This site does not support Internet Explorer. Use a modern browser for an improved experience.
Call Tracking

Know what makes your phone ring and smartly route inbound calls.

Analytics Add-Ons

Form Tracking

Learn which ads, campaigns, or keywords inspire form submissions.

Conversation Intelligence

Automatically transcribe and analyze calls using the power of AI.

Communications Add-On

Lead Center

Call, text, chat, and manage your conversations from one unified inbox.

Pricing
Industries
Agencies

Know which tactics deliver your clients' best calls and form submissions.

Real Estate

Close more qualified buyers and renters with better marketing and communications.

Healthcare

Gain the insights you need to maintain the health of your marketing campaigns.

Legal Services

Stay competitive by making the most of your marketing dollars.

Home Services

Tighten up response times — and never miss another opportunity.

Automotive

Accelerate the ads, keywords, and campaigns that drive buyers to your showroom.

Financial Services

Know what inspired your best customers to act then attract more like them.

Resources
callrail marketing graphs
Content Hub

Market smarter by keeping up with emerging trends, tips, and tools.

NewsEbooksWebinarsDefinitionsCase StudiesGuidesTips
Integrations

Deliver automated insights by connecting CallRail to platforms you already use.

Partnerships

Learn about our affiliate, marketing agency, and technology partnerships.

(888) 907-4718 Support Sign In
Start Free Trial
Already have an account? Sign In
(888) 907-4718
  • Learn
  • Customer Service

Conversational marketing: How speaking more with prospective customers drives revenue

by Zack Bedingfield

Marketing Agency

This just in: communicating with potential customers openly, honestly and as quickly as possible is beneficial to both parties. Who would have thought?

Jesting aside, conversational marketing, or more generally –– engaging with customers via live chat, community forums and more –– is on the rise and I think it’s a boon for everyone involved.

CallRail has been working on ways to improve our conversational marketing for a while now and the true value didn’t hit me until I started using the new live chat feature on Reddit. I post consistently on the /r/ppc subreddit (shout out fam), and regularly mention I work for CallRail. As a result, a new customer reached out to me on Reddit to inquire about best practices, how to get started, etc. We engaged in a normal conversation, I gave them tips, and I think we both left with some value. I started to better appreciate how this sort of customer interaction can drive value for customers, revenue for businesses, and brand equity, while the new customer got to interact with a (charming) employee, and now has some tips and tricks on how best to use CallRail getting started.

It’s also worth noting that users with higher feature adoption rates early on usually carry greater lifetime revenue for the business ––all the more reason to encourage best practices and feature adoption earlier rather than later (in addition to the bonus of helping the customer produce results).

Now, live chat isn’t something new for websites (as it is with Reddit), but more and more businesses seem interested in greater interaction with customers in order to drive sales. With Larry Kim leaving Wordstream to start MobileMonkey, a chatbot company for Facebook messenger, and Drift defining the term late last year, the space is growing faster than most companies can handle (as evidenced by someone of prominence like Larry Kim starting a chatbot company).

While Drift, MobileMonkey, and the Reddit live chat feature all function somewhat similarly, what stood out to me about the new Reddit feature was that it was essentially just streamlining communication that could have already taken place. The same interaction could have been had via private messages, but the nature of the “chat” made it seem more colloquial and less formal, something that should be more and more welcome when it comes to business interactions with potential customers.

Chat features and community forums give customers and potential customers alike the opportunity to casually interact with current users and employees. Unbounce started their community forum years ago and it’s seeing incredible engagement still today, with veteran users helping new ones and employees stepping in to handle feature requests and bug complaints.

So what does all of this mean?

Well, I think marketing is moving in the right direction. Search advertising has consistently gained clout over the years because it connects businesses with users already looking for their product. This was, and still is, progress as we spend less of our budget on mailers, billboards, and radio ads. Conversational marketing is the next logical step. Now that we’ve driven genuinely interested parties to our site, let’s not just focus on different headlines and page layouts in order to drive conversions, let’s engage in conversations.

We may be far more convincing in person, but when that’s not an option, let’s opt for the next best thing.

Stay in the know

Subscribe to our newsletter

Company
About Us Careers Culture Contact Us
Support
Help Center Developers System Status
Resources
Content Hub Refer a Friend Partnerships Integrations
Try CallRail
Free Trial Pricing Request a Demo Contact Sales Enterprise

Terms of UsePrivacy NoticeSecurity

Copyright © 2011-2022 CallRail, Inc. All rights reserved.