What is conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing is when brands communicate with customers and prospects, in real-time, across multiple communication channels like live chat, social media, and more. It emphasizes interaction, personalization, and the holding of genuine and meaningful conversations — hence the name.

Taking the conversational approach to marketing is about engaging consumers during their buying journeys using the channels they love. By talking to customers when they want, how they want, and about what they want — even if they aren't necessarily sure what they want to talk about — you can provide a personalized approach. And it gives you every opportunity to learn more about them.

You might be thinking that you already talk with your customers across social media and other channels and use customer profiles. Is that conversational marketing? Almost — but not quite. Let's consider some of the core elements that define a true conversational marketing approach:

• Conversations happen when the customer wants. Not only should you be available 24/7, but customers should be able to stop a conversation and restart it at their convenience without needing to re-explain their situation.

• Conversations happen where the customer wants. While marketing with conversations is mostly done via live chat tools, you should be available on whatever channel the customer wants to use. And a step beyond that: You should be able to seamlessly transition if the customer wants to move to another channel.

• Conversations are for engaging one-on-one with your customers. Speaking at your customers or selling to them via multiple channels is not conversational marketing. Conversational marketing happens in real-time with a focus on prompt responses and quick problem resolution, and above all the development of a true dialog between your brand and the customer or prospect. Personal engagement may even lead to creative solutions you had not considered before.

• Everything happens in customer-centric context. To give conversational marketing meaning, no interactions should occur in a vacuum. If someone interacts with your brand one day and then returns for a related conversation the next, you should be able to seamlessly pick up the baton. Customers and prospects don’t want to repeat themselves, and having to do so negatively colors their view of your business. 

So, that’s a conversational marketing definition to get you started. Let’s now think about how that differs — or doesn’t — from a couple of other marketing approaches. 

Conversational marketing vs. traditional marketing

There’s nothing inherently wrong with traditional marketing. It became that — a tradition — because it’s effective. Outbound tactics like cold calling, email marketing, TV or newspaper advertising, and more, work to build brand awareness and gain companies leads. However, conversational marketing is arguably better suited to the modern consumer.

Increasingly, our lives are digital, with each of us spending more and more time online — particularly on social media. In those environments, interactions are typically instant and personal, whether they be with family, friends, or even celebrities. Increasingly, then, we come to expect similar from brands and businesses we come into contact with. Conversational marketing is how your company can meet those expectations. 

Conversational marketing vs. inbound marketing

Right now, you might be thinking, “this sounds a lot like inbound marketing,” and you wouldn’t be far wrong. The inbound approach to marketing, after all, is about “pulling in” customers by disseminating useful content and information on the channels they prefer. That way, they come to realize you’re an authority in your field, start to trust you, and then seek you out to solve their problems and pain points. 

In many ways, then, conversational marketing is one strand of an overall inbound strategy. It’s the element of that strategy made up of holding meaningful conversations with customers and prospects on multiple channels — perhaps after they’ve been drawn to you by your inbound marketing content.

How does conversational marketing work? 3 Key elements

Often, a conversation is a one-on-one affair. Conversational marketing — which centers around live chat, chatbots, and messaging apps — is no different … except that the business part of the one-on-one may be human- or AI-derived.

Obviously, the human touch can create a great personalized experience. But AI-powered chatbots are easy to integrate within a website or app, and the responses can match a casual tone that's appropriate for chat.

In addition, chatbots can automate the process of gathering data, provide information about products and services, and help deliver qualified leads to your sales team.

While the specifics of any operation — including whether it involves AI, human agents, or a mixture of both — should be tailored to each business, there are some common elements of conversational marketing that apply across the board:

• Collecting customer data

• Engaging the customer

• Analyzing the data

Collecting data

Successfully implementing conversational marketing relies on fast and dependable access to a shared knowledge base that includes data like communication history and necessary customer information. Remember, none of your conversations should happen in a vacuum, but to build your customer-centric context you need to collect and store data and information. 

It's important to be transparent about your data collection by getting your customers' consent through embeddable widgets, text keywords, in-context messages, and pop-ups.

When considering collecting data to inform conversational marketing, consider:

• What can be captured? Individual wants, buying trends, complaints, concerns, friction points — these are the types of strategic insights you can have at your fingertips. Your social CRM will soon contain information about customer purchase and interaction history, customer profiling and segmentation, as well as any custom data fields and tags you want. Further, you will be able to unify the data across your channels.

