By Rome Mathew
When your prospects and customers receive text marketing messages from you, they appreciate messages that feel as if they are crafted specifically for them, such as SMS campaigns that address specific customer pain points or that invite a conversation centered on the customer. It also helps if they feel as though they can reply and talk to another person about their needs, especially if they can do so on their channel of choice, whether that’s text, phone, email, web chat, social media, and more.
When you create conversational marketing opportunities in your omnichannel messaging, you can build trust with the customer, while many other companies – such as your competition – erode trust by missing these crucial opportunities.
Customization in SMS Campaigns
One of the best ways to increase customer trust in your text marketing is to use customization. On a basic level, this looks like using the customer’s name in marketing messages. However, you can combine that with much deeper data stored by your customer relationship manager (CRM) software or omnichannel messaging software such as Mitto: You can send a message about a recent purchase or something referring to a local festival.
Amazon is the master of this. Have you ever received a message from Amazon on your device or via email letting you know that it might be time for you to refill a cleaning product you previously ordered? The system stores information about your orders and then prompts you to order through Amazon the next time it thinks you need the item. While most software doesn’t have the logistical power of Amazon, you can glean plenty of information about a prospect or customer from omnichannel messaging, such as when the customer is active and having a conversation and things they keep asking about.
What Is Omnichannel Messaging?
Omnichannel messaging involves speaking with the same customer on multiple platforms. For example, the customer might initially call you – but they prefer to communicate via text messaging. When you send SMS campaigns, they are more likely to respond to text messaging and calls.
Omnichannel marketing software like Mitto keeps track of these touches and can help you understand when and where a customer would prefer to be reached. By being accessible on multiple platforms, you’re being convenient for the customer. Omnichannel messaging software centralizes customer data, so if they contact you via text, you don’t have to start over again and ask them for their name and the other basic information you already collected when they first called.
The Importance of Conversational Marketing
Conversational marketing is all about having a conversation with the customer. While the intent is to market and sell, most of the conversations may not revolve around products or services. Let’s say you’re selling a sticker subscription service. You might send a text marketing message asking customers what their favorite season of the year is. Let’s say a customer answers fall and says they love Halloween. You then know you can chat with them about Halloween and sell them a particular Halloween-themed sticker set.
The conversation, especially in an age of isolation following the pandemic, is very human-centric. People value conversations, especially now that many of your customers may work remotely. You’re providing socialization and showing an interest in your customer’s life along with a service or product, and that garners trust from the customer.
The Use of AI in Conversational Marketing
Customers are also aware of automation. Many of them dislike those automated phone trees they encounter when calling large businesses. Especially if you are a small- or medium-sized business, you can take advantage of the fact that you can offer human-centric, customized, personalized service.
AI has only compounded this. When you enter a web chat on a large business website, you’ll notice that the automated web chat tries to direct the customer to the appropriate place. If this AI chatbot interaction takes too long, customers get frustrated. You need to program your chatbot to get the customer to a person, if needed, through a limited amount of interactions.
Overall, managing your SMS campaigns with conversational marketing and keeping track of your omnichannel messaging and text marketing with software like Mitto can help you personalize your campaigns and build trust with the customer. Keep it personal, keep it human, and keep it real.
