Conversational Marketing - The Future of Marketing

Conversational marketing is a new type of marketing based on interaction and dialog. But can it really revolutionize marketing in e-commerce, retail and the service industry? In this article, we explain the basics and future potential of conversational marketing and how you can use it for your business.

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What is Conversational Marketing?

Conversational marketing refers to a form of dialog marketing in which a direct dialog is conducted with the customer via digital channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or a chat on the company's own website. The use of chatbots and other artificial intelligences (AI) plays an important role here.

The focus of conversational marketing is on addressing customers individually and including their needs and wishes in the dialog. By using chatbots and AI, companies can support customers 24/7, process their inquiries faster and create personalized offers.

The advantages of conversational marketing are manifold. First, it can increase customer satisfaction by providing faster and more personalized service. In addition, it can speed up the sales process by making personalized offers to the customer and asking him questions directly based on them. Furthermore, it can contribute to the customer staying longer on the website, thus increasing the chance that something will be purchased.

Conversational marketing can also be used for data collection. Through direct dialog with the customer, valuable information about preferences and needs is collected, which can be of great benefit to the company, for example, to create personalized offers or special marketing campaigns.

However, it is important that companies remain transparent when using chatbots and AI and make it clear to their customers that they are communicating with a machine. Chatbots should also be regularly updated to improve their performance and increase customer satisfaction.

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Why is Conversational Marketing the Future of Marketing?

Conversational marketing will play an important role in marketing in the future, as it enables companies to serve customers in an individual way and to include their needs and wishes in the dialog. By using chatbots and AI, companies can support customers around the clock and process their requests faster, which can contribute to higher customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, conversational marketing can help customers stay longer on the website and thus increase the chance that they will buy something. Through direct dialog with customers, valuable information about their preferences and needs is gathered, which can be of great benefit to the company, for example, to create personalized offers or special marketing campaigns.

In the future, more and more people will also connect with companies through digital channels because it is convenient and fast. Conversational marketing offers companies the opportunity to respond to this trend and serve customers on their preferred channels.

Conversations on messenger services like WhatsApp will replace email and letters when it comes to how companies successfully market

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Another factor that speaks for the future of conversational marketing is the increasing spread of voice assistants such as Amazon Echo or Google Home. These devices enable users to communicate with companies and make inquiries via voice input. Conversational marketing offers companies the opportunity to respond to this new form of customer communication and adapt their chatbots accordingly.

Overall, conversational marketing could play an important role in marketing in the future, as it enables companies to serve customers individually and around the clock and to gather valuable information about their preferences and needs. In addition, the use of digital channels and voice assistants will continue to increase in the future, making conversational marketing increasingly important for companies.

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Practical examples for Conversational Marketing

When implementing a conversational marketing strategy, human-driven rules and strategies should seamlessly merge with the technologies used to deliver and capture conversational experiences. Many companies use some or a combination of tools such as chatbot or live chat software, customer support, marketing automation tools, SMS, and even streaming services for live video conversations.

Social media platforms also have built-in messenger capabilities that allow social followers to reach a brand through their social channels just as they would through a customer support portal or marketing website. Many companies are successfully using conversational marketing, including the following examples:

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Whole Foods

Chatbots are increasingly being used in the food and beverage industry to build brand awareness, book reservations or provide recipe and meal ideas. Whole Foods has a Facebook Messenger bot that prompts users to decide what food they need or what recipe ideas they want. With several filtering options based on meal or event types, users can narrow down the options to find the perfect meal for any occasion. Whole Foods also makes it fun and interactive, which shows they have a clear understanding of their customers.

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HubSpot

HubSpot is a leading provider of marketing automation software and has integrated its own chat tools into its technology. Whether a potential customer is looking for a solution that meets their needs or an existing customer is looking for support, conversational marketing is used at various steps. HubSpot also offers a form of video conversational marketing through its social and streaming channels, and hosts user groups for sharing thought leadership or new tips and updates.

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Okta

Conversational marketing doesn't always have to start with the first contact opportunity. Okta uses a chatbot for returning visitors. Their website stores cookie data in the user's browser to detect when a user begins a revisit and personalizes it with a "welcome back" prompt so the user can pick up where they left off. This is helpful for driving conversion-oriented activities, such as booking a meeting with the sales team or contacting a support representative.

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Conversational marketing strategies and best practices

At the outset of any strategic planning effort, it is important to keep in mind the goals and how the organization intends to achieve them. The choice of a particular strategy can be subjective from organization to organization. Built-in planning, implementation, testing and optimization cycles contribute to the success of the program. Below are some general strategies and best practices for launching an effective conversational marketing initiative.

Determine the communication channels. A chatbot or live agent feature on a website is a great way to start conversational marketing with web visitors, but most companies rely more on multi-channel campaigns. Select channels that provide the opportunity for two-way conversations and make it easy for users to find and engage with them.

Make sure there is analytic tracking. Make sure there's a place to store these chat conversations or data about the prospects and customers who submit information about these experiences. Most chat tools have their own analytics capability, but they can also be integrated with marketing automation systems and CRM. The technology used provides marketing teams with the insights they need and a place to store the data, but it's important to use this information to measure the success of these conversation points or identify gaps that require optimization. In doing so, be sure to comply with the applicable data protection legal framework, especially the GDPR.

Leverage personalized messaging. With more information gathered through these conversation methods, a brand can create a more personalized experience. When a website recognizes that it is a returning visitor or existing customer, the conversational experience should be slightly different than a first-time web visitor. Make sure you find opportunities to personalize the experience and enhance the person-to-person relationship by using the customer's name or recommending products related to previous purchases.

The success of conversational marketing is particularly evident on WhatsApp. The informal and personal user atmosphere is ideal for the emotional buying behavior of consumers. You can read more about this in our article "WhatsApp Newsletter - The Marketing of the Future".

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Solicit feedback. Both chatbots and live chat experiences provide ample opportunity to solicit feedback in the form of surveys or other feedback loops. Try to build space for feedback into all channels to gather more data about the user experience that can inform future business decisions.

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Enter the age of conversational marketing with WhatsApp newsletter campaigns from Mateo

Mateo offers a comprehensive service in the field of conversational marketing with WhatsApp Newsletter Marketing. The service portfolio ranges from setting up the WhatsApp API to individual tips for collecting opt-ins, maintaining customer data and creating newsletters to in-depth analyses. A comprehensive service with a focus on conversational marketing and conversational commerce that is customized for your company.

Mateo's software also offers customizable message templates that can be used to create WhatsApp newsletters in just a few clicks. Mateo's centralized inbox, where customer requests from different communication channels can be centrally bundled and efficiently processed, makes it easy to optimize customer communication to the maximum. Furthermore, the integration of numerous other tools into our software solution reduces your workload in customer service. With Mateo, customer communication and marketing can be 100% GDPR compliant.

Existing customer marketing made easy - with Mateo you can increase customer lifetime value through a higher number of recurring purchases and through higher shopping carts resulting from upselling strategies.

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Simply schedule a free consultation to learn all the details. With Mateo and the WhatsApp newsletter, your company can enter the age of conversational marketing. Do the marketing of tomorrow today!

Our customers particularly appreciate special features:

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Central user interface

In addition to WhatsApp Business API, Mateo bundles many other communication channels such as email, Instagram, SMS or Facebook Messenger in a central inbox. The intuitive and clear user interface offers various helpful tools for particularly efficient customer communication.

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Custom Message Templates

Thanks to various message templates that can be created individually, the amount of paperwork is minimized and the efficiency of customer communication is increased. This means that personnel resources in the service area can be deployed elsewhere.

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With Mateo's WhatsApp API solution, newsletters can be sent in a GDPR-compliant manner. Due to the first-class open rate of 98% for WhatsApp messages, marketing can thus be carried out significantly better than via email or other channels.

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Privacy

Mateo's messaging tool is compatible with all German and European legally binding data protection requirements. If necessary, the software will be revised accordingly in the event of any changes to the law. For absolutely secure customer communication, all WhatsApp messages are encrypted end-to-end. All info on the GDPR when using WhatsApp can be read in this article.

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Scalability for all company sizes

The scalability of the messaging tool has been confirmed by the large number of companies already using Mateo with high satisfaction. Whether customers have just a few employees or many hundreds, the software works smoothly and, depending on the package, with an unlimited number of end devices and users. The fact that Mateo significantly reduces the workload in the customer service area opens up new growth opportunities for many companies.

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Low cost provider for WhatsApp Business API

With an entry-level price of just 79 euros per month, Mateo is a cost-effective provider for WhatsApp Business API solutions on the German market. In combination with the integration of further communication channels and various helpful tools, Mateo offers good value for money. Mateo's personal customer support assists companies with every step of the integration, ensuring very low barriers to entry.

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Conclusion on Conversational Marketing

Overall, Conversational Marketing offers companies the opportunity to serve customers faster and more individually, to speed up the sales process and to gather valuable information about customers. In summary, Conversational Marketing will be the future of marketing for the following reasons:

The proliferation of messaging apps: More and more people are using messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to communicate with friends and family. This offers companies the opportunity to communicate directly with their customers via these channels.
Personalized communication: Conversational marketing enables companies to have personalized communication with their customers. By using chatbots and AI, companies can create customized offers and recommendations for the customer.
Faster customer service: Conversational marketing can help customers get faster service. Chatbots and AI can be available around the clock and handle requests faster than human employees.
Increased customer satisfaction: Personalized communication and faster customer service can increase customer satisfaction.
Customer data collection: Conversational marketing offers companies the opportunity to collect valuable information about their customers that can be used for future marketing campaigns or personalized offers.

With Mateo, however, conversational marketing is no longer a dream of the future. Mateo offers a full service for WhatsApp newsletter marketing that allows you to start directly into the new age of marketing. Feel free to make a free consultation appointment with our experts for Conversational Marketing and Coversational Commerce to learn all the details.

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The Future of Marketing: Conversational Marketing