially content marketing, it’s easy to note that in many ways it’s like having a conversation with your ideal customer. You post a blog; they can post comments. On social media, discussions can generate from any interesting or relevant posts. Once you respond, the conversation is started.

But conversational marketing takes it a little further, creating opportunities for one-on-one communication using technology like chatbots. This creates a special situation, helping you connect to your audience on a deeper level.

Get to Know Your Customers on a Deeper Level

The more opportunities you take to talk directly with your customers, the more you’ll get to know them. With the advent of chatbots that feel like human interaction and that your customers can activate themselves any time of the day or night, you have even more chances to get more information that can help you close sales or even create new products.

Find Different Sources of Leads

When a customer engages with your chatbot, you can ask questions that provide even more insight into their lives. When you can figure out what they like to do in their spare time, who they listen to on the news or radio, what podcasts they like listening to, or anything that is relevant and will give you information that you need, you will be able to find more leads.

Speed Up the Sales Cycle

When your customers can talk to a chatbot any time of the day asking questions, they’re more likely to buy faster. Customers today actually prefer chatting over calling on the telephone, so this works in your favour by giving them the help they need at checkout, or right when they have the question in mind.

Work for You 24/7

Your chatbot will be there 24/7 for your customers and audience to activate and ask questions of. You’ll find that once you implement chatbots on your social media accounts, on your website, and blogs, you’ll feel like you have an entire staff sending leads 24/7.

Simple to Implement

It doesn’t cost a lot of money to use chatbot technology today. Your best bet is to find an expert to install the piece of code for you, but most people who have some idea how to install software can usually figure it out. Here at SellBot we have guides for the most popular platforms, and even our own plugin for WordPress if required.

It’s Easily Scalable

You can start by investing as little as £49 per month, but you can grow it as much as your business grows. There really is no limit – big companies like Amazon and others also use chatbots to handle basic customer service, bill paying, and other simple functions like that as it’s an efficient use of resources.

Provide Better Customer Service

There is no doubt that you can provide better customer service by deploying chatbots and using conversational marketing techniques. You’ll be there for your customers at all times and be able to guide them, but without actually being there, because of the chatbot you employ.

Using chatbots, online customer service reps, and interactive questionnaires and quizzes, you can have conversations with your audience 365 days a year, all on autopilot. What’s more, the more you use it, the better the system will become for you, because as you add more answers to the database, it will encourage your customers to make buying choices faster and with more clarity.

Conversational Marketing, what even is it?

As markets diversify, consumers have more options than ever before, they really have been the main beneficiaries of each new technology that comes along. Whilst that is often the driver for these advances in the first place, to better serve our public, it’s getting harder and harder to showcase products and services, and many business owners struggle to keep up with these never-ending changes in the marketplace. Today, a company’s success doesn’t just depend on the quality of its offers or its pricing; its marketing plan also plays a significant role. The most successful businesses have kept up with the times by using a new practice known as conversational marketing.

What Is It?

Conversational marketing is a personalised approach to online business. It’s a fast and efficient way to move potential customers through your sales and marketing funnel by leveraging the power of conversation, and it builds solid relationships with a dialogue-driven and customer-focused approach. Even if you think you don’t have a sales funnel, at a basic level every business, online or offline, has to move potential customers from the door to the till so to speak.

It’s quickly becoming the go-to method for improving the customer experience, driving engagement, and growing revenue. Conversational marketing helps brands stand out via a variety of channels, with a common goal: engaging with customers and making the brand more relatable.

Doing Conversational Marketing Right.

A personalised approach is necessary to conversational marketing success. Many sellers have realised that their visitors are tired of automated answering services and online forms; they want to talk to a real person. When visitors can come to your site and immediately find answers, it’s more likely to drive conversions, increase opportunities, and create a more seamless experience.

Yet because it’s difficult and expensive to employ customer service agents around the clock, chatbots simplify, and make affordable, the process of qualifying leads. They can use a pre-set series of questions to collect basic essential details such as names, email addresses, pain points, and more. Based on the user’s input, the bot can classify users and personalise their next steps. Using a well-designed chatbot can make this practice work for you relentlessly at any time, day or night, weekend or holiday.

Understanding Leads and Offering a Better Experience.

The conventional way of qualifying leads involves days of email nurturing and marketing automation. The distribution of lead forms is no longer scalable, as these forms can’t provide the necessary context. A real-time conversation will help you learn more about your customers, and with conversational marketing, you’ll always be ready to work with new leads.

The Difference Between Inbound and Conversational Marketing.

While inbound marketing requires the use of social media, blogs, email marketing and web content, conversational marketing is the sum of the interactions we have with online customers. It gives customers more control over how they communicate. Because inbound and conversational marketing are both customer-focused, they typically go well together. In many cases, conversations can be used in place of lead generation forms. They answer frequently asked questions and generally do a great job of converting leads into customers.

Conversational Marketing is the Future.

If you’re a business owner looking to improve your strategy, conversational marketing is crucial. It will play a key role in your future efforts, and the many social media messaging apps now in widespread use will only encourage further non-verbal engagement with customers. Savvy businesses will continue to bring chatbots onto their teams, and in doing so they will optimise the customer experience by reducing wait times and increasing satisfaction, and smoothing the path to purchase.