There’s no doubt that the world of marketing is changing. Consumers are getting tired of being bombarded with one-size-fits-all promotional messaging, and as a result, traditional advertising models are becoming increasingly ineffective.
Today’s consumers aren’t looking to be sold a generic dream—they want to be treated as individuals, so marketing should reflect their specific needs and desires.
How do you personalize your marketing message to every individual consumer? It might seem like an unachievable task, but when you start to introduce conversational marketing, it’s not only possible—it’s a game changer.
In this article, we’ll look at the key ways conversational marketing could help promote your brand on social media.
What is Conversational Marketing?
The clue lies in the name—while traditional marketing can often feel like you’re talking at customers, conversational marketing is all about changing the monologue into a two-way conversation.
Rather than telling customers what you think they want, you can use channels like social media, chatbots, and messaging apps to engage directly with them in real time. This way, you can learn more about their individual needs and offer personalized solutions. It’s essentially like sitting down with every customer individually and having a conversation.
Conversational marketing can take effort, but it is definitely worth it. Let’s find out how why in the following section.
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10 Key Benefits of Conversational Marketing in Social Media Promotion
1. Increased Customer Engagement
High engagement is often considered the holy grail of success when it comes to performing well on social media. One of the best ways to encourage your followers to engage with your content and brand more is to interact directly with them.
After all, when was the last time you felt compelled to hit the ‘like’ button or leave a comment on a traditional social media ad? Probably not too recently! Those one-way promo posts don’t encourage the same sort of engagement as conversational marketing, which actively invites your audience to be part of the conversation.
So, what does the alternative look like? Let’s take the example of a fitness app company looking to drum up more interest in its new workout tracking feature.
Instead of taking their usual approach of sharing adverts about the feature, they post a question on Instagram: “What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to staying consistent with your fitness goals? 💪🏽”, inviting their followers to comment and join the conversation.
This conversational approach helps the business connect with the audience by showing genuine interest in their needs and offering relevant solutions, all without feeling too promotional or “sales-y.”
2. Personalized Customer Experience
Personalizing customer experiences isn’t simply a nice-to-have anymore, it’s swiftly becoming an expectation of the modern consumer. Customers want to see that brands care about their specific needs and wants, and see them as individuals. This is where conversational marketing can really come into its own.
Now, you very likely don’t have the time or resources to have a lengthy one-on-one chat with every single customer who shows an interest in your brand.
The good news is, you don’t have to! Technology like AI-driven chatbots and live messaging can be the next best thing and deliver personalized responses and product recommendations in real time for you.
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You can take this one step further by using app integration to connect chatbots to tools like your CRM system or e-commerce platform.
This enables chatbots to pull real-time customer data, like purchase histories and preferences from past interactions, so they can give more accurate and relevant recommendations on the spot.
For instance, on platforms like Facebook Messenger or Instagram Direct, automated chat flows can suggest products based on what a customer has browsed before, past interactions, or specific interests.
This more personalized approach doesn’t just make the experience of your brand better for the customer; it boosts the chances of turning a virtual chat into a sale.
3. Improved Lead Qualification and Conversion Rates
Every successful salesperson or marketer understands the power of conversation when it comes to persuading customers to make a purchase. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges in an online or omnichannel brand is replicating this customer experience online.
Since you can’t speak with customers physically, you lack the opportunity to discuss what they’re looking for, reassure them about any concerns, or recommend products that best suit their needs.
Lead inquiry forms help to capture interest, but they can feel like a big step for potential customers. They might be curious about a product but not quite ready to commit to filling out a form or setting up a meeting without getting further information first, so they leave without following up further.
So, how do you bridge this gap? Let’s look at an example of how conversational marketing could help.
Suppose a potential customer visits a company’s website looking for a virtual call center solution. If they were to encounter a static form requesting details, they might just move on without taking any action. However, instead, an interactive chatbot pops up and starts the conversation.
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It might ask questions like, “Are you setting up a new call center or upgrading an existing one?” or “How many agents are you planning to onboard?”, engaging the visitor in conversation. Then, based on the visitor’s answers, the chatbot can provide further information or suggest relevant features.
If the visitor shows strong interest—like asking about pricing —the chatbot can spring into action and hand things over to a live sales agent to continue the discussion.
This form of conversational marketing can be a really efficient way of capturing passing interest and qualifying leads, while freeing up your sales team time to focus on serious prospects.
Plus, it provides a better experience for the customer—rather than filling out a form and waiting for a follow-up email, they receive immediate assistance right there and then.
4. Instant Customer Support and Issue Resolution
These days, when customers have a question or want to voice a complaint, the first place they head is often social media.
Social media has quickly become a customer service channel in itself, with customers using direct messaging, live chats, or comments to seek help and solutions. And, along with the instantaneous nature of these platforms, they expect quick answers. Using conversational marketing, brands can offer fast support and keep customers happy.
Chatbots, for example, are great for handling simple questions—with the added advantage that they can be on hand 24/7, so customers are never left waiting for an answer.
Meanwhile, more complex issues can easily be passed on to live agents. Similarly, if you use a customer support call center to handle queries, you can use call center interactive voice response (IVRs) to automate routine questions and guide callers towards the right help more efficiently.
Image sourced from Hubspot.com
5. Data Collection and Insights
One additional benefit of conversational marketing that can often be overlooked is the insights it offers. Think about it—every conversation with your customers gives you a glimpse into their world: what they like, the challenges they face, and their expectations.
By tapping into this valuable data, you can refine your marketing strategies, improve products, and create more targeted campaigns that better resonate with your audience.
You can use conversation analytics to efficiently analyze these interactions and extract useful information. Trends, customer sentiments, and recurring issues are just some of the areas on which these analytics can shed light.
For example, you might spot the same questions cropping up regularly, indicating that customers are confused or unaware of certain product features.
Let’s say you notice a pattern of people enquiring whether your products are vegan—you could use this feedback to build an educational marketing campaign that highlights how all your products are vegan-certified, clearing up any confusion and potentially boosting sales.
6. Building Brand Trust and Loyalty
Trust and loyalty are key to the success of any brand. They keep people coming back, encourage word-of-mouth recommendations, and make your customers feel confident about choosing you.
In a world where customers can simply go online and have many options at their fingertips, being a brand that people trust and want to stick with can make all the difference to your long-term growth and success.
Now, if you want to build genuine trust and loyalty with your customers, you need to do more than push your products on them all the time. Of course, you do need to promote your products, but by also having genuine, real-time conversations with your customers, you can set yourself apart from other, more transactional brands and start building meaningful relationships.
Social media is a great platform for these authentic interactions. You can share behind-the-scenes moments, do live Q&A sessions, and chat with your audience in a casual, friendly way. This all lets your customers see the human side of your business, making it more relatable and helping them to feel more connected to your brand.
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7. Increased Customer Satisfaction and Retention
Building brand trust and loyalty can improve retention, but if you want to keep customers coming back for more, you also need to ensure they have a good experience when they shop with you or interact with your brand.
Conversation marketing can improve customer satisfaction in several ways. When customers see that you’re taking the time to listen and make the effort to respond quickly, they feel valued and understood—not just an order number. This makes them more likely to keep choosing you—not just for what you sell, but because they like the relationship they have with your brand.
With conversational marketing, you’re also on hand to help right away. Rather than being fobbed off with an automatic response, customers know they’ll get a real, personalized response to their question or complaint.
This personal touch can turn a problem into a good experience and improve the overall satisfaction of your customers. They’ll feel more at ease and confident shopping with you, knowing they can reach out if they need anything.
8. Scalable and Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy
Using conversational marketing on social media isn’t just a powerful way to connect with your customers; it’s super scalable and budget-friendly.
For example, AI-powered chatbots are absolute workhorses that can handle thousands of conversations at once, giving quick, helpful responses that will keep your customers happy, all without the cost of needing a large customer service team.
These chatbots can deal with the simple stuff for you—like answering common questions about opening hours, product details, or order status—so your support team can focus on the more complex questions that need a human touch.
Moreover, chatbots can be “on” 24/7 to help customers at all hours, without the added cost of night shifts or overtime. Plus, they beaver away collecting all those valuable insights along the way, showing you what your customers care about most so you can make your marketing even more relevant.
Statistic sourced from invespcro.com
9. Instant Feedback and Continuous Improvement
One of the other big advantages of conversational marketing is that, through those conversations, you’re getting instant social media feedback from customers. Be it via a tweet, direct message, or comment on Facebook, customers are generally pretty quick to share their thoughts.
When you encourage this engagement through conversation, you get a continuous flow of valuable feedback directly from your customers, which you can then use to spot and fix issues quickly.
You can even use conversational tools to ask for feedback directly during your interactions. For example, after a problem has been solved in a chat, your chatbot could pop up and ask the customer to rate how they found their experience. This real-time feedback helps you to consistently improve your products and support.
10. Proactive Customer Engagement
Traditional marketing often relies on putting your content out into the wild and waiting for customers to make the first move.
Conversational marketing takes a more proactive approach. Brands can start conversations by reaching out to users who have shown interest in their products or services; this strategy works especially well on social media.
Here, you can monitor mentions, tags, and hashtags to spot potential leads and follow up on them. For example, if you notice people talking about a certain product, you can jump in with a personalized message or special offer.
The Power of Conversational Marketing
Conversational marketing is changing the way brands connect with their customers on social media. Rather than just broadcasting generic advertising, it’s about focusing on real-time, personalized interactions that can make a real impact.
Embracing conversational marketing isn’t just about asking customers “Hello, how are you?”. It’s an approach where, at every point, the customer is kept at the heart of the experience and made to feel valued and heard.
In a world where customers are being bombarded with ads on literally every platform, conversational marketing offers a refreshing, authentic way for brands to engage.
