The key to RMN’s success is how interactions with brands can enhance the shopper experience. Digital media experts at Kroger and The Home Depot have spent years developing media networks keeping this key point in mind. If a branded ad interrupts the customer’s journey, it doesn’t help the brand, the retailer or, most importantly, the customer.

Helping when customers research products

Where can brands get involved in the customer journey? At The Home Depot, a supplier approached the retailer about retargeting customers on social media. Soon, the company created opportunities for other suppliers to deliver ads that drove customers to the retailer’s product pages.

This was back in 2018. In 2019, The Home Depot’s Retail Media+ (known as RM+) was launched. Brands now have opportunities to show ads on company owned properties, including homedepot.com, the retailer’s app, in-store and email, as well as offsite media channels like social and video.

“We didn’t want it to disrupt the customer experience,” said Melanie Babcock, vice president, Retail Media+ and monetization for The Home Depot. “Our customer spends a lot of time researching on our site before making a decision. They’re thinking about if they have the right tools, skills, time and capabilities for a project. You have a light to install, should you do it on your own? The consideration time is much less for traditional retailers.”

Because of this longer, more involved customer journey, the retailer decided  decided to let suppliers have the lion’s share of the RMN ad inventory. That means that most of the ads served to customers during their journey are endemic products, ones that can be bought at Home Depot.

“Onsight and in-store are very connected,” said Babcock. “We see that in our customers’ behaviors, and we wanted to be additive to that by keeping the customer in mind and not just monetizing the website. We’re bringing the supplier into the customer journey.”

Personalized precision with customers

Supermarket chain Kroger is another major retailer with a robust RMN, called Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM). KPM is managed under a wholly-owned subsidiary, 84.51˚.

“The common denominator is data science,” said Brian Spencer, KPM’s marketing director. “We have a legion of data scientists available under 84.51˚. There’s shelf assortment and other areas of personalization in our stores. That same talent base is what fuels the personalization behind Kroger Precision Marketing as well.”

Prior to starting its retail media business, Kroger built digital experiences for customers to search products, create grocery lists and receive digital coupons. These tools made it possible for KPM to introduce brands in a relevant way.

Unbranded search terms are 90% of the top 500 searches in Kroger digital touchpoints, Spencer said. That means many customers are looking for products without a specific brand in mind. Directing those customers to a specific brand or product is a logical next step in their journeys.

And, because digital customers are multi-taskers, they aren’t only looking for products available at a Kroger store. For instance, you could be planning a Super Bowl party and need to buy snacks. But what if you also are considering a new TV? Cases like that, but also many others, are where non-endemic brands fit in.

“As we explore non-endemic opportunities, top of mind is that this is activated in a way that isn’t intrusive or obnoxious to our consumers,” said Spencer. “If it’s something that makes sense for our shoppers, we’ll take a look.”

Expanding to offsite journeys

“Retail media data is very advantageous to all kinds of brands, particularly in the grocery category,” said Spencer. Grocery shoppers make purchases several times a month, and often multiple times per week. And these purchases cut across many categories. 

“That kind of information is obviously necessary for consumer packaged goods, but outside of CPG there’s greater interest because some of these non-endemic brands are looking for relevant ways to reach audiences,” he said. “Automotive brands or fast food brands, they may think of our data set as another way to activate across the open web.”

Offsite RMN opportunities are the fastest-growing area for KPM. Kroger has been a partner with streaming service platform Roku for three years. And this week, Disney Advertising announced a partnership with KPM for some Disney media properties, beginning with Hulu.

Dig deeper: CTV added to Kroger’s retail media network business

“Brands, but more typically agencies, are able to go in and activate programmatic display and CTV through a DSP of their choice, and set their own safety standards and activate through a self-service portal — and see sales results and optimize against in-store and online sales,” said Spencer.

“Retail media is more and more being considered as just media,” he added. “It’s more and more part of the total touchpoint consideration set that agencies are looking at. The traditional lines between shopper marketing and brand marketing are becoming more blurred.”

The Home Depot is also looking at how to expand RM+ offsite into CTV. It’s also piloting in-store video screens at 50 locations, currently, to see how shoppers’ digital journeys can be enhanced when they get to the store.

