How to Gain More Leads with Conversational Marketing

Do you want to gain more leads? Here is the most successful lead generation strategy in 2018: conversational marketing!

By the end of this article, you will learn about conversational marketing and how to use it to gain more leads.

Conversational marketing – what is it?

Conversational marketing is defined as a one-to-one approach to marketing that companies use to shorten their sales cycle, learn about their customers and create a more human buying experience. The term “conversational marketing” was coined by Dave Gerhardt, the CEO at Drift, one of the leading conversational marketing platforms.

Conversational marketing – 5 features

1. Real-time;
2. Scalable;
3. Focused on engagement;
4. Personalized;
5. Built-in feedback loop.

Why should you use conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing means returning to the foundation of marketing: having conversations with people.

The power shift between brands and customers has changed. Today customers are in control of your brand, your products and they dictate the terms of communication. Your brand is expected to meet their needs, be available for answering their questions around the clock and have an personalised approach. Everyone likes to feel important.

Using conversational marketing, your brand has the opportunity to achieve exactly that: build trust and connections with your customers by making them feel important.

No more cold calls, lead capture forms and waiting for follow-ups

Conversational marketing is all about your customers. Put yourself in their shoes and answer truthfully: do you like answering to cold calls? Exactly! No one does.

Conversational marketing uses targeted, real-time messaging and intelligent chatbots. This means your leads will no longer have to wait for follow-ups and are able to engage with your company when and how it’s convenient for them.

How to use conversational marketing for lead generation

1 Capture – 2 Qualify – 3 Connect

There are two places where you can put your chatbots on:

• On your website for live one-to-one discussions;
• In messaging apps: Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, Skype etc.

Chatbots on your website

I. Capture

Capture high-value leads using chatbots. You can place your company’s chatbot on your website and/or messaging apps.

Here are 4 examples of the best website pages to put your chatbot on via impactbnd.com:

1. High-intent pages

Integrate your chatbot with the pages which are indicative that your visitors may have the intention of working with you.

Such pages are:

• Pricing pages,
• Services pages,
• Bottom-of-the-funnel landing pages,
• Other pages that are relevant to your visitor’s buying journey.

When your customers visit these pages you know they will have specific questions regarding your services. They may ask which one of your services will solve their problem or which pricing model is right for them. Use the chatbot to ask qualifying questions and then program it to forward the lead to the appropriate company representative.  

2. High-traffic pages

High-traffic pages are:

• Homepages;
• Blogs;
• Articles.

Placing your chatbot on these pages means you have the opportunity to focus on providing value to as many people as possible, but you can also gain valuable feedback on what is and what isn’t working.

3. High-intent (Negative)

Pages that show high but negative intent are your email unsubscribe page.

Your visitors are there because something is wrong with the way your company is engaging with them. Maybe your emails are too sales-oriented, or your frequency is higher than it should be. This is your opportunity to find out the reason they are unsubscribing and a chance to improve your communication.

Remember that frustration underlies your visitor’s reason for unsubscribing. Giving him/her the opportunity to voice their frustrations is a great way to show them your company values them as an individual. Your chatbot may even change your visitor’s mind and reconsider unsubscribing.

Do you want to keep your subscribers happy?

Read our article Stop making these 5 email marketing mistakes.

4. Blog Article

The blog is your company’s tool for brand awareness increase and trust-building. Let’s say you have just read a blog article on influencer marketing. This article sparked a question but you don’t want to go back to Google and search for an answer because it is time-consuming.

Why not ask the author of that article in real-time? When it comes to putting bots on educational content, it’s all about enabling people to learn better and understand more.

The result will be a visitor who trusts you more!

II. Qualify

The latest study on B2B lead generation has found that the lack of quality leads is the second challenge marketers struggle with (source: bopdesign.com).

If this is the case for you, then a chatbot can step up to the plate and solve this problem. How? By asking questions that qualify the respective lead.

It’s time effective and allows you to engage with qualified leads only.

III. Connect

The chatbot doesn’t replace your sales or customer experience team. It functions as an intermediary between the lead and the appropriate company representative. View the chatbot as an assistant: instead of manually booking the appointment with your lead, the chatbot is doing it for you.

Chatbots in messaging apps – the power couple of lead generation and sales

Facebook studies found the following statistics related to Messenger usage behaviour:

• 53% of people are more likely to shop with a business they can message (“Facebook Messaging Survey” by Nielsen);
• 20 Million businesses message with people every month (January 2018, Facebook);
• 2 billion messages are sent on Messenger between people and businesses each month.

So long business email marketing, phone calls and SMS! Messaging apps are the royalty of modern-day communication. If your company is not using them, you are missing sales opportunities.

Do you want to learn how to use this power couple to your advantage?

Read our article How to use chatbots to increase sales.

Conversational marketing – benefits for your company and customers

For your company:

1. A new source of leads;
2. Shortened sales cycle;
3. Increased sales pipeline;
4. A new source of information about your customers and how they are using your products;
5. Increased brand awareness.

For your customers:

1. Supports your company be customer’s top of mind;
2. Real-time assistance to their needs;
3. Real-time answers to their questions;
4. Trust building;
5. You create a more human buying experience;
6. Enhanced user experience.

Conclusions

Conversational marketing is not a new concept. Driving conversations about products and services is the main function of marketing. It’s not the goal of marketing strategy that changed, but the tools marketers can use to achieve that goal: chatbots and messaging apps.

The secret of a successful marketing strategy is closely related to customer experience. Give your customers what they need, use the tools they are already using, listen to them and make them feel like they are valuable assets for your company.