7 conversational marketing trends you don’t want to miss

Conversational marketing is relatively new as far as marketing strategies go. It’s evolving rapidly, and there are plenty of new trends in this category emerging on a regular basis. Staying on top of those trends can help your organization stand out from its competitors and delight and impress customers in new ways.

In this article, we look at seven of the latest conversational marketing trends and show you how you can incorporate them into your business. While not all trends will be applicable to all businesses, you’re bound to find an opportunity here that will help you stay ahead of the curve.

7 conversational marketing trends to keep your eye on

1. Focus on customer data privacy

The core of conversational marketing is all about providing customers with personalized interactions. That usually involves gathering information about someone’s identity, their purchase history, and how loyal they are to the business. However, you must practice data collection responsibly.

“There’s a growing focus on data privacy and security to ensure customer interactions are not only effective but also trustworthy,” says Ira Prevalova, growth marketing director at Adverity, a platform that specializes in data integration to drive impactful marketing strategies. Consumers care about privacy, and want to know how organizations are using their information.

2. Artificial intelligence-powered tools

Artificial intelligence (AI) is permeating every industry. “It’s one of the newest trends in conversational marketing: sophisticated AI and machine learning for advanced, human-like interactions,” says Lucas Botzen, CEO and human resources expert at Rivermate, a global HR and employer-of-record platform. “This entails developing chatbots that can handle complex inquiries more accurately.”

Businesses were previously using AI to handle simple customer interactions, such as booking meetings. Now, it can handle multifaceted issues, such as helping customers learn about certain services and products.

3. Voice-driven experiences

A traditional website or social media chatbot can make things easy for customers, but what’s even easier than that? A voice-activated chatbot. One of the latest conversational marketing trends includes incorporating more voice-driven experiences into the mix, where customers can “speak” to a chatbot instead of typing into it.

Increasingly, businesses are “integrating voice-activated assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant for a more hands-free experience,” says Burak Özdemir, founder of Character Calculator, a set of online text tools that help simplify tasks and enhance productivity.

4. Video and voice call opportunities

Written messages currently dominate conversational marketing. However, in addition to voice-driven chatbot experiences, more businesses are starting to include video and voice calls as part of their conversational marketing efforts.

During certain conversations — such as when a customer is looking for help troubleshooting an issue — getting on the phone or starting a video call is a faster and more efficient way to provide the help customers need. You can count on seeing more of this tactic in the future.

5. New applications for messaging tools

Messaging tools like WhatsApp and Facebook’s Messenger aren’t new, but businesses are finding new uses for them: as conversational marketing tools. And it’s a smart move — it’s a way to meet customers where they already are, and it’s easiest for them to use a tool they’re already comfortable with. Instead of trying to convince customers to jump onto a new platform, businesses are providing personalized interactions through familiar messaging apps.

6. Omnichannel experiences

Conversational marketing is already an omnichannel strategy — it takes place via websites, social media, email, and other messaging platforms. However, businesses are taking this strategy to a new level with omnichannel integration.

“Providing a seamless experience across multiple channels allows customers to switch platforms without losing context,” says Özdemir. Picture a customer engaging with the business on Facebook, switching to WhatsApp, and then ending on a website chatbot, with the business following along seamlessly.

7. Conversational forms

Conversational forms are an emerging conversational marketing trend — and Jotform has everything you need to implement them for your organization.

Conversational forms are dynamic forms that use conditional logic. They present one question at a time to the respondent, and each new question is based on the answers they provided previously.As a result, these forms are highly relevant to the respondent, keeping them fully engaged until the form is complete.

A sample one-question survey from the Customer Satisfaction Survey Form.

With Jotform Apps, conversational forms can be even more engaging on mobile devices. You can easily create an app by dragging and dropping to collect conversational forms in one place. Tracking answers to conversational forms is also easy with Jotform Tables. Plus, you can add Messenger and WhatsApp buttons to forms to have real-time conversations with your customers or potential customers.

Mary Zhang, head of marketing and finance at knowledge hub Dgtl Infra, uses Jotform’s conversational marketing forms embedded on the chatbot on their website, allowing her to collect detailed information from website visitors in a user-friendly way. Since implementing Jotform, Dgtl Infra has seen a 40 percent increase in the quality of leads generated.

Have you seen any other conversational marketing trends worth sharing? Let us know in the comments below!

Photo by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash