Traditional text messaging, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger are examples of instant messaging apps that nearly every consumer uses. When instant messaging is utilized in a company’s operations as part of marketing automation, the result is saved time, an improved customer experience, and effective marketing communications.
How is this possible? After reading this, you’ll know!
Use of Marketing Automation in Organizations
Marketing automation software, such as HubSpot and Salesforce, offers a wide variety of opportunities to streamline customer communications and enhance the customer experience. Their popularity has grown tremendously: according to research, more than a third of Finnish organizations already have a marketing automation tool in use.
Marketing automation is utilized in organizations, for example, to generate leads.
Organizations utilize marketing automation primarily to automate marketing activities based on website visitor behavior, collect data, and generate leads. Email is perhaps the most widely used channel for automated marketing communications, as evidenced by the number of newsletters that appear in your inbox every day.
At its best, automated email marketing is visually appealing and effective, but the message flood in this channel can be disruptive. In addition, relatively few consumers use email for their daily communication, so the attention value may not be very high.
Automated Instant Messaging Alongside Email
By integrating instant messaging applications with marketing automation, automated, personalized messages can be sent directly to different audiences in the channel where they are already spending the most time.
Each sending group can have its own channel selected, for example, based on the nature, content, and audience of the message. For instance, if a WhatsApp message is sent to someone who doesn’t have the app, it’s automatically converted to a text message. This ensures your message gets through!
Customer satisfaction surveys sent via instant messaging applications, for example, can also be automated. A good example is the automatically sent satisfaction surveys regarding the success of maintenance or inspections at car dealerships, where instant messaging channels are integrated into the dealer’s own system.
Instant messaging channels can also be connected to marketing automation processes.
The Benefits of Integration from the Recipient’s Perspective
By integrating instant messaging applications into your marketing automation, you increase the personalization of your communication by reaching your target audience in the channel where they are already spending significant time.
If the marketing message you sent piques your customer’s interest, they can start a conversation with your company by replying directly to the message. You offer them the easiest possible way to connect directly with your business, leading to a better customer experience and, at best, securing a reservation or increasing sales.
It is important that the conversation with your customer is retained by both your organization and your customer. In instant messaging applications, your business message is stored on the customer’s phone, so if they need to return to it later, it’s effortless. On the other hand, it is beneficial that the organization also has information about the contact and the conversation, so this information can later be used, for example, to provide better customer service.
On the organizational side, this means:
When you integrate instant messaging applications into your marketing automation, you reach your target audience more effectively, more broadly, and in a more personal manner. In addition, you reduce the amount of manual work, as automation also functions outside office hours.
All initiated conversations form their own chat window in the SmartDialog service platform. You manage all your conversations in one clear interface, regardless of whether your customer contacted you from the website or in response to a marketing message you sent via an instant messaging app.
The conversation with the customer can take place in the chosen system (marketing automation or call-center software) by utilizing the chat features of the API interface or via a web management interface. In both cases, it is absolutely essential that messages can be answered as quickly as possible. Instant messaging applications, as the name implies, are intended for instant messaging, so the customer expects to receive a response and resolve their issue quickly.
Specific Use Cases:
- The marketing automation sends a reminder to the customer that their order or contract has expired. This can be done, for example, by text message or WhatsApp. The message contains a link from which the order can be renewed directly if desired.
- The marketing automation sends a notification to the desired channel about an upcoming campaign (“Black Friday offers start on Tuesday”) or an event (such as a test-drive weekend). The recipient of the message can start a conversation with the company to ask, for example, more specific questions about the event by replying freely to the message.
- An automatic order confirmation is sent from the e-commerce order directly to the customer’s phone. The customer has the opportunity to reply freely to the message, for example to modify the order or to request a more specific delivery time.
Are you considering using instant messaging applications as part of your marketing automation? Contact us to discuss further!
Also read: Instant Messaging Channels as Part of Other Software