What is Conversational Marketing?

Conversational marketing is marketing that talks to consumers. This can be done through live chat, chatbots, voice assistants or other forms of conversational AI. These experiences can be positioned on websites, social media channels, paid advertising and even in physical stores or connected home devices (like smart speakers). 

This seems like sales, so how is this marketing? Well, marketing that talks to people is fundamentally new. Conversational marketing allows you to turn things that are traditionally seen as marketing materials and make them interactive. In all marketing, engagement and conversion are critical. With conversational marketing, they become easier than ever before.

So, now that we’ve defined conversational marketing in a simple way, here’s how you can make the most of it: use conversational interfaces in your paid advertising, websites and ecommerce, and other channels where you market to consumers to drive stronger messages, choices and relationships home to them and transform your funnel like never before.

What is Conversational Marketing for Ads?

Conversational marketing in ads can be positioned on almost any domain. Google, with select partners, offers conversational display advertising through their DV360 network. Eventually, this kind of format will reach billions of websites.

Click-to-Messenger ads have also become popular on Facebook. These are similar to conversational display ads, except they show users traditional facebook newsfeed ads and then drive users to facebook’s messenger app or interface. From there, brands prompt consumers with questions or experiences related to the content of the ad, and then they’re able to interact and learn more about them and drive them to convert. 

Whatever the goal of a given conversational ad, conversational marketing practices allow brands to have a more effective means of engaging and converting consumers. It’s not limited to facebook messenger or google display – any and all advertisements can be made conversational through a conversational landing page. 

These kind of experiences also then enable you to get specific insights on consumers that are relevant to your brand, like if they want anti-aging cream, or if they’re thinking about a mortgage. These insights can be used with custom audiences on channels like facebook to further personalize your retargeting efforts and drive higher conversion. 

Want to learn more about conversational ads? Get a Case Study on Nailcare brand Sally Hansen here. 

What is Conversational Marketing for Ecommerce?

For ecommerce, conversational marketing can take a variety of forms, but the primary ones are a to place a live chat or virtual product advisor on your website.

These interfaces help customers make decisions in a fun, easy, friendly, informative way by learning about their concerns, guiding them through product recommendations and helping them shop. This kind of assistance can also be used for customer support, but even though many people assume that customer support is the number one application for these sorts of things, it actually has far less potential than when AI chatbots are used for marketing and commerce. 

Ultimately, conversational websites are something every brand wants to do, but adding a virtual product advisor can be a first step to making your website fully interactive, immersive and fulfilling the best possible practices of conversational marketing.

Want to learn more about virtual product advisors? Check out this case study 

What is Conversational Marketing for Omnichannel Brands?

The benefits of conversational marketing don’t stop at your ads or website. Being able to deploy conversational AI for marketing at any point in your funnel, in order to both enhance your customer experience and convert more, can also transform the relationship your brand has with its consumers.

When you see ads for candy bars, bubble gum and soda pop, you can think – “Ok, maybe I don’t really need to talk to that brand.” What about when you interact with a car company? With an insurance provider? With a bank? With any intimate form of personal care?

See, in situations where there are a large variety of product traits, benefits, costs, configurations, customizations, you can’t always choose the right ones yourself, no matter where you are. This means that when you interact with a brand – whether through social channels and messaging, voice, or in-store – you need to be given best-in-class context about the choices you have to make.

It’s almost like having a great user experience, but for the total customer experience. That’s what conversational marketing is really all about – a more intuitive, responsive way to get attention, attract and convert consumers. 

With an omnichannel conversational marketing approach, you can get the most out of your deployment at every touchpoint.

How to Get The Most Out of Conversational Marketing

Personalized one-on-one conversations have the power to build customer relationships, increase loyalty and deliver great consumer experiences. Conversational marketing is really an opportunity to start having two-way conversations with your consumers, and snaring all the benefits of higher engagement, sales and satisfaction that result. 

The data you generate through conversational marketing should also route directly to CRM-based customer profiles. By capturing valuable first-party data, you enable your brand to target consumers more specifically – whether through emails or practices like customer journey retargeting. All of this, of course, continues to put wind in your sails when it comes to revenue. 

This isn’t just an opportunity to improve your funnel, it’s a necessity. Conversational marketing is just one reason why consumers are loving chatbots and making more purchases from them. 81% of consumers who buy from a retail chatbot ultimately buy again. Conversational marketing lets you embrace your consumers in new and more personalized ways – trust us, they’ll love you for it when you do. 

Still have questions?  We’re fired up to help as many brands as possible to raise the bar of user and customer experience in eCommerce.  If you need help implementing website engagement tools for your brand or want to talk further about any of the tactics in this article, we should talk ASAP!