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Conversational Marketing Explained: All You Need to Know

Kinga Edwards

8 min read

Feb 15, 2022

Conversational marketing can be regarded as a counterpart to traditional methods. It typically includes content that has a conversational tone, incorporates dialogue, and focuses on building relationships with customers.

The nature of this kind of marketing has become an important strategy for many brands in their quest to differentiate themselves from competitors. First things first, though. How best to describe conversational marketing? What are its benefits? And does your brand actually even need to use it? 

What is conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing is a trend that focuses on building authentic, long-term relationships. The idea is to use “conversations” between a company and its customers and conversations among customers themselves to generate opportunities for learning more about their needs.

Conversational marketers are not pushy salespeople but rather friendly guides who create dialogues that are rooted in trust and empowerment. 

The benefits of conversational marketing

1. A way to create more personal connections with customers

When someone feels like they are conversing with a friend, they are more likely to be forthcoming. This creates an opportunity for marketers to get to know their customers better, understand their needs as well as solve their problems quicker.

In the same vein, customers will also feel that they have a closer connection with the brand, which could lead to their being more loyal in the long term.

2. Can be more cost effective than traditional marketing

While conversational marketing requires a lot of time and effort, it doesn’t require the same level of a financial investment as traditional marketing methods. After all, you don’t need to pay to produce ads or run big campaigns that will be seen by millions of people around the world. Conversational marketers tend to invest much more in creating genuinely helpful content that customers will appreciate and engage with on their own terms.

This means conversational marketing is a more personalized approach to connecting with your audience, ultimately leading you to build better relationships that can positively impact your business in the long term.

3. Helps create a better customer experience

With conversational marketing, it will be much easier to attract more engaged customers who are willing to help navigate your business in the right direction. 

The idea behind this approach is that marketers should not only focus on their own agenda and what they need from people but also consider how their audience feels about certain products or services. Whether you let your customers get in touch with you through website chat or a cloud phone solution like CloudTalk, you should have a variety of open channels for your customers to voice their opinions.

4. Can be used in hundreds of situations

There are so many ways in which conversational marketing can be used that it would be impossible to list them all. However, a few examples include:

• customer support
• gathering feedback
• feedback 
• market research
• assist purchasing
• and even crisis management

The beauty of this approach is that it’s extremely versatile and can be tailored to fit any brand or business need.

5. A way to obtain quick feedback from your customers

One of the main benefits of conversational marketing is that it provides you with fast feedback from your customers.

You can gain real-time insights into what they think about your products or services, how they feel about certain changes, and whether they would recommend you to their friends or not. This information is crucial for businesses that want to stay on top of consumer preferences to serve them better.

6. Improves customer retention rates and brand advocacy

With conversational marketing, customers feel like they’re being heard and that their opinions actually matter. This can result in a better customer experience and create evangelists for your brand who will happily recommend you to others.

Conversational marketing can improve customer retention rates. This is because customers are likelier to stick with a brand that they feel connected to and that values their opinions.

Conversational marketing is still a relatively new concept, but it’s quickly gaining traction among businesses that want to create more personal connections with their customers. If you want to forge deeper bonds with your audience, conversational marketing is definitely a method worth considering.

7. Helps build trust between brands and consumers

The final benefit of conversational marketing is building trust between businesses and their clients.

When customers feel that they are being heard by a brand that actually cares about them, they are more likely to trust that company with their money. And when a business responds to feedback in a timely manner, this also helps to build trust because it shows that the brand is taking its customers’ feedback seriously.

So there you have it — seven compelling reasons why conversational marketing should be a part of your business strategy. Not only is it a great way to create more personal connections with your audience, but it can also help you to build trust and improve the customer experience that you provide.

Interesting examples of conversational marketing

Now that you know what conversational marketing is and why it’s so important for brands let us look at some examples of conversational campaigns that have been run successfully by various big and small companies worldwide.

1. Sephora 

Sephora is a globally renowned company, not only for its beauty products but also for its effective marketing campaigns. And this example of their conversational marketing is perfect.

Here, the company gets closer to its customers by allowing them to book services at Sephora directly using Facebook Messenger. Given how many people use Facebook Messenger daily, it’s a great strategy for the company to position itself there — with so many potential customers. The chatbot is highly responsive, intelligent, and replies quickly, which is everything people love.

2. Dominos

Another example stems from the fast-food industry. Can you imagine being able to order a pizza from any app or platform that you’re a user of, be it Slack, Twitter, or Facebook? With Domino’s, that’s possible.

Their creative and extremely customer-centric conversational marketing campaign called Domino’s AnyWare was a total success. Everything started when consumers began tweeting an emoji and received a pizza delivery as a result.

It then turned into something bigger — a successful campaign. This food chain now lets you order pizza from any app that you’re using, just with a simple emoji.

The reason why this campaign performed so well is owing to its level of personalization and the way it was conducted, which was close to the hearts of today’s consumers, who value easy processes.

3. Yliopiston Apteekki

As part of their expansion plans, Yliopiston Apteekki (The University Pharmacy) wanted to incorporate live chat into their customer service process and provide one-on-one medical advice online. The launch of their chatbot resulted in an over tenfold growth in digital sales channels.

Thanks to the fact that this marketing strategy took place on the company’s website, there was an increase in traffic there. Moreover, while people were talking in the chat box, they were also exposed to multiple promotional offerings simultaneously. As the results show, this had a positive impact on overall sales. It also undoubtedly contributed to the creation of this company’s brand image, which portrays it as one that’s helpful and caring.

4. eBay

This is another great example of engaging customers and not looking like a total hard sell, which is exactly what conversational marketing is all about. eBay customers can shop with this multinational eCommerce corporation using their own ShopBot, making the shopper feel more engaged in the purchase process and allowing employees to focus on other aspects of the business.

The way the company approaches this solution is very nice as well. They describe it as a ‘’personalized shopping assistant,’’ with their goal being to ‘’make shopping with eBay as easy as talking to a friend.’’ And the best thing? It’s fully integrated with Facebook Messenger. Again, it’s an example of a company that is looking to position itself close to potential customers.

5. 1-800-Flowers 

Purchasing flowers has never been easier, and 1-800-Flowers knows something about that. This company lets people order flowers directly from Facebook Messenger. All you have to do is send them a message, and the chatbot will automatically guide you through the whole process. It’s fast, efficient, and highly convenient. The idea was even introduced and demonstrated by Mark Zuckerberg himself!

There are many ways to utilize conversational marketing, and these examples are just some that are great to learn from. Hopefully, we have inspired you with them, and you now have more ideas about how you could approach this marketing strategy at your company.

Over to you

Conversational marketing is a great way to connect with your customers on a deeper level and create better relationships with them. By investing in this method, you’ll be able to gain insights into what they think about your products or services, and you’ll also be able to find out how likely they are to recommend you to their friends.

If you want to create deeper connections with your customers, increase loyalty, and differentiate yourself from competitors, conversational marketing is for you.