Chatbots and Conversational Marketing.. How Does It Work?

Conversational marketing is a quite recent strategy for interacting with customers through natural, human-like conversations, using chatbots, messaging apps, and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to engage with customers in real-time. The goal of conversational marketing is to create personalized and engaging customer experiences by providing quick and relevant responses to customer inquiries and guiding them through the sales process.

Commonly, conversational marketing can be used in various channels such as websites, social media, mobile apps, email, SMS, etc. Nonetheless, chatbots are the most popular form of conversational marketing, but it can also include voice assistants, such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, or even live chat with human agents. It is considered as a shift from traditional, interruption-based marketing, where the focus is on pushing messages to potential customers, to a pull-based approach, where the customer initiates the conversation and the business responds with personalized and relevant information.

Conversational marketing can help businesses increase customer engagement and loyalty, generate leads, as well as to collect valuable data on customer preferences and behavior to inform future marketing strategies.

So, What Is a Chatbot?

Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet. They can be integrated with websites, apps, and messaging platforms to provide customer service, answer frequently asked questions, and assist with online purchases.

How Effective Can Chatbots Be in Conversational Marketing?

Chatbots can be used effectively in conversational marketing by providing quick and personalized responses to customer inquiries, and guiding them through the sales process. Additionally, chatbots can be integrated with other marketing tools, such as email and social media, to enhance the customer experience. 

To make chatbot effective, it should be:

• Easy to use.
• Understand and provide relevant answers
• Have a clear call to action and seamless handoff to live agents if needed.

Conversational Marketing Chatbots Features:

Some key features of chatbots in conversational marketing include:

1. Natural Language Processing (NLP): It allows the chatbot to understand and respond to customer inquiries in a human-like manner.
2. Personalization: It can provide personalized responses and recommendations based on a customer’s previous interactions and preferences.
3. Integration: It can be integrated with other marketing tools to enhance the customer experience.
4. Automation: It can automate repetitive tasks, such as answering frequently asked questions, freeing up human agents to handle more complex inquiries.
5. Data Collection: It can collect valuable data on customer preferences and behavior, which can be used to inform future marketing strategies.
6. Lead Generation and Qualification: It can help identify and qualify leads by collecting relevant information, and guiding the customer to the next step in the sales process.
7. Seamless Handoff: It can seamlessly handoff to live agents if the customer needs more help or if the chatbot is unable to understand or answer the customer’s inquiry.
8. Multi-Channel: It can be deployed on multiple platforms such as websites, social media, apps, etc.
9. Continual Improvement: It can be continuously trained with customer interactions to improve its performance over time.

Chatbots Impact on ROI:

The use of chatbots in conversational marketing can have a positive impact on Return on Investment (ROI) in several ways:

• Increased Efficiency: Chatbots can handle repetitive tasks and simple customer inquiries, and consequently saving time and efforts of human agents.
• Cost Savings: It can reduce the need for human agents in minor tasks, resulting in cost savings for the business.
• Conversion Rate Increase: It helps identify qualified leads and increase the conversion rate.
• Customer Engagement Increase: It can provide an interactive and engaging experience, which can increase customer loyalty.
• 24/7 Availability: It can provide customer service and support around the clock, improving customer satisfaction and retention.

To end with, it’s worth noting that, like any other marketing strategy, the ROI of a chatbot will depend on how well it is implemented and how effectively it is integrated into the overall marketing strategy.