Industry 4.0 brought automation to manufacturing but marketeers have been benefitting long before this. Technology has reached the stage where robots live in our homes and control our devices. The likes of Alexa and Siri have revolutionised our lives, but what about the robots we may not know about; the ones lurking on your favourite website and helping you under the guise of a real human?
Don’t worry, it’s not as sinister as it sounds. It’s just a conversational marketing tool and here’s exactly how conversational marketing and bots can help grow your engineering business...
Hasta la vista, outdated marketing
If you’re in a hurry, what you really need to know is that conversational marketing is a branch of inbound marketing that helps you to encourage and nurture meaningful conversations with your customers, clients and followers.
Conversational marketing differs slightly from the likes of email and social media marketing because it uses direct messaging via chatbots, rather than broad topics on a public platform. Think of conversational marketing as the LinkedIn direct message, whereas digital marketing is the LinkedIn post.
A chatbot is a program on your website that helps and nurtures your clients while staff are unable to, like in the middle of the night or on public holidays. Chatbots work in such a way that your average customer will likely think they’re talking to an actual person rather than an AI chatbot. The service is seamless, professional and reliable.
Chatbots solve many problems. Whether it's managing complaints, offering seamless customer service, nurturing sales and warming up potential sales leads, chatbots engage your audience with a personal service. Enquiries are dealt with accordingly and complaints can be escalated properly.
For example, you could ask the chatbot: “can I rent a milling machine?” and it would recommend the best support articles, videos or FAQs to help you.
Conversational marketing with chatbots has many benefits such as:
Having a chatbot on your website is like having a fully-branded concierge and tour guide helping your visitors get answers to their questions quickly.
Once set up, your chatbots can offer your clients expert customer service 24/7 for free. There’s no need to ask your staff to work extra hours and pay them overtime. It also frees up your team to do other things during operating hours.
Your chatbot is your star employee – programmed properly, it knows the ins and out of your business and can help customers solve their issues and queries quickly. Chatbots don’t take sick days or forget things, which means visitors always get the best experience.
In fact, you can use chatbots to encourage prospective sales or clients. Thanks to your Buyer Personas, you’re better able to anticipate the needs of your visitors and present them with relevant and useful content that enriches their experience.
Chatbots will be written by your team, meaning that your tone of voice will always be perfect. What’s more, communication is key. When your chatbot is written by one dedicated team, you guarantee one consistent message so that you and your business are never misunderstood.
When it comes to your inbound marketing strategy, conversations fit in absolutely everywhere you can. If there’s a channel your audience uses, you should be there, ready to talk to them, providing useful and helpful information, and chatbots will prove to be a vital conversational marketing tool in order to do that.
For example, a potential lead could ask “What’s included with your package deal?” and the chatbot could respond with more information about the service, outlining the package and keeping them interested until your sales team responds with a call.
So until the day Alexa goes all Arnold Schwarzenegger on us and becomes self-aware, we’re in very safe hands. Chatbots are a conversational marketing tool that helps you and your business engage with your clients and customers on a one-to-one basis. They provide answers to specific queries, manage expectations and nurture potential leads so your team’s time is freed up to focus on other priorities, which ultimately saves you time and money.
Looking for a conversational marketing agency and wondering where do conversations fit into your inbound marketing strategy? FINALLY is Kent’s No.1 growth agency, specialising in conversational marketing tools, like chatbots for your website. Get in touch and see how we can help you with your conversational marketing strategy and provide the tools to help you successfully carry it out.