Conversational Marketing

You may or may not have heard of the phrase conversational marketing but it’s about to take off this year. But what exactly does it mean? Well, you should be well aware of instant messengers like Facebook messenger and WhatsApp and live chatbots that can be installed on websites. Conversational marketing is about harnessing the power of these tools to have real-time conversations with your customers.

By talking to your customers instantly and directly you have an instant window to influence buying decisions. That’s not to mention the customer service benefits which are crucial to building any brand.

Businesses in the leisure industry can benefit greatly from utilising these tools and build their sales funnels quickly and efficiently through instant communication.

Conversational marketing action points

• Do you have an instant messenger strategy? – Who is manning your social media messenger? Do you have a list of frequently asked questions and responses?
• Have you looked at investing in a chat bot or live chat service?
• Have you thought about the decision tree for common live chat scenarios?
• Look at where in your sales process these instant leads will join the funnel

The Consumer Privacy Problem?

In the wake of Facebook privacy scandals, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the implementation of GDPR, customers are now more aware than ever of their online privacy. The traditional marketer’s view on this is a negative one as it makes it harder for them to reach their potential customers.

However, here at the Leisure Marketing People, we think this is a great opportunity to build trust with customers. Nobody likes spam, an excessive number of marketing emails or unnecessary online instruction. Marketing activities that do this will negatively affect your brand. If you have an untrustworthy brand, long term marketing success will be much harder to achieve.

Consumer Privacy Actions Points

• Clean your email marketing lists regularly – every 2 weeks is a good place to start
• Make sure you find out how your customers prefer to be contacted. Give them options when they sign up to receive marketing.  Text, email, phone – find what works for your customers
• Have a clear opt-out process – having a clean and easy exit process makes it much more likely that lead will return at a later date
• Ensure your marketing permissions on your website are up to date

Visual Online Content

Here are the Leisure Marketing People, we love written blogs – otherwise we wouldn’t have made this one! However, more and more users are expecting visual content when they read blogs. Visuals can take a number of forms from something as simple as pictures all the way up to complex animations. These help readers digest the information and selling points you are trying to convey. The goal is to give potential customers all of the information they need to enquire with confidence no matter how they take information in.

Visual Content Action List

• Look at free graphic design programs like Canva that can help you produce infographics for free
• Look at creating video content and uploading it to your website and youtube. Video is now easier and cheaper than ever to produce. It also allows you to deliver lots of information to your potential customers in a very short space of time
• Make sure your images really convey the messages you’re trying to tell your potential customers – a picture speaks 1000 words
• Mix it up – your potential customers will all be different and take in information in lots of different ways. Be sure to mix up your content schedule.

The Decline of Email Marketing?

With GDPR and privacy concerns with customers, it’s easy to think that email marketing is on the wane. However, here at the Leisure marketing People we love emails and know that quality email marketing can deliver top quality results for our clients. In order for emails to be truly effective, personalisation is key. Personalisation is not just putting someone’s name in a blanket email, it’s about specifically targeting tight segments of customers based on their preferences, buying habits and demographics. It’s about giving real value to your emails so that customers look out for them and not just ignore them.

Email Marketing Action Points

• Segment your mailing lists based on preferences and demographics
• Before choosing email marketing as your channel, think, what will the recipient get out of this? Will they open it straight away?
• Look at your email client – does it offer all of the personalisation and segmentation features you need to communicate effectively?

Concentrate on the subject line – this is your elevator pitch. Why should I open this email