“We’re the last mile in advertising, which is always the most expensive part of the journey,” said Babcock. “There’s huge value to our supplier to connect to that customer and also to know more about that customer.”

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In today’s fiercely competitive market, delivering personalized experiences is crucial for customer engagement and loyalty. However, marketers who fail to adapt to the transition from decision-tree to trigger-based engagement strategies risk falling behind and missing out on the opportunity to captivate customers at every touchpoint with hyper-personalized experiences. 

In this workshop, discover how to seamlessly collaborate with your data team to unlock the full potential of your first-party data and create personalized experiences that captivate your customers at every touchpoint. 

Register and attend “How To Power Next Best Action with First-Party Customer Data,” presented by Snowplow.

Click here to view more MarTech webinars.

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Customer experience is the most important and toughest part of marketing. The scale alone can be staggering. CX involves every interaction current and potential customers have with a brand — from customer service to packaging to digital presence to physical store maintenance to positioning around external events and much, much more. 

Dig deeper: How Allied Beverage is transforming customer experience

How can anyone stay on top of all that? You need expert help. So, here’s our list (in alphabetical order) of the people you absolutely must follow to keep up with the latest in CX.

Jay Baer

Jay is a customer experience and marketing keynote speaker and emcee who has written six best-selling books on customer acquisition and retention and founded five multi-million dollar companies from scratch. He is also founder of ConvinceAndConvert.com, one of the world’s most popular online resources for marketers and business owners.

• Twitter: @jaybaer (270K followers)
• LinkedIn: Jay Baer (42K followers)
• Website: JayBaer

Jeanne Bliss

Jeanne is a leadership and customer experience advisor, who has delivered over 2,000 speeches and workshops for nearly every business vertical. She hosts the podcast Customer Bliss and is the author of several books including the best-selling “Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine.”

• LinkedIn: Jeanne Bliss (26K followers)
• Twitter: @JeanneBliss (25K followers)
• Website: Customer Bliss 

James Dodkins

James is Pegasystems’ GTM Excellence, Customer Service & Sales Automation Director. He can honestly be called a rockstar, having played guitar with a world-touring, album-releasing heavy metal band. Check out his video “What Can Stevie Ray Vaugh Teach Us About Customer Experience” to see what those two worlds have in common. He also helped create the ACXS customer experience certification program.

• LinkedIn: James Dodkins (28K followers) 
• Twitter: @JDODKINS (3K followers)
• Website: James Dodkins 

Annette Franz 

Annette is founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. and has been named one of “The 100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” by Business Insider. She’s author of the books “Built to Win” and “Customer Understanding.” She has 30 years of experience in CX on both the client and vendor side, serves on the advisory board for customer experience at the University of California, Irvine, and is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council. 

• LinkedIn: Annette Franz (20K followers)
• Twitter: @annettefranz (27K followers)
• Website: CX Journey

Don Peppers 

Don’s first book, 1993’s “The One to One Future,” written with long-time business partner Martha Rogers, Ph.D., is widely credited with having launched the CRM revolution. BusinessWeek called it the “bible of the new marketing” and Tom Peters named it his “book of the year.” Among the many other books Don has written by himself or with Rogers are the definitive “Managing Customer Experience and Relationships” and “Customer Experience: What, Why and How.” He is also one of the LinkedIn Top Voices, which is the site’s official influencer program.

• LinkedIn: Don Peppers (329K followers)
• Twitter: @DonPeppers (10.5K followers)
• Website: CX Speakers

Colin Shaw 

Colin is a pioneer of customer experience. In 2002 he founded Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s first customer experience consultancies. He is author of several best-selling books, including “Building Great Customer Experiences’ and “Revolutionize Your Customer Experience.” Colin is also one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices and co-host of the business podcast The Intuitive Customer, rated in the top 5% of all podcasts by BuzzSprout. 

