In this blog we're discussing why finding your niche and engaging prospects with conversational marketing is a key driver for growth.
One of the greatest selling points of an inbound marketing campaign, and why so many marketers decide to abandon a more traditional outbound approach for it, is how the tools involved can give marketers far greater insight into how their investment in marketing is performing.
Outbound: buy data, bash the phones, send some leaflets out, commission a radio ad or smash 100,000 emails into unsuspecting readers inboxes. People have been doing it for years, and while they may have some success with it historically, it's on the wane. Frankly, it doesn't fit with the way most of us want to buy anymore.
An inbound approach is far more scientific. It's far more empathetic and in terms of ROI, it far more effective. You're pulling people in, helping them address challenges and selling to them in a way the resonates and empowers them to become your very own champions. Outbound is about pushing.
As great as inbound is though, it's now just the cost of entry. The sales genius, HubSpotter #6 and out right force of nature, Dan Tyre refers to it as "table stakes". If you're not doing inbound, you're going to lose the game.
So, if the playing fields are level how do we step out in front of the crowd? What makes you the one that's going to win that customer over? Two things, specialism and engaging with your prospects on their terms.
Read more: Our guide to conversational marketing
If everyone is competing for the same eyeballs in the same way, why would you be chosen over your competitors? In most cases, you're likely to be using the same tools and possibly even the same processes.
What sets you apart is your area of experience and expertise. Do you know your corner of the market better than anyone else? Do you understand the KPIs, the acronyms, the sales cycles and the seasonality? Are you speaking their language.
It's your niche (for our American friends, that's pronounced 'neesh'...).
We have a large enterprise level client that sells IT services into local government. They understand them very well. They've worked with their target personas countless times and they know the challenges they face. They can now offer real insight and value to that client base because they live and breath it. That's what your prospects want.
I bet this isn't the first marketing/inbound blog post you've read this week with the words "marketing has changed"... but it has. Again.
Prospects People want to communicate with you in the ways they want to communicate. We (people) chat to each other. We use chat apps like Messenger and Whatsapp to communicate in real time - and that's what we want from our brand engagements too. It's ubiquitous. I promise.
People don't want to communicate with you on your terms. If you walk into a shop and they tell you to come back in a day or two to discuss what you can sell them, you'll go somewhere else. It's the same online. If you go to a site and tell them you want to speak to them, if you don't hear back quickly enough, you'll find someone who will. Marketing has changed from form fills to conversations.
Check out the Drift lead response report. The long and the short of it is, most companies either don't connect with their leads at all, or don't do it quickly enough. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to bring that lead in as a customer.
Drift's marketing whizz kid, Dan Murphy doesn't believe in leaving any grey area on the subject...
"Roll that red carpet out for your VIPs. Hint, if at any point you think putting a form between your VIPs and you, you've screwed up."
Conversing with potential leads, cutting sales times and building relationships with the people who matter most to your brand.
Most importantly, conversational (or chat marketing) is fast becoming one of the best ways for companies to improve sales, grow revenue and take their business to the next level (I wonder how many more buzz words we can shoe horn in)...
Read more: Our guide to conversational marketing
You can sign up to use tools right now for free to begin your conversational marketing journey. For real revenue growth though, engaging with the best leads, improving their overall quality and complementing your wider inbound campaign, using dedicated chat marketing tools can make a serious difference.
We use Drift at Six & Flow, heralded as the world's first conversational marketing platform. Drift helps break marketers (and the people they're targeting) away from dull, lifeless forms, instead using a combination of clever bots to deliver engaging scripts to site visitors to nurture leads and direct those ready to buy to the right places at the right times. It's a process we're starting to roll out across our own site.
Overlaid with your inbound strategy, chat marketing allows you to interact with leads in real time, personalising messages, giving immediate insights and just being a bit more 'human'.
That's part of a reason why we love Drift; so much so that we're delighted to be the UK's first Drift partner.