Conversational Marketing: Discover the potential and how to implement it successfully

In the last few years, conversational marketing has proven to be a powerful tool for strengthening the relationship between users and brands. And while at first glance it may seem that implementing conversational strategies requires a lot of effort and resources, technological advances have made its benefits accessible for more brands.

But what are the key factors driving this growth, and how can your brand implement conversational marketing successfully? Keep reading to discover the answers to these questions and maximise the opportunities presented by this technology.

The rise of conversational marketing. 

Right now, conversational marketing is in a period of rapid growth, and it is estimated that investment in conversational channels – including activations in messaging apps, websites and voice channels, among others – will continue to grow and multiply by 7 times by 2025. But what is the reason for this growth?

The development of conversational AI.

To understand the current situation, we must first take into account a key factor: the advance of conversational AIs. This technology focuses on the design of software that simulates a conversation with a person, something that has been employed in digital marketing for a while, taking control of tasks such as reservation management or post-sales customer support.

The use of this type of technology is not something new, in Good Rebels we already talked about the use of chatbots in 2015. However, the recent advances in artificial intelligence have changed the landscape, opening the door to solutions that encompass new use cases and facilitate greater accessibility.

These new technologies do not only affect marketers. Users are increasingly willing to embrace them as part of their daily lives. Proof of this can be found in the rise of voice searches and virtual assistants and, thanks to the evolution of natural language processing and deep learning technologies, these machines are increasingly equipped to respond correctly. For instance, in May 2022, 27.4% of US shoppers were making purchases using smart assistants, according to Statista.

The fall of cookies and third-party data.

Not only are new opportunities at the technical level driving organisations to explore this area, legislative changes and new restrictions on the use of data have pushed corporations to look for new ways to utilise their own data, given the new limitations on accessing third-party information.

Some of the most high-profile developments in digital marketing in recent years were Apple’s iOS 14.5 update and Google’s proposal to stop collecting third-party cookies from its Chrome browser by 2024. Both have a similar effect on brands, limiting their tracking power, segmentation and, ultimately, control over the customer journey.

All of this means that companies need to build a model that works in the near future, where big data sources will be increasingly limited. And these actions represent a new form of dialogue capable of putting the user at the centre, both in terms of consent and personalisation of communication, a solution based on first party data, which allows the collection of information and the creation of a seamless customer journey, which is more precise and useful to the end user.

How to exploit Conversational Marketing: Applications you may already be implementing.

Currently, there are a wide range of easy-to-implement possibilities that you could implement to make the most of the benefits of conversational marketing. These are three of the most widely used:

• Interactive email and app communication. 

The use of this type of initiative in channels such as email or apps is key to generating synergies. Thanks to the large amount of information available in the company’s own databases, we can personalise emails and implement the automation of messages based on the user’s behaviour.

It is already common to find interactive elements in email marketing and push notifications, such as personalised discounts, review requests or dynamics in the form of gamification. But we can go one step further: through online chats integrated into the emails themselves, we can generate a conversation with the user and respond to their queries in real-time. This allows users to interact with the brand in a more fluid way, and get quick answers to their concerns without having to leave their inbox.

• Automated conversations via Facebook Messenger, Instagram direct and WhatsApp. 

One of the most useful and widespread applications of conversational marketing are chatbots, which simulate a conversation with the user and answer their questions. Typically, the AI that generates the conversation is provided with information by the brand in the form of a decision tree.

In addition to the usual use on websites, new tools are appearing that allow this dialogue to be transferred to social channels, enabling us to qualify the user and cover intermediate phases of the purchasing process, such as a request for a quote.

• Conversational advertising.

 This is an evolution of traditional advertising formats, with an increase in sophistication that allows the user to dialogue with the advertisements and receive personalised responses that help them to explore the products, shape their order, and even close the transaction, sometimes without leaving the platform.

An example of this is interactive banners, where it is possible to segment the user through their responses, offer them more information and send them to different landing pages according to their needs.

But there is much more. In addition to the usual practices, it is possible to implement innovative dynamics that break the mould. An example of this is the activation we launched at Good Rebels in collaboration with Viajes El Corte Inglés.

In the context of one of the most important annual campaigns for the brand, Cruise Week (Semana del Crucero), we launched an activation focused on generating valuable interactions, which invited the user to start a chat with one of the brand’s expert agents. This dynamic was carried out on the messaging channel they are most accustomed to using: WhatsApp.

In this way, the user could resolve their doubts and obtain personalised recommendations on specific products, helping to qualify and guide the purchasing process for a product. As a result, we found the user open to having a natural conversation, focused on requesting customised recommendations based on their personal interests.

What does the future look like? Conversational commerce is already here. 

Although we have already found a wide range of possibilities, hold on: we have only just begun. We couldn’t finish without mentioning conversational commerce or, in other words, the creation of purchasing processes guided from start to finish by conversational techniques.

As we have already mentioned, thanks to the advance of virtual assistants based on natural language processing technologies, combined with the recording of previous customer data and the application of deep learning algorithms, we will increasingly be able to communicate with the user in a fluid way and provide answers tailored to their specific needs.

These advances will mean that shopping can become a real conversation, with scenarios where the shopper will experience the process of discovering, recommending and buying products as a conversation, rather than manually navigating through the different sections of a website. The shopping experience could be completely immersive if, in addition, we combine it with virtual or augmented reality technologies.

Integrating new technologies that speak the user’s language and promote personalised and valuable interactions will be key to the success of companies in the short term. And those that manage to lead the change will be those that are technologically prepared. In turn, those that adopt these technologies late will lose out on the benefits of a new consumer reality for the user. 

At Good Rebels, we are always on the lookout for the latest developments to ensure that your brand is not left behind and that you can benefit from new opportunities such as this.