• LinkedIn: Colin Shaw (295K followers)
• Twitter: @ColinShaw_CX (14K followers)
• Website: Beyond Philosophy 

Brian Solis 

Currently VP of Global Innovation at Salesforce, Brian is a renowned digital anthropologist who researches technology’s impact on business, markets and society. He’s the author of many bestselling books, including, “X: The Experience When Business Meets Design,” “What’s the Future of Business” and “The End of Business as Usual.” He’s a Top Voice on LinkedIn, where his newsletter has more than 62,000 subscribers.

• LinkedIn: BrianSolis (344K followers)
• Twitter: @briansolis (272K followers)
• Instagram: @briansolis (65K followers)
• Website: Brian Solis

Bruce Temkin 

Bruce leads the Qualtrics XM Institute, which provides thought leadership and training to help organizations with experience management. He is also co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. This non-profit organization runs the Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) program, an industry-wide, standardized curriculum which confirms CX practitioners’ expertise in the field.  

• LinkedIn: Bruce Temkin (36K followers)
• Twitter: @btemkin (17K followers)
• Website: XM Institute

Steve Towers 

Steve is CEO and founder of The BP Group, a consultancy that helps upskill customer experience professionals. He has been keynote speaker for conferences and corporate events around the world. He is author of the books “Dare” and “The Process Tactics Playbook” (with James Dodkins).

• LinkedIn: Steve Towers  (31K followers)
• Twitter: @stowers (10K followers)
• Website: Steve Towers

Steven Van Belleghem 

Steve is co-founder and board member of nexxworks, a disruption consultancy. An in-demand keynote speaker, he is also author of many business books, including “The Offer You Can’t Refuse” and “When Digital Becomes Human” and the tech thriller “Hoogverraad” (sadly, only available in Dutch).

• LinkedIn: Steven Van Belleghem (49K followers)
• Twitter: @StevenVBe (39K followers)
• Website: Steven Van Belleghem  

More MarTech experts to follow:

• Marketing operations
• AI and marketing
• Email marketing
• B2B marketing
• Content marketing

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To earn loyalty, marketers should avoid pitfalls and shift to a journey-centric culture to ensure everyone remains focused on creating a great experience that retains customers.

The ability to focus on customer journeys and reorient your organization around customer journeys is a great unlock for companies needing help progressing with their customer experience scores and programs. To be successful, organizations need to decide to embrace journey-centricity.

Customer journeys provide marketers with key insights about the customer’s intent at the macro level as well as the micro level: what are they trying to do and also the context, the touch points, the channels and the location that they are in as they are trying to accomplish these goals.

You’ll also get insights on the emotion behind those interactions, the level of engagement, the sentiment and intent, context and emotion together. A journey-centric approach helps marketers understand and focus on what customers want and uses that to deliver exceptional customer experiences and business results. 

Join Andy Gremett, director of product marketing at Treasure Data, and guest speaker Joana de Quintanilha, VP, and principal analyst at Forrester, in their informative MarTech session as they share perspectives and learnings on how you can transform customer journeys for better CX and results.

After this session, you’ll be able to draw inspiration from companies that have used customer journeys to improve personalized experiences and engagement outcomes, show which operational levers to pull for a journey-centric approach and list the technologies required to facilitate connected customer journeys.

Watch the session today and apply the three advantages of focusing on journey-centricity to help you give your customers what they want.

The post 3 reasons why you need to embrace journey-centricity appeared first on MarTech.

With the rise of ecommerce, consumers now have more choices than ever before and expect seamless and personalized experiences from the brands they interact with. D2C businesses must rely on digital marketing to position themselves for success. It provides a direct and cost-effective way to reach the brand’s target audience at the right time, with the right content and through the right channel.

Through the use of various digital channels, such as email marketing, mobile marketing (SMS, WhatsApp, app) and web and ad optimization, D2C brands are able to build strong and lasting relationships, increase customer loyalty, and drive repeat business.

In a highly competitive online environment, it’s a must for D2C businesses to prioritize customer engagement in order to stand out. How? By understanding their customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors and using this data to provide them with relevant and valuable experiences that meet those needs. This will allow brands to build strong and lasting relationships, increase customer loyalty, and drive repeat business — the dream, right?