• How can this increase sales? With the stores of data you generate, you can dial in on upselling and cross-selling opportunities. And since you have conversational data at your disposal, advertising and marketing campaigns become easier to target (and retarget) and more effective. You can learn what your customers want and who is most likely to respond to your campaigns. Don’t forget, though, that while these are useful and genuine benefits of conversational marketing, they shouldn’t be its focus. Any up- or cross-selling should only be part of a genuine, useful conversation with a prospect — not that conversation’s ultimate aim.

Engaging customers

Marketing in this conversational way isn't all about data and analytics — in fact, it should be a lot less about that than traditional marketing. There's a distinctly human element of engagement via conversation, and you'll want to make sure you capture the customer's attention at the right time, in the right place, with the right message. 

What’s more, you need to ensure that your agents — where you deploy them rather than or alongside chatbots — are well-informed about and trained in conversational marketing. Above all, they need to keep in mind that even though they’re representing a brand, they are still holding a one-on-one conversation. Things should be personal, they should listen to the customer or prospect, and they should respond accordingly. That means no canned responses or attempts at a hard sell that’s not in the customer’s interest.

Analyzing customer data

A successful conversational marketing strategy will also always include a process for tracking performance, moments of confusion or customer drop-off, and new questions. It is important to always gather data and optimize the experience.

That way, you can tailor your agent training or make more significant process alterations — like introducing a new channel or reallocating resources from a little used one — to improve performance moving forward.

Benefits of conversational marketing

Conversational marketing in digital marketing isn’t new. Some of the best-known brands in the world base their marketing on genuine, engaging interactions with prospects and customers, and have done for years. Why? Because of these clear conversational marketing benefits:

Improved customer experience and satisfaction

One of the key benefits of conversational marketing is that it’s a truly effective way to improve the customer experience your brand offers. Being present on the channels your customers prefer when they need you to be makes their lives easier. They can get the answers or information they’re looking for on their terms, no waiting.

The customer-centric, personalized nature of conversational marketing, too, helps show customers or prospects that you truly care about them. They won’t think you’re just in it for a sale. Combined, those factors lead to a truly exceptional customer experience which can lead to improved levels of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. 

Better lead generation and shorter sales cycles

As well as helping you to help existing customers, conversational marketing makes you more accessible to prospects and leads. Engaged, meaningful conversations with those leads are great for qualification, making it easier to recognize the individuals who your sales team can best work with. 

What’s more, conversational marketing can also help you shorten sales cycles in a couple of other notable ways:

• Reduce abandoned carts. A conversational approach is perhaps the single smartest way to turn a dumped cart into a fully-converted one in the e-commerce space. Instead of giving customers canned, one-way messages, you're giving them a chance to voice their concerns. Plus your brand gets the chance to respond in real-time and get the result you want.

• Improve upsells and cross-sells. Show customers more of your offerings at a time and in a way that makes sense to them. Conversation data enriches your understanding of the customer and can provide more opportunities, such as targeted marketing, at later dates.

Enhance data-driven decision-making, improve efficiency, and cut costs

As well as proving useful to both your customers and your prospects, a conversational marketing approach can also help you collect data on both those groups. Records of your brand’s interactions can prove a treasure trove of insights into customer pain points, prospect objections, market forces, and more.

Being able to leverage this data can help you make smarter decisions about your business, products, sales efforts, customer support, and more. That, in turn, can help you streamline processes and otherwise boost efficiency, which can prove a godsend for your bottom line.

Conversational marketing examples

We’ve covered what conversational marketing is in theory and even touched upon some types of conversational marketing. Sometimes, though, to really grasp a concept or strategy, it helps to get practical. With that in mind, here are some conversational marketing examples in different hypothetical, real-world scenarios:

Conversational marketing for in-store shoppers

Here’s an example of conversational marketing that’s truly omnichannel — encompassing both in-person and digital channels. 

A customer steps into a well-known retailer and receives a push alert. A chatbot asks them what they're after. After a few quick questions, they're not only directed to the department they're looking for but are provided with suggestions based on what other people who bought that product purchased.

Conversational marketing to bolster campaigns and lifestyle prompts

You can take these tenets of trigger marketing a step further with a real-time conversation at just the right time. It's a way for you to push out messaging and achieve targeted goals.

Conversational marketing for loyalty and education

These can be two sides of the same coin. Consider a follow-up campaign that makes sure customers are comfortable with their purchase and directs them to curated post-purchase resources. It's another way to build brand loyalty, provide education, and get information that feeds back to your sales and marketing efforts.

Conversational marketing on social media

Genuine, two-way engagement on social media is another example of a conversational marketing approach. Many brands are now offering customer support on social platforms, and you may even consider allowing customers to place orders or book sales appointments via those channels, too.

Using social media in this way is very much on-brand when it comes to conversational marketing. One of its key tenets, after all, is to meet customers or prospects where they are — and arguably as many people as ever before are now on social media. 

Implementing a conversational marketing strategy: Some best practices

By now, you’ve learnt what conversational marketing is, how it works, and the benefits taking the approach could bring to your business. We think, then, that you’re probably interested in potentially implementing a conversational marketing strategy yourself. But how do you go about it?

We’re glad you asked. Here are some simple best practices to follow to create a conversational marketing framework at your business that your teams can work successfully within:

Start with clear goals and objectives

Just knowing that you want to adopt a conversational marketing approach isn’t enough. As with any marketing — or really any business — endeavor, you have the best chance of achieving success if you know what success will look like before you start. That means clearly identifying and outlining your conversational marketing objectives.

Think about what overarching business areas you’re looking to improve. Are you, for instance, hoping to improve customer satisfaction or is it sales conversion rates that need a boost? Once you know that, you can then generate more specific goals like raising CSAT scores by 5% in six months or achieving 100 more new customers month-by-month.

Define your target audience

This ties in somewhat to the above conversational marketing best practice, of course. If your overall objectives are to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, your existing customers are your target audience. If your goals are more sales-focused, you need to identify any particular demographics you’re most interested in better engaging.

This is crucial as — and we have mentioned it before — conversational marketing is by nature a customer- or lead-centric activity. It’s not your business that’s the focus but rather those you’re interacting with. You need to know who they are, therefore, to be successful. 

Identify the right channels

An important part of knowing your audience is understanding where they are from a communication channel standpoint. Conversational marketing, after all, is about meeting them there — not making them come and find you.

What’s also crucial when it comes to identifying your channels for conversational marketing, is to take an omnichannel approach. Ensure that your channels aren’t isolated and siloed. You want customers, leads, and prospects to be able to seamlessly interact with you, and that includes being able to pick up conversations on one channel, having left off on another. 

Train your staff and create the right supporting content

Once you know where you’re going to be present for leads, prospects, and customers, you need to ensure you can offer the best possible experience.

That means training your teams in successfully holding meaningful and individual conversations with those who reach out via social media, live chat, and other channels. It also means creating and developing any supporting content like blog posts, product videos, and more that you may wish to share with your target audience along the way. 

Continually measure performance and make improvements

Adopting a conversational marketing approach is not a “set and forget” scenario. Once you get started, you should continually measure performance, track conversational marketing trends, and improve and iterate your offerings accordingly.

When it comes to measuring performance, make sure to refer back to the goals you set earlier. Those are what you decided constituted success. So, make sure all your analytics are geared toward measuring your progress toward them. 

Combining Rich Communication Services (RCS) and conversational marketing

Rich Communication Services provides the technology to enable rich, real-time conversations with customers, making it a powerful channel for conversational marketing strategies focused on engagement and interactivity.

What are examples of using RCS in conversational marketing?

Examples include sending personalized promotions, guiding customers through purchase decisions with interactive buttons, and handling queries with automated yet engaging responses.

Is RCS better than messaging apps for conversational marketing?

RCS eliminates the need for third-party apps and integrates directly into native messaging apps, offering convenience. However, its effectiveness depends on user adoption and carrier support.

What industries benefit most from RCS in conversational marketing?

Retail, travel, finance, and healthcare often benefit, as they can use RCS to provide real-time updates, personalized offers, and seamless support directly through messaging.

How can a business get started with RCS and conversational marketing?

Vonage helps businesses leverage RCS and conversational marketing by providing robust communication tools and APIs to create interactive, engaging customer experiences. With Vonage Messages API, businesses can integrate RCS into their existing systems, enabling rich features like multimedia sharing, quick-response buttons, and verified messaging directly through customers' native messaging apps.

Vonage also supports conversational marketing through AI-powered solutions like chatbots and automated workflows, allowing businesses to deliver personalized, real-time interactions. These tools streamline customer engagement, boost response rates, and enhance the overall experience. By combining RCS technology with Vonage, businesses can effectively transform their communication strategies to drive sales and build stronger customer relationships.

Conversational marketing: Be part of your customers’ conversations

So, there you have it — your ultimate guide to conversational marketing. The smart way for your business to ensure it’s part of your customers’ conversations, not just with you but with the colleagues, friends, and contacts they might promote you to.

Developing a conversational marketing strategy may seem daunting, but with the right support it’s possible for businesses, large and small. Vonage's AI-powered omnichannel experiences boost sales, increase customer satisfaction, and return buyer behavior intelligence. We can partner with you to turn conversations into conversions and drive sales and loyalty, by giving your customers a buyer's experience that's personal, helpful, and responsive.

Get in touch with a Vonage expert today to learn more.