Today, there are countless channels for businesses to market their products and connect with their customers. However, it is worth remembering that solid communication is always a two-way street and is based on dialogues.

When it comes to building strong relationships with customers, conversational marketing could be an excellent opportunity for you. This customer-centric marketing approach is a powerful solution to grow and upscale your business as 79% of businesses are already using it for lead generation.

If you are a business owner wondering how to build better business communication and long-term relationships with customers, this guide is definitely worth a read.

What Is Conversational Marketing?

Conversational marketing is a customer-centric approach to digital marketing. It helps you to have one-on-one, real-time conversations with your customers through various communication channels. This approach uses different tools such as live chat, chatbots, and messaging apps to communicate with customers and provide real-time support.

Whether your customers want information about a product, need help with checkout, or demand a refund, conversational marketing enables you to provide instant help. Chatbot plays an essential role in facilitating these conversations. However, the focus remains on providing empathy and strengthening customer relations beyond sales and purchase.

Importance of Conversational Marketing For A Business

According to surveys, 65% of customers use social media messaging apps to contact customer support. Similarly, 53% of customers prefer buying from a company that offers chat support in their customer service. These stats tell us that people love to chat and are gradually moving towards unconventional ways of customer service.

Conversational marketing makes  the best use of AI chatbots and automation for communication with customers. These applications are designed to interact with people in an engaging and conversational way and can provide a highly personalized experience to your customers.  A strong conversational marketing strategy helps your business progress in different ways.

• It encourages a feeling of comfort and consideration in visitors by helping them throughout their customer journey. They are more likely to buy from you and leave a positive response in return.
• Conversational marketing helps you to manage existing customers and reach out to the new through different manners. This could be a challenging task for your employees due to its overwhelming and time-consuming nature.

Conversational Marketing Strategies and Best Practices

Best conversational marketing strategies should be based on your long-term business goals,

brand voice, and company persona. Here are some practical examples for you to start:

1. Offer A 24/7 Live Chat

Using 24/7 live chat support as a marketing strategy could be extremely beneficial for your business. Use AI chatbots on your websites, mobile apps, and social media messaging apps to provide 24/7 customer support. AI chatbots are designed with a knowledge base that is integrated with NLP. This enables them to interact with customers and handle full conversations 70% of the time such as:

• Providing accurate information about the products and services of your company
• Helping customers with placing orders, making payments, and checkouts.
• Tracking shipments and delivery details
• Assisting customer complaints and moving them forward to live agents for additional assistance.

Providing proactive customer support is a passive but very impactful marketing strategy. It is often so smooth and subtle that people don’t even think of it as a marketing tactic.

2. Pre and Post Sale Support

A customer’s journey with your business starts way before purchasing and continues after making the payment. Try to facilitate them during their customer journey and provide post-purchasing support. An AI conversational marketing chatbot could be a useful tool to facilitate customers such as:

• A customer reaches out to your website to buy a couch for their living room. Ask them about their preferred style, color, and dimensions. Show them suitable options from your collection and ask for their feedback. Assist the customer with pricing plans, warranty claims, and other important queries before they finally add to the cart.

Similarly, send follow-up messages and emails to inquire about the customer’s experience with your brand. Ask them if they are satisfied with their purchase, need any additional assistance, or would want to share their feedback.

3. Highly Personalized Communication

The ideal use of conversational marketing is to personalize your conversation according to your customer's behavior. This is highly effective in retaining your regular customers and building a strong community that advocates for your brand. Analyze your customer’s intent, preferences, and purchasing history and modify your engagement strategies accordingly. For example:

• Sending personalized promotional messages: “ Hey Eva, long time no see! Your favorite mushroom steak is at 20% for the next weekend. Book your table now through this link and get an extra 5 % off”
• Show recommendations as per their interest: “ Dear Ryan, thank you for showing interest in our winter arrivals. Take a look at the new collection of long boots”

The above examples show the ethical use of customer data in personalizing business communication. This shows your customers that you understand their needs and remember them.

4. Email Marketing

Email may not be a popular method of conversational marketing but it can be really helpful. Re-evaluate your existing email campaigns and make them more attention-grabbing for customers. Try to get creative with your newsletter strategies and make it more interactive to connect with your customers such as:

• Add short but interesting surveys/quizzes and polls about your products.
• Embed your emails with interactive images and videos.
• Add the ‘Reply to Ask a Question’ button in your emails to collect comments and feedback from customers.

Note: Email automation could be a valuable tool to channel the full potential of conversational marketing. It allows you to send personalized emails based on their preferences and responses.

Benefits of Conversational Marketing

When done in the right way, conversational marketing can give you an edge over your competitors and multiple benefits such as:

1. Valuable Insights and Feedback

The crux of conversational marketing is creating dialogues and two-way interactions. These conversations allow you to hear directly from your customers. What are their likes and dislikes, experience with your company, and future expectations? Hence it becomes a great source of collecting customer feedback and improving your business procedures.

2. Better Customer Experience

Conversations with your customers help you build strong relationships with them. When you are fully aware of your customer's needs and pain points, it becomes easier to provide them with a positive and fulfilling experience. The use of chatbots in conversational marketing helps you to be always available for providing customer support. This eventually turns them into a loyal community that would purchase from you for longer time periods.

3. Improved Sales and Lead Generation

Conversational marketing works in coherence with the sales and marketing department. This integration speeds up and optimizes the customer experience and allows higher conversions. For example, Chatbots can send qualified leads directly to the sales agents and also help with setting meetings with the sales team.

Let The Aidbase Take Charge of your Marketing Needs

Conversational marketing is a great way to promote your business in a fun and engaging manner. Using AI support and chatbots in marketing can help your customers throughout their buying journey. AI chatbots are highly capable of educating your customers and providing effective customer support. As the chatbots are evolving, the possibilities are also increasing. Experiment with different strategies and turn your prospects into long-term customers.

Are you convinced of the capabilities of conversational marketing? Get onboard with Aidbase. Our AI-powered support system and email automation has all that you need to kickstart your next conversational marketing campaign.