As a business, you probably have marketing strategies coming out of your ears. There’s your website, social media, pay per click advertising, building engagement with potential consumers, delivering on the customer’s needs and managing a CRM to name just a few.
You may now have heard of conversational marketing and how important it is. While it might make you scratch your head, it’s actually a fairly old-fashioned concept. It’s all about bringing that two-way conversation with your customer into the digital world.
With this kind of marketing, you’re using targeted messaging to move your customer along the sales funnel quicker to the point where they click on that buy button. It’s about talking, getting feedback and adjusting your response and is a highly personalised approach to marketing that can deliver really strong results.
But how do you get it right? Here are our top tips:
- Understanding We’re More Marketing Savvy
One of the first principles of good conversational marketing is that the audience isn’t as dumb as we used to think. They understand marketing and they know when they are being sold to. Conversational marketing is all about engaging and finding out what the consumers wants and needs are and then finding ways for how we can deliver on these.
- Make it Interesting
Take off your marketing hat for a moment and think about your audience. How are you going to make this interesting for them? Too often businesses fall into the trap of thinking about their own endpoint rather than the journey the consumer is on. Conversational marketing is all about gaining interest and helping your customer get where they want to go.
- Take Your Time
Another mistake business’ make when it comes to marketing is to try to rush their sales process through. This often comes from the ‘numbers game’ approach, namely the more people you hit the more likely you are to get a sale, at least at some point. Conversational marketing is about building a quality connection and you can’t do that if you don’t take the time to get to know someone.
- Grab Attention
You can’t do the ‘get to know you’ bit either without first grabbing your customer’s attention. Like any good book, you need a strong hook to draw someone in. Then you need to keep the interest going by being responsive to the needs of your audience.
- It’s Personal
The buzz word for marketing over the last couple of years has been personalisation. It’s actually something that customers now expect. Having experienced it a few times with other companies, they’ll be disappointed if you don’t offer it too. Yes, it can be time-consuming but it can also be highly effective. It can also be helped by AI or machine learning that is designed to take some of the weight off your shoulders.
- You Need Data
You can’t get to have a meaningful conversation with your customer if you don’t have enough data on them. You need to know what makes them tick if you want to engage them in the right way. Not only that, you need the right analytics set up to handle everything. Understand who you are talking to and what their needs are and you take huge steps forward, whatever marketing technique you are using.
- Be in the Right Place
The final ingredient is you need to be in the right location to capture and engage your audience in the first place. This will depend on your product or service and who you appeal to. Whether they hang out on Facebook, Twitter, industry-specific forums or local events, you need to understand how to reach them there.