Customers aren’t going to buy from your business without effective communication. Especially if you’re a small business that is competing with big brand names that benefit from brand recognition and million-dollar marketing budgets.
How can you break through the noise with your marketing campaigns? Well, instead of just telling your audience about your business, you can talk to them about it. That’s the power of conversational marketing. Two-way conversations make customer interactions meaningful, memorable, and useful.
At Podium, we provide the tech to make real-time, two-way conversations with your customers not only possible but easy. Give your customers multiple entry points to start a conversation with you by using our communications and marketing platform to run your webchat and text messaging channels as well as manage your social media messages.
First, let’s explore exactly how conversational messaging meets demanding customer needs and high customer expectations.
What is conversational messaging?
It’s as simple as it sounds. Conversational messaging is a real-time two-way conversation between a business and its target audience over their preferred messaging channel. As the conversations are one-on-one, the customer representative can personalize the customer experience to meet their specific needs. Due to the functionality of messaging apps and platforms, the business can respond with immediacy and continue the conversation for as long as the individual needs support as the messaging history is saved.
It is distinctly different from other communication channels that are used for customer support such as phoning a contact center or messaging a chatbot. Users don’t have to wait around to get a response from the company as it’s a real-time conversation with push notifications to maintain engagement. There’s more of a focus on building a relationship with an individual than sharing a mass marketing message or closing the query as quickly as possible.
What are the benefits of conversational messaging?
So, conversational messaging sounds good. But is it worth the effort of implementing in your small business? It has been found to support business growth in various ways.
1. Enhanced Customer Engagement
An increasingly popular messaging channel is SMS, one of the reasons being that it has a 98% open rate which is unheard of in many other marketing formats. It’s undeniable. Customers are engaging with messages. To ignore that fact is to miss out on thousands (at least) in revenue.
2. Personalization and Relationship-Building
Your customers are faced with mass marketing everywhere they turn. They’ve almost become immune to marketing campaigns. Doing something interactive will help your target audience take notice of your marketing efforts and remember your business when making a buying decision within your niche. Even more so when you’ve personalized customer interaction to meet their individual needs and interests. It’s what your customers want as 73% expect personalized experiences.
3. Improved Communication Efficiency
You want your target audience to cycle through the customer journey to the point of making a purchase as quickly as possible. Especially if you’re an ecommerce business that relies on achieving a high volume of sales to succeed. Real-time conversations support that because there is no delay in answering essential customer questions and you are engaging with leads when they are most interested in the business – when they first reach out.
4. Convenience and Accessibility
You can’t expect customers to work hard to interact with your business and make that all-important buying decision. Conversational messaging makes it easy. If they have a question or query, they just need to send a message. It can take less than 30 seconds. All they need to do is find your contact details for an app they’re probably already using day-to-day. The easier the customer journey, the more likely they are to convert.
Types of Conversational Messaging
1. Conversational Customer Service and Support
One of the best ways to improve customer loyalty is to provide excellent customer service support. Be available and responsive if your customers are struggling to utilize your product. Sending a message to a customer representative about how to overcome an issue or get the most out of a product is a great way to leverage the convenience, personalization, and efficiency conversational messaging offers.
2. Conversational Marketing
The benefits of conversational messaging aren’t restricted to just paying customers. They can be utilized by potential customers too. Use messaging channels to answer the questions of prospects considering buying from your company. You could also integrate it with other marketing campaigns, asking your audience to send a message for free resources, advice, and guidance as a way to increase audience engagement and interest. For more text messaging campaign ideas check out the 500 templates we’ve created for you.
3. Conversational Engagement
Use messaging to keep in contact with current customers. This supports customer satisfaction as they are kept in the know about the business and customer loyalty as you can remind them of special offers and other incentives for repeat purchases. You want customers to be actively involved with the business. Your website is a great place to encourage engagement. Just add a webchat feature for customers to use. You can even test out what it would look like on your site.
4. Conversational Sales
Messaging can also be used for direct sales. If someone is reaching out to ask a question about the business, there’s a high likelihood they are considering making a purchase. You can meet their needs to be able to complete the sale through messages. For example, sending a link to the use cases shared on your website or breaking down the different pricing plans.
How to Get the Most Out of Conversational Messaging: 3 Tips and Best Practices
When crafting conversational messaging campaigns, keep in mind these best practices.
1. Personalization and context.
The main benefit of enabling two-way conversations is that the messaging can be personalized to the individual customer and meet their needs better than generic marketing campaigns sent to your wider audience. Make the most of that by following the user’s lead and offering them options.
2. Provide multi-channel support.
Everyone has different preferences for the messaging app they use. So to make the most of conversational messaging you need to offer an omnichannel messaging service. Popular messaging channels include Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Google Business Messages and SMS. To support a smooth workflow while managing multiple messaging platforms, we have an omnichannel inbox. It uses integrations to make conversations across your platforms accessible in one inbox.
3. Utilize automation wisely.
While automation can be used to maintain a smooth workflow, be aware that many customers are hesitant to have conversations with a business if they are speaking to a bot. They want to have a real conversation with a real person. Automation can be useful for saving time on repetitive tasks but it shouldn’t take up the bulk of the conversation.
Leverage AI and Develop a Successful Conversational Messaging Strategy
At Podium, we make conversational messaging easy. On our platform, you can set up text message marketing and webchat messaging. Then you can manage both channels alongside third-party messaging apps such as social media messaging in our omnichannel inbox.
This enables you to offer a choice of messaging channels and manage conversations effectively with the help of templates, automation, and even AI. The Podium AI Assistant responds 2x quicker, still sounds human, creates campaigns based on learned best practices from industry analysis and customer history, and tailors messages to suit individuals or larger audiences.
Implement a conversational messaging strategy with Podium and grow your business.
Conversational Messaging FAQs
Q: What are some conversational marketing examples?
A: Conversational marketing can include giving personalized advice to new leads, answering questions about a product or service posed by potential customers, and promoting a limited-time sale to previous customers.
Q: Is messaging a type of conversational communication?
A: Yes, messaging is a type of conversational communication because messaging apps enable one-on-one real-time conversations between a business and its individual customers. The engagement is two-way and personalized to the individual.
Q: What makes a text conversational?
A: A text is conversational if it initiates a conversation between the business and the individual customers. It’s sent via a two-way messaging platform so the customer can respond in real-time. Personalizing the text also makes it conversational because it is tailored to the situation of the individual which encourages engagement more than a generic marketing message.