To help you stay ahead of the game, we have created a unique compilation of fast time-to-value use cases that have proven successful for leading brands by generating revenue, maintaining their customers, and expanding brand awareness.

To help you master the art of DTC marketing, we’ll dive into acquisition-boosting campaigns, conversion-driven campaigns, customer retention campaigns, and more.

READ THE GUIDE

The post A must-read Guide for DTC Marketers appeared first on MarTech.

Attracting interest in a tool or product may be the easy and fun part of building a business, but converting inquiries to purchasers is when it gets hard. So many brands today continue to struggle with acquiring, converting, retaining and creating loyal customers for life. Yet leading companies across the globe seem to be accomplishing all of that and then some.

Want to know how? Register and attend “Harnessing the Power of Customer Data to Stay Ahead of the Competition,” presented by Tealium.

Click here to view more MarTech webinars.

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What are you hoping to get out of your marketing technology? Do you need help getting there?

At the heart of marketing technology, customer data platforms offer marketers and advertisers a powerhouse of capabilities to drive relevant, personalized customer experiences. And at the heart of the CDP lies the data that fuels customer insights. 

Learn more by registering and attending “Get to the Heart of Customer Experience With Data that Delivers,” presented by Salesforce and Acxiom.

Click here to view more MarTech webinars.

The post Drive better customer intelligence for a better customer experience appeared first on MarTech.

Recent years have seen gaming become an attractive advertising opportunity for brands. As more people are playing video games, there’s a huge potential for advertisers to reach new audiences. To gain further insight, DISQO CX surveyed 28,244 nationally representative consumers.

Their findings suggest that gaming is mainstream, with over one-third of the US population likely to have regular metaverse interactions within the next 5-10 years. Of those surveyed, 76% had noticed advertisements from brands. Consumers favored in-game experiences, bonus content, and embedded functionality, as these formats enhance the gaming experience for both gamers and advertising partners.

Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download How Brands Can Get in the Game. You’ll learn how to use the gaming medium to level-up your marketing, gain a better understanding of in-game audiences, and which ad formats are most popular with consumers.

The post Level up your marketing with in-game advertising appeared first on MarTech.

Here’s how to develop the best recommendation strategy for your site, content and audience. Most off-the-shelf content recommendation engines will not have all the capabilities discussed here, but knowing what’s possible will help you find the best solution for your business. 

What is content recommendation? 

Content recommendation systems suggest additional content to visitors based on what they will likely be interested in. For example:

• YouTube and Netflix use content recommendations to suggest additional videos and TV shows to their users based on their viewing history.
• Spotify finds patterns in musical tastes and recommends similar songs.
• My daughter says TikTok is amazingly good at finding relevant content for her. 

The goal in all these cases is to keep the visitor engaged with yet another compelling piece of content on your platform. But this raises two critical questions: 

• How does the system know what to recommend? 
• What is the context of the recommendation? 

How content recommendation works

Content recommendation relies on data analysis to accurately predict what content a user is likely to engage with. In general, it collects data on user behavior, such as what pages they’ve visited, what they’ve clicked on and how much time they’ve spent on each page. It can then generate different kinds of recommendations, including: 

• Popular articles on the site right now. 
• Popular articles in a specific category.
• Popular articles by a specific author.
• Articles read by visitors who read the current article. 
• Articles that visitors with similar browsing histories have read.
• Popular articles for people with a specific job title. 
• Articles read by people who are like the reader. 
• Articles read by people in a specific geographic area.  

Each option might have a different use for various content or on distinct areas of your website. You’ll notice that some of them (like “most popular on the site right now”) rely on simple analytics, while others (“people like you like these articles”) are based on look-a-like modeling. 

Drive-bys vs. regulars 

If your site is like most, a lot of visitors read one article and then leave. Getting some of those “drive-bys” to stay for one more page view can make a huge difference in your site traffic. Good content recommendation is one way to address that issue. 

The trouble is that you don’t know as much about the drive-bys. They have no history on your site, so it’s harder to do look-a-like modeling. But there are some options. 

• You can use third-party cookie/audience data for however long that is still available. 
• You can use data from the HTTP header, such as geolocation or referrer. 
• You can rely on general site statistics from your other readers. 

