At Drift, we invented conversational marketing. And over the years, we’ve carefully studied what a best-in-breed conversation looks like. In fact, our professional services team designs conversations for hundreds of customers every single day. And now they’re sharing some of their best tips for building conversations that convert with you here.
1. Know Who You’re Talking to – and Acknowledge It
Meet Sammi Reinstein ?
Sammi Reinstein is a Conversational Marketing Specialist who works with some of Drift’s biggest customers to build and optimize their playbooks. In order to make sure your messaging and offer resonates, she usually suggests building your playbooks starting with “who.”
Knowing your audience can help you personalize and tailor the chat conversation experience for prospective buyers. This is especially important for high-value prospects where you’re leveraging account-based marketing (ABM) to roll out the red carpet. If you are using ABM, Sammi recommends targeting your visitors based on their company and behavior.
Here are a few ways to do just that ?
- Provide a personalized experienced even when your team is offline. Use ABM welcome messages to roll out the red carpet and elevate the experience even for first-time visitors. Try this bot hook: “Hey {{account.name}} ? Looking into [solution name]? I can help!”
- Route sales reps into conversations with returning visitors. Try this bot hook: “Hey {{account.name}} ? Welcome back! Would you like to speak to a human right now?”
- Provide a custom experience on your pricing page. Try this bot hook: “Hey {{ account.name}}! Back to check out pricing? Things must be getting serious! Need help figuring out the right plan for you?”
2. Use Content in Conversations
This is Stacy Chen ?
Stacy, a Drift Conversational Marketing Specialist, has experience that runs the entire length of the sales funnel. She leveraged content to start conversations when she worked as a BDR and still uses it in her role building out strategic playbooks for enterprise-level Drift customers. Stacy recommends using Conversational Content to nurture prospects and start conversations. According to Stacy,
“Not only is Conversational Content a great way to continue the path to conversation for TOFU/MOFU site visitors, but a great proactive item for sales teams to use for their outbounding efforts.”
You can use Conversational Content to:
- Target prospects who have opened emails but not booked demos
- Target prospects who booked a demo but no-showed
- Target accounts you haven’t heard from in a while
Start with a hook that greets each visitor with their name or the company name. Then, capture emails by offering a downloadable version of the content.
But, don’t stop there.
Continue the conversation by asking them “While we have you, want to see how this applies to your company?”
You can see how we leverage Conversational Content at Drift here.
3. Don’t Allow for an Easy Exit
Content and personalization can be a great way to get the conversation started. But how do you keep visitors engaged? Too many conversations end sooner than they need to because the exit is way too easy to find.
When talking to your visitors, your goal should be to engage them and pursue a longer conversation. This means not giving them an easy way to end the conversation, even when they are “just browsing.” Too often, people are tempted to respond to “just browsing” from a visitor with a passive “chat back in if you have questions.”
Meet Alvaro Torres ?
Alvaro Torres, another Drift Conversational Marketing Specialist, says, “For me, this is a complete NO! I never want to close a conversation that fast. The more I can learn from the visitor the better, even if that person is just looking for a job. That will give me an idea of the type of traffic we’re driving to the site.”
Instead, Alvaro suggests offering as much help as possible and reinforcing the fact that they can speak to a human – particularly when the visitor in question is from an account you’re actively targeting.
Try offering the following as part of your “just browsing” conversation path:
- Resources (hint: try Conversational Content). Share industry best practices or your latest blog post.
- Product information. Help the visitor get educated about your company and product offerings.
- The option to speak to a human. Sometimes routing in a human is the most efficient way to share information and put your visitor on the right track. To keep things efficient, ask qualifying questions before getting your team involved.
4. End Conversations the Right Way
So you’ve designed the perfect conversation, but a site visitor isn’t where you want them to be. They’ve exhausted your CTAs, back-up CTAs and “just browsing” options. Do you just let them slide with a “chat back in if you have questions”?
Certainly not.
Sammi suggests giving visitors the option to reconnect or “start over”. Instead of leaving your visitor frustrated because they didn’t get the information they were looking for, give them the chance for a re-do and the option to go down a different conversation path. Bonus, doing so gives you the chance to re-engage with them!
To do this, add a “Start Over” button to your flow builder. Then, select “jump to an existing node” and bring the visitor back to the start of the conversation. Like so ?
With these four tips, you can control the conversation, deliver a great experience and convert more visitors to leads. Win-win-win.
To learn more bot building best practices, check out the Playbook Basics Certification on Drift Insider. FYI: It’s free!
