How a Conversational Strategy Helps to Scale Your Business

What does it mean to be interesting? According to Dictionary.com, interesting means “arousing curiosity or interest; holding or catching the attention”. Is your brand interesting? Does your marketing arouse curiosity or hold the attention of your intended audience?

To be interesting doesn’t mean you need to become a comedian or that suddenly you only share content featuring cute puppies. Being interesting means that you are interested in your audience’s needs and wants. It means that you can relate to their challenges and celebrate their successes with them. It means identifying more than just tactical problems that they are facing. It means you can effectively communicate that you understand the emotional, aspect of the situation as well.

I guarantee you have heard and probably even said some version of “the customer comes first” at some point in your career. Client-centric approaches have defined how brands and clients have engaged over the years. It is often the defining factor between highly-rated organizations and the rest. Books are written about, and the media regularly praises, those that get it right.

 It’s also no secret that your clients want a highly tailored, personalized, and reliable experience, but unfortunately, that is not always the norm. B2B and nonprofits claim to be different from consumer-based brands, but is that true? We have more B2C interactions than we do anything else. We buy groceries, fill up our gas tank, pick up dinner at our favorite restaurant, call our cell phone provider—all these interactions teach us and demonstrate how we should be treated as a client.

So, while there are nuances to those sectors, experience-based expectations are now the same. According to Gartner, COVID-19 increased both the speed and scale of digital transformation, “escalating digital initiatives into digital imperatives.”

I know you want to deliver on those expectations. It can be challenging when your potential clients are researching products and services on their own and have an expectation of instant responses to their inquiries. You don’t know what they know or where they are getting their information, and in the days of “everyone is an expert” that is a problem. These potential clients are frustrated with too long of a discovery process because they already identified what they think they need.

In 2021, Drift Insider found that B2B marketers are struggling to pivot their strategies around these new digital experiences and buyer expectations. Their research shows that B2B consumers are frustrated with accessing basic business information, website navigation, and even dealing with old school forms. This does not sound like a new concept, but given the level of frustration, apparently, it is.

Today, your potential clients and clients don’t want to be just another number, they want a better experience, an enjoyable experience, regardless of industry. They don’t want to feel like they are being sold to using a laundry list of buzz words or bold statements that don’t mean anything. They want a conversation. They don’t want to feel like you are forcing them into a canned solution. They want to feel like you truly understand their needs and can adapt to what they think makes them different.

Though personalization is a necessity, it doesn’t mean complete customization for each client. It means truly understanding the journey that your potential and current clients are on. It means providing a framework, so your clients feel like they are creating a customized package that fits their unique situation. It’s like a “choose your own adventure” book where the potential buyer can choose their path, but with modern technology. Remember those?

Have you heard the terms conversational marketing and conversational sales yet? If not, allow me to introduce you, though I’ll be calling it a conversational strategy because as you will see it encompasses both sales and marketing.

What is a conversational strategy?

A conversational strategy creates instant and personalized engagement with potential and current clients both on and off your website. It creates conversational experiences to accelerate the sales process and generate revenue. This is accomplished through marketing initiatives as well as through the sales process. It’s built into your brand voice, brand image, brand messaging, sales process, product and service development, and even your client onboarding and follow-up processes.

COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of a conversational strategy, making it essential to your organization. A key element to a conversational strategy is personalization throughout the entire journey. Personalization includes both tailored content and experiences. According to Folloze Research, 77% of B2B sales and marketing professionals believe personalized marketing experiences improve customer relationships. B2B marketers are expected to deliver relevant content to their customers through their preferred communication channels that match their buying journey stage.

I get that this sounds like a lot of work. What’s different about an all-encompassing client-centric approach today is that there is now technology that can support this and make it easier. Artificial intelligence and virtual reality technology features are gaining traction and simplifying the process for marketing, sales, and servicing your clients. The result gives your potential clients and existing clients consistent ways to interact with your company and product or service. Making it easy for them to do business with you as they progress through their relationship with you. Organizations that are pioneering this approach are seeing stronger engagement between sales and marketing.

Omicle delivers brand clarity, marketing strategy, and operational efficiency to prepare leaders to scale their business. If you are ready to scale your business, contact us today to get started.