You have many more options with your regular visitors. In addition to everything you can do with the drive-bys, you can make predictions based on their unique browsing history, for example: 

• Show content similar to the content they have already viewed (in the same category, by the same author, with the same tags or keywords, etc.) 
• Compare their browsing history with those with similar browsing history and show the most popular articles among that larger group. 
• If you have demographic data on your regulars (i.e., job title), you can show the most popular articles for people with that job title. 

Multiple audiences

Many sites have two or more distinct audiences: free users vs. paid users, or B2B vs. B2C prospects. If that’s the case for your site, keeping them separate ensures you make the most relevant content recommendations. 

Here’s why. Consider a site about medications with content for consumers and doctors. You want to segregate those stats to recommend doctor content for doctors and consumer content for consumers. 

How to classify content 

The magic behind content recommendation relies on classifying content to match your and the reader’s goals. Content can be classified in several different ways, such as: 

• Words in the title. 
• Keywords or tags. 
• Word density in the article. 
• Categories. 
• Author. 
• Long vs. short articles. 

How the content is classified might affect your use case. For example, if your site has long articles and excerpts, you might not want to recommend long articles to people who prefer to read excerpts. 

Types of content recommendation algorithms 

There are various types of AI-based content recommendation algorithms that you can use to improve your website. Here are some of the most common ones. 

Collaborative filtering recommends content based on the behavior and preferences of similar users. It analyzes the historical behavior of users and recommends content that users with similar preferences have interacted with.

Content-based filtering recommends content similar to the user’s previously consumed content. It analyzes the content of the page the user is currently viewing and recommends similar content based on keywords, tags and other relevant information.

Hybrid recommendation combines collaborative filtering and content-based filtering to provide more accurate and diverse recommendations. It considers both user preferences and the characteristics of the content being viewed to make better recommendations.

Popularity-based filtering recommends content based on the popularity of the content. It recommends the most popular content viewed, shared or interacted with by many users. Combining popularity-based filtering with other types – for example, this content is most popular among people with this job title – is a very powerful tool. 

Knowledge-based filtering recommends content based on user profiles and preferences. It relies on user data and feedback to provide recommendations that match the user’s interests, such as previous purchases, ratings and reviews. 

Reinforcement learning recommends content based on the user’s actions and feedback. It learns from user interactions and feedback to improve its recommendations over time. 

Dig deeper: The ROI of recommendation engines for marketing

Choosing a content recommendation engine

As mentioned above, it’s unlikely that any given vendor can provide all of these options. Think about how you want to deploy content recommendations on your site, given your audience, your content and the range of possible options and decide which methods are most likely to work for your unique situation. Take that list to potential vendors and try to find the best match. 

Be sure to put the reader first 

One of the challenges in creating a successful content recommendation strategy is to ensure you’re putting the reader’s goals first. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of thinking about what you want the reader to do to promote your business model.

Instead, put yourself in the reader’s shoes and design your content recommendation strategy around what will help the reader find the content they want to find. That will be the best for your business in the long run. Addressing the reader’s needs will increase engagement, which is the primary goal. 

The post How to increase website engagement with content recommendations appeared first on MarTech.

If your B2B go-to-market strategy doesn’t prioritize delivering a personalized and engaging experience for your audience, you could be missing out on potential customers and growth opportunities. Fortunately, conversational marketing can help you create the kind of experience that modern buyers expect. 

This article is a guide to conversational marketing and why it should be a key component of your B2B go-to-market strategy.

Key takeaways:

• Conversational marketing improves engagement and conversion rates in B2B.
• A conversational marketing growth strategy creates a more personalized and engaging experience, improves conversion rates and builds stronger customer relationships.
• To build your strategy, identify your audience, select tools, create a messaging framework, train your team and measure results.

Defining conversational marketing

At its core, conversational marketing is a personalized and real-time approach to engaging with potential customers. It involves leveraging conversational tools like chatbots, messaging apps and live chat to interact with prospects and customers. 

