According to one recent study, the average person sees anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 ads each day. If you needed a single statistic to illustrate why people have grown so tired of traditional marketing, let it be that one.
We get them in our email inboxes. We see them in breaks during our favorite television shows. They’re on nearly every website we visit. They’re on our social media feeds. The list goes on and on.
But it’s not the concept of advertising that people have become jaded by – it’s the shape in which advertising takes place. This is why ideas like conversational messaging are so essential. Instead of strictly (and cynically) “selling” to someone, you’re opening up a conversation with them. This allows you to build stronger relationships and make a positive impact on the overall customer experience as well.
The Power of Conversational Messaging
In a larger sense, conversational messaging is about creating personalized, one-on-one interactions with customers, typically through mobile-first chats. While it’s not necessarily “marketing” in the strictest sense of the term in that you’re not putting a routine ad in front of someone, you are leaning into many of the same outreach best practices.
The reason this works is because, rather than forcing a consumer to come to you if they need something, you’re meeting them where they are. Whether via a chatbot on your website, through your social media feed, or as an SMS text message doesn’t matter. It’s an approach that puts the customer’s needs and wants first, which is the way it should have been all along.
The Right Tools for the Right Tasks at the Right Time
With so many different communications channels available, it can be challenging to keep track of all your efforts. This is especially true as your business continues to grow and scale and take advantage of new opportunities like SMS marketing. That’s why tools like Mitto (to use just one of many examples) are so critical. Instead of trying to manage a variety of disparate services, everything you need—from SMS to Facebook Messenger to WhatsApp and more—is all condensed into a single, powerful dashboard.
The major benefit of this is that you empower your business with seamless communication anywhere, anytime, and on virtually any device. It doesn’t matter how a customer chooses to engage with your brand – everything will feel like it’s coming from the same authentic place because it finally will be.
Over the long term, this can be a great way to turn passive conversations into active relationships with as many people as possible. Finally, you’re in a position to empower the customer experience in ways people have been clamoring for. All this, and you get to free up valuable time through things like automated, personalized replies to messages so that your workers can spend more time doing what truly matters.
In the end, conversational messaging brings together the best of marketing and customer service into a bold new experience that people will enjoy. Not only can it be used to further personalize the customer experience by offering more specific cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, but it also acts as an extension of your general service operations.
It helps people get answers to questions and solve problems quickly, all on their terms. Not only does this help improve your business’s overall retention rates, but it also goes a long way toward building long-term loyalty. Also, it helps motivate customers and transforms them from passive observers into a loyal army of brand advocates who will empower a lot of your text marketing for you. This in and of itself is likely the most important benefit of all.
