Conversational Marketing — What it is and Why your Business Needs it
When it comes to digital marketing, most businesses opt for email marketing, rich media adverts and other traditional approaches. These are proven, reliable and well known marketing strategies, but new trends, technologies and attitudes are changing how people think, and how they expect businesses to think too. Conversational Marketing is an exciting new marketing approach, built around those changing ideals. Imagine, if you will, that you need to contact a coworker. Are you going to email them? Probably not. You’re far more likely to use an instant messaging service such as Slack or Facebook Messenger. They’re really, really quick, direct, feel like a real conversation, and they’re easily accessible both on mobile and desktop platforms. The fundamental lesson here is that the ways we want to communicate with others, and be communicated with, have shifted to focus on speed, ease-of-access and a more personal approach. Chatbots, AI-powered automated programs that can simulate natural conversations, are already being used to accommodate these changing needs. Chatbots are really good at directly interacting with customers, making them the ideal marketing tool to deliver a customer experience that’s more responsive, engaging and personal, so let’s dive in and learn how you can supercharge your marketing.
Current Inefficiencies in Digital Marketing
Research has shown that approximately 82 percent of companies are using email marketing. The advent of GDPR has drastically reduced the number of people signed up to, and opening, those email marketing campaigns, and that is a huge problem for businesses that are dependant on emails to tell customers about new products, offers and promotions, and entice them to make repeat purchases or complete abandoned sessions. In a recent report it was recorded that a staggering 11% of the internet uses ad blocking software, and that usage is increasing at a rate of 30% year on year. For businesses running traditional online advertising campaigns, those are crippling statistics. The problems don’t stop there, unfortunately: in 2017, it was estimated that only 37% of website visits occurred on desktop computers, with 63% coming from mobile. Mobiles have a limited amount of screen real estate, making traditional adverts invasive, unpopular and even more ineffective. This mobile-dominated trend is only set to increase as our lives more and more orientated around portability, immediacy and accessibility.
So, what makes Conversational Marketing so effective?
Picture this — one of Natter.ai’s super smart automated chatbots is embedded on your website using their in-house developed mobile-friendly widget, and it can simultaneously talk with every site visitor you have.
When a customer visits your site, they’ll be engaged directly with a friendly, unobtrusive call to action. The chatbot will find out what they’re looking for, and then help them get there. It can instantly answer any questions, recommend and upsell products and even collect useful information such as names, email address and phone numbers of your returning and prospective customers. Sure, a form could do that too, but people are far more likely to happily give out details in a conversation that already feels personal and catered to them. That’s a pretty good start, but the benefits don’t end there; say, for example, a site visitor is on your checkout screen, but then they abandon their purchase and leave the site. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could reach out to them on another site, using a messenger interface embedded in an advert banner (as just one example), and give them an opportunity to complete their purchase right there and then? With Natter.ai’s powerful remessaging salesbots and conversational marketing, you can do that! It’s a great way to boost your conversion rate whilst building personal relationships with your customers, identify when and why they abandon purchases, and make every customer’s visit to your site feel more personal and valued.
No matter how good your customer services are, it isn’t possible to be there for your customers 24 hours a day, every day. It’s an unachievable, standard, right? Not quite — Natter.ai chatbots are an active bunch, and they don’t need to sleep or take days off. Bots are available at all hours, and they will ensure that your business is there to help, even when you and your human staff aren’t. Pair that with the fact chatbots provide an immediate response, and the benefits should be plain to see.
Bots and Humans — The Secret to Customer Service Success
Natter.ai understand that a chatbot isn’t going to be able to solve every customer’s problem, or convert every lead into a sale; sometimes, nothing can beat that human touch, and that’s why they developed HAI, or Human+ AI, the chatbot management system that lets your human team monitor and manage your chatbot, and take control of what’s said when necessary.
Using HAI to bridge the benefits of humans and chatbots, you can deliver the ultimate sales experience to your customers, and take your conversational marketing to the next level. Your chatbot can kickstart dialogues, engaging with customers to find out what they’re looking for and how they can best be helped. Then, they can hand over to your human team. This way, all of your customers are directed to the people best-placed to get them buying and generating new leads, dramatically shortening your sales cycle and ensuring your staff aren’t investing big chunks of time into a repetitive initial customer engagement process that could easily be automated.
Natter.ai’s unique chatbot collaboration system guarantees that your conversational marketing is super effective and cutting edge, and puts your business in the best possible standing to boost conversions, generate more leads and build a smarter, more personal approach to marketing. Start a conversation with Natter.ai today to see how they can help you create a more human and personal sales experience, optimised for the modern world and designed to work for both your business and your customers.
Originally published at Natter.ai.