By using these channels, businesses can create a more natural, human-like experience that fosters engagement and builds relationships with their audience. Instead of one-way communication, conversational marketing creates an ongoing dialogue between the business and the customer. 

Who is conversational marketing for?

Conversational marketing offers a more effective way for all types of businesses — ecommerce, real estate, online coaching, brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants and more — to build and manage relationships that drive success.

For B2B companies, conversational marketing provides a unique opportunity to engage with potential customers in a personalized and real-time manner, helping to establish a stronger connection and build trust. 

More than half of demand and account-based marketers use conversation automation technologies, according to Forrester’s State of Demand and ABM Tactic Survey. And it’s not just a passing trend, as 43% of these marketers plan to increase their budget for an online chat as a conversational delivery channel. 

By leveraging conversational tools like chatbots and messaging apps, B2B businesses can create a more natural and seamless experience for prospects, guiding them through the sales funnel and answering any objections or questions they may have. This ultimately leads to higher conversion rates and stronger customer relationships.

Here’s an example:

As a SaaS company selling project management tools to enterprise-level businesses, you implement a conversational marketing strategy to engage busy executives looking to streamline their team’s workflows and increase productivity.

You create a chatbot with a messaging framework that includes responses to common objections, personalized product recommendations and solutions to common pain points based on the user’s needs.

When a potential customer visits your website, the chatbot engages them in a conversation, asking questions about their business and providing real-time answers and solutions based on their responses.

The potential customer is connected to a live chat representative for more personalized assistance if the chatbot can’t answer a specific question. This approach makes customers feel heard, valued and supported, increasing the likelihood of conversion into paying customers.

Dig deeper: Let’s chat about this product

Benefits of conversational marketing in your B2B sales efforts

When it comes to B2B sales, the journey from prospect to customer can be a bumpy ride. Traditional sales cycles can be long, complicated and full of obstacles that make it tough for buyers to get the information they need to decide. That’s where conversational marketing comes in to help smooth things out.

With conversational marketing, buyers can engage with your business more naturally and personally. They can ask questions and get answers in real time without having to wade through a maze of phone menus or fill out endless web forms.

Conversational marketing empowers buyers to take control of their own journey while still providing the guidance and support they need to make informed decisions.

Up to 80% of B2B sales interactions between buyers and sellers will be happening in digital channels by 2025, according to Gartner. This emphasizes incorporating digital strategies like conversational marketing into your overall B2B GTM strategy.

By meeting buyers where they are and providing personalized experiences, conversational marketing helps remove the roadblocks that can slow down the B2B sales cycle. 

And the best part? You can measure the impact of your conversational marketing efforts with metrics like engagement rates, conversion rates and customer satisfaction scores. So you can continuously optimize your strategy and keep improving to deliver an even better experience for your customers.

Some other benefits include:

• Boost your website’s conversion rates.
• Create genuine connections with your buyers.
• Speed up your sales process.
• Save your sales team’s valuable time by handling repetitive inquiries.
• Appeal to the communication style of your target audience.
• Be available 24/7 with asynchronous conversations.

Personalization’s role in conversational marketing

Almost 7 out of 10 customers expect a consistent and personalized experience across all channels, whether online or offline? It’s no secret that customers crave personalized attention, but it’s surprising how many companies still struggle to deliver on this expectation.

For B2B businesses, personalization is even more critical as buyers seek customized experiences with the brands they interact with. Using these personalization tactics, you can improve the overall customer experience and create a sense of trust and credibility with your audience.

Personalization can take many forms in conversational marketing, including:

• Addressing customers by name and customizing the conversation based on their previous interactions with your brand.
• Offering personalized product or service recommendations based on the customer’s needs and preferences.
• Using data to provide targeted messaging and offers to specific segments of your audience.
• Allowing customers to choose their preferred communication channels and tailoring your messaging accordingly.

Dig deeper: What is personalized marketing and how is it used today?

Creating a conversational marketing GTM strategy

Are you ready to take your B2B marketing strategy to the next level? Creating a conversational marketing GTM strategy is a powerful way to engage with your customers, build authentic relationships and drive sales. To get started, it’s important to follow these key steps.

