Conversational messaging is the strategy of communicating with customers through one to one conversations on their preferred messaging channel. These 5 best practices will help you convert your target audience faster.
Use conversational messaging best practices to avoid messaging fatigue and improve conversion rates.
In a previous article, we explained why conversational marketing helps you beat ad fatigue and convert more customers and showed that B2C messaging is quickly emerging as the next big marketing channel. As messaging matures, it’s important to heed the lessons of previous channels.
Irrelevant display ad marketing led to banner blindness. Excessive email marketing led to inboxes filled with unread spam. Paid social marketing led to feeds crowded with ads. When marketing channels are abused, ad fatigue develops, customers ignore you and your campaign performance plummets.
The uniquely personal nature of messaging compared to other marketing channels makes it crucial to focus on quality over quantity. Your brand now lives alongside your customer’s most intimate relationships.
Engaging your target audience in direct 1:1 conversations offers you the opportunity to collect zero party data and personalize your customer journey at scale. Do it right and you’ll push customers through your funnel faster than any other channel. Do it wrong and you’ll push your customers straight out the door.
Follow these 5 conversational messaging best practices to avoid messaging fatigue, improve your conversion rates and offer your customers an experience they love.
1. Engage your customers creatively.
Don’t use language that’s overly formal. Speak like a friend, not a business. Be emotional and invite your customer to respond. Always mix up your media formats.
Quick tips for creatively engaging customers on messaging apps.
Emojis and GIFs are a key part of your conversational toolkit.
Carousels are visually appealing ways to navigate product categories or information.
Quick replies engage your customer and help you funnel them to relevant content.
CTAs should be both fun and clear.
Together all these media types build your brand personality and give your customer the interactive, immersive experience that drives them to action.
Watch how Browns generated 5x conversions at 45% higher AOV vs on-site using creative messaging.
2. Respond to your customers personally.
Conversational marketing builds a personal relationship between your brand and your customers. You just grabbed their attention. Don’t abuse it. Use it to give them a personalized brand experience they love.
Quick tips for personalizing customer journeys at scale.
Use every opportunity to collect declared data about who they are to build your customer profile.
Recommend products your customer actually wants based on those preferences.
Follow up with highly personalized messages that speak to them as an individual.
Your customer will respond to your brand taking the time to understand who they are by engaging with you more and more.
Scroll to see how easily you can personalize conversations at scale.
3. Manage your customer's expectations.
Conversational marketing automates messaging with your customers to streamline your funnel into a conversation. Manage expectations of what your bot is offering. Don’t trick them into thinking it’s human.
Humans can be judgmental. You’ll be amazed how willing your customer is to answer your questions compared with talking to a human. That’s a huge asset if you make clear what each interaction will bring.
Quick tips for managing expectations of your chatbot.
Make it clear in your CTA or ad campaign that it will start a conversation with your bot.
Use every part of message formats to communicate. Carousel images should be appealing, the CTA funny, the title clear and the description informative.
Don’t present multiple choices and then respond with the same content. Check your conversation flow map.
Confused by a customer query? React in a fun way and offer options in response to keep them engaged. Use multiple fallbacks to make it feel natural.
Scroll to see tools our customers use to better manage expectations of their bot and drive results.
4. Optimize your customer journey.
Track every step in your customer journey. Monitor engagement and drop-off rates. Change the order of your preference collection questions and compare the impact on conversions by checking your conversation version history. Train your conversational AI to respond more and more accurately to customer queries. Every minor tweak you make helps optimize the entire experience to drive more conversions.
5. Leverage your customer's input.
All the declared data you collect from customers in conversations is yours to keep. Turn anonymous website visitors into real people. Turn those real people into detailed customers profiles. Then use that customer profile to recommend products that convert and improve your targeting. Use your 1:1 relationship with customers to collect feedback and improve your messaging, your products and your marketing strategy.
Gather rich customer insights to improve your marketing strategy.
All the declared data you collect from customers in conversations is yours to keep. Turn anonymous website visitors into real people. Turn those real people into detailed customers profiles. Then use that customer profile to recommend products that convert and improve your targeting. Use your 1:1 relationship with customers to collect feedback and improve your messaging, your products and your marketing strategy.+1: Use entry points to direct more prospects into your bot
Creating the perfect conversation flow will only pay off if customers are aware of your bot. Cutting through the noise is no small feat, so use every opportunity to promote your bot.
Entry points are various online and offline ways for customers to start a conversation with your chatbot. They are the perfect way to promote and drive prospects into your chatbot.
You can insert a link to your bot into a social post, Instagram story, newsletter, or website widget.
You can run Click to Messenger ads and WhatsApp ads to encourage customers to chat with you.
You can also use QR codes to send people into your chatbot.
Just a few examples of entry points that can help you reach more people on the most popular messaging channels.
Learn more about entry points via Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp in these articles.
Conversational messaging best practices are easy with the right tools and support.
Follow these 5 conversational marketing best practices and you’ll improve your conversion rates and avoid messaging fatigue. Always focus on the quality of the experience, not the quantity of messages you send. Sending too many irrelevant re-engagement messages is the fastest way to ruining the relationship you have an opportunity to build with your customers.
Does implementing these best practices feel daunting? It shouldn’t.
You don’t need in-house expertise. You don’t need to develop any technology yourself. You don’t even need to integrate a complex marketing stack.
Start letting conversations drive your conversions. Your customers will get an experience they love. You’ll get the increasing returns on ad spend you’re looking for.