Step 1: Identify your audience

When identifying your audience, you should consider their unique characteristics, pain points and preferences. Take the time to research your target market and create buyer personas that represent your ideal customers. This will help you understand what motivates them, what challenges they face and what kind of messaging will resonate with them.

Once you know who you’re trying to reach, it’s time to choose the right channels and tools for your conversational marketing. For example, consider using Facebook Messenger or Twitter direct messages if your audience is mainly on social media. However, a chatbot might be more effective if they prefer email or your website.

It’s also important to consider the stage of the buyer’s journey that your audience is in. For instance, if you’re targeting customers still in the awareness stage, you may want to focus on educational content and answering frequently asked questions. On the other hand, if you’re targeting customers in the decision stage, you may want to provide more personalized recommendations and offers to encourage them to purchase.

Step 2: Select the right tools

Selecting the right tools is critical to any conversational growth strategy. There are numerous chatbot and conversational marketing platforms available in the market.

Before selecting one, identify what features are important to you, such as ease of use, integration with your existing tech stack, customer support and pricing. Some popular chatbot tools include:

• ManyChat: A popular platform for building chatbots on Facebook Messenger and other messaging apps.
• Drift: A conversational marketing platform for B2B businesses that lets you personalize conversations and connect with potential leads.
• Intercom: A messaging platform that allows you to chat with customers in real time across your website, app and social media.

Ultimately, the right tool will depend on your business needs and budget. Consider the features essential to your conversational growth strategy and select a tool that fits those needs.

Step 3: Create a messaging framework

You need a clear and effective messaging framework to achieve your conversational marketing goals. Define your value proposition and develop key messages that support it, focusing on benefits rather than just features. Don’t forget to consider your audience’s pain points and tailor your language accordingly.

Create guidelines for tone and voice to maintain consistency in all communications, whether through a chatbot, email or phone conversation. This will make it easier to train your team and measure the effectiveness of your conversational marketing efforts. A messaging framework lets you track how well your messages resonate with your audience and adjust as needed.

Step 4: Train your team

To implement an effective conversational marketing strategy, it’s crucial to train your team. Here are some steps to consider:

• Review your messaging framework and chatbot scenarios, ensuring your team is comfortable handling any questions or objections. 
• Establish guidelines for when to escalate a customer to a human representative and provide thorough training on the necessary tools and technology. 
• Regularly analyze chatbot conversations for areas of improvement and provide ongoing feedback to your team.

Step 5: Measure results

Measuring the success of your conversational marketing strategy is essential for making improvements and demonstrating value to stakeholders. But with so many metrics to track, it can be overwhelming to know where to start.

First, determine what goals you want to achieve with your strategy. Is it to increase engagement, drive more leads or boost sales? Once you have identified your goals, you can select the metrics to help you measure progress toward achieving them.

• Engagement: Includes metrics such as open rates, click-through rates and time spent in conversation. These metrics can help you understand your audience’s engagement with your content and if they find it valuable.
• Conversion rates: This measures how many people took the desired action after engaging with your chatbot, such as filling out a lead form or making a purchase.
• Customer satisfaction: This can be measured through customer feedback surveys, ratings and reviews. By understanding how satisfied your customers are with your chatbot experience, you can improve and continue to provide value to your audience.
• ROI: This involves measuring the cost of implementing your strategy and comparing it to the revenue generated from your chatbot. By demonstrating a positive ROI, you can show the value of your strategy to stakeholders and secure resources for future growth.

Boost B2B sales and customer satisfaction with conversational marketing

If you want to boost your B2B sales and keep your customers happy, consider adopting conversational marketing as part of your strategy. By engaging with customers in real-time, you can build stronger relationships, accelerate sales cycles and free up your sales team to focus on more important tasks. 

With a little effort and the right tools, you can increase website conversions and cater to the preferences of modern buyers. So why not start implementing conversational marketing in your B2B sales cycle today? By embracing the power of conversational marketing, you can stay ahead of the competition and deliver a superior customer experience that will keep your clients coming back for more. 

The post Conversational marketing: A guide to a key B2B GTM strategy appeared first on